Hearthpwn

"I'm not a St. Bernard."

The idea is that this would make a powerful addition to Spell Hunter. It's hit-or-miss against combo and midrange decks, brutal against minion-based control, yet too slow against aggro/zoo. Interestingly, since Spell Hunter is, at its heart, a control deck, this card could make pushing your opponent to fatigue a win condition. Unfortunately, Spell Hunter's main weakness has always been surviving long enough to play Rhok'delar and some beefed up Lesser Emerald Spellstone s, which this card doesn't necessarily resolve unless played against a midrange deck that's struggling to curve out. I thought it best to give Spell Hunter a card that reinforces its strengths while keeping its weaknesses intact.

It's a play on a popular line from the film Taken, starring Liam Neeson. Actually one of the funnier texts from this expansion IMO.

I concede my defeat to Sneaky_Raptor's Load, Aim, Fire!. Very, very well done. God, I'd love to play a deck built around that. Only wish it could be a neutral quest so I could revive my old Pirate Warrior. I know, I hate me too.

Quote from AxletheBeast >>

Quote from CheeseEtc >>

Quote from AxletheBeast >>

Also what's wrong with demon characters? >:D

 Sacrificial Pact

 This only applies to Jaraxxus because he's a minion. Proper Hero cards like those introduced in KFT and any normal hero you can select pre-game would clearly not apply, just as Hungry Crab doesn't apply to Morggl. No one actually thinks Hungry Crab SHOULD kill him, we just meme about it. =P

Oh, OH, I've got one! *waves hand in the air

I'll be expecting my royalty check soon Blizz.

Malfurion the Pestilent is very versatile and should be viable for a long time. Keep.

Cenarius is ok. Ok isn't competitively viable. That said, he is Classic, so unless he's sentenced to the Hall of Fame, you can use him in Standard for the foreseeable future. It hasn't happened in ~4 years, but the meta could maybe shift such that Cenarius becomes viable. Who knows, you might even like playing Druid when that shift happens :P. I'd keep him, unless you're very strapped for dust. Personally, I only dust Classic cards that will NEVER see play, coughMillhousecough.

Quote from ThisOtherGuyTox >>

I think it's great that people tries to explain their ideas, but please keep this civil, and consider all the points of view before the final suggestions.

It's easy to tell the mods to develop an advanced system, that makes the margin of error slightly smaller, but they're human too, and it's not unreasonable to believe that they might even be incapable of, even if they wanted to. As it's not easy to develop these things.

Making a judge system kinda takes away from the idea of the competition. The best cards shoulden't be determined by a few selected people, but by the general opinion. It's a community competition after all. 

 

Although i like the current rules, (although i want the highest rated card on Page 1 and 2 to advance) then i would say that @Zukuu made the most reasonable, possible and maybe even best solution. Instead of comparing the cards to other cards on that page, he suggested to compare them to how well cards in general does on that page over the span of several competitions. This clears the problem where there is several fantastic submissions on a single page, and means that pages with overall weak submissions won't go to the finales because of the quality on the page.

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

Quote from OculusWindow>>

Well, technically the validity of those tests are measured by "electoral-like" vote. Each clinician's opinion is weighed differently based on their reputation and esteem (qualified by what journals they're published in and quantified by # of citations). Kinda like a panel of judges ;)

I concede to you. (Still think popular vote is better though with my other evidence. Guess I'm that stubborn. :P)

Quote from AxletheBeast>>

Spoiler (click to show)

Generally, I agree that a popular vote is more healthy for this competition. It won't be perfect because of the limitations of the forum, but it's leagues above a judging panel in terms of engagement. I'd imagine that there'd be a lot of submitters who'd feel "cheated" by a judging panel, no matter how impartial the judges try to be.

Developing an additional site or peripheral to this site isn't worth the time and effort IMO, solely to improve a small component of Hearthpwn. That said, I do think that there's room for improvement, but the steps that could be taken should be small and within the current capacity of the mods. Finding a panel of judges is not a small step.

One very simple suggestion is to put the current voting system to a vote itself. Make a thread where people can vote as to whether they're satisfied, dissatisfied, or impartial to the current voting system. Then go from there. We should see what other people think before taking steps toward change. If most people are happy ATM, then everything's fine as it is. Nurgling13 mentioned in a previous post something that I now consider very important to be aware of: 

"It's okay to have an assumption that's wrong in a situation like this, because you are trying to work with approximations to make things feasible. "

To put that in a little more context, we're never going to have a system that holds up perfectly to scrutiny. There'll surely be some people who're upset by that, or confused by that as I was, but so long as the current system gets it right most of the time and most people are satisfied, then the system is doing right by all of us. Now, if the majority opinion shifts to be dissatisfied with the current system, then maybe we need to take another look at it.

