It is with great regret that we have to disqualify designers BTC-Graphicdesigns, iawgoM and elianite on a number of grounds. These are as follows:
BTC-Graphicdesigns: The use of a Shutterstock image within the design means we must exclude her design as a whole. Shutterstocks terms [http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml] clearly detail that any images purchased are not for resale, download or distribution, or any other commercial use. Therefore - under strict copyright law - the coin design cannot be produced commercially by Coinographic.
BTC-Graphicdesigns received a very large amount of invalid votes (16 in total), highlighting the possibility of voting enticement. Additionally, various evidence has been put forward by members of the community also highlighting this. While there is no hard evidence to prove that BTC-Graphicdesigns has enticed votes, the abnormal amount of votes received - coupled with a sizable amount of these being invalid - allows us to, beyond a reasonable doubt, assume voting enticement was taking place on this entrants design.
BTC-Graphicdesigns attempted to reach an agreement with the other two vote leaders in the contest (iawgoM & elianite). The agreement was completely outside the bounds of competition. The purpose of this agreement was to try and manipulate the end result of who received the winning prize. While the three people concerned may not have realized what they were doing (as they CCd me in on the attempted agreement) we regard any attempt to try and manipulate the intended end result of the contest as an attempt at cheating and must disqualify the entrants involved. In the interest of being transparent we have decided to publish the attempted agreement in full on this thread.
iawgoM: iawgoM attempted to reach an agreement with the other two vote leaders in the contest (BTC-Graphicdesigns & elianite). The agreement was completely outside the bounds of competition. The purpose of this agreement was to try and manipulate the end result of who received the winning prize. While the three people concerned may not have realized what they were doing (as they CCd me in on the attempted agreement) we regard any attempt to try and manipulate the intended end result of the contest as an attempt at cheating must disqualify the entrants involved. In the interest of being transparent we have decided to publish the attempted agreement in full on this thread.
While the votes iawgoM received where within the bounds of our rules and from active accounts, we noticed an irregular pattern in the votes he received (13 in a row on the final day of voting). This is not the reason we have disqualified iawgoM but we feel it raises a suspicion of possible voting enticement.
elianite: elianite attempted to reach an agreement with the other two vote leaders in the contest (BTC-Graphicdesigns & iawgoM). The agreement was completely outside the bounds of competition. The purpose of this agreement was to try and manipulate the end result of who received the winning prize. While the three people concerned may not have realized what they were doing (as they CCd me in on the attempted agreement) we regard any attempt to try and manipulate the intended end result of the contest as an attempt at cheating must disqualify the entrants involved. In the interest of being transparent we have decided to publish the attempted agreement in full on this thread.
Its a real shame that these three contestants felt the need to reach out of the bounds of the contest to try and manipulate the end result. We feel there was a chance that any one of these three designs could have won the contest in a completely fair way.
The details of the attempted agreement are below; Hello Coinographic and fellow leading contestants;
Its been a tough competition, and the 3 of us are vying for the #1 spot as best as we can. Lets face it; it's stressful and hard on all of us, and when the contest does close and a winner is picked, there is no doubt going to be some very hard feelings and accusations of various cheating, friends, shadow accounts, bribery, plagiarism, and more.
I would like to propose a gentlemens (and ladies)
compromise.Currently, the structure of the contest is that the one with the most votes gets coin #001 (1oz gold + 5
BTC), with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place getting a prize of 0.25
BTC each.
My proposition is that we all agree a change to the rules as follows:
Nobody is awarded coin #001, but it is instead sold at auction by Coinographic. The proceeds of this auction could be evenly distributed between us 3 contestants, with the 4th and 5th place winners still getting their 0.25btc. I suggest that the 3 of us agree to forfeit the 0.25BTC secondary prize in exchange for getting 1/3rd of the auction price of the coin, which also saves Coinographic himself 0.50BTC in prize money for the trouble.Choosing the final design would fall to Coinographic, who might want to combine elements of our coins or freely choose one above the others. All our designs are great, and are supported nearly equally by the community. Perhaps we can even agree to all work together in a design group, but thats probably asking too much.
The auction sale would be calculated as:
Final sale price by highest bid =
(Intrinsic Value + Seller Premium + Numismatic Value) Intrinsic Value The value of the gold and btc; currently 10.2
BTC $5000US 3800e
Seller Premium The amount Coinographic would usually sell these coins for in order to make a profit
Numismatic Value The extra value for being #001, and having an interesting history from the contest and this compromise.
With these factors, I expect the final price to be absolutely no less than 15
BTC, and most likely between 18-20
BTC with a possibility of going even higher. This would leave each of us with
5-7BTC in our wallets. Sounds good, doesn't it?
Competition at this point is even, nasty, questionable, and unpredictable. Any of us can win, and the end result wont be pretty.
Benefits:- All the 3 of us who have shown a nearly equal vote count get the most gain for the least risk, instead of gambling on beating the other two and being winner takes all
- This coin would likely fetch a high premium, because the contest and compromise give a very interesting history.
- We all retain our dignity with the community, and avoid accusations of cheating, favoritism, and more whether they are based on fact or not
- Coinographic saves 0.50btc in prize payouts, and does not face the reputation damage that might come if the whole contest was seen as illegitimate and a failure.
