Well, not to sound all bitter, but THAT would have been good to know two weeks ago! You know, before all the people who've submitted on the last day spent these last two weeks reloading and reloading this site, waiting to see our entries.

How hard is it anyway to count off 60 emails in chronological order and mass-email everyone else with a short "thank you, but you missed the cutoff" note?!

I love your site, but this was unnecessarily cruel -- there was no need to keep me holding my breath until the very last second to find out my entry won't even be considered. Please give your loyal readers a bit more consideration next time.

Awww bummer dude. Yeah I agree, that would have been nice to know. But then again I was the procrastinator, so definitely no hard feelings. I've gotten a lot of inspiration from the stuff I'm seeing!

My entry was submitted on October 11th and still wasn't posted...

And I received an email confirming it was received...

I agree with "..." - how hard would it have been to list that small detail on the contest rules page?? That you were only going to post 60 and not all of the entries. Most of us wouldn't have bothered wasting our time. You could have closed it after receiving the first 60.
I also wanted to point out that since the East was all lumped together and the West coast was divided by North and South those on the West coast had an easier chance of getting their entries posted.
Yesterday's post where you stated: "while many were simply not as strong an entry as others, many suffered from bad pictures" simply doesn't seem like a good reason. Some of the entries in the past two days were just plain horrible - and so blurry you can't even see what's going on!
Very disappointing contest.

I, too, agree with these posters. Including a listing of (supposedly complete) rules and details in the 'How to Enter' section, but leaving out the rest of the information was a lousy way to treat loyal readers. A mistake that has *definitely* tainted my image of AT. Nevermind the glob of eyesores that have been posted lately....

ok... so now I'm a little confused. I thought today was the last day of voting and that the finalists have until this Friday to submit 5 more pictures and update their profile. That's what it says in the schedule.

Now you're saying that voting continues until thursday at noon? When are the finalists notified and revealed? Will they only have an evening to make a video and / or update their profile?

can you clear this up a little?

thanks!

Suggestions for next year's contest: make sure entrants know that they'll get an e-mail confirming receipt of their entry -- that way when no confirming e-mail shows up, the would-be entrant will have a clue that the entry didn't, in fact, arrive at AT Central.

Also -- the count idea would be helpful (like, how many have already come in so procrastinators will know that they're up against the cut-off).

And -- it would be okay to clarify that just because an entry is submitted (and confirmed), there's no guarantee that it will actually go up. I was under the impression that everyone's post would make it onto the website up through the #60 cut off. Editing is fine, obviously, but in the spirit of full disclosure, let contestants know that they might get edited out.

Finally -- not a suggestion, just an observation -- despite whatever confusions there may be, this has been a *most* educational month. I've learned a lot. Judging from comments, lots of us have learned a lot. And ultimately, that's the point, right?

One big lesson: I've been deeply impressed with more than a few homes (from all the AT sites) but must conclude that I still like my own best. Not that my home is better or prettier or more tastefullly done up -- I just really like how comfortable I am in it, thanks in part to all the good tips, insights, and resources I've gleaned from AT across about 6 months of sometimes obsessive AT-surfing, and in part by realizing that it's not less better or less prettier or in any way less good than the color contest entries.

That's worth a month of a contest, whether or not my post was eaten by the ether (which is apparently was). And next year, I'm jumping into the fray *early.*

Hey folks! There's just a few of here behind our computers doing this when we're not working other jobs and with each contest we've gotten better and better.

This time we did all sorts of new things to make it better.

We sent everyone a confirmation of their entry when we received it and we also told them that not all of them would be posted and that we couldn't say when they would go up. We also said on the site that we were not picking them in chronological order, BUT clearly those which had been in our inbox longer had a better chance of being put up.

AND some of the last entries we recieved were awesome and put up so there was no reason to think that if you did send it in at the last minute that we wouldn't see it or that it wouldn't be put up.

It stinks to have to draw the line at 60 and we totally understand some hard feelings, but bear with us! We're doing all we can and there's a lot of readers and emails out there to contend with.

Also, as we said, we're going to be posting some great entries that didn't make it in the next few weeks, so you won't miss too much.