If the majority of people who frequent the competition are dissatisfied by the current system, then there needs to be a change to the system. Or, an educational thread could be stickied to the Fan Creation page to try to explain away any confusions about the system. That could help as well. I'm not saying that this is the case or at all neccessary, but it couldn't hurt IMO to poll the audience and see what's on everyone's mind.

Theoretically speaking, if most of the people think that voting system is dissatisfied, what is "the next action". Heck, we can't think of anything right now. The only proposed change has been disagreed upon by quite a few people, including you.

I definitely agree with a survey, but besides knowing if we should take action or not, it doesn't really create much actual progression...

---

By the way, I just looked at the comment the quotation came from. Holy moly, you're a ASTROPHYSICIST Nurgling13?! What are you doing with us inferior-minded people?

Making Hearthstone cards for fun

Quote from AxletheBeast >>

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

I'm pretty sure that there would still be bias. Let's refer back to the Frozen example. From your perspective, Frozen is not a good film (or at the very least, an average one). Yet when we looked at the Oscars, which is organized by a group of judges who are literally considered experts in film critique and instructed to be as unbiased as possible, they gave Frozen one of the highest accolades a film could achieve. So, is it fair to determine the winner via a select group of judges? If it is, then Frozen is supposedly the best movie of the year according to your philosophy.

 

 Not only that, but judges are subjective when it comes to the finer points. If I hear a classical song, am an expert in musical theory, and rate it 9/10, then it's fair to conclude that other musical critiques will have similar responses. But sometimes, when you have 2 cards that are frighteningly close to each other in terms of quality, you can variable responses based on the selection of judges. So if you gave me Chopin's best work and Beethoven's best piece, I could say that Chopin is the best, and there's room for severe disagreement. There can only be 1 winner.

 I'm so glad you used this example. =P

I'd rather not spend the time to find the source on this again -- but I have read it and it was literally the judges of the Best Animated Movie category at the Oscars in their own words -- so hopefully you can just trust me on this one. I'll try and find it if you want.

The judging of animated movies in general at the Oscars is essentially a broken judging process. The year that Frozen came out, it was essentially the only animated movie that most of the judges had even seen. The vast majority of the judges completely abstained from the vote because it was the only one they'd seen. The rest -- literally one or two people -- just picked Frozen. There was a huge upset over this, as this was the year that The Wind Also Rises came out (which I still haven't seen but have heard is excellent), but whether or not Frozen was the better movie, I don't think I need to explain further how this was a completely incorrect scenario for proper judging. Clearly, the judges for that category did not take that category seriously.

By the way, had I released an animated movie myself and lost to Frozen, even by a judging panel, I would accept it irregardless of my disagreement with the decision. It would be much easier to swallow than losing according to popular vote. =P "My logic" does not involve suggesting a panel of judges is ever going to be perfect; no system is perfect and I've given up on the idea of "perfection" long, long ago, to the point that when I heard an anime character pretty much give a long monologue chastising the idea of considering yourself perfect I was more or less cheering. But Frozen can be easily broken down as a movie with flawed structure and even downright audience manipulation at points. It's fine if a fair, properly-behaving panel disagrees. Or even an individual. I don't care.

The Oscars however is a questionable organization to begin with, and things like this are far from the only question marks during its time. Just because I say judging via panels an inherently better system does not mean I think all judging panels are created equal.

You can disagree with someone who's trying to be objective; a general rule of thumb is if you ever place second or third in a contest, or even get an "honorable mention", had the judges been different then you might well have just won first place. There's always a LITTLE bias -- I literally said total objectivity is impossible -- but there is more often than not substantially less bias from a small group of people whose entire job is to try not to be biased than there is in a large group of people with no such restriction. I don't see why that difference shouldn't be clear to anyone.

 

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum>>

I think you're also losing your sense of what objectivity means. Subjectivity means "based on personal opinion". Objectivity means "considered true by all people". So that usually relies on quantitative, measurable descriptions. I may think that a book is better than another, and there's room for a agreement. However, if there are 5 votes, there are 5 votes. You cannot disagree that 5 = 5; noone can. You can doubt the method and doubt why a person added 1 vote, but you cannot doubt the result. The same can't be said with a smaller group of people who say something "won" or "lost". Objectivity and operational definitions are a key parts of science after all.

Also, there is a reputable contest that runs on a popular vote. It's called democracy. And people tend to criticize governments that are chosen by select group of people. Forgive me if I may offend you as I have nothing against you, but your proposal sounds a bit like the monarchical countries during the French Revolution; they thought of a republic as a terrible idea because "giving the political power to the uneducated masses is not only vacuous, it is also unethical".

Another reputable judging that runs on popular vote? Psychological tests. Another one? Political approval rating. If we hold value in such important things in real life, why can't we hold it in a competition about designing cards for a virtual CCG?

 I'm not losing sense of the words, I'm just using a different definition than you are. Words usually have many different definitions and connotations besides. To be fair in some cases these are born from literal misunderstandings of the words but when they get used enough they tend to become alternate definitions. =P

My preferred uses, more or less. If I ever use these words, these are usually what I mean:

Subjective (Adjective) - "based on your own feelings and ideas and not on facts. Something that is based on facts is objective" ... "used about a person’s feelings and thoughts that no one else can know directly or completely"

Objective (Adjective) - "based only on facts and not influenced by personal feelings or beliefs" ... "real and not existing only in someone’s mind"

Objectivity is more of a pursuit than anything since it's next to impossible to eliminate your subjective impression from an opinion, but I don't necessarily think it's impossible to achieve, just perhaps impossible to identify for certain. =P That's secondary however. The point is, if you vote on something just because you like it -- an inevitable result when a large amount of people vote on something -- you are usually just being subjective. If however you take the time to really examine its merits irregardless of your personal like or dislike, and examine its value or worth or even just its appeal to other people, you are being objective. Here's an example:

I don't consider The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to be the best-made game in the Zelda series. I consider Majora's Mask and A Link to the Past to be tied for this position. None of these three is my personal FAVORITE Zelda game though; Skyward Sword is. My preference for Skyward Sword is a subjective opinion based on my personal taste. However, I think A Link to the Past is a better-made game, with little to no low-points, while Majora's Mask has a few pretty bad low-points, but I consider its many high-points to make up for them and to put it on the same level. This is objective analysis. STILL MORE OBJECTIVITY: Despite that I don't consider Ocarina of Time the best game of the series, I actively defend that it holds "best game of all-time" status among many people because I recognize how broad its appeal is; it's not far behind the best-designed games of the series, and unlike them it offers a lot more variety in gameplay and themes and therefore will appeal to more people than, say, Majora's Mask, which may or may not be better as I think it is, but which unarguably has a very specific, very strange style to it that doesn't really have great appeal to too many people.

I always dislike comparisons between contests for fun or evaluation of art and actual serious politics; they don't relate. One: All systems work in different contexts. I don't want to make this super political, but as an example I am wholeheartedly against Communism and Socialism as political and economic ideologies, and I think they've been proven to basically cause wholesale destruction as it has in every country it's existed in for long. However... Those systems are more or less how families are run: A single or group of people in charge, with generally shared resources, working together out of common interest. What distinguishes them is Socialism requires the idea of strangers caring for one another, while in families it usually works because they usually already care about each other. Not trying to debate this specifically, just spelling out how different systems work different in different contexts and venues.

Incidentally, the United States DOES NOT function on popular vote, and was never intended to. It has a more complicated set of rules which are actually intentionally designed to prevent the high population of one state (say, California or Texas) dominating the fate of less densely populated ones. There are also hard rules in the United States on what the government is even allowed to do in the first place, no matter who gets elected. =P And for what its worth, just because a study or test is considered "reputable" does not mean it actually deserves that label, with the Oscars (or hell, Hollywood) being my preferred example of this. But for what it's worth, yeah, it's a fan competition, so you can use whatever system you want. I just don't think it's a good one. You'll get better results through other means. =P

 

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum>>

P.S. I find it ironic that you think that a panel of judges is "objectively" better when "no one thought it was feasible." By popular vote, you are wrong. By your judgement, you are right. So everyone is wrong but yourself? Do you see the confusion? Meanwhile, if I were to say that most people think you're wrong and because we believe in the axiom that "majority rules", you cannot disagree that more people think you are "wrong" than there are people who think you are "right".

P.S.S If I come off as an offensive jerk, I would like to apologize, for I sincerely don't mean that way. Just know that I have nothing against you as a person. I just wanna explain to you why your proposal is flawed.

So I will address this in a somewhat cliche way, but it's a cliche because it's effective. Godwin's Law holds true.

Adolf Hitler was a popular and beloved public figure according to much of Nazi Germany's population.

Just because something is popular does not make it correct. And it never will. Yes, this means that those in Germany who despised Hitler thought that "everyone else was wrong". They thought they were correct. I think history shows that they were.

That's not comparable to this; it's an extreme example to prove a point. But it proves more effectively than other examples that no, you're not right just because you're popular or most people agree with you, and you're not wrong just because everyone else thinks so.

I don't think you're being a jerk, and I hope I don't come across that way either. You're entitled to your opinion. But I consider your opinion wrong. =P

 

Quote from nurgling13>>

 You're just ignoring all evidence and pretending you already disproved what we said. You claim without evidence that it was incredibly simple to find mountains of volunteers on other unnamed sites, and just completely ignored the evidence I just presented you that disproves that on this site. You did not address the fact that Hearthpwn cannot find people to be Fan Creations Mods and the implications that would have for your proposal. You almost seem to be claiming that your proposal is and isn't feasible at the same time, basically to try to avoid admitting you were wrong. It's complete BS when you basically say "It's easy to find people to be judges, but it isn't easy to find people to be judges on this site". You can't take both sides and then claim you won the argument.

