Harold & Kumar’s Money Up for Grabs

Okay, not really their money, silly. They’re just characters in a couple movies. But we’re coming in quick to the deadline for our Harold & Kumar assignment, and all ten of those $1500 prizes are still up for grabs. Get your video in soon. We’ll start picking the top entries a week from today.
Just for kicks, I wanted to share a great one with you guys. (No, this doesn’t mean they’ve won anything, or that New Line has picked their video, or that they are guaranteed to win. It’s just that I like it and wanted to share because it made me laugh and they did a good job.)
Featured: onespartan’s Obey the Master:
Tags: harold and kumar, new line cinema, xlntads, video, advertising

April 15th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Well the funniest thing - seems voting down got taken to a new level with the harold and kumar. the moment all the videos got posted in bulk at the finish of the contest someone went and clearly voted all of the unrated entries one star.
I am sure they probably voted down all those that already had ratings as well driving down their average - but to see 40 fresh entries sporting 1 star each early in the morning after the deadline - we now know for certain whats going on.
The fact is - you can get more hits on your video if its highest rated on the front page and if any of the buyers pick the videos based on ratings on this site - then it’s going to be skew to those who have heavy online social network to help vote theirs up unconditionally. that woudn’t be so bad - except some of them vote other peoples videos down on purpose and clearly even asks friends to rate other people they feel are competitive down as well.
sorry for the lont rant - but everyone creating stuff on this site has been watching this from the beginning - and it took on a new epic level with this contest! the only thing saving the bud contest is because the entries are coming in slowly - or I am sure there would be massive low-balling going on with the ratings there too.
Can people think of some solutions?
one star IP address limiter?
- forced private comment of more than 3 words to justify any rating and any rating with a poor or nonsensical reason gets that rating rejected?
- more of a weight for positive votes? (right now a 1 star sends your average plunging!)
April 15th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Thanks for your thoughts, miracle whip. Thing is, the ratings don’t really effect much, if at all. I wouldn’t sweat it. It does stink that people feel like it will help their chances if they vote other people’s work down, but really it won’t. Our clients look at the videos from a very objective standpoint and aren’t even aware of a vidoe’s votes. We built that feature in to the site early one, but have not needed to use it. We will be probably phasing it out, or making changes as you suggest, in the near future. Thanks again for your input!