Scissoring Contest!

[BlackAkuma]

Not that kind of scissoring.

So, I'm aware that there are a fair bit of scissor-enthusiasts on this board, or at least those who like a good headscissors or bodyscissors. It's probably not a stretch to say that most of us are least inclined towards a pair of great legs, myself included.

I'm considering doing a sort of contest in a couple months. The basic gist would be a scissoring contest, where LAW wrestlers show up at the beach and display their scissoring strenght in whatever way they see fit. It could be something as simple as crushing a few watermelons, or using their legs to knockout out a few (presumably willing) guys. Everyone who wants to be part of the contest would just have to do a post in the topic with their character displaying their leg strength in whatever way they see fit.

Afterwards, I'd hold a poll, and the board would vote on whoever they think had the best display, and she'd become the First Annual LAW Scissor Queen. Or something like that. Title TBD.

Right now, I'm just farming for interest to see who would be willing to participate. It's not a huge commitment, I think. You'd just have to do one post in a certain time frame (probably from the start of summer to the end, giving you three months) The only thing I'm wary of is the poll, since I know some people can be iffy about winning and losing such things, but I think it could be a fun thing to do. Thoughts?

[DSX93]

Not sure about the voting thing. I can see that being disastrous if someone puts a lot of work into their post, only for everyone to see theirs as the worst of the bunch. Maybe make it a dice roll?

And of course, I'm gonna stick up for the fellas and suggest that it's open gendered.

[Deskfan45]

You lost me at the first sentence. /s

Nah, I'd definitely be interested. I'm definitely opposed to there being a poll though.

[ThurmanMermanPlx]

RE: Poll, I guess it depends on how serious you want the 'contest' aspect to be?

Like, if you just want people to stroll in and drop their post for people to read just for fun, with no one really 'winning' in the end, and everyone gets to read some juicy posts as their reward, then sure, there's no need for a poll. However... it sounds like you intend for this to be a contest, not just a fun read, which I have more detailed thoughts on...

The poll has the advantage of... well, exactly what you'd expect; allowing the community to essentially vote on who's they think was best rather than leaving it in the hands of the OP or fate, in which case... isn't that kind of the point? Leaving it to a dice roll sort of kills any notion of this being a contest as well as any reason to put in genuine effort. I don't really see any other fair alternative that would allow for a winner of sorts to be chosen... perhaps the poll could be private, in a "DM me your favorite" sort of way, so only you know how everyone voted and no one has to see their post getting zero votes? Or, as I mentioned before, just let the OP (Akuma, given this is his idea) decide which one he likes best and no one else gets a say. Idk.

I guess I can kind of see how people might feel bad about not getting recognition, and I acknowledge that this is intended to just be a casual fun thing and not taken super seriously. But at the same time, I don't feel like "this may make some people sad" is not really a good reason not to do it? The point of entering a contest is to attempt to win it, but you have to know going in that your chances are not guaranteed, and if that's a problem, that's on that individual, not everyone else. Hell, that might even be more true due to the unofficial nature of this contest, compared to say, how people view belts or tournaments on this site which actually are meant to be more structured. That's the nature of contests - you aren't guaranteed to win.

I guess I'd be interested to hear more from people who don't support the poll idea as to why that is, and what they suggest as an alternative?

[Ichi]

How strict is the definition of "scissoring" here?

Would Fumie literally scissoring metal in half count if she used her legs to press the handles of a bolt cutter? The force would technically be applied by her limbs, although in that case, she'd be using a mechanical device to increase mechanical advantage.

Could Fumie use hand-operated scissors to cut some intricate pattern out of paper and say that she was so adroit with her scissoring that she can cut complicated shapes?

[DSX93]

Ichi's been drankin' again!

[Ichi]

RE: Poll, I guess it depends on how serious you want the 'contest' aspect to be?

Like, if you just want people to stroll in and drop their post for people to read just for fun, with no one really 'winning' in the end, and everyone gets to read some juicy posts as their reward, then sure, there's no need for a poll. However... it sounds like you intend for this to be a contest, not just a fun read, which I have more detailed thoughts on...

The poll has the advantage of... well, exactly what you'd expect; allowing the community to essentially vote on who's they think was best rather than leaving it in the hands of the OP or fate, in which case... isn't that kind of the point? Leaving it to a dice roll sort of kills any notion of this being a contest as well as any reason to put in genuine effort. I don't really see any other fair alternative that would allow for a winner of sorts to be chosen... perhaps the poll could be private, in a "DM me your favorite" sort of way, so only you know how everyone voted and no one has to see their post getting zero votes? Or, as I mentioned before, just let the OP (Akuma, given this is his idea) decide which one he likes best and no one else gets a say. Idk.

I guess I can kind of see how people might feel bad about not getting recognition, and I acknowledge that this is intended to just be a casual fun thing and not taken super seriously. But at the same time, I don't feel like "this may make some people sad" is not really a good reason not to do it? The point of entering a contest is to attempt to win it, but you have to know going in that your chances are not guaranteed, and if that's a problem, that's on that individual, not everyone else. Hell, that might even be more true due to the unofficial nature of this contest, compared to say, how people view belts or tournaments on this site which actually are meant to be more structured. That's the nature of contests - you aren't guaranteed to win.

I guess I'd be interested to hear more from people who don't support the poll idea as to why that is, and what they suggest as an alternative?

————

Been a while since this has come up, but yes, there have historically been complications associated with evaluating characters/posts based on subjective, community-based input. I vaguely recall there being some issues with character tier lists back in the day.

I believe LAW Apex tried to solve this problem by having Winner be the one deciding

Now, moving on to determining the Inaugural Champ. You may be familiar with The Slammy Awards that WWE does, or with the concept of awards and recognition given out based on merit and performance. The Inaugural Openweight Champion will be crowned this way. After the cutoff date (tentatively a year from the time this post goes up), I will select the finished match that I think is worthy of determining LAW's first Openweight Champion. And I will do a short thread where the GM awards them the belt. There are a few catches though, so please read carefully.

Despite the title being awarded based on my decision, your Apex matches and qualifiers still very much have high stakes. The catch is that the pool of possible Inaugural Champions, the pool of characters I can choose from includes only characters that win their matches at Apex. In kayfabe and IRL, your character is not necessarily fighting for a chance to be Openweight Champion. They are fighting to not lose their chance to be Openweight Champion, to stay in the running. In more malicious terms for people that like to play heels, you can think of the match as a chance to deny someone else the chance to be inaugural champ.

. I'm not sure how that went, and it might be useful to ask Winner for details. To the best of my knowledge, there was some friction regarding how Apex was handled—however, I'm not sure to what extent (if any) that was due to the "one person is the judge" factor versus some other complications.

I think the "play it safe" option would be to not even bother with a ranking/vote. Perhaps, theoretically speaking, it could reduce engagement to remove such a facet. However, I think that should be weighed against the potential drama that can be (and historically has been) caused otherwise. Moreover, I think it's worth questioning if/to what extent having stakes/recognition is necessary for engagement.

Now, as for this point...

I guess I can kind of see how people might feel bad about not getting recognition, and I acknowledge that this is intended to just be a casual fun thing and not taken super seriously. But at the same time, I don't feel like "this may make some people sad" is not really a good reason not to do it? The point of entering a contest is to attempt to win it, but you have to know going in that your chances are not guaranteed, and if that's a problem, that's on that individual, not everyone else. Hell, that might even be more true due to the unofficial nature of this contest, compared to say, how people view belts or tournaments on this site which actually are meant to be more structured. That's the nature of contests - you aren't guaranteed to win.

That's a valid point. "There exists a possibility that people could be mad about the results" is a true statement, but as argued in the quote, it's unclear if such is—in and of itself—a valid reason to avoid a poll. However, the reality is that people, based on past situations, can and often do get upset in those sorts of situations.

I believe the question of "should people get mad" is a "no", for a lot of the same reasons that @ThurmanMermanPlx gave. But "should" is mostly immaterial if one's question is "will people get mad/will there be problems".

I don't know if there's a good answer to the "should there be a poll to decide the winner" question. However, I think the decision should ideally use some sort of balancing test between the various factors.

[Ichi]

Ichi's been drankin' again!

*stabs DSX*

[DSX93]