Also, if it's so easy to find volunteers, do it. Assemble this unbiased panel of judges since you claim it is trivial to find the people to do it. 

 I'm not ignoring anything.

1. I don't need to provide any evidence of my own personal experience; I have had an easy time finding volunteers most of the time. My personal experience may not apply to anything and I admitted that it might not apply here.
2. You're right, I did not address that "Hearthpwn cannot find people to be Fan Creations Mods", because I don't know if that's true. What I DID address was that people told me that was the case.
3. At least one person literally volunteered to be a judge in response to people saying there weren't enough volunteers. Everyone ignored him completely. I have at least some reason to not immediately swallow that it is true there aren't enough people.
4. I think, and insist, that my proposal will basically always work better in most cases for situations like this... if it's feasible. Perhaps this is a semantics argument now, but when you say you've "disproved" my idea, that implies the idea can't work. Whereas all I think you've done is illustrate why it's not possible here. Steel is stronger than Iron. Just because you don't have the supplies to make iron does not "disprove" steel. That was my issue with you saying "disprove".

In short my view is this: My idea is BETTER, but whether or not its FEASIBLE here, I couldn't tell you, but you've also yet to convince me that it isn't. But I did point something out that you've ignored: "How easy" it is to recruit for a position in a community is not static. It changes. Sometimes there are more good candidates than others. I mean, you're telling me to prove that it's so easy, but I can easily flip that back on you: Prove that it's so hard.

Realistically probably neither of us will do that, because it's not our job and not our decision anyway. So relax. If I wasn't as clear about the above as I thought I was in my previous posts, then I apologize; I thought I was.

1. You don't need to provide evidence for anything, but when you don't and then chastise us for not believing in your assertions that aren't backed by evidence, it's extremely insulting.

2. You alternately seem to agree with and not agree with this. When it serves your purpose, you ignore the fact that Hearthpwn can't find volunteers, but then chastise us for saying we wouldn't be able to find volunteers for your proposal. You can't have it both ways, and playing fast and loose with the norms of debate is kinda insulting. 

3. A single person did volunteer, no one is ignoring that. A single person does not make a team of respected, unbiased judges. You are making a huge jump from one person volunteering to saying it's easy to assemble this team. That one person also made no commitment to the proposal. It's easy to say you would do something that requires a lot of responsibility when saying so requires no actual commitment on your part. Phoenixfeather just had his custom card tournament derailed because several people said they would compete in it but failed to actually submit a card. People often don't follow through on their promises. I won't believe you can assemble this team easily until I see it actually done.

4. This last point is complete and utter BS. You're basically just trying to retreat and not be proven wrong. No one gives a shit about semantics. Either your proposal is feasible or it isn't. You can't say you were right because your idea would work if it would work. If it won't work here, then you were wrong. Why the hell would anyone care about your proposal if it doesn't apply to this site?

And you're last argument is the most BS. Everyone knows you can't prove a negative. No matter what I do to prove that it's hard, you can ignore it and say I didn't try hard enough. This has already happened: I provided the evidence that the Fan Creations Forum is understaffed because it is hard to recruit people, and you just ignore that as evidence. This is your proposal; the onus is on you to prove it's feasible. Don't try to weasel out of it. Here is a similar proposal to illustrate how terrible this debate tactic is:

 

I say you are a jerk. You say "Prove that I'm a jerk". I say, "No, it's your responsibility to prove you're not a jerk." Insert any insert for jerk. Now, stop insulting our intelligence and being a jerk. You're being a complete nuisance with your BS arguments and know-it-all attitude.

Quote from AxletheBeast >>

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

I'm pretty sure that there would still be bias. Let's refer back to the Frozen example. From your perspective, Frozen is not a good film (or at the very least, an average one). Yet when we looked at the Oscars, which is organized by a group of judges who are literally considered experts in film critique and instructed to be as unbiased as possible, they gave Frozen one of the highest accolades a film could achieve. So, is it fair to determine the winner via a select group of judges? If it is, then Frozen is supposedly the best movie of the year according to your philosophy.

 

 Not only that, but judges are subjective when it comes to the finer points. If I hear a classical song, am an expert in musical theory, and rate it 9/10, then it's fair to conclude that other musical critiques will have similar responses. But sometimes, when you have 2 cards that are frighteningly close to each other in terms of quality, you can variable responses based on the selection of judges. So if you gave me Chopin's best work and Beethoven's best piece, I could say that Chopin is the best, and there's room for severe disagreement. There can only be 1 winner.

 I'm so glad you used this example. =P

I'd rather not spend the time to find the source on this again -- but I have read it and it was literally the judges of the Best Animated Movie category at the Oscars in their own words -- so hopefully you can just trust me on this one. I'll try and find it if you want.

