About recent auditions

[Tim0n]

I have a feeling that I need to clarify a few things before I can sleep in peace tonight. This is not supposed to be a rant at anything, I don't want to upset anyone either; if anybody is upset by any of the following, I do apologise.

Lately I've been pretty strict when it came to allowing people into the Fan Games section. And I do mean just myself, seeing that I've blocked two potential auditionees from making any progress. The reason is simple.

We have seen so many times before how things can go wrong even by pure accident. One short videoclip and bang - the graphics and the music are all over the web, for anybody to use, and also reducing the chances of obtaining such exclusive content ever again.

When I referee the auditions, seldom is my "no" vote permanent. It happens often that the issues can be fixed pretty easily and just require a little bit of goodwill on both sides. I have changed my mind before, and I definitely will change my mind many times more.

However, I always give at least one valid reason for rejecting the application, and I think that this is a vital point here. After all, if these reasons were not valid, my vote wouldn't be counted.

Perhaps I've been a little bit too strict recently, but in any case, I don't think there is any reason to be upset about it. In the end, I'm not saying "I don't think you're good enough". All I'm trying to say is "I need a bit more convincing".

That being said, I have a feeling that locking the thread straight away after a "no" vote doesn't leave much room for discussion, so perhaps leaving it open at least to allow some line of defence could be a good idea? After all this is a discussion board, so it's only natural that we discuss things, right?

In order to clarify any confusion that I could've caused with this post - I'm sticking with all my "yes" and "no" votes I have given in the past days as they are, as I believe that the reasons I've given for them are valid.

Also, feel free to shout at me for my stupidity if you feel the need to. Sometimes things need to be said to me in a very straightforward manner.

Thanks,
Adam

[FinalAnswer19]

Tim0n, I agree with everything you said. We need people like you who are not afraid to say "no" when it needs to be said in the audition process. Music & graphics is a hot-button issue when it comes to the fan games..whether it's official show music & graphics or user-created graphics (that, frankly, some of the time are better than the official graphics) and so by your (correct) no votes recently, that means the audition system is working properly.

Let me explain why auditions get locked as soon as a single negative vote is received. In the past, after someone posts a very valid reason for voting "no," the member being denied access to the fan games has often become angry with the member(s) that have given them a negative vote and start a fight in the thread itself. It has also happened where there will be 5 "yes" votes and then comes one (legitimate) "no" vote and one (or more) of the members who gave the "yes" vote will start fighting with the member casting the negative vote. Simply put, we don't need that. If a member receives constructive criticism as to what he/she can change or do differently to get a positive vote, they should change that and then re-audition remembering the entire time that the entire process is for the protection of the hard work talented individuals have put in to the material in the coveted section of this site. If the thread is unlocked, posts can simply be edited and therefore, there's no record on the site that "member-x" had to audition twice..this is what was wrong initially..this is what he/she did to change..the member has access..everyone is happy.

I know it seems like there are more rules on this site than others (and that may be) but all of the rules that some other sites don't have (or don't enforce as strictly as we do) comes down to the fan games. It's a great feature of our site and there is a bunch of fantastic material in there. Material that needs to stay within a trusted group of individuals.

Dead-thread bumping, for example, is not only bad "netiquette" but also serves to raise a member's post count to have the required number of posts to audition. When a member auditions with the required number of posts but they were dead thread-revivals or strictly Daily Millionaire participation, their trustworthiness is called into question. It also really annoys everybody on the site to have threads from 2007 jump back to the top. On the flip side, if a member has something constructive to add to a dead-thread, that is encouraged because it contributes to the original conversation and is not a simple "I agree" to have one more number under his/her post count.

The fact threads lock so quickly after a single negative vote is not set in stone.  That is something that can change but based on past events, it doesn't work well when we leave them unlocked for an extended period of time after a "no" vote.

The most important thing to remember: If you want into the fan games section, you are truly a trustworthy individual, and can prove it to the members of the site, you will gain access.  It is an attainable goal; sometimes, you just need patience.

Thank you for starting this thread, adasiekkk as you raised some good points that should have been clarified a while ago.

[RegisFan]

As I've said countless times before, the audition process has proven to be quite successful over the last several years. If a trusted member can raise a valid reason why access to the Fan Games Sharing Center should be denied, then that member's negative vote should be enough to halt an audition. Negative votes without merit are not counted - in fact, there was a recent example of my overturning a "no" vote simply because a valid reason for the vote did not exist. But, more often than not, there is a substantial reason why a "no" vote is cast.

The reason that the system is so strict is twofold: (1) We want to protect the hard work of our members (2) the talented individuals who created the official materials that have been shared with our site have asked for this level of security to be put into place. When materials leak from our site and end up on YouTube or other such websites, the trust of both of the aforementioned parties has been breached.

What's frustrating is that the system goes without a hitch 99% of the time. There are so many members who have not passed auditions, used the provided feedback constructively, and then gained access to the Fan Games board. There are just a few vocal individuals who do not wish to take the time to take part in the system that has served the community so well. Fortunately, those are the people who probably shouldn't have access anyway.

As for the thread locking idea, I'm willing to get behind that. I think we can leave audition threads with "no" votes open for, say, 3 days in order to allow a discussion to take place. I can completely understand why that would be beneficial to both the member who is auditioning and the voters. However, the thread will be locked at the first sign of hostility. We just don't need that kind of behavior around here.

