Modding The great MOTY debate

It would seen that the way the MOTY is being run has raised it's head again.

In the past I've throw a thread out there about hand made verses CNC and also the debate about case mods verses scratch builds rages on.

Also the voting system seems to be getting questioned again. Should it be in order where you pick your top 10 in order or just a vote as it was this years and it all gets counted up at then end?

I know there are plenty of comps where they break it all down into different classes of builds, is this the way the MOTY should go or do you think it's fine as it is?

Also a lot of modders are being sponsored these days as well, does this have an effect on the comp?

What do you think, air your views here guys........

And no fighting please

 

I personally liked that we were given 10 choices as they were all amazing mods. It was easy choosing a top 10 and if we were only given a couple of choices, then the decision would have been much harder and there might have been some mods getting way less votes compared to others.

 

Here's what I posted in the other thread, put up for discussion here:

I would just like to say that I looked at and was impressed by a ton of the mods in this year's competition, but with that said and even as a past 2nd place finisher in this contest, I did not vote. This was because of the 10 vote requirement. I only thought 4 of the builds were worthy of the title and as such I could not bring myself to vote for 6 other less than worthy builds. It's unfair to those that stand out from the crowd and leads to people voting for the ones they like first and the ones they think cant win with the remaining votes.



Personally, I think we have had plenty of MOTY contests that we could create a voting class out of the top 3 (or 5 or however many) finishers each year from previous contests. This would treat this prestigious contest more like the heisman trophy.

But I also dont want to exclude the standard forum users and otyher great modders who havent made it into the contest from their opinions either, so I think it would work well to have 50% of the voting weight from the delegated "MoTY Modders" and 50% of the voting weight from the general forum.

I hope you guys can come up with something like this, because I see some HUGE discrepancies in the finishing order of the mods listed here. I dont know what happened, but it's not in my opinion indicative of the best mods weve seen completed this year.

 

Can't say I have followed it closely this time but something that annoys me is Handmade stuff versus CNC, I think we should have secondary prize for best hand crafted piece for instant.

 

i think its only fair to have 2 categories; 1 for cnc based builds and 1 without.

Although cnc machined builds are amazing... this is out of reach for a lot of us.
In my belief they are more manufactured than modified.

 

I think that those in charge of the competition should be in charge of the rules and that those rules should not be questioned.

It makes those who won feel bad for winning something which isnt fair and it makes those who didnt win feel as though they have been miss treated in some way or other.

What ever rules get put in place should be the rules taken.

Scratch build, case mod, deep pockets or sponsorship aside.

 

I'll throw a spanner in the works now, some of the case mods are done on CNC machines.

 

True, but using CNC machines to 'mod' still makes it more manufactured and a hell of a lot more professional than someone with real talent. I know CNC based builds are awesome,s mods too, but i think that anyone with knowledge of a CNC could do similar work.

 

Personally when I voted I was more interested in the Scratch built over just taking a case and changing it.... That said if there had been one with a good airbrush job on a Case Mod (as opposed to a Scratch build) then I would have voted for that.

For me its all about workmanship. Sure CNC takes a little away from that but so long as people are aware when voting what it is that they are voting for then they should be able to take into account the difference (if there is any) in the quality of the Mod.

 

I dunno, CNC only ensures that the work done is accurate ( vs cutting by hand essentially, though even then I know many talented guys here & on r/c forums who do work by hand that is simply not possible with CNC ), but it certainly does not ensure the design, aesthetics & over-all finish quality are upto scratch; I've seen plenty of objects modelled using CAD software & items machined by CNC that look like they were designed by a 5 year old, with no real attention to style or form as such.

Anyway, I agree with the issue regarding 10 votes- I only wanted to vote for 3 or 4 finalists, but surprised to see I couldn't until I had selected another 6 or 7 builds to vote on. I hope for the MOTY 2012 contest that this requirement is addressed and the number of entries we have to select is dropped down to 3, or 5 at most- otherwise it makes a mockery of choosing your favourite builds if you haver to select half of the total entries with equal bias.