The judging of animated movies in general at the Oscars is essentially a broken judging process. The year that Frozen came out, it was essentially the only animated movie that most of the judges had even seen. The vast majority of the judges completely abstained from the vote because it was the only one they'd seen. The rest -- literally one or two people -- just picked Frozen. There was a huge upset over this, as this was the year that The Wind Also Rises came out (which I still haven't seen but have heard is excellent), but whether or not Frozen was the better movie, I don't think I need to explain further how this was a completely incorrect scenario for proper judging. Clearly, the judges for that category did not take that category seriously.

By the way, had I released an animated movie myself and lost to Frozen, even by a judging panel, I would accept it irregardless of my disagreement with the decision. It would be much easier to swallow than losing according to popular vote. =P "My logic" does not involve suggesting a panel of judges is ever going to be perfect; no system is perfect and I've given up on the idea of "perfection" long, long ago, to the point that when I heard an anime character pretty much give a long monologue chastising the idea of considering yourself perfect I was more or less cheering. But Frozen can be easily broken down as a movie with flawed structure and even downright audience manipulation at points. It's fine if a fair, properly-behaving panel disagrees. Or even an individual. I don't care.

The Oscars however is a questionable organization to begin with, and things like this are far from the only question marks during its time. Just because I say judging via panels an inherently better system does not mean I think all judging panels are created equal.

You can disagree with someone who's trying to be objective; a general rule of thumb is if you ever place second or third in a contest, or even get an "honorable mention", had the judges been different then you might well have just won first place. There's always a LITTLE bias -- I literally said total objectivity is impossible -- but there is more often than not substantially less bias from a small group of people whose entire job is to try not to be biased than there is in a large group of people with no such restriction. I don't see why that difference shouldn't be clear to anyone.

 

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum>>

I think you're also losing your sense of what objectivity means. Subjectivity means "based on personal opinion". Objectivity means "considered true by all people". So that usually relies on quantitative, measurable descriptions. I may think that a book is better than another, and there's room for a agreement. However, if there are 5 votes, there are 5 votes. You cannot disagree that 5 = 5; noone can. You can doubt the method and doubt why a person added 1 vote, but you cannot doubt the result. The same can't be said with a smaller group of people who say something "won" or "lost". Objectivity and operational definitions are a key parts of science after all.

Also, there is a reputable contest that runs on a popular vote. It's called democracy. And people tend to criticize governments that are chosen by select group of people. Forgive me if I may offend you as I have nothing against you, but your proposal sounds a bit like the monarchical countries during the French Revolution; they thought of a republic as a terrible idea because "giving the political power to the uneducated masses is not only vacuous, it is also unethical".

Another reputable judging that runs on popular vote? Psychological tests. Another one? Political approval rating. If we hold value in such important things in real life, why can't we hold it in a competition about designing cards for a virtual CCG?

 I'm not losing sense of the words, I'm just using a different definition than you are. Words usually have many different definitions and connotations besides. To be fair in some cases these are born from literal misunderstandings of the words but when they get used enough they tend to become alternate definitions. =P

My preferred uses, more or less. If I ever use these words, these are usually what I mean:

Subjective (Adjective) - "based on your own feelings and ideas and not on facts. Something that is based on facts is objective" ... "used about a person’s feelings and thoughts that no one else can know directly or completely"

Objective (Adjective) - "based only on facts and not influenced by personal feelings or beliefs" ... "real and not existing only in someone’s mind"

Objectivity is more of a pursuit than anything since it's next to impossible to eliminate your subjective impression from an opinion, but I don't necessarily think it's impossible to achieve, just perhaps impossible to identify for certain. =P That's secondary however. The point is, if you vote on something just because you like it -- an inevitable result when a large amount of people vote on something -- you are usually just being subjective. If however you take the time to really examine its merits irregardless of your personal like or dislike, and examine its value or worth or even just its appeal to other people, you are being objective. Here's an example:

I don't consider The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to be the best-made game in the Zelda series. I consider Majora's Mask and A Link to the Past to be tied for this position. None of these three is my personal FAVORITE Zelda game though; Skyward Sword is. My preference for Skyward Sword is a subjective opinion based on my personal taste. However, I think A Link to the Past is a better-made game, with little to no low-points, while Majora's Mask has a few pretty bad low-points, but I consider its many high-points to make up for them and to put it on the same level. This is objective analysis. STILL MORE OBJECTIVITY: Despite that I don't consider Ocarina of Time the best game of the series, I actively defend that it holds "best game of all-time" status among many people because I recognize how broad its appeal is; it's not far behind the best-designed games of the series, and unlike them it offers a lot more variety in gameplay and themes and therefore will appeal to more people than, say, Majora's Mask, which may or may not be better as I think it is, but which unarguably has a very specific, very strange style to it that doesn't really have great appeal to too many people.

I always dislike comparisons between contests for fun or evaluation of art and actual serious politics; they don't relate. One: All systems work in different contexts. I don't want to make this super political, but as an example I am wholeheartedly against Communism and Socialism as political and economic ideologies, and I think they've been proven to basically cause wholesale destruction as it has in every country it's existed in for long. However... Those systems are more or less how families are run: A single or group of people in charge, with generally shared resources, working together out of common interest. What distinguishes them is Socialism requires the idea of strangers caring for one another, while in families it usually works because they usually already care about each other. Not trying to debate this specifically, just spelling out how different systems work different in different contexts and venues.

Incidentally, the United States DOES NOT function on popular vote, and was never intended to. It has a more complicated set of rules which are actually intentionally designed to prevent the high population of one state (say, California or Texas) dominating the fate of less densely populated ones. There are also hard rules in the United States on what the government is even allowed to do in the first place, no matter who gets elected. =P And for what its worth, just because a study or test is considered "reputable" does not mean it actually deserves that label, with the Oscars (or hell, Hollywood) being my preferred example of this. But for what it's worth, yeah, it's a fan competition, so you can use whatever system you want. I just don't think it's a good one. You'll get better results through other means. =P

 

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum>>

P.S. I find it ironic that you think that a panel of judges is "objectively" better when "no one thought it was feasible." By popular vote, you are wrong. By your judgement, you are right. So everyone is wrong but yourself? Do you see the confusion? Meanwhile, if I were to say that most people think you're wrong and because we believe in the axiom that "majority rules", you cannot disagree that more people think you are "wrong" than there are people who think you are "right".

P.S.S If I come off as an offensive jerk, I would like to apologize, for I sincerely don't mean that way. Just know that I have nothing against you as a person. I just wanna explain to you why your proposal is flawed.

 

So I will address this in a somewhat cliche way, but it's a cliche because it's effective. Godwin's Law holds true.

Adolf Hitler was a popular and beloved public figure according to much of Nazi Germany's population.

Just because something is popular does not make it correct. And it never will. Yes, this means that those in Germany who despised Hitler thought that "everyone else was wrong". They thought they were correct. I think history shows that they were.

That's not comparable to this; it's an extreme example to prove a point. But it proves more effectively than other examples that no, you're not right just because you're popular or most people agree with you, and you're not wrong just because everyone else thinks so.

I don't think you're being a jerk, and I hope I don't come across that way either. You're entitled to your opinion. But I consider your opinion wrong. =P

 

Quote from nurgling13>>

 You're just ignoring all evidence and pretending you already disproved what we said. You claim without evidence that it was incredibly simple to find mountains of volunteers on other unnamed sites, and just completely ignored the evidence I just presented you that disproves that on this site. You did not address the fact that Hearthpwn cannot find people to be Fan Creations Mods and the implications that would have for your proposal. You almost seem to be claiming that your proposal is and isn't feasible at the same time, basically to try to avoid admitting you were wrong. It's complete BS when you basically say "It's easy to find people to be judges, but it isn't easy to find people to be judges on this site". You can't take both sides and then claim you won the argument.

Also, if it's so easy to find volunteers, do it. Assemble this unbiased panel of judges since you claim it is trivial to find the people to do it. 

 I'm not ignoring anything.

1. I don't need to provide any evidence of my own personal experience; I have had an easy time finding volunteers most of the time. My personal experience may not apply to anything and I admitted that it might not apply here.
2. You're right, I did not address that "Hearthpwn cannot find people to be Fan Creations Mods", because I don't know if that's true. What I DID address was that people told me that was the case.
3. At least one person literally volunteered to be a judge in response to people saying there weren't enough volunteers. Everyone ignored him completely. I have at least some reason to not immediately swallow that it is true there aren't enough people.
4. I think, and insist, that my proposal will basically always work better in most cases for situations like this... if it's feasible. Perhaps this is a semantics argument now, but when you say you've "disproved" my idea, that implies the idea can't work. Whereas all I think you've done is illustrate why it's not possible here. Steel is stronger than Iron. Just because you don't have the supplies to make iron does not "disprove" steel. That was my issue with you saying "disprove".

In short my view is this: My idea is BETTER, but whether or not its FEASIBLE here, I couldn't tell you, but you've also yet to convince me that it isn't. But I did point something out that you've ignored: "How easy" it is to recruit for a position in a community is not static. It changes. Sometimes there are more good candidates than others. I mean, you're telling me to prove that it's so easy, but I can easily flip that back on you: Prove that it's so hard.

Realistically probably neither of us will do that, because it's not our job and not our decision anyway. So relax. If I wasn't as clear about the above as I thought I was in my previous posts, then I apologize; I thought I was.

 

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Quote from OculusWindow >>

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

Quote from AxletheBeast >>

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

The problem here is that we can't really think of a better idea...

There are tons of better ideas, and I recommended some of them a few weeks ago. It seems like no one thought it was feasible on this forum though.

Bottom line is there is no reputable, professional contest I have ever heard of that runs on a "popular vote" structure like this website does. If you want serious judging, on basis of entry quality, it needs to be done by a panel of actual judges. When I brought this up people suggested that bias would be an issue, which is largely nonsense as it's not that hard to find unbiased judges (or to just withhold information from the judges so that they don't know who made what anyway), and you can also implement popular vote in part as well and not run it STRICTLY off judging anyway. Either have judges determine the final poll and then it's voted on by the members, or have members "nominate" final poll options that judges decide between, just as two possible examples.

It seems like the main argument against this idea that actually made sense -- and the reason why I left the topic alone at the time -- was the simple fact that they didn't think it would be easy to find people willing to do the judging, or find enough people qualified and/or trustworthy enough to do this. For all I know that's true. But I've had enough experience with both kinds of contests to know that popular vote always leads to inconsistent results. And the concern of bias is much more an issue with popular voting, where often many people just choose cards they personally like, as opposed to a panel that's TRYING to be objective as a rule.

Total objectivity is impossible, but you get better results when you have a group whose entire job is to try anyway.

I'm pretty sure that there would still be bias. Let's refer back to the Frozen example. From your perspective, Frozen is not a good film (or at the very least, an average one). Yet when we looked at the Oscars, which is organized by a group of judges who are literally considered experts in film critique and instructed to be as unbiased as possible, they gave Frozen one of the highest accolades a film could achieve. So, is it fair to determine the winner via a select group of judges? If it is, then Frozen is supposedly the best movie of the year according to your philosophy.

 

Not only that, but judges are subjective when it comes to the finer points. If I hear a classical song, am an expert in musical theory, and rate it 9/10, then it's fair to conclude that other musical critiques will have similar responses. But sometimes, when you have 2 cards that are frighteningly close to each other in terms of quality, you can variable responses based on the selection of judges. So if you gave me Chopin's best work and Beethoven's best piece, I could say that Chopin is the best, and there's room for severe disagreement. There can only be 1 winner.

 

I think you're also losing your sense of what objectivity means. Subjectivity means "based on personal opinion". Objectivity means "considered true by all people". So that usually relies on quantitative, measurable descriptions. I may think that a book is better than another, and there's room for a agreement. However, if there are 5 votes, there are 5 votes. You cannot disagree that 5 = 5; noone can. You can doubt the method and doubt why a person added 1 vote, but you cannot doubt the result. The same can't be said with a smaller group of people who say something "won" or "lost". Objectivity and operational definitions are a key parts of science after all.

 

Also, there is a reputable contest that runs on a popular vote. It's called democracy. And people tend to criticize governments that are chosen by select group of people. Forgive me if I may offend you as I have nothing against you, but your proposal sounds a bit like the monarchical countries during the French Revolution; they thought of a republic as a terrible idea because "giving the political power to the uneducated masses is not only vacuous, it is also unethical".

 

Another reputable judging that runs on popular vote? Psychological tests. Another one? Political approval rating. If we hold value in such important things in real life, why can't we hold it in a competition about designing cards for a virtual CCG?

Well, technically the validity of those tests are measured by "electoral-like" vote. Each clinician's opinion is weighed differently based on their reputation and esteem (qualified by what journals they're published in and quantified by # of citations). Kinda like a panel of judges ;)

Quote from AxletheBeast >>

Spoiler (click to show)

Generally, I agree that a popular vote is more healthy for this competition. It won't be perfect because of the limitations of the forum, but it's leagues above a judging panel in terms of engagement. I'd imagine that there'd be a lot of submitters who'd feel "cheated" by a judging panel, no matter how impartial the judges try to be.

Developing an additional site or peripheral to this site isn't worth the time and effort IMO, solely to improve a small component of Hearthpwn. That said, I do think that there's room for improvement, but the steps that could be taken should be small and within the current capacity of the mods. Finding a panel of judges is not a small step.

One very simple suggestion is to put the current voting system to a vote itself. Make a thread where people can vote as to whether they're satisfied, dissatisfied, or impartial to the current voting system. Then go from there. We should see what other people think before taking steps toward change. If most people are happy ATM, then everything's fine as it is. Nurgling13 mentioned in a previous post something that I now consider very important to be aware of: 

"It's okay to have an assumption that's wrong in a situation like this, because you are trying to work with approximations to make things feasible. "

To put that in a little more context, we're never going to have a system that holds up perfectly to scrutiny. There'll surely be some people who're upset by that, or confused by that as I was, but so long as the current system gets it right most of the time and most people are satisfied, then the system is doing right by all of us. Now, if the majority opinion shifts to be dissatisfied with the current system, then maybe we need to take another look at it.

If the majority of people who frequent the competition are dissatisfied by the current system, then there needs to be a change to the system. Or, an educational thread could be stickied to the Fan Creation page to try to explain away any confusions about the system. That could help as well. I'm not saying that this is the case or at all neccessary, but it couldn't hurt IMO to poll the audience and see what's on everyone's mind.

