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It feels weird spinning this as a wholly positive change, I think it's a somewhat minor downgrade, as waiting till x time to receive the reward isn't an issue, since the payout is once a month. I think this drastically reduces the readability of bounty pages and as someone who doesn't always have the time to submit immediately, it's downright disadvantageous :(

Joel's avatar

Thanks for the input.

Yes the payouts are currently monthly, but we're hoping that this change means that more people will be able to get to the payout threshold faster.

Plus, there will soon be more available rewards than ever before, so that when you do have the time to submit you have a wider range available to you.

JHenckes's avatar

I welcome the change, I think it's a bit strange at first, but it will make the site more dynamic and interactive.

I'm going to ask because I don't know if the system will be adjusted for this, but will we now see bounties that have less "rewards remaning"? It would be a way of letting people know which bounties are going to close without having to go through them one by one looking for the ones that will probably "be answered faster", you know?

Thanks in advance for your work!

Joel's avatar

Yep, with these evergreens the 'rewards remaining' count will tick down as submissions are awarded

Dydo's avatar

That seems a nice changing of ways for JA! There's so many closed bounties rewards that I would indeed had loved to participate, and many others I could've done more properly with a more caring deadline.

But I have a few thoughts:

Looking at the already published rewards, they are not showing the deadline anywhere besides the home page. In the future, it won't be a problem, but for now, what about the rewards whose deadlines ended today or in the next days? Like the Nightingale one... I'll have more time to submit? Just bought the game yesterday (thanks for october payouts!) so I can become part of the community too and was rushing into making an introdutory infographic.

Also, what a wonderful game, I was dying to play it and now I can!!

Moreover, I think the Kill of the Week rewards should remain deadline-based... don't know if they being changed too was unintended or something, but I think they work better the "legacy" way, specially because they summarize a week's community rewards and are reincident.

And the last - and more important - one: there's some rewards with "podium" prizes. How to choose a winner without a deadline? Don't think it would be fair or even possible, thus, these will still work like the old ones?

CMDR Henckes's avatar

Yes, the one with podium prizes is a concern for me as well! I hope that those bounties with high prizes doesn't disappear. Every single one motivate the people to do their best and gives us great content here in this site and other sites as well, like Youtube for exemple!

The 3 months deadline are great, I doesn't even bother to take more time to receive the rewards that I can receive, I would like to see more people trying and having time to do their best and I will do the same as well! Already had 1 bounty that I stop my work in the middle because I knew I wouldn't have time to finish it, and I refused to do it rushed and lose quality in the process!

Joel's avatar

The podium prizes won't be going away, although they will be somewhat less frequent.

That said, high prize rewards are not going anywhere - one of the reasons for this change is that it will allow us to run a much higher number of rewards, across all prize levels, on the platform at any one time.

CMDR Henckes's avatar

It is interesting the idea put imagining this in reality looks like it isn't so much positive. I see this motivating a lot of people rushing to do the submission first instead of taking time to do a good and great work.

For exemple, in Elite Dangerous community, the one I'm more active, it is common to have a lot of video bounties, I take so much time doing them, and I see a lot of people doing in last time, normally are great videos but it isn't a rule, so imagine some one spending 5 weeks to do a video, like in the documentary bounty that needed a lot of work, but when this person finishes all the rewards are already taken, and this person lost to worst videos than the one this person have made. And 5 weeks would be in the original deadline of this bounty. Now this bounty can finish lass than 4 or 3 weeks.

As an idea I had talking with some friends is that is common that a lot of Bounties that has 20 or 30 rewards finishes with a way less of submissions than rewards. My idea is to maintain the original deadline like it was, after finishes the rewards goes out as normally, it there is high rewards those are given as well and after that the bounties can be reopen with a new deadline for the rest of the rewards to be disputed.

JHenckes's avatar

I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think your point is very valid, there will be bounties where rushed content will really replace quality content!

Joel's avatar

That is definitely not the intention here - we'll still be holding a high bar for quality submissions, so anything that's rushed and not up to standard won't be rewarded.