To Amber: I am sorry you didn't make it up, but I totally enjoyed posting your new gray office in the CURE post just now, so I hope that kind of makes up for it..... ;-)

I too am truly disappointed. As someone whom submitted in the beginning of the month. I would have appreciated an e-mail stating " you will not be posting my entry". Not the garbage line I rec'd " about it all just being poetry etc..." This was a shamless attempt to increase your site viewiership. Shame on you AT....

Maxwell I have enjoyed watching you on "Mission Organization", "Small Space, Big Style" and over the past 3 months or so, I've enjoyed becoming familiar with some of the personalities who frequent the destination you've created here at AT.

I surmise your creation of this contest was for public relations; to increase the profile of your website as well as increase the exposure of your book. Assuming for a second that was not your goal (for AT), I am certain it was the goal of your sponsor CB2.

With that in mind, I can't believe a sponsor would want to be associated with a poorly administered contest. This is because as every marketing executive knows, sales result from buyer psychology. Unfortunately, unhappy (or more specifically, in this case disappointed) buyers translates into poor sales. (That's why customer service is soooooooooo important!)

I received the following message confirming reciept of my ON TIME submission from Justine Ryan in the East:

"Thank you for your submission. It looks like everything is here and if we have any questions we will contact you. Please do not ask when you will be posted, because the right moment is pure poetry.

-Justine"

If others received an email confirming receipt of entry vaguely worded like the one I received above, then I hope you can appreciate the extreme disappointment that has been expressed. Personally, I feel like I got stood up for a date or something. (But as a classic Virgo, I recognize that I could be a little more sensitive than most.)

The community you've cultivated on this site is savvy, sophisticated, well-informed, and for the most-part very deliberate in their approach to design (despite the diversity). As a result, it is no surprise some of the latter entries you received were some of the best. I know in my case, I was concerned that submitting poor quality photos could make my entry less competative. (Congratulations---a good sponsor motivates competative contestants! Don't squander that.) The result for AT was an increasing quality of your contestant pool.

Do consider the comments very seriously in your attempts to improve this contest as loss of such a classy public would result in AT and CB2 being the real loosers in the end.

An afterthought, it occured to me to leave a link here:

http://photos.yahoo.com/sci7teach04

of photos of my LR that didn't make the Fall Colors Contest and the rest of the room...

I don't get all the complaining. My entry was one of the last posted but I READ THE RULES and it stated that only 60 entries would be posted - at some point it was mentionned that over 150 entries were submitted and not all would make it. So I didn't EXPECT my entry to be posted.

Maxwell, I saw! Thanks for posting that. Like I said, no hard feelings, I know AT isn't the only thing in y'all's lives and sometimes I think expectations are way high (unfairly so).

Besides, I think a lot of people had seen those pics anyway. Next year I will be fully equipped, with awesome pics, and ready to kick butt.

Speaking as a person who has more talent in making the trains run on time than in choosing the right lamp -- and who has read the posted complaints from past contests -- it might be time to consider having an entry period (say, two weeks), accepting and sorting entries during that time, and then posting entries only AFTER the entry period is closed.

I'd also go for a brightlined choice between:

(a) We take the first 60 entries by date, and that's it OR
(b) There is an "in/out" vote within the AT staff for which entries get posted. Poor photo quality would get an entry voted out, which is merciful because an entry with really low-quality photos won't get a fair or useful assessment from participants anyway.

Then notify those who didn't make it, sending them an attachment with instructions to help them deal with whatever ruled them out (photo quality, not following contest rules, etc.) so they can feel good about entering a subsequent contest.

Finally, post the accepted entries in random order, with some minor tweaking to make sure all the entries on a given day don't have the same paint color on the walls.

If set up in advance, something along those lines would be a manageable system that addresses all of the complaints that I remember. It may actually reduce your staff's workload.

As an enterprise grows, it starts needing to rely on good processes as much as on good people.

I for one will be so glad when this contest is over, for many reasons. I also agree that the contests could be administered in a much more organized, fair way (and yes, I am a contest loser, so you can take my comments with that in mind). I am sure you all have other jobs and other things to do, then I suggest not getting in over your head - for instance, why accept 60 entries? Over the course of a month? Why not 30 due at one time, then take the rest of the month to post them, tally the votes, select the finalists, have one round of voting, and award the winner?

Now apparently the postings will continue to go on, even for those who didn't make the cut...will this contest ever end? To me, the current Cure going on is much more interesting, but it's getting lost in this contest.