It would be better to choose just 3 say, or select 5 and have a points scale with the most points going to your #1 choice, the fewest points going to your #5 choice say.

 

I think there are 2 types of voters, the ones who look at some thing and think, dam that looks sweet and the 2nd type who look at what goes into a build. I find with me some times a build might not be the most innovative or had months or hard work poured in to it, but it just appeals to me. I know my style of modding doesn't appeal to every one, but from seeing comments in my logs quite a few people do like it. But I also like it when modders get their hands dirty and turn out nothing short of an amazing builds, then again you have the like of AnG3l who deres to be different and Slippery skip who turns out some of the finest wooden builds on the planet. Every one has different tastes and thats what is always going to make modding so interesting.

 

I'm having to agree with Anthony on this, although I don't think the best mods made it into the top 5, I do agree that it would be a great idea to involve the community.

As has been said many a time- it's easy enough to laser cut everything and slot it together. What the projects aren't also rated on is the type of person doing them, and the time, aspects and positions of the person that do the mod. I think it would be a great idea to get the modding community involved in the nomination of projects.

PS: I can survive it to a certain extent but I hate heavily sponsored projects. No offence to anyone here, just my opinion. It takes something away from the mod, what happened to "self completed", hardy modding?

 

Thing is Kid, A lot of people will have read the build logs and seen what goes into them and vote accordingly and some people will see the pretty pics and vote accordingly on them. We are all guilty of do it some times. I look at the top 3 and you can't argue, they are all top builds. No disrespet to the 2nd place build but if I was asked to go for a top 3 it would have been L3P desk, waynio and the tron build. But the runner up I would still have placed highly. So based on my line of thinking a lot of people were thinking the same way.

 

I can only come out and say that PERSONALLY, I think unsponsored builds are more deserving of a nomination, at takes skill to make a great case while keeping a budget for that and your parts. That's why I was so shocked not to see Jeff and Wayne in the top 5.

It also happens that I think project logs need to be read over. Like Alex said in the official thread, I hate it when a log is considered great because of some pretty pictures. People need to read the bloody thing, and see what just goes into it. I'll use refraction as an example, I took time to write that log, and more so as it was done with a family member, I didn't just take pretty pictures, and before anyone says that a picture means a thousand words, sod off! That shows the case, not the work, time and fun that goes into making a project like stealthlow or refraction.

PS: A lack of pretty pictures was the downfall of refraction once the project was finished, no more will, or can currently be said unless I get really pissed.

 

One thing about build logs that annoys me, while it's the subject.

A better camera makes better pictures obviously, stating the obvious. But those with vastly superior modding skills and materials can't always afford a spectacular camera. It sometimes feels like people look only at the best pictures, not the best mod.

 

Exactly, I have a good camera, but not the best.

 

If one wishes to put in the time and effort to learn to take good pictures and basic lighting setup, any small point and shoot, a cheap tripod and available light shooting can make your build photos look as good as 95% of the pictures on these build logs.

Not as good as mine but still enough to get over any photo bias...

 

But is that the point at hand right now? I don't think it is.
People mod, and they concentrate on different things, photos aren't even half the battle of making a great case, in fact, they don't go in to making the case at all.

 

Totally and utterly agree.

What I wrote about splitting up the contest into mods and scratch builds....

I'm aware of the differences between the two, and the different levels effort required for each of them. L3P D3SK won, so clearly others factor this into their decisions too. The fact is, I'd pick a well made, gorgeous looking case mod over a ugly and poorly designed scratch build, even if that latter took longer (not that this should even factor into it, as some people work faster than others). Are the people doing scratch builds really doing this to win competitions anyway, or because they love doing it and sharing their work with the community?

I agree that separate competitions would be a better way of doing things, but ultimately a scratch build won the competition, so credit is being placed where it is due.
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