Borderlands Haiku Contest Winner!
The dust has settled on our Borderlands haiku contest and a clear winner has emerged. Not only did they write a Borderlands themed haiku, but six of them! All six were put together in a single poem entitled "Character Countdown." Congratulations, VoiceofGosh for your award winning haiku collection which everyone can read below.
Character CountdownCharacter countdown
Get to know this fine quartet
Fun times much? You bet!Hunter Mordecai
Bloodwing is his deadly pet
Head shots = hawt!!!Lilith the Siren
One sexy sixth of her kin
A Goddess of TimeRoland the Soldier
The defensive healing hunk
A Crimson AngelBrick the *Bear*serker
Ironclad and oh so bad
Muscled Melee ManThank you for your time
Hope you liked this little rhyme
That copy is mine!
Thanks to everyone who entered for your creative an imaginative entries!
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 22 October 2009
· Comments (56)
Other stuff like this: 2k games, borderlands, contest
Shenanigans!
Seriously...not sourgrapes. Unfair.
Other people FOLLOWED THE RULES and LIMITED themselves to a single haiku! This is unfair to the max.
Such bullshit. You need to make the rules clearer next time because this ONE person was the only one to submit more than one haiku so obviously EVERYONE else thought there was a limit...probably because you asked for ONE HAIKU.
This is like holding a contest to build something of macaroni and then giving the prize to the kid who used legos.
You should have known better, Fruit Brute. Other people weren't being lazy or less creative...they were following the (read: your)instructions.
Wow. What a loaded competition. Do you think that VoiceofGosh is just some genius and the rest of us were too stupid and lazy to write more than one haiku? If everyone knew you meant "write as many haikus as you want" when you said "write a haiku" they probably would have put a little more effort into it.
I don't even think my haiku deserved to win. I only submitted it as a joke. But there were a lot better haikus than the six submitted by VoiceofGosh and I think someone who put effort into one haiku instead of six should have won.
I guess we will know better next time.
Grats VoiceofGosh :)
And maybe only one of those haiku's won it for 'em? I'd give it to the Brick haiku!
Even if one haiku won it for him, he still had multiple submissions while everyone else had only one. Still unfair.
Yeah, I'm usually not one to call wolf, but this is kind of unfair. There were other haikus that were more creative and I'm sure those people would have been happy to extend theirs if they knew it would help.
What Mike said, except in place of "those people," "theirs" and "they," put "I," "mine" and "me."
Oh calm down, it's not that big a deal. He didn't say you were allowed to write only one. Thinking outside the box actually pays off sometimes.
"Here are the rules: create an original haiku using Borderlands as the theme and post it in the comments section of this article."
Joshua is pissed.
"a haiku" means "a haiku,"
Not "haiku-shaped thing."
Exactly.
But I guess something like this is to be expected of a competition coming from Gaygamer.
Yeah...all those people who are using steroids are just thinking outside the box.
An unfair comparison perhaps...but the principle is the same.
What's the difference?
Fruit Brute's decision will stand
Unfair though it is.
Fruit Brute is a twit.
Want to get his attention?
Shiny things will do.
If I may suggest
That his next competition
Stick to the rule book
Sore loser? Maybe.
But reading comprehension
Should be rewarded.
Know who should be mad?
All of the people who write
The phone book. It’s long.
Where is their copy?
This shit is not hard, Fruit brute.
When there’s no limit.
Minimalism
Is a skill—it takes some tact.
You wouldn’t know that.
GG’s going down
Quantity not quality
explains quite a lot.
I enjoy Haiku
Competition was still fun
But a thought plagues me
If I had realized
More than one Haiku was fine
You would have seen more.
Perhaps the next time
Rules that are clear and concise
Will save you headaches.
Very well said, you guys.
Any point is in reach, sans cap.
I want a sandwich.
That wasn't haiku,
but it had more syllables,
which means it's better.
Gaygamer is joke
Editors can't even spell
What did we expect?
Wait...you posted something that wasn't a haiku?
Add a few more sentences and I think we'll have a new winnar!!
Jesus christ.
Free contest for a video game and some people didn't win. What's the best way to react? Personal attacks, obviously.
/eyeroll
Anger does nothing.
Bitterness holds people back.
Better luck next time.
I'm tired of haikus.
Morality essay… yeah.
That should be next test.
It's not that we didn't win, it's that the competition was not fair. Like I stated earlier I only submitted my haiku as a joke. Does someone who quotes Bring It On really expect to win a competition? It's that the rules weren't clear and it cheated a lot of people out of a fair contest.
It doesn't matter what it is, some of you have behaved like disgusting children and ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Thank you!
All these people keep ignoring the real point that it wasn't a fair competition.
For goodness's sake, Fruit Brute is up there going on about how this guy is the clear winner because he did six haikus...well the rules said one ("an haiku") people would have posted more than one if we thought we could.
Go take a look at the entries. This isn't just a small group of people who didn't bother submitting more than one haiku...the vast majority only entered one and that tells you what people thought the rules were. One haiku per person.
Like I said before it's like holding a contest to build something out of macaroni pieces and then giving the prize to the kid who used legos. Unfair.
Oh and mixvio...we are just thinking outside of the box. Jeesh!
We played by the rules and were penalized for it and now we're pissed...we have nothing to be ashamed of.
"shame" is a pretty strong rebukement for some behaving like "disgusting children." It's also not a dismissal of the concerns we have that the contest rules were unclear, and neither is "better luck next time."
