The LingQ video contest results and a question to all LingQers

Open Forum
1

LingQ video contest

The LingQ video contest was launched at the end of January. Voting began on March 1st and ended March 15. We thank all participants for their great videos.

Here are the top five:

Alexpatru had 976 views and 240 likes for a ratio of likes/view of 24.59%

OscarP had 1452 views and 210 likes for a ratio of likes/view of 14.46%

Adran_K had 360 views and 52 likes for a ratio of likes/view of 14.44%

Goldenspeaker 742 views and 48 likes for a ratio of likes/view of 6.47%

Peter had 517 views and 33 likes for a ratio of likes/view of 6.38%

What stands out to us is that contestant Alexpatru had a very high % of likes/views, much higher than the norm for this kind of event. We dug a little a deeper and found the following:

On March 5th, Alexpatru had 103 views and 63 likes (61% likes), and on March 15th, Alexpatru had 230 views and 106 likes (46%).In other words these two days alone account for of 34% of views, and fully 70.5 % of likes for Alexpatru.

We feel that there is a strong possibility that some form of vote garnering, beyond normal promotion, took place on those two days.

All contestants were allowed to promote their videos in order to garner support, in the form of “likes” or votes at youtube. Here is the wording of our initial announcement.

"During the voting stage of the competition, you are free to promote your video through whatever means possible.

Make sure you get all your friends to vote for and share it too!"

I don’t mind saying that in my view, Oscar’s video was the best, in terms of originality and video quality. I feel that Alexpatru’s video did not compare favourably with many other submissions.

But the issue here is only fairness based on the rules of this kind of competition, something that we did for the first time. We now know, for example, that it is possible, to purchase votes for this kind of competition. Here is an example of such a site that Alex found:

http://bit.ly/dEuAJK.

There are perhaps other ways to influence the vote that rely on means that we did not envisage when we started the competition. Are these methods of generating votes in the spirit of the competition?

What do you think we should do?

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Here are my thoughts. I agree with you Steve that Oscar’s video was the best, in terms of originality and video quality and it make me laugh. Also seen as Alexpatru was quite away behind Oscar until the last day of the competition I find it hard to believe that just by telling his friends that he could receive so many votes in such a short amount of time. I followed the competition closely because after seeing Oscar’s video I really wanted him to win. Oscar’s votes went up bit by bit and he maintained a nice lead. However alexpatru started of with very few votes then slowly worked up (at a normal rate) then all of a sudden within a few hours his votes went up by 30 or so, then nothing for a while, then again by 30. Purely based on the pattern, there is a chance that he could have bought “likes” in chunks, but spread it out to try and make them less obvious.

Based on all the above, I believe that Oscar should win. But I am only one person, I would be interested to here from alexpatru himself.

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What about creating a pool or questionnaire system integrated with LingQ.
So, people should need to be logged on LingQ to vote and the the LingQ staff could create the necessary restrictions and rules. Like, being allowed to vote only once.
Fake accounts could be restricted be rules like: just active people can vote or the account must be older than “x” weeks or months.

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I also believe Oscar should win

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Hey everybody,
This is Alex Patru ,and as you know by far I am one of the participants of LingQ contest , I would like to add something to what Steve is saying, which I totally agree with, except some minor parts…
First , I agree that the Oscar’s video is the most original and has the best video quality in it, and in comparation to my video is much better. I don’t apologize for my video quality or for the content in that video , at that moment I had only an old phone to film with it. But I think that this contest was not all about that. For me, as I said as a response to a comment the rules were clear , and you probably know them.
Even though I think it’s not fair to justify how did you made them … I can justify them ,and I will do it, but I do it , then I think we all need to , and we can make here a looong long conversation because everyone can add something to it.
In my opinion it was a fault from those who made the rules, and they have to accept that , because it’s very hard to control a thing like this, and to ask here for a opinion for what should be done it’s another one, because I’m in a big inferiority here.
I had a strategy for this contest , and that’s why my ratio was high in specific days , but it wasn’t specified that , tough I was expected a situation like this.
On 5 march I spent more than 5 hours , and another 3 or 4 hours on another day wich I saw it’s not specified here I spoke in particular with my friends in my msn list , more of them hadn’t an youtube account, and some of them even didn’t know how to create one, so I had to assist them, I really worked to get the likes.
On 15 march it was a friend who helped me , he is CEO on this website http://www.makeonlinemoneyforum.com/ , he has more than 700 members and he have skype conference almost evey day , where there are online more than 150 members almost all the time and he can have them to get the likes , I told him about this contest , and he assured me that he can do this. That’s so simple why I have a high like/view ratio on that specific dates.
All I can say is that I was fair according to the rules . I can say I wasn’t fair with the quality of the video , and he may not promote very well this website.
But , I just want to have an opinion about the comments on my video like “ you suck , your video is terrible …etc” I don’t know who’s behind them but I think it’s not hard to guess.
On this link you will find a user who had joined youtube on 15 march , liked the Oscar video and comment to my video this “ughhh… horiible video. boringgg… DISLIKE , How have you took 209 likes… Its terrible, that weired… it seems a cheating process”…and this is all the activity he had done. “ here is the link to that youtube channel address : http://www.youtube.com/user/djddification , and here is an imageshack link to it ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs .
I don’t know what to say more , I don’t have experience in ideology and forum dispute’s , I need that ipod as all the participants need it, but I didn’t and I’m not gonna beg for it.
Thanks!