I had posted similar thoughts on an earlier thread. Even 60 entries per geographical area is probably too many, but otherwise Wende's strategy is right on track: Screen through all entries before posting so everyone knows they are not guaranteed to be shown.

I can understand how this happened though, clearly the volume of entries was much greater than expected (since it was certainly much greater than last year). People who feel their entries were "better" than some of the ones that were posted (and I won't name names, but there were definitely quite a few that used very little color or were otherwise subpar) should show a little compassion, and there's always next year anyway!

hmmmm *shaking head*.....
a friend of mine who did get their place posted got a different confirmation email than the justine ryan one....so...needless to say .."We sent everyone a confirmation of their entry when we received it and we also told them that not all of them would be posted and that we couldn't say when they would go up."...is just not true.....
tsk tsk tsk

thanks for all your comments. While I have to say that our contest rules were clear enough in general and that I was glad to hear Kiminottowa say:

don't get all the complaining. My entry was one of the last posted but I READ THE RULES and it stated that only 60 entries would be posted - at some point it was mentionned that over 150 entries were submitted and not all would make it.

I UNDERSTAND that at this point in our sites history there are enough ruffled feathers that we'll just have to get clearer and clearer and stricter and stricter with the rules next time around. We shall do that.

But to those who want to throw us a lowball and imply that we're screwing around with people's feelings just to raise the traffic, shame on you! If you knew anything about this site and what we've been doing here since the beginning you would know that while sponsorships and traffic are important for the health of the sites, our mission has always been super steady: to support, inspire and help people to make their homes more beautiful, organized and healthy.

Our contests do provoke all sorts of feelings, but the goal of them is to SHARE other people's good work with you and this is the best way we've found to do it. We think it's worth it.

Hey, you *got* to the level where processes become necessary. Most adventurous, entrepreneurial inspirations don't. And I've never yet read a case study where the entrepreneur enjoyed the moment of having to get stricter with the rules -- it works against the management style that made the coolness of the enterprise possible in the first place.

Now I will shut up and go to work (corporate! not teaching!), where much of what I do these days involves compliance with processes. :-)

Thanks for affirmation Maxwell! One suggestion for next year's contest...

Can each submission be posted simultaneously on all AT sites? Some I looked at from other AT sites already had voting results and I couldn't add my own vote.

I just want to add my two cents: I totally understand how people would feel frustrated or hurt by misunderstandings in the contest. But I also really appreciate how hard it is to administer a contest like this, especially if the response is much larger than anticipated, and ESPECIALLY if it's not your area of expertise and you have another job. I enjoyed watching the contest, I appreciated that AT gave us an opportunity to peek into so many people's homes, and I think it would be useful to think of the glitches as lessons learned.

What I like about blogs are the flexibility and informality, which includes, in my mind, taking risks, doing new things, learning from mistakes.

Dear Maxwell,

I love Apartment Therapy and I hope you continue to put on contests. I have been visiting your site nearly every day to view the color contest submissions. It's been a blast! I look forward to more contests (and participating in the future)! Thank you for your hard work and thanks for being the best home design/living blog out there!

r

Matilda: on the other hand, having most of the focus on the colors contest has helped some of us who are doing the cure to feel a bit insulated from the fray and able to participate fully and honestly in the Cure process, which can take some guts.

ok, I'm not confused any more but I'd like to know (out of curiousity) when the finalists will be announced to both the finalists, themselves, and general public.

BUT, that's not the point of this post. I feel I need to respond to some of the posts here. Frankly, I AM confused at the attitudes of many of the contestants.

This is a contest, you enter it and hope to win. If you don't... well that's what happens in a contest isn't it? What would you expect if you enter a raffle? some kind of fanfair and apology if you're not a winner or a final contestant?

Kiminottowa is right on. She read the rules, saw that there were only 60 spaces in each category and hoped that she entered in time.

Ok, to be fair, the schedule and some of the numbers (10 or 12 finalists...? when does the voting stop... ?) weren't right on, but in general what was so bad about this? I understood, like Kim. I saw that there were going to only 60 entries allowed and I figured that if a place wasn't as good as others or had bad pictures it might not get posted.

That isn't hard to understand or accept.

