So ...

[swervedriver]

Sorry for the delay. As you might imagine it's quite hectic on the business end of things, what with the Z2 release and all.

Since there have been several questions/comments on how the designs would look when fully implemented on the forums (and thus people having a little difficulty deciding which design they like best), we decided in agreement with the designers of the top 2 (#2 and #3) to have a short run-off vote. Victimlas is currently working hard on making the mock-up designs with all the headers and links etc in place, so you'll be able to clearly see the final result. Once the mock-ups are done, we will create a new poll between the 2 designs which will run for just a few days to decide the final winner.

So, we're almost there, please be patient!

At this point I'd say just call it as is. If you are going to do mock-up's, it isn't fair to the ones who aren't the top two. It is entirely possible that they may have received more votes if people had a better idea of what they looked like, and those top two may not have been the top two. It was a level playing field at the start, so IMO it is best to just call a winner now.

[Victimlas]

At this point I'd say just call it as is. If you are going to do mock-up's, it isn't fair to the ones who aren't the top two. It is entirely possible that they may have received more votes if people had a better idea of what they looked like, and those top two may not have been the top two. It was a level playing field at the start, so IMO it is best to just call a winner now.

Hey Paul, you raise some very valid points. Unfortunately, because of time, we were not able to mock up all 5 designs. Trust me, it wasn't because of lack of effort, it was just the sheer amount of work involved in mocking up all five. Some of the designs required different changes in the layout of the forum, including code modifications, so it wasn't as simple as just switching the header and backgrounds. It was basically building five templates from the ground up so they could fit in with the existing forums.

The idea to do the run-off was just because the top two designs were so close, only 4 votes apart. Definitely was not meant to be unfair to the other designs.

Thank you for your input! Please all opinions and input are welcome from everyone.
We are all in different time zones so please give us some time to discuss your feedback.


Victoria

A showdown between two and three is a good idea. And a fair enough reasoning for not being able to show all 5 designs beyond the templates provided on page one.
Whoever wins, it will be interesting to see how the forum looks once modified.

Yeah, I'm pretty excited to see how they look.

Still, it might just be me, but when I looked at all the entries, I just used my imagination to see what they might look like.

It's like a Christmas present. You know what you're going to get, but finally getting it is when it becomes a nice surprise.

It's more beneficial anyway because some of those were very detail oriented and said detail is lost on those tiny preview pictures.

At this point I'd say just call it as is. If you are going to do mock-up's, it isn't fair to the ones who aren't the top two. It is entirely possible that they may have received more votes if people had a better idea of what they looked like, and those top two may not have been the top two. It was a level playing field at the start, so IMO it is best to just call a winner now.

Hey Paul, you raise some very valid points. Unfortunately, because of time, we were not able to mock up all 5 designs. Trust me, it wasn't because of lack of effort, it was just the sheer amount of work involved in mocking up all five. Some of the designs required different changes in the layout of the forum, including code modifications, so it wasn't as simple as just switching the header and backgrounds. It was basically building five templates from the ground up so they could fit in with the existing forums.

The idea to do the run-off was just because the top two designs were so close, only 4 votes apart. Definitely was not meant to be unfair to the other designs.

Thank you for your input! Please all opinions and input are welcome from everyone.
We are all in different time zones so please give us some time to discuss your feedback.


Victoria

I understand why the mock ups for all couldn't be done. Skins can be a pain! I just don't believe a run-off is necessary between the top two.

Imagine you yourself have entered a contest, and by the originally posted rules you have won. Suddenly the contest holders say "wait, you haven't won yet," and change the rules.

A change of rules before or even during the contest is one thing, but changing them after the fact just doesn't seem fair to me to the winner, no matter how small their lead, you know?

^I do have to agree with Paul on this one. In the interest of the original established guidelines and voting methods, I think the winner should just be the winner without a run-off.

Okay, so ... what now?

We've had a couple of people wanting to see them skinned, but we have a couple of people saying that the rules were the rules.

Are we going to vote on wether or not we have a vote?

Just kidding.

Perhaps we should just leave it as it is.


I don't know.

I'm scared.

[Victimlas]

Just to clarify, we contacted the top two designs before the contest ended and we got the ok from both of them before deciding on the final vote. I know we didn't have a chance to announce it publicly before the contest ended, but the top 2 did know beforehand. The idea for the mockups came about because we wanted to listen to the input. Many comments asking how things would look and it made sense. Again, because of time and sheer amount of work, no chance to do all 5.

I have been working on the mock-ups and they are almost ready. I had hoped to have them up by now, but as with all things tech, something invariably comes up. We have a huge database and lots of mods on the new forums, which makes things tricky. Please remember that we all put our own time here to support all things DTP, and sometimes delays happen. Thank you for your patience!!

Ahh, that makes sense then. Well then by all means keep doing what you're doing.

Onwards and upwards!!

[Victimlas]

Mock ups for the Final 2 are up in the original post. Please vote!

Thank you again everyone for your patience! Sorry for the hiccups and hope the mock-ups give a better idea!

Doesn't work for me in Firefox 33.0 . Looks the same as the normal design.