Forum

Username
Babel

Timezone
CET/CEST

What position are you applying for?
Host

Do you have any previous experience you think will be valuable?
No

How well do you think you can work together with others?
It depends on the persons I'm working together with. I'll always try to go into a work experience with fresh energy and trying to make it a good experience for everyone, but if I feel talked down to or  if the other person isn't trying to set me up for success too I'll usually either shut down the collab or try to make the project good but not perfect.

Any other comments you'd like to add or things you want us to know:
no.


Lizzie and Miranda are working together on an Italy based interactive quiz thread. Lizzie and Miranda have both collected their own questions (3 each) and have made the thread live. Miranda posts the first question, “At what famous fountain do you make wishes?”, only to get a response from Kate stating that Miranda should be more considerate when making competitions as she’d never go to Italy because she doesn’t eat carbs. Ethan chimes in and makes a post saying he’s never been to Italy and can’t answer any of the questions. As time goes on, other users decide to join the comp and answer the questions. One user, Paolo, has been participating the entire event but hasn’t gotten a question right yet. At the very end, he expresses his disappointment in the small amount of questions and states he’s never going to join another one of Lizzie’s or Miranda’s competitions again! Three days after the competition, Gordo asks when the prizes are going to be sent out. Lizzie swears she will send them but an entire week has gone by and she still hasn’t done so.
How would you respond in this situation? If you’re a host, how would you improve your competitions going forward? If you’re a layouter, what could you do to help your teammates? 

I think it depends on a lot of things! In general it isn't good if people are unhappy with the events you hold.

Kate and Ethan
If this is the first time Kate complains about the theme of the competition, then it wouldn't matter, but if it's been more than once it might be worth considering, if there's something wrong to make Kate feel excluded. Kate does feel like a troll in the reasoning behind the complaint, but sometimes people can be bad at expressing their emotions or English might not be their native language, so it's worth considering if the type or topic of competition gives most people possible the possibility to participate. It should, however, also be allowed to do some niche competitions or some competitions that only speak to some, but there should be some balance in it. 

Ethan is more genuine in implying that the questions are too hard. This might be worth considering for a future competition, or, if it's allowed to google, maybe try to highlight this possibility, so everyone has a chance to participate.

Paolo
Paolo expressing his disappointment in only having 6 questions to answer is genuine. Depending on the userbase and how many people are on for a quick event (A quiz would be defined as a quick event, compared to a dress-up or raffle, which usually spans over a few days) it might be worth considering the amount of questions.

How much there should be looked at the feedback would however also depend on a lot of other stuff. Is the prize an item or clothing set or is it credits?
If it's an item or clothing set it's also worth considering if the prize would be used for another competition or not, for 6 IG items/sets isn't a lot, so stating in the first post that the prize is not locked to this specific event would mitigate the disappointment Paolo should feel, because there's still a chance to get it. This would also be the most legitimate criticism of the event.
If the prize is credits, it's still good to consider more questions for a future event, but maybe less so, and honestly it would also depend on how often a quiz night is made and how often the prize would be available.

Gordo
Gordo has a legitimate criticism in the fact that the prizes haven't been sent out yet. This is one of the most important parts of being ET, and should happen rather fast. Sometimes stuff happens, which might make it hard to send prizes out on time for participants, and here it might be good to consider some kind of backup. In this specific instance, both Lizzie and Miranda has made the competition, and even if Lizzie has said she'll be the one to send out the prizes, it's important to remember there's been a team effort behind the event, and if Lizzie is too busy to send out the prize she should ask Miranda if she has time to do so.

If Lizzie isn't busy, but simply has forgotten or not found the time for it, I would recommend writing it in a calendar and make time for it after every event is over. Planning a specific time frame to send out prizes might make events go more smoothly down the line too.

