Herald Competition Approval Guidelines

Dark Jedi Brotherhood

This article is part of the series: Herald Policies

Documentation

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Policies

Herald Requisition Limit Policy Herald Competition Approval Guidelines Herald Vendetta Dossier Skin Guidelines

Current Staff

HRLD Malfearak Asvraal

This page will describe the details of the requirements and expected guidelines for Herald Approved Competitions. Approved Competitions typically cover two areas: Cluster of Graphite awarded and Non-Cluster of Graphite awarded. What are these and how does one know how to submit a competition for each? This will be explained below and examples of how one may lay out their competitions will be provided.

Special Note: All of the following competitions must go through the Herald and MAA staff for approval before it will be available.

Important Note: If a competition is being submitted without the intention of seeking Clusters of Graphite, a competition archetype for that will remain available through regular channels.

Herald Office Competition Approval Guidelines

Cluster of Graphite Awarded

Cluster of Graphite Awarded competitions are typically those which require original artwork as the main focus of the prompt. So long as the prompt primarily involves original artwork, the competition may be Graphics or Multimedia under the Graphic Competition main selection. Not Regular Competitions. Also note that the competition must be connected to the Star Wars universe or the Dark Jedi Brotherhood to be considered for Cluster of Graphite. The image to the left is where one will start in order to make a competition which awards Cluster of Graphite. Graphics and Multimedia will be listed under the same option upon arrival to the competition creation page. Note that this box to the left also details that this provides Cluster of Graphite so if one were to question if they had selected the right option, note if you clicked the one which awards the clusters.

Once one were to click “Create Graphics Competition”, they will be brought to a page which has the contents of the image below upon the top of the page. Let us break down each step of this section below.

Title: Pretty self explanatory. The difference one may see is that a Herald-run competition will have “HRLD” in the title which means this is sanctioned by the Herald and being endorsed under the office. One may always ask if they can run a competition with “HRLD” in the title, but understand that the office retains the right to deny a request.

Start and End Date: The Start Date should ideally be planned in advance and not within 24-hours before the competition is projected to start. If the competition has a reason to remand and it is within 24-hours of the projected State Date, this may cause a delay in members being able to participate in the competition. For the End Date, the suggested run-time for DJB-wide events is 14-21 days. Competitions which run during a Club-wide Vendetta (i.e. Great Jedi War or Rites of Supremacy) may be remanded and/or rejected due to overlap.

Co-organizers: This is something you would sort out with your clan or house on who will be listed. Understand that the expectation is Co-organizers will be assisting in the grading or running of the competition.

Target Unit and Competition Award Level: Generally see the expectations for Competition Award Level established by the MAA Office. This is referenced under Crescents but have also referenced a rough explanation below. If you have any questions, always ask your Summit, the Herald Staff, and/or MAA Staff.

Tier	Target Unit
Tier 1 Crescents	DC-run DJB-Wide Competitions
Tier 2 Crescents	Non-DC DJB-Wide Competitions
Tier 3 Crescents	Clan Competitions
Tier 4 Crescents	House Competitions
Tier 5 Crescents	Battle Team Competitions

Competition Type: Graphics and Multimedia are combined and there is only one option.

After this is filled in, the next section is the actual Competition Details. Let us move on and discuss these details.

Public Competition Details: This section should have the following details: The Prompt, The Grading Criteria, and The Instructions. All of these will be discussed further, but currently we are discussing the sections as an explanation.

Subscriber Competition Details: This section is for details that will not appear until the member subscribes to the competition. Any details that are to be hidden until that time should be placed here.

Competition Settings: All of these should be self explanatory. Be sure to ask your Summit, the Herald Staff, or the MAA Staff if you have questions on what settings you should pick for your specific competition.

The next and final part is the Graphics Difficulty Class selection.

Difficulty Class is unique to Graphics competitions, specifically those which award Cluster of Graphite. They are created as a way to incentivize complex prompts but also give those members of lower skill level the ability to compete for placements without being overshadowed by their peers. There are three difficulties described below: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. All of these modify the amount of points granted to each placement which go towards ranking up in the graphics society. The Herald has the final say on approving prompts and placing them within designated difficulty classes.

Important note: While these competitions govern competition prompts, no member will be penalized or in any way obstructed from participating in any given competition, no matter their perceived skill level.

Breakdown of the Classes:

• Beginner difficulty: Beginner difficulty competitions are meant to have very simple competition prompts which do not require an overabundance of skill to compete in and win. This would be prompts that ask members to draw with stick figures, very simple sketches, or any competition which provides premade assets such as 3D models, doll makers, or a stencil to color. If you are looking to make your competition very simple and fun, select Beginner difficulty. Beginner difficulty multiples points granted towards Society ranks at a rate of 0.75.

• Intermediate difficulty: Intermediate difficulty competitions are meant to be the majority of graphics competitions run in the Club. These prompts include, but are not limited to, more complex sketching of characters, places or events in the DB lore; creating full colored images of any theme; creating complex 3D models, and others. If you are looking to make your competition challenging and you wish to give participants more creativity, select Intermediate difficulty. Intermediate difficulty multiples points granted towards Society ranks at a rate of 1, meaning it gives the flat number of points shown on the points table of the graphics society.

• Advanced difficulty: Advanced difficulty competition prompts are meant to be very challenging for everyone who participates. It may include complex requirements such as drawing a fully detailed, fully colored landscape; or creating a multi-character, multi-panel comic book. If you are looking to make your competition very hard and time consuming, or wish to give participants a major challenge, select Advanced difficulty. Advanced difficulty multiples points granted towards Society ranks at a rate of 1.25.

Hopefully all of this breakdown has assisted in better understanding of how to make a Graphic Competition. The next section will detail the Required Elements of the competitions.

Required Elements

The Prompt: For DJB-wide events, prompts must be applicable and of interest to the entire Brotherhood. This means that one may not specify or offer different options for individual clans as this might give members of one clan an advantage over another. The Prompt should be very clear and distinct from The Instructions. The Prompt is usually a very specific or far more specific than vague indication on what one is looking for in the art created by the member. Example would be “I task you to create an original piece of artwork which details an emotionally driven moment your Main or ALT character has experienced during the War”.

The Grading Criteria: The Grading Criteria is there to tell the member what you will be grading their artwork on. One should include examples of appropriate Grade Criteria: The [1], Humorous to Grader, Most Creative Medium used (if allowing crafts), etc. These grading criteria must be stated in the public details portion of the competition. Note that the Herald Grading Rubric is not required but grading criteria of some kind is required.

The Instructions: The Instructions should be very clear what is expected, what is not expected, what will disqualify someone, and what are they required to include. One making a competition must include a special note in the rules that specifies the requirement of citing sources used in the submission. See the example just below.

Special note: Any photo-manipulation artwork or multimedia project containing fair-use images must include links to source images and credit links to original authors to be considered valid. Disqualifications or invalid entries will not be granted clusters.

Documentation and Feedback - When DJB wide events are being judged, the grading rubric must be filled out for each entry. These will be subject to verification by Herald Office staff as needed. They should also be made available to those seeking feedback on their work.

Organizer help

Graphics competition template

This is a standardized template the Herald staff has provided to help members in making their own competitions:

  *Prompt: (Include the Prompt here. Be clear and as detailed as you need to be in order to be sure members understand what you want them to draw)
  *Other Important Information: (Include other details which may be important to the member such as links to wikipedia pages of Clan/House related material, etc.)
  *Formats: .PNG, .JPG, .PDF
  *Useful Tools: GIMP, Photoshop, Krita, Paint Tool Sai
  *Grading Criteria: (Include whatever you will be grading each entry against, i.e. the Herald Graphics Grading Rubric.)
   Note: All entries must be original artwork and if any resources are used which are not original must be cited in the submission box.

Non-Cluster of Graphite Awarded

So how does one make a Regular Competition which has Graphics/Multimedia but does not award Cluster of Graphite? Well the simple answer is the same way any other competition is made in which it would not be normally submitted for clusters. A few examples in which one may submit a Regular Competition which will not be awarded would be Meme creation or Battleplan competitions.

Again if one has any questions on the competition creation process, please contact your Summit, the Herald Staff, and/or the MAA Staff.