The Winner(s) of the 2014 Mix March Madness Webcomics Tournament Are…
…first and foremost, the Hero Initiative. Thanks to you, the Hero Initiative has raised over $700 to help comic creators in need. Thank you to everyone who contributed.
Second, all the participants in the tournament. We were getting widespread reports of traffic spikes at many sites, and we saw thousands of clicks away from our sites to various webcomics. We hope that you have discovered a few new strips that you enjoy and can follow.
Third, what do you think of our Ryan Seacrest impersonation? We spent a lot of time looking at him to see how we could stretch out the time before we announce the winner.
But we can delay no longer!
This last round was a biggie, with 656 votes for Paranatural and 612 votes for Grrl Power. But this round was also the biggest cash round, with $164 in paid votes coming in– even more impressive with votes costing 50¢ each for the final round.
But in the end, with $49 for Paranatural and $115 for Grrl Power, the final tally is 842-754 — GRRL POWER WINS!
Congratulations to creator Dave Barrack, and thank you all for playing along with us. Come back in two weeks or so for the start of May Mayhem, our NSFW Webcomics Tournament! We’ll be taking your nominations, and this time revenue from votes will be going to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund! See you then!
During the tournament was some disappoint about paid votes, mainly related to a feeling of being “unfair”.
It is not surprising because “purchased votes” has a deep negative association (like “purchased elections”) and is a pitty because probably prevented some people to donate.
To avoid this and rise up the collected amount, I have a couple suggestions:
– Do not use “purchased votes”. Use “popularity points” or something, having two ways to show popularity and GAIN points: likes and donations. Each like give the comic x points. For each dollar the comic gets to be donated to charity ComicMix reward the comic with, say, 4x points (or 4 likes).
Currently the feeling is the people purchase votes (bad thing) and ComicMix give the money to charity (good thing). The idea is to change it to the people does the donation (good thing) and ComicMix rewards it (good thing).
– Do not let the fans mistakenly thinks the meters are showing the final results. Have a BIG blinking sign “Donations being processed. Final results pending” or something the whole time. Change it to “Confirmed final totals” when proceed.
Unless the rate of failed donations is high you could even show the pending points to give an idea of the advantage and motivate the competitor to raise up the donations.
I think this will change the negative feeling of “purchased win” to a positive feeling of “good behavior rewarded” and will encourge people to donate. Also will avoid the disappoint of an unforeseen change of the (expected) winner.
This advice is free and open and you can use it as you see fit.
Hope it helps.