At the end of every season. which last 20 weeks, so we're almost there, the mods create a Feedback Thread whose function is very similar to what you described. It doesn't have voting, and it's open to discussion of every part of the discussion, not just voting, but there is always a discussion about the scoring system. We've made incremental changes in the past, like getting rid of the rule where the top entry from every single page automatically advanced to the finals, which sort of sounds like what you are talking about. 

So, what I'm saying is, bring up your concerns in a few weeks in that thread, and the mods will definitely read it, at the very least. You can ask the mods to carry out polls that have voting similar to what you described. Creating those polls is something you can probably get people to agree on, at least.

I understand how some ppl might be upset that the new Warlock isn't pulled from WoW, but I'm in love with this little gnome! I actually hope that Blizz adds her to WoW. There's so much that could be done with the character; the art oozes personality. And honestly, she's one of the most consistent characters that we have in Hearthstone, aside from Harth Stonebrew. Can't wait to hear her voicelines.

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

Quote from AxletheBeast >>

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

The problem here is that we can't really think of a better idea...

There are tons of better ideas, and I recommended some of them a few weeks ago. It seems like no one thought it was feasible on this forum though.

Bottom line is there is no reputable, professional contest I have ever heard of that runs on a "popular vote" structure like this website does. If you want serious judging, on basis of entry quality, it needs to be done by a panel of actual judges. When I brought this up people suggested that bias would be an issue, which is largely nonsense as it's not that hard to find unbiased judges (or to just withhold information from the judges so that they don't know who made what anyway), and you can also implement popular vote in part as well and not run it STRICTLY off judging anyway. Either have judges determine the final poll and then it's voted on by the members, or have members "nominate" final poll options that judges decide between, just as two possible examples.

It seems like the main argument against this idea that actually made sense -- and the reason why I left the topic alone at the time -- was the simple fact that they didn't think it would be easy to find people willing to do the judging, or find enough people qualified and/or trustworthy enough to do this. For all I know that's true. But I've had enough experience with both kinds of contests to know that popular vote always leads to inconsistent results. And the concern of bias is much more an issue with popular voting, where often many people just choose cards they personally like, as opposed to a panel that's TRYING to be objective as a rule.

Total objectivity is impossible, but you get better results when you have a group whose entire job is to try anyway.

I'm pretty sure that there would still be bias. Let's refer back to the Frozen example. From your perspective, Frozen is not a good film (or at the very least, an average one). Yet when we looked at the Oscars, which is organized by a group of judges who are literally considered experts in film critique and instructed to be as unbiased as possible, they gave Frozen one of the highest accolades a film could achieve. So, is it fair to determine the winner via a select group of judges? If it is, then Frozen is supposedly the best movie of the year according to your philosophy.

 

Not only that, but judges are subjective when it comes to the finer points. If I hear a classical song, am an expert in musical theory, and rate it 9/10, then it's fair to conclude that other musical critiques will have similar responses. But sometimes, when you have 2 cards that are frighteningly close to each other in terms of quality, you can variable responses based on the selection of judges. So if you gave me Chopin's best work and Beethoven's best piece, I could say that Chopin is the best, and there's room for severe disagreement. There can only be 1 winner.

 

I think you're also losing your sense of what objectivity means. Subjectivity means "based on personal opinion". Objectivity means "considered true by all people". So that usually relies on quantitative, measurable descriptions. I may think that a book is better than another, and there's room for a agreement. However, if there are 5 votes, there are 5 votes. You cannot disagree that 5 = 5; noone can. You can doubt the method and doubt why a person added 1 vote, but you cannot doubt the result. The same can't be said with a smaller group of people who say something "won" or "lost". Objectivity and operational definitions are a key parts of science after all.

 

Also, there is a reputable contest that runs on a popular vote. It's called democracy. And people tend to criticize governments that are chosen by select group of people. Forgive me if I may offend you as I have nothing against you, but your proposal sounds a bit like the monarchical countries during the French Revolution; they thought of a republic as a terrible idea because "giving the political power to the uneducated masses is not only vacuous, it is also unethical".

 

Another reputable judging that runs on popular vote? Psychological tests. Another one? Political approval rating. If we hold value in such important things in real life, why can't we hold it in a competition about designing cards for a virtual CCG?

Quote from Towhatend >>

 

 

At 10 mana I feel the card needs to be powerful. This guy will grant enough Armor to kill most threats and has the potential to do more damage if you've already accumulated some Armor.

Millhouse may not be that great, but he loves you. Show him that you care, and love him back.

...

......

Or burn the beotch and craft that sick Shadowreaper Anduin already.

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

Gosh darn illnesses making me cough blood and unable to participate in the discussion thread. Here are my final cards! Your thoughts?

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