I was also extremely disappointed to find that my submission had not been posted. As a "last minute" participant, I thought my entry had been left out in favor of those submitted in a more timely fashion, but yesterday I read that many late entries were, in fact, posted. I also read that participants had been warned that confirmation of an entry did not necessarily mean that it would be posted, another piece of information that was news to me. At the risk of sounding petty, I must say that I am curious about the criteria used to determine which entries would be posted, as some were, for lack of a better word, quite homely.

I agree with Carmen. In my opinion, some of the postings (and I'm guessing some were "last-minute") in the past few days were terrible. From someone who was not included in the contest, (the whole reason to submit and participate is so you can be part of the contest, no? Not just some narcissistic attempt to show off your home) I would love to know what the criteria were? My photos were perfectly fine. High resolution (I have a very good digital camera) and taken by my partner who is a professional photographer.
confused: Perhaps people are complaining because they didn't have a chance to participate in winning the prizes by being entirely excluded from the contest. It's exactly that - you enter and hope to win. You don't enter and hope that someone was in a good enough mood that day to post the entry you spent time preparing.

wow AT - this thing really blew up in your face...

I feel differently than those who say the contest has been too much. I love, LOVE being a virtual voyeur and peeking into all your homes. It's SO fun and quite addicting. I'd like to see every entry (sounds like we will see most tho, yay!). I wish there was ALWAYS a contest going on. I was introduced to and became a fan of AT during a contest and they continue to be my favorite bit of this blog.

So, thanks AT for the contests and keep 'em coming. And thanks contestants for all the inspiration.

I'm sure I'll get some nasty responses to that post but I think it's a legitimate question to ask what the criteria were. I love AT and visit weekly if not daily. I get a lot of good ideas here and do appreciate the website.
That being said, I do think it's fair to ask why some people were chosen for the contest and others weren't. Saying some people didn't have good enough photos and some people didn't submit on time are just poor excuses. There was a submission deadline. If you had your entry in before that deadline then you are within the contest guidelines and not late. They didn't choose the first 60 entries that were submitted. Looking at the entries, we all know they didn't choose the first 60 entries with good photos. Some of the people that submitted last minute were chosen and others weren't. How did they choose the entries?

um, I didn't enter, though I kind of wanted to, but I did vote on every entry diligently. I think I was a little bit afraid of the meanies!

I also read the rules, and I think the contestants should have read them carefully as well. That being said, I agree with Wende about an entry 'period' that opens and closes before any entries are posted. That way, the cutting down from 150 to 60, or whatever number will be chosen in the future, will be fairer.
It's true that in the last year or so that I've been reading this site, it seems that there have been more and more readers from all over the globe. This is a really good thing, but it also means that you have reached a point (to reiterate Wende's) that you may have to establish defined processes. Since you do have more than one contest, the SCC, the pet design, etc., a process would be helpful in the future. Maybe next september you could start accepting entries for the October contest?

heather - yes, good point about entering and feeling like you don't even get a chance to participate. That doesn't feel good and a simple email telling you that you might not be posted would have been good.

But, it WAS clearly stated that there would only be 60 entries per site. So I also understand that if I were a late entry (for example) that I could be in with 100 other entries (for 5 spaces left) that the folks at AT would have to cull through and select which ones will be posted. I'm sure each person looking at the entries has thier own opinion so possibly it is a "good mood" kind of thing but isn't that what visiting a site like this is about?

People are drawn to blogs not because of fair and impartial balance. They connect with the opinions, taste, attitude, etc. that come from the people hosting. The folks at AT have their sense of style and living and it happens to resonate with a lot of people. If they chose to leave an entry out (for whatever reasons) it seems to me that it would be more to keep the integrity of their views and thus reputation of the content of their site in tact.

... of course none of this may be true... I'm just offering what I would do if I were running a contest and facing the issues they did. :)

I have no problem with the AT people using their discretion to pick and exclude entries. That's their prerogative. However, sending emails to the entries that were not picked, saying:

"Thank you for your submission. It looks like everything is here and if we have any questions we will contact you. Please do not ask when you will be posted, because the right moment is pure poetry."

is just ridiculous. Please. Why string them along? Why not just tell them that their entry was not chosen? Because they would be angry and no longer come to the site? Maxwell says no...well, was it a snarky little joke on the part of Justine?

Well I think AT pretty much kicks ass for even putting on a contest like this. I think some people need to stop acting like babies.

My one suggest would be, though, for next time--post all entries at one time to enable fair voting. Just my two cents!