[millionairefan1]

I know that I contributed to this. I should not have acted the way that I did earlier. I went to discuss how I felt, but saw the thread instantly was locked. That's why I got angry. But now that I've had a chance to relax and think about it all, you are right. I should not have been using the sounds without something impeding the full length/quality of them. I will do a thorough cleaning-up of my YouTube account and I will start fresh using voice-overs and/or my own sounds from now on.

I assure you that I did not personally give out any of the official sounds. My custom soundboard download links were only given out via this board and on 1 video.

Again, as a composer and musician myself, I really should've thought more about what I was doing. I will make it up to you all.

To the staff, and personally to Tim0n, I am truly sorry.

[!Tommy]

I feel the need to speak up as well because I cannot say exactly how much it infuriates me when a small group of individuals such as ourselves are trusted with something so rare and valuable like theme cues from various game shows get stolen and put out on the web for others to get their hands on. It reminds me of a commercial long ago of this girl posting her picture on a bulletin board and various people would come and take it off the board, but it would still be there. The message was once something gets leaked on the web, it's literally impossible to get it back.

As for applying that to us, the composers of these themes put so much trust in the individuals who obtain the cues and lets it out to just a group of people and there's that one bad apple that decides to get cute and be a hero to all the other fans out there and release what isn't meant to be released to the public. These composers put so much faith in us and the fact that even release them to us is a very big honor and should be considered sacred. It was like the time I found someone uploaded all the 2007 Millionaire cues that Finalanswer19 had released with the exact names of the file that he had used. I was very p****** off when I found that. It almost makes me think something else should be in place but it would be quite difficult to have permissions for fan games and music cues.

But in my very humble opinion, I think more people audition not so much for the fan games but for the music cues themselves. As Regisfan said, there's no reason someone shouldn't have access to the fan games forum but I feel if too many people get into it, then there's more potential for stuff like this to happen and when I myself find out about it, it feels like a slap in the face. I just feel while this is a great system, there might be some room for improvement. I myself as a diehard gameshow fan in general, I don't want to see the composers finally say no more and stop releasing their compositions for us. If they wanted them public, they'd release them themselves. That's why I feel we need to be more on our toes to make sure no more bad apples get in and that the honest people are the ones to get what they truly deserve after working hard to earn a place in the fan games roster.

Maybe it should be explained in the audition rules exactly why we have such strict rules if it's not already posted?

[Deleted]

I'm not sure if that is directed to me regarding the Rave package, but I am sorry if I offended you. People have admitted to obtaining the cues before I posted them, so this case specifically is really complicated.

An idea that I have is to split the Fan Games into 2 parts. One is literally Fan Games, and one is a sub-group containing the delicate stuff. 2 auditions would be needed: one to get into FG, and then a 2nd one to get into the sub-group.

[FinalAnswer19]

Mar 2, 2014 17:38:22 GMT -5 @woffan2008 said:

An idea that I have is to split the Fan Games into 2 parts. One is literally Fan Games, and one is a sub-group containing the delicate stuff. 2 auditions would be needed: one to get into FG, and then a 2nd one to get into the sub-group.

While I like the idea, I feel that would defeat the purpose, though.  The person or people who are distributing music found in the fan games at this point would have access anyway.  Or are you suggesting we make everyone that already has access re-audition for access to the music part?  That would have been a great idea when the fan games section was still new but I think it's just a little too late now.  

[!Tommy]

Mar 2, 2014 17:38:22 GMT -5 @woffan2008 said:

I'm not sure if that is directed to me regarding the Rave package, but I am sorry if I offended you. People have admitted to obtaining the cues before I posted them, so this case specifically is really complicated.

It wasn't directed at anyone in particular if you're referring to my post. So no worries about it. I'm just ticked off at the ones who know they are doing something wrong purposely like uploading cues to YouTube for the public to get a hold of.

FinalAnswer19: This might be a bad idea since I know some people including myself are absent for a while, but do you have anyone on the fan games rosters that haven't been active for quite some time? Maybe after a year of inactivity or so, they should be demoted to a regular user. I'm thinking more in the line of people who gain access and basically never post again or go missing for quite some times. It's kind of like patching up the firewall I guess you could say. It's an idea thrown out anyway.

[FinalAnswer19]

!Tommy Yeah, we do have quite a number of people who are inactive in the Fan Games. The way RegisFan and I look at it, though is they passed the audition, they earned rights to be there fair and square and we're not anyone to take them out of there...without extreme "probable cause," you know?

[!Tommy]

You're right, that's why I said it was probably a bad idea. It just irks me that it seems no matter how careful we are, unfortunate incidences seem to happen regardless.

[Deleted]

Mar 2, 2014 18:27:02 GMT -5 FinalAnswer19 said:

Or are you suggesting we make everyone that already has access re-audition for access to the music part?

Yes. If you click on FG from the home page, you'll notice that it is split into sub-boards that include the auditions and the actual FG itself. FG itself should be split into 2 sections like that, one is actual Fan Games, and the other is music/other.

The only issue with this is how would you audition for the new section? People get by into FG because of things like self-made powerpoints and stuff. What would you have to do to get into FG? A trust system probably wouldn't work.

[FinalAnswer19]

That's what I'm saying...

There's really no easy way to go about changing it. An invite-only section of the site for music/other isn't really ideal..besides that would highly cut down on contributions to the section.

[RegisFan]

I really don't think the system needs to be any more complicated than it already is. Splitting the Fan Games board into two sections just seems kind of excessive, and requiring two auditions would place quite a burden on prospective members. Remember, the point of the process is to verify members' trustworthiness, not to discourage new auditions. Fan Games membership should always be an attainable goal.