Being a part of a team means that you'll have to work together, so it's good to implement some kind of help. This could either be done in a calendar or in some kind of Excel sheet or notepad, where it's possible to jut down ET events and whether prizes has been sent out yet. The team should have a person who's mainly responsible for sending out prizes, and there should be a backup, who should be able to do it instead, if the first person doesn't. That's part of being a team, and while Miranda and Lizzie have hosted/held the competition, they've done so for Event Team, so if reflects back badly on the whole team, if nothing is done.

In conclusion:
The criticism of the event should be weighed and depend on the specific circumstances the competition is made in. It's important to consider all kinds of criticism, but if there is a legitimate concern or some kind of pattern in the criticism, something should be done before the next event is started. Any complaints about not winning will also depend on circumstance, but it might be worth considering the wording of the event, and whether that can be misunderstood, plus consider the amount of prizes given away vs. the amount of participants + potentially the chance to win a similar prize at another time.

As for the prizes, it'll always be the host's responsibility to send out prizes, but seeing as it's a team that is making events, it's important to have some safeguards behind the scenes to make things run smoothly while also considering the image you're sending to everyone else.


- Without drawing inspiration from past ET events, can you give us two examples of unique and thoughtful events that you would like to do if on ET?
I will give two, where one is less specific, while the other is specific.

1) Generally events inspired by national or "world days". We're an international server, and I think it's fun to include some diversity in the challenges, without them seeming too random. The specific kind of competition held will depend on the world day happening, but October 9th could be an example, which is "World Post Day", where the event would be to write a letter. In this specific case I would want people to write a letter to their best friend across the world, where they describe how much they love the autumn weather where they live, to drag some seasonal themes into it. It would have to be done on a .png sheet, where doodles would be allowed too, to really personalize it. Due to the personal nature of the competition and the theme of it, it would be best to raffle a prize away, and not judge specific entries as "better". Alternatively it could be a participation prize.


2) Would be a specific event running over more days than one. It would be during summer vacation, where people usually have more free time to be online, and therefore would need more specific events happening. I would like this event to be a team effort, due to the amount of time put into it.
For the Summer Vacation it would be nice to do a travel theme, where we do we new country every week for three weeks. I would take inspiration from the countries we travel to with the travel feature on VP and select 2-3 countries. For instance:
1) Italy
2) Brazil
3) Australia

I would look into cultural traditions and then centre themes around them. For each country there should be one dress-up, which starts on the first day (preferably Monday) and ends before we "travel" to the next country (Sunday) and then other events hosted in between. It would be important to not do 1:1 the same events for each country, to keep it fresh, so while the schedule below would be a board game night in Italy, it could be a Treasure Hunt for Brazil or Bingo Night in Australia (with your old grandma),

So it would run accordingly:
Week 1:
Monday: Italy Dressup
You're a tourist in Pisa and you're going to a pastamaking class. To make the class more fun, you're dressing up inspired by the pasta dish you're making there. What pasta dish are you making, and what do you look like?
Your outfit will be judged on colour inspiration from the pasta dish you're making, and the general description of it.

Wednesday: Colour in icecream
A competition with a .png picture of scooped ice cream in a cup, where the participants will have to colour in the ice cream colours. This is inspired by the Italian Gelato.

Friday: Italy Night Quiz
10-20 prepared questions about Italy, varying in difficulty and topic.

Saturday: Board game night
You're relaxing with your friends at home before you're flying out  to Brazil Monday, and tonight you're playing UNO.

And the same goes for the last two countries, set up over a similar timeline. To make the event run smoothly, it would be good to introduce the Friday before it starts, with a schedule put out with time slots, like "Monday: Dressup, Wednesday: Drawing comp, Friday: Quiz Night and Saturday: Board Game night" so people would be able to plan around the shorter events. If it actually was more than one country planned for, it would be better to make as a team, where it wouldn't be a one-man show to host and plan. Keeping the prize the same for the short events would be good, and maybe also for the two longer events, depending on the amount of sets/items available. 

To host it smoothly all of it would have to be planned and written out in advance, where the most pressing questions are also answered. Adding different shouts throughout the event with random facts and sentences surrounding the travel destination would also help set the theme for the event, just like dressing up could do.