Hunter's avatar

yeah true I noticed that too, I don't know how it can be fixed because it says " Prizes will be awarded on a first-come, first-served " , and It goes against this new changes where you have a "(three months by default) " dead line , this will give more time for quality work but less chance to win according to the work , weird change ...

Joel's avatar

You skipped the last bit, which is just as important!

Quality is still paramount when it comes to making decisions on which submissions to award.

Hunter's avatar

so it's not " Prizes will be awarded on a first-come, first-served " anymore , if that's true it's a good change. more time to review submissions is good too for participants who put time in their submissions .

Joel's avatar

As the post says, it's not just who's first - we are still considering the quality of each incoming submission before we decided whether to award it.

Hunter's avatar

OK that's helpful thanks

N

A little strange imo. I liked the time frame before hand because it meant I knew how long I had to make the video and could plan. Now I have to rush to get it done if more people start doing it. This is a risky change and I'm not sure if I'm for it.

N

Unless I'm miss interpreting it, I really am not sure about this change.

Joel's avatar

We don't want people to rush, and the deadlines are going to be longer than ever now.

Yes it would be possible for the prizes to be awarded, but we will be monitoring carefully to make sure that we have the right number of prizes available for each reward, and tweaking as we go, and overall there will be far more rewards available across the platform as a whole. So a net positive, we believe!

Dave's avatar

I don’t tend to enter bounties anymore, but when I was super active on them, the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones that felt like a proper competition with a winner, 2nd, 3rd etc. These really encouraged you to go above & beyond to try & get the best quality entry.

I have the same concern that this will encourage speed & quantity over quality. Let’s say there is a video documentary one, someone might be putting together an amazing entry and need time to get the quality right, only to see the entries coming in and prizes awarded. They are then encouraged by this format to just get it out the door as fast as possible before the prizes run out rather then the timed podium style prizes encouraging high effort and rewarding the best entries. (which you don’t know are being prepared when awarding other entries).

Joel's avatar

Appreciate the input, and it's a concern we're aware of.

As I've said above, we will still be prioritizing quality, so poor, rushed submissions won't take prizes away from entries which have had more time and effort put into them. Also, we will be looking closely at how quickly prizes are awarded, and thus how we need to tweak the number of available prizes as we move forward.

And there will still be some podium competitions when they make sense 🙂

Overall this should provide all our users with far more to get involved with on the platform, and a higher number of rewards available as we roll these out over the coming weeks.

TheGreatestBanana12's avatar

Does that mean all rewards will have a flat payout and there won't be any that have like 1st,2nd etc

Joel's avatar

No, there will still be tiered rewards - both reflecting different formats by which people can enter (e.g. text or video), as well as the 1st/2nd/3rd.

They will be less frequent, but still there when they make sense.

Horror and Cats's avatar

Definitely COULD work as long as the rewards pool is large enough to give us full time workers enough time to have a shot lol

Dave's avatar

I wonder if some sort of entry reservation system would work. Where you notify you are working on an entry and reserve a spot for say 7-14 days on the high effort video ones. Then you don’t spend weeks putting the content together & editing, only to find it’s all been awarded. Similar to reserving a space when adding concert tickets to your basket.

I can also see it discouraging people from entering as the bounty time goes on. If there are 9 prizes awarded on a bounty of 10, you aren’t going to bother starting to put together a high quality high effort entry, when the likelihood is someone will beat you to it that already has one in the works and is 90% done.

TheGreatestBanana12's avatar

I don't think that would work as it wouldn't be fair on someone who joins the site after you have the opportunity to reserve a place

Joel's avatar

Appreciate the idea, but then that really does become pure first-come-first-served, as there's no level of 'quality' required to reserve a spot.

Also the same cycle then plays out if people reserve a spot, and either don't use it or just use it to submit low-quality content.

TheGreatestBanana12's avatar

I think a lot of people are worried about all rewards being paid before they have a chance to enter especially if they are working on something of high quality and like Dave said it may put some people off entering if there only a few rewards left.

My idea for this would be to have a final submissions phase once X rewards are left a timer starts and any further submissions would get judged on the best ones just like bounties were once the timer has ended.

Joel's avatar

Totally appreciate the concern, and we will be monitoring how it impacts submissions and on-platform behaviour.

Ultimately there's 'risk' with either system: you could equally put loads of effort into a submission only for five 'better' ones to be submitted after you.

Similarly, with the previous system people can be put off entering if there are, say, five prizes available and already five great submissions, whereas this would avoid that dynamic.

TheGreatestBanana12's avatar

I guess there's pros and cons for both systems no matter what you do.

Lanah Tyra's avatar

For those of you worrying about people who take longer will miss out:

I don't think this will be the case, as there is already as trend of more people entering a bounty towards the deadline. So you might look at a bounty a day before closing, it has 2 entries and 10 rewards. You submit yours hours before the deadline so does another 10 people each thinking the same "oh it's easy win".

I don't have much time during the week, usually do my bounties on the weekend, even submitted to ones which already had more entries than rewards but mine was selected and not a few before me, so first come first served doesn't mean that entries below the required quality will be rewarded.

There were few great bounties like the machinima one which got less submissions than rewards available, and I would have loved to enter but would have needed another weekend to complete my entry. These bounties will be able to reward more people this way.

As the platform grows quick bounties which require only a short text or a screenshot will sweep up rewards quickly anyway, regardless of a deadline.

Joel's avatar

That is definitely the intention - we want to be able to set more Rewards than ever, and award more people and more submissions as we grow

Dave's avatar

That’s true about all the last minute entries that all come piling in probably for that reason.

I thinks it’s also true of human nature that you see a deadline that is ages away & so don’t bother tackling it until it gets close to the end. So this should move away from that user behaviour.

I know I’ve just been focussing on the potential negative effects in my feedback.

Joel's avatar

Everyone leaves their homework to the last minute, right 😉

Hunter's avatar

that's true as well :)

Lanah Tyra's avatar

It's not a bad thing to look at the negatives as well, good to look at something from more angles and then need to see how the negative and positive aspects balance out. I think it's one of those things where it will need close monitoring and adjusting at the beginning to get things right. Offer more rewards for popular content and have the right amount of the challenging ones for higher prices where truly only the very best will get rewarded.

Rixx Javix's avatar

I've always been a big "whatever the rules are" participant and as long as everyone has to operate under the same rules - I'm fine. I actually like the concept behind these updates and look forward to more open ended submissions, I know for me that I've missed out on some in the past that I would have liked to participate in simply do to time concerns.

Sturmer's avatar

I’m not a fan of the change, and I want to be open about that—please don’t judge too harshly.

Let’s start with an easy one: I can’t speak for everyone, but like Empen said - for me, waiting for payments isn’t an issue. It’s paid once a month and isn’t the main source of income.

For me (and possibly others), it automatically feels like this change will lower the quality of submissions. With timers, I had peace of mind and could polish my submissions over time until I was satisfied with them. This was especially true for bounties that required thoughtful input, like “Name your favorite thing and explain why,” which often meant discussing and reflecting with friends and colleagues before finalizing my answer. With the new approach, people might just google a “Top 10 Cameos” page and pick one randomly to submit faster for a reward.

Take the recent fanfiction bounty as an example. Yes, I submitted my work on the last day—not because I left it until the end, but because I took the full month to craft it. I scrapped several plots along the way because they didn’t feel right, even though they met the criteria. Then inspiration struck, and I ended up creating something much bigger than required. I even logged into the game and bought ships and skins to reinforce my story with visuals. I knew the deadline, and it was a very controlled, transparent environment that allowed me to focus on the creative process. Under the new system, I likely would’ve missed the chance or felt pressured to submit the bare minimum just to secure a spot.

