Dear all,
Due to several questions we have received during the last few days, I would like to clarify a few points regarding post scores and competition results:
· Six hours before the end of the competition's Timeslot submitting a new post is impossible (not allowed by the system).
This rule prevents bloggers from posting and being voted (high) only by their friends.
· Posts always had a "blind period" after being posted, which means their scores were invisible (looking at your own posts on your profile page showed their status as pending).
· Voting during the blind period is what affects your user influence, since it's the only time your vote can be unbiased.
· Posts emerge from the blind spot upon:
o Lapse of the set time (see below) after the post has been published
o Or before if it has received a critical mass of votes
o Or at the end of the competition's Timeslot.
· We have recently updated the blind period to 24 hours, but it may still change as we are trying to find the optimal time.
So, let's examine the following scenario – two bloggers co-author a blog, 12 hours before the end of the competition's Timeslot their scores are 7.4 and 7.7 and they both submit another post. Both posts' scores remain invisible until the end of the competition, which also means their influence on the users' standings in the competition is not yet evident.
As the competition closes, the first user's latest post emerges from its blind period with a whooping 9, while the second user had a bad day and settled for 5.5 with his or her latest post. This affects their competition standings immediately and the user who was in second place, wins the competition.
So due to the extended time period, the competition is only ends at the very end of the Timeslot and surprises can happen.
As system rewards quality and frequent posts – the competition should be mainly about creating quality posts, not strategizing with the system; and the more quality posts you have, the less effect will those last posts have on your overall competition standing.
There have also been concerns raised regarding plagiarism, which I would like to address: BloggersBase is powered by YOU, which means it reflects your tastes, your choices and also relies on you to report stolen content. Almost all UGC sites rely on caring users to help with identifying and reporting such content.
If you see any stolen content, please report it (there's an action button on the top of each posts for this purpose) along with a url to the source and we will handle it immediately.
Several posts have been reported as plagiarism by users, were promptly checked by our content managers and marked as stolen content. If you haven't noticed any of those they look like the adjacent screenshot...
Posts that have no value, for example an embedded video from YouTube, without any relevant commentary and that is not just an aid for the post, should be rated very low! As long as the original uploader has allowed embedding, it's not illegal to use them, but if they are rated low, such bloggers will remain forever in the Goldmine.
Don't be shy, we encourage you to make your own decisions and help the bloggers you think are worthy, while voting low the ones that are trying to take credit or win without putting any effort in. If you spot content that is stolen, don't hesitate to report it!