I tend to agree with Brooke... a lot of you folks shouldn't let this be such a big deal. It's only a contest! If it's upsetting you so much then I fear for your intellectual well-being in future endeavors of this sort.

of course my views come from a person who isn't involved...

Maxwell--I appreciate the generous mission of AT that you clarified earlier. I don't believe anyone at AT was intentionally attempting to screw around with would-be contestants feelings. My statements were meant for AT to fully consider the lesson's learned to improve the contest (since growth and success do have their own challenges and unintended consequences.) To think that the downside of poor PR shouldn't be considered because AT's mission is to get people to share sounds naive. But that's just me.

confused and Kiminottowa--Something does have to be said for clarity, I carefuly read the "How to enter the contest" document but I can't believe people didn't find Ms. Ryan's email to be misleading (although, I'm assuming unintentional):

"Thank you for your submission. It looks like everything is here and if we have any questions we will contact you. Please do not ask when you will be posted, because the right moment is pure poetry.

If Ms. Ryan had stated...Please do not ask IF you will be posted...

that would have made all the difference in the world to those of us (and from the comments that I've read here on the NY as well as some of the other sights, I'm not the only one) that received her message.

Good luck to all the contestants who advance to the next round(s).

all I can say is...thank god it's almost over.
I never want to see another orange wall as long as I live!

sjv - it's not almost over. It's just beginning apparently. Now we get to spend days meeting the judges, reviewing the finalists and voting again and again, plus seeing some entries that didn't make the cut. It's not going to be over for a looooooooong time.

A.Michelle - I agree that the email I received may have been misleading but then I read what was posted about only 60 entries being published when they got over 150. So if a ton of entries were sent in at the last minute, then how was Maxwell and co. supposed to know that they weren't going to be able to post them all? Between the rude comments posted to many entrants of the contest and now all this whining, I don't even really know what to say. UNREAL.

While this contest had its flaws, they were nothing compared to the vitriol regarding it. I wouldn't blame them if they didn't do another contest, which would be a shame because it's my favorite part about this place.

And for those people complaining about too many pictures of people's houses...why are you here? Isn't the whole point to learn and be inspired by others. Ok, so you're not into color, but how did they arrange their art, their collectibles, their furniture, their lighting, etc - you don't have to just focus on the color.

Geez people.

"Confused.." and I are going to get married & have babies.

and those babies will grow up to enter contests...

everybody look out! here comes the wahhh-mbulance.

seriously, people, i realize some great prizes were at stake, but lay off. realize that your own personal potential chance at a prize probably isn't maxwell's first priority with his new baby and all. sometimes life isn't fair, and maxwell and everyone at AT tried to run this contest the way they best saw fit. if you don't like it, don't enter next year or run your own contest the way you like.

So, the contest rules were that there were 60 places but they'd start picking people for those 60 places the moment people started sending entries in...

So out of the 150 supposed entries, if the first 90 were crap and the last 60 were all fabulous, then the most fabulous ones wouldn't win because AT had already started to pick their 60 out of the crap ones that came in at the beginning...

This is madness!! Who opens a competition and then starts picking finalists before seeing ALL the entries??

No wonder people are getting angry about this

and that stupid email that person received - "the right moment is pure poetry"?? - pure crap more like

Why couldn't everyone have been given a cut-off date - then finalists picked once all entries were in and then the piccies were posted for everyone to vote on - this seems like LESS work for the admin staff so don't give us that crap about having real jobs too - don't run the competition if you're not prepared to be fair and do it right

I'm just wondering if the judging will be based solely on the # of "insta-finalist" votes, or if all votes for each entry will be tallied & then worked out by percentage (which would be the fair way to deal with the fact that some entries have been up much longer than others)?

oop - let me clarify as that reads funny - I meant the total amount of votes for, let's say, entry #5 would be added up, and then their place would be determined by the percentage of their votes that were "insta-.." does that make sense? having trouble w/eloquence today.

i.e.
Insta-finalist: 302
In Contention: 172
No Way, Jose: 59
=56.6% insta.

aw, whatever.

and still no answer. incredible. what a sham. we're just called "nitpickers" and it's left at that. shame on you, maxwell.

Maxwell, and everyone else at AT - I'm sorry for all this crap you're getting and I just want to echo the thanks for all your hard work.

Whiners, get a life. Its so lame to read these emails with everything that is going on in the world. Good god have a little perspective.