- Nobody loses; 4th and 5th place will be rewarded normally. we are depriving nobody except the unknown winner.
This way we all win, and I believe it is in each of our best interest. I think anyone involved in the contest would agree that this is the best possible conclusion at this point.
Lets get a discussion going. Since there is little time left, I would like to say that we should all agree to this compromise within a few hours. If an agreement has not been reached within
24 hours (Monday September 8th; 22 BST (UK), 23 CEST (Switzerland & Croatia), and 5PM EST (Toronto, Canada) ) then I assume all bets are off and the competition will enter the final stage of voting. I think wed all prefer that not happen, but if it does I am prepared
Lets work together on this please 'reply to all' with your thoughts.
ok guys, I agree with elianite. I would do it the same way elianite proposes. iawgoM and coinographic its your call now.
I also have to agree with elianite that when this competition closes their will be a lot of drama, a lot of accousations against elianite, iawgoM, coinographic and myself. That what elianite proposes is the best way and will allow coinographic to keep his good reputation and also us designer will remain trustworthy in this community.
I think this desicion is the fairest and would also show the community what good sportsmanship we have between each other.
Excuse my english, I am not a native speaker.
Hi all,
here's my point of view. I must say that I completely agree that at this stage things are pretty messy, and they would probably be even worse when official voting time ends - no matter the final score. I do like an idea about some kind of compromise, but let's see some of the facts:
1. How did we get our votes?
We obviously all got fans, friends, supporters - I guess things are pretty much tied around here, so we can ignore this part, right?
2. Our "sins"
iawgoM - accusations of stealing ideas: using number 5 (doh?! I'll just ignore this one because it's mega BS), and copying Mr. BAU's idea of BTC symbols forming the number 5 - I admit it does look similar, maybe he even inspired me (not saying that he did), but it's not my fault that I have similar concept but done better than him and his gears which are nice, but maybe too complex with not so obvious hidden meaning...
elianite - didn't make his own photoshop design ("only" the hand-drawn idea). How do you plan to make final design in case your design is the chosen one? Hire someone to do it for you again? I'd like to hear from Coinographic opinion about this - this is not flaming, but we should all be aware how our "contractor" feels about this.
BTC-Graphicdesigns - using that lion head, without real confirmation that this really is your original photo. If it is from the Internet, it would be completely OK if you said "I bought that picture and I have a licence to use it, which I will forward to Coinographic in order to avoid any copyright issues." If this indeed is your photo, please send it to us and accept my apology for this accusation which I didn't think of myself, but people on the thread.
3. Current standings
I keep track of all votes, and to be honest, right now only elianite and me are in the real race. In case you haven't noticed, BTC-Graphicdesigns has almost half of invalid votes (new accounts or not active after July 1st). Both elianite and me have a few of those, but with number of valid votes we are quite ahead.
I admit, it is also very stressful for me, and the fact that one last-second vote can change everything for any of us and make the difference between winning it all or losing it all, is both exciting and risky for all of us. I'm also prepared for the "final run", but again, this is a lottery because you never know... I believe that if BTC-Graphicdesigns had some "big guns" (valid members), she would have already used them, so the real race is between elianite and me. Maybe I'm wrong and things could dramatically change in next two days, but I doubt it.
4. Final design
It would be cool if Coinographic would tell us which design they prefer and if they want to combine elements of different coins. My question here is: who would work with Coinographic on making the finished product? It could take some time until the wanted result is made. I'm volunteering for this, because in my (unhumble, yes) opinion, I'm most experienced with Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
5. How to split the reward?
With all of the above said, I'd like you to propose a different and more realistic percentages of splitting the reward. I don't want to remove BTC-Graphicdesigns from this gentlemen's agreement because of large number of invalid votes, but I think she should have smaller part than 33%. Also, what price should we put on the work on the final design? Of course, person who does this should be compensated as it's not fair that ony guy does all the work, but others get paid equally, right?
I tried to be as realistic as possible here. I hope we can all keep our heads calm and find a satisfying compromise.
Now I guess we should wait for Coinographic's response? Would love to hear what those guys have to say.
Br,
iawgoM
We have prepared a spread sheet detailing all of the votes and the reasons why any discounted votes have been discounted. You can view the spread sheet here
http://www.coinographic.com/VOTES.xlsx Without further ado I am pleased to announce the winners as follows;
1st Place Mr.BAU with design 16
2nd Place bonksnp2 with design 4
3rd Place bit0 with design 8
4th Place campycoin with design 9
5th Place (split) S4VV4S, Litecoincollector, Chemist-for-hire, Worldtreasurefinders, Cranky4uWe offer our congratulations to Mr.BAU and we very much look forward to working with him to create the final design. Our congratulations also go to all the runners up in the contest!
@Mr.BAU can you please pm us all your contact information so we can get in touch with you to start work?
To preempt the inevitable drama, we want to make some statements about the winning design concept;
1. The finished completed design will be in solid gold
2. The finished completed design will include an original box designIn a final note we want to say that our decision is final. We have spent a lot of time reviewing the votes to ensure we are being as fair as possible. No amount of complaining or protest about the final results will change our position.
A big thank you to everyone that submitted a design! We appreciate your support.
If all the runners up can please forward us their BTC address by the close of business on Monday 15th September, we will pay the runners up bounties.
Thank you