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Since the intent of this contest was to get as many “likes” as possible and not necessarily about which video was the best quality, had the greatest examples of how using LingQ methods hand helped them to learn a language etc., I have to agree with Alex. When you lay down the rules for a competition you need to think about what you want to accomplish with the competition and by what means you want to accomplish them. After you have laid down the rules and the contest is concluded within those guidelines, you can’t change the rules because you don’t necessarily agree with the outcome.

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Does anyone “need” the Ipod touch so badly?

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Just trying to be objective:

"During the voting stage of the competition, you are free to promote your video through whatever means possible.

Make sure you get all your friends to vote for and share it too!"

Well, if the above was the guideline, then it appears that Alex Partu (based on his testimony) did just that, he used his resources to gain “like” votes; thus, he played by the rules.

In all fairness, I side with Alex. He gained the most votes.

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I side with him too.

Maybe Oscar could still win a little prize though if you want. I mean, not to give away your money for you or anything.

It’s just a little suggestion.

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Thanks for all the comments.

Just one comment to Alex, in response to his statement

“But , I just want to have an opinion about the comments on my video like “ you suck , your video is terrible …etc” I don’t know who’s behind them but I think it’s not hard to guess.”

When you put up videos on the Internet you can expect all kinds of comments, positive and negative. No big deal. I speak from experience.

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I think Alex should win the iPod because he did follow all the rules to win.

I also think that everyone who participated should deserve some kind of award from LingQ.

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Let’s say you create a sporting event to see who is the best athlete, but you fail to set a rule stating that you cannot use performance enhancing drugs. Person A is clearly winning, but Person B overpowers person A in the end. As it turns out, Person B was using performance enhancing drugs.

My opinion is:

  • Give the award to Person A, and
  • Change the rules for future sporting events

In this case, I think Oscar managed to significantly spread the word about LingQ because of the contest. He had popular YouTube polyglots voting for him and getting others to vote. His video was entertaining and of a high quality. In the spirit of the contest, I think that is more important than dubious piles of last minute votes. I had a look at the ‘score’ the day it was due to finish, and Oscar had a clear lead. I thought to myself, he is going to win, unless the competitor is in fact ‘cheating’ and has a plan to pile on some last minute votes.

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I am Oscar, one of the participants.

I don’t want to bring up again the issue of how Alexpatru got the votes (although to me it’s quite clear).

Some posts mentioned that we should pay attention into the instructions of the contest to decide who has to be the winner. In fact, it’s true that it’s written “the winners will be the ones whose videos receive the most likes”, and I agree with that.

However, I want to point out something that it’s very important. If you read the instructions of the contest carefully, you will find a section called “RULES”. In this section is written:

“Be original and have fun”

Only this sentence is written inside the section “RULES”. In fact, I tried to make my video following this rule. I want to make it clear: section “RULES”. It’s not a suggestion, it’s not an advice, it’s a RULE.

People in this thread say in their posts “we must follow the rules”. To me, it’s very clear that the videos which can win, have to satisfy the written rule . You can say that that rule it’s ridiculous or whatever, but it’s the RULE, and we have to follow the rules, as it was mentioned before.

My point is that the video which should win, has to satisfy the rule mentioned, and has to have the most likes.
In my view, the Alex’s video doesn’t satisfy this rule.

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I just want to let you all know that for this first ever LingQ video contest, given its international nature, obvious artistic value, and somewhat legalistic nature, we will be taking another 12 hours or so to make up our minds, pulling in experts from the Cannes Film Festival, Interpol, as well as retired former agents of the KGB and Securitate, the Guardia Civil in Spain, all of whom we found in a home for the elderly in Malta, and a few other even less reliable sources. We will announce our decision tomorrow.

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I have reviewed the original announcement again. It states clearly the only Rules are “be original and have fun”. In a way, the only contestant who followed the Rules was Oscar.

Alexander garnered the most points but his video is neither original nor fun. We will continue our internal discussions here on this matter after we wake up tomorrow. Your comments are also welcome. This is our first contest and we are learning our way.

But Oscar makes, in my view, a very valid point.

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I just wanted to add that if you click “click here fore more information about the contest” on the page Steve mentioned, it takes you to:

http://www.lingq.com/contest/

And it’s also very clear about the rules.

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I reckon that Oscar should win, because only Oscar took the rule seriously “Be original and have fun”

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Yes, Adrian, like I said, if you go to:

http://www.lingq.com/contest/

There is a section called “suggestions”. If the phrase “Be original and have fun” would have been in the “suggestions”, you could have take it as something optional, but it’s in the “rules” section". To me, in order to win, it must be obligatory satisfied.

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The winner should be a LingQ member. I do not learn Spanish but I know Oscar, Alsuvi, Peter, Adrian. ghenders, adalberto.
The first prise should go to Oscar. Patru could get 12-month membership, so we will have plenty of time to get to know him better :slight_smile:
And I just do not believe that a video in French could get more votes then the English one

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In my video you can find:

  • Sounds effects
  • Different angles of the camera and sections. In fact I made 23 minivideos, and I edited one by one to put them together and create the final result. It took me a lot of time to edit it.
  • “Special effects”, like trying the video to look an old video in some moments (black and white).
  • A funny character “The professor”, who was myself. People has told me it was hilarious. Me and “The professor” have a couple of funny conversations in the video.

I did this because I tried to make the video following exactly the rules of the contest.

And of course, I made the video having a lot of fun and in a positive way :slight_smile: