Weekly Flag Challenge referendum: Sole entrants become winners?

[Transparent Blue]

The proposal is to amend rule 4 so that in a round with only one entrant by the deadline, that entrant automatically becomes the winner. The current rule is that a round with only one entrant has its deadline extended, and if there is still only one entrant by that extended deadline, then the round organiser is obliged to start the round again with a new challenge idea.

Reasons for change:

• Moves things along more quickly.
• Less work for round organisers.

Reasons against change:

• Does not encourage round organisers to think of interesting and popular challenge topics.
• An entry winning by default does not reflect the quality of the design.

 

[FriendlyGhost]

I've voted for the proposal, but think that there should still be a chance to extend the deadline first. i.e. challenge opens → 1 entry → deadline → organiser extends deadline → still only 1 entry → that entry wins by default. But to keep things moving along, we should be more stringent about the number of days for the initial deadline and extension - 4 days, then 7 days more. If we go for 'no extension' then 7 days for the initial deadline would be better than the 4 days currently recommended in the Guide for Winners thread.

Regarding the second 'reason against', my opinion is that if this proposal passes, we should also ensure that flags which win by default are noted as single-entrants in the results page on the wiki.

 

[Transparent Blue]

I agree with all the reasons for and against, but ultimately we are seeing a lot of gridlock at times so I also voted for the proposal.

If we go for 'no extension' then 7 days for the initial deadline would be better than the 4 days currently recommended in the Guide for Winners thread.

We used to allow for arbitrary deadlines that could be decided by the round organiser. We settled on four days as a result of this experience - fewer days did not allow enough time for new entrants, but more days just lead to stagnation and nobody entered anything beyond four days anyway.

Regarding the second 'reason against', my opinion is that if this proposal passes, we should also ensure that flags which win by default are noted as single-entrants in the results page on the wiki.

Noted, good idea.

 

[Remitonov]

I feel it should be a mix of both. We can extend it once or twice, but if there isn't any more responses after that, the sole entrant would get to pick the next challenge. Each challenge, I feel, should be allowed a max of two extensions, which puts the max time span of each challenge to two weeks, to accomodate those with busy work lives. After that, there probably isn't any point waiting much longer.

 

[The Professor]

I think that at least one attempt should be made but if it repeats or goes too long undecided then the single entrant can be acclaimed the winner.