A question about contest deadlines

[Pwolf]

If a procrastinator KNOWS that a deadline will be extended, then he simply wont take the initial deadline seriously :p

Everyone knows most contests will allow you to send the form in by the deadline but give you a grace period to upload it via ftp (at least the ones that offer that). I think more times then not, people are still editing their videos during that upload grace period.

Personally, if the deadline is on a specific date, the video and any other information should be in my hands by that date, no ifs or buts. Only exceptions would be if a video had been watched and there was a playback error. I would probably allow a few days of leeway. So basically... the judging is on April 2nd, I would give a submission date of march 18th. For any videos that had issues during initial QA, i would allow them until the 20th or 21st to upload a new video.

That's just me though, I'm kind of a hardass when it comes to these things.

[Koopiskeva]

Say 'no deadline' but then a week or two before the contest announce.. "Surprise! Deadline is today! No exceptions! Wheeeeee..!"

[ZephyrStar]

Two weeks is a little much I think, but if I were running a contest I would build a week in at the end. Mainly this would be for those people who might have just made it under the wire, but more importantly for the people who actually DID meet the original deadline but then are able to go "oh hey, a week to fix that stuff I didn't like about my vid!" Bumps up the quality.

[Mr Pilkington]

If *I* were to run a contest it would be all deadline between Aug 1st and Oct 26th, TBA. The randomly on a Thursday at 3am be like "HOLY CRAP YOU ALL HAVE 15 MINS TO SEND AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE." Winner take all.

Guerrilla deadlines FTW

[BasharOfTheAges]

I've intended to build in buffers for the past two years in my contests, but I end up releasing the rules (and therefore the deadline) before I know for sure what I have for prescreener availability. When the majority of your people that help prescreen work retail and therefore don't know their schedule 3 weeks in advance, let alone 3 months, it's kinda tough unless you want to set artificial deadlines a month out.

As zarx said, once they know it's artificial, you won't fool them again, and you're hurting the other contests that just simply won't get entries because you and others like you trained the submitting pool to always expect deadlines to be soft. In that vein, my advice is to not be a part of the problem by enabling.

[l33tmeatwad]

Personally I think it's best to have a build in soft deadline that CAN be used, not one that WILL be used, that way it's taken more seriously. By that I mean, only use it if you are short on entrants, not if people beg you.

[Quu]

i was mainly trying to get feedback...

personally I like to work backwards... i look at when i need to have certain information or files then figure out how long it takes, when things go wrong, to get it. So if i need the files by the 14th, i will normally set the deadline to the 7th, to give me 7 days to prep everything. Now... due to my new submission system, i am actually prepping and managing the files as they are revived... so i am finding that i need maybe 30 minutes to prep a contest... the delays and problems have all been on the creators side... such as encoding problems or broken files.

The pro contest deadline slipped so much this year because we were not sure how much time we would need for prep (new system) and expected the worst. as the deadline approached, we found we did not need as much time, so kept moving it back. I felt bad that we moved it so often, but strangely i got so much positive feedback every time it moved, so i was confused.

Pro is weird though... the time dependency for pro is knowing the final categories so the trophies can be ordered (end of phase 1)... so i find out that deadline, then create the due date based on how long i need for people to download the files and then create the categories (I guess one week each). After the trophies deadline i have this large swath of time until the convention, so that is why phase 2 and 3 have the longest phases. I only need 30 minutes once the final voting is over to review the results and generate the final report. I end the contest the Monday before the convention... mainly just because that tends to be the least busy day of the week for me... i could end it Friday night of the convention... but i am normally to busy then.

[ngsilver]

Generally, I prefer a hard deadline with some leeway afterwards for fixing errors. Generally, when I build my deadline I take into count the expected number of entries and the time it will take my judges to judge said entries. I then look into time to build other things related to the contest and decide how early I need the videos. Generally I find this is 1 month before the con. I allow for upwards of 1 week after for fixing errors. However, I also allow for large file uploads which takes time, so I add in a buffer for FTP entries. Hence, I set the deadline for a Friday, I allow a buffer through Sunday for FTP.

In a way I suppose this is a soft deadline, but it requires that users submitting FTP to essentially commit to which videos they send in before they can send it, rather then allowing and editor to come up with an idea during the final upload time.

While I appreciate a little extra time if I'm close to the deadline, I still prefer the deadline to be hard as it gives me a real goal for finishing my vid(s) in time. As a coordinator I also prefer hard deadlines, as they allow for a rigid cut off.

Make any sense?

[Vlad G Pohnert]

I like hard deadlines myself and used thos for contests I run. The only time I feel an extension is nessesary is if you lack in the amount ot entires (or in the case of categories, in one category).

As for how long, I think as mentioend that 1 month is usually pretty good considering all the factors such as judging, fixing and preping. It also depends on your judging methodology as if you have to have peopel DL and time to watch, then you might need more time

Vlad

[TritioAFB]

I'm planning to organize my own con soon so thanks for the advices guys.