With this “first come, first served” approach, it turns into a race. People are more likely to aim for the minimum criteria too, to grab the reward instead of genuinely sharing their feelings and opinions.

There’s also a discouragement factor, as Dave mentioned: if you see the bounty is 8/10 complete, will you risk it? Or will you assume others are about to submit and skip it? With the timer-based approach, once you submit, you can expect a fair review and still have a chance to win. Under this new system, there’s a chance the bounty might be closed by the time you return to the page. It lacks transparency.

Another, perhaps bigger, transparency issue is how submissions will be accepted or rejected toward the total reward goal. If a bounty closes automatically after accepting the first 5/5 submissions, and a moderator later rejects some, what then? Will the bounty reopen? And how will the community know—will there be a notification like, “Hey, the bounty is reopened with two $5 slots”? That could lead to the same issues I mentioned above: rushed entries or hesitation, as you won’t know how many people have already jumped in. It lacks transparency and stress.

Lastly, I’m not worried about moderators accepting AI or low-effort submissions—quality is paramount. I’m more concerned that someone might judge without seeing the full range of work the community is ready to share.

TheGreatestBanana12's avatar

The rewards get closed after all of the rewards are gone not by the number of submissions entered

Sturmer's avatar

Still a transparency issue. If submissions are processed one by one and then added to the winners’ pool, it creates a line of uncertainty: if there are 5 rewards and 9 submissions, and mine is the 10th, only 2 already reviewed while the rest sit in “unknown” status until a moderator accepts or rejects them.

and if was 5th, but rejected. Then you edited it, will you go to the end of the line for re-evaluation? Or do you get rejected forever for this bounty?

Joel's avatar

Certainly no judgement - we appreciate all the feedback, and will take it on board.

While there are pros and cons with both systems, we (for the reasons outlined in the post + above replies) believe that this one has more upside (plus it's not to the complete exclusion of time-based bounties).

I don't feel like the transparency is any lower here, nor do I feel like there's more scope for discouragement - it's just a difference in what data we're giving primacy to (time left vs. prizes left), and you could just as easily be discouraged by discovering a reward which already has loads of amazing submissions to it as you could by finding one with only two prizes left to award.

This change should allow us to offer more reward opportunities to more people, and across far more games and topic areas, than we otherwise could. Ultimately we feel that is a net win for our users.

TheGreatestBanana12's avatar

Could we potentially have the ability to sort bounties by the amount of rewards left?

Joel's avatar

Yep, that is on the list 👍

TheGreatestBanana12's avatar

Cool thank you for all of your responses.

What hasn't discussed much is the impact this has on staff, I always assumed that the bounty system would eventually become more unsustainable as the platform grew after all if it got to the stage where there are hundreds of bounties to look through it would be so time consuming it would mean there would probably be less rewards overall and with the time system it always meant that they had to be looked at within a time frame after the bounty has finished. This update will allow staff to be a bit more flexible in when they are rewarding people which could decrease chance of burnout and it will also allow more time to be able to run more rewards and be able to improve the site overall.

CMDR Henckes's avatar

Totally agree. That also doesn't mean that will have bad submissions, but it encourages us to make the minimal to create an ok submission, just to receive the reward before all of them are taken.

The works that we enjoy spending a week or more doing won't be so welcomed in some of the Evergreen rewards.

yan57436's avatar

You managed to transcribe what I was feeling, thank you.

Braulio M Lara 🔹's avatar

Very interesting

Life is changing , learning and evolutions definitely we are getting better and better 😊👍

jd-writes.com's avatar

With the focus on podium bounties removed, is there room for user-created bounties? Without the podium, worries about nepotism and such should be largely absolved.

Rich's avatar

User-created bounties are one of those things on our pile marked 'this could be great to build one day, but not today'. One reason for that is we feel like we do ok at listening to member suggestions for bounties rewards (that's going to take some getting used to) right now; we often run 'suggest-a-bounty' bounties to source them - which will now stay open for longer as evergreen rewards - and are always open to hearing your ideas any time, in any format 🙂

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