The rules and general understanding of the rules would make the implication that the winning entry was self-disqualifying, and aware of it, no less. The issue at hand is not "we all lost," it's "there was a lack of clarity surrounding the policies." And the editorial staff's assertion that nobody here was jilted is nothing if not an extra insult to those who are angry.
Somebody made the argument that this is a free website and we shouldn't be upset about Brutus's decision in the matter. That's an argument based in the assumption that gaygamer operates out of charity. While nobody pays to read the articles on here, the senior GG staff is able to use its readership as leverage. Case in point: I'm willing to bet that the copy of Borderlands being given away was not purchased out-of-pocket by Brute. If that's true, then it was a press copy, given to GG because it has — what? — a readership.
A readership that feels angry because of the present circumstances.
Josh Bourgeois, you're my hero.
Sadly, this articulate, effective response will be ignored by the mixvios and buried under their shouts of "Get over it!"
Also, the editors. It will be ignored by them too.
If you had been one-tenth as calm and articulate, TBS, as Josh Bourgeois instead of lobbing insults because you didn't get a new toy, then the framework of this discussion would be in a much different place than it is right now. You and the others who pitched a fit in a similar fashion might want to take that to heart the next time you want to raise concerns about an issue; behaving like a baby doesn't garner respect from most adults.
Thanks for proving my point, mixy!
;)
Good point to TBS, mixvio. Now if you'd like to address what I said...
I didn't even enter this contest and I have to agree with those who are annoyed over the matter. A rule is a rule. The winner didn't follow those rules and as such shouldn't have won. Instead he's rewarded not only with the game but also with remarks from the host of the contest that he pretty much "went above and beyond expectations". Not a real quote but that's the idea behind the post itself. And while some people might have acted childish, it becomes absurd that any other poster, be it a writer for the site or not, continue to harass the person about his attitude. Makes you no better.
While I'm not going to write a haiku expressing my disappointment for not winning, I am going to express my disappointment in losing to a none-haiku submission.
The rules clearly stated a haiku and explained what it was. The winner didn't write a haiku! However, now I know to disregard the rules of game.
Shame on you, mixvio. TBS may not have been as tactful as you'd like but don't attack your readership. This is a somewhat narrow community. The tasteful thing to do, as an example and a moderator of this site, would have been to address the criticism with a little more grace or keep quiet. Instead you dropped right down to the level you are upset about and called people 'disgusting' and 'babies.' Surprising.
I'm not a moderator of anything, which should be something frankly some people should be thankful over, since if it was up to me their participation in future contests would be the least of the things up for questioning.
Sorry, no one here has to take any abuse or insults. Attacking Fruit Brute was beyond the pale, and if someone is acting like a baby, I'm going to call them a baby. People can provide their opinions in whatever manner they like, and myself and anyone who writes for the site can reply as well. If you believe I owe anyone here anything that requires that sort of nastiness and hostility to be taken with a smile and gratitude, I hope I've sufficiently corrected that misunderstanding for you.
It is a narrow community, one provided for in the spare time and out of pocket by the team who owns this website and the writers who write for it. The shameful and pathetic attitude by a handful of people throwing a tantrum and insulting not simply Fruit Brute but the entirety of staff because they lost a contest is shocking, and spits in the face of what this site is here for. No one here has to be thankful for being on the receiving end of that nor is that any sort of "readership" I personally feel we need to cater to.
Nevertheless, as I said, I don't dictate policy on this site. And this is the last I'm going to say about it because obviously some people are determined to justify their attitude problems and terrible behavior at all costs.
You're still missing the point, Mix. Nobody here is upset that they lost. We're upset that the contest was decided unfairly. The prize hasn't been the point since the first post; the perceived shenanigans have been.
What I'm about to say will hopefully not be a shock to you, or any others running the site, but if you're in a position where your opinion is going to be heard, prepare to be disliked. If you're in a position where your opinion is going to be on the Internet, prepare to be flamed. Because every last person with a keyboard is, at heart, an idiot, and they're going to yell at somebody.
That's perfectly fine, Josh. And accordingly, if you share an opinion online, especially in an insulting capacity, prepare to have it replied to. Pulling the cop out of "my god, you're not allowed to be affronted, don't disparage your readership!" is ridiculous. Nobody has been prevented from being as insulting as they want to here, much as I probably would disagree if it was up to me, and as such it's absurd for anyone here to act like it's fine and good for readers to be insulting, but the staff can't say anything about it. This isn't directed at you specifically but rather the sentiment that the staff ought to simply be punching bags and enjoy it because we're in some debt to the readers.
I'm not missing the point. However unfair you think the decision is is still no justification for the bad attitudes and insults. And unless you're making the argument somehow that Fruit Brute and the winner are in some unfair collusion to "fix" the contest then "shenanigans" is pretty ridiculous too. You've been pretty civil, but your reasonable issues have been drowned out by the wailing and screaming.
I'm sure that any future contests will take the time to spell out any and all points of confusion so there's no issue about this again. But if people had wanted to complain about a misunderstanding of the rules, there were significantly better ways to do that without throwing tantrums. I'm not sure what anyone who went immediately for the personal attacks thought they were going to get accomplished by acting that way.
mixvio, my point was never that the owners of this site should be allowed to be disrespected, I think it's awful that some people would sling mud and name call the way they did. My point was that if someone has something to say, particularly your readership, they should do it with tact and grace, as Josh did. Unfortunately, a lot of the posts failed to do that, including yours. You might not consider yourself a moderator of this site, but as someone who posts their stories you're still in a more highly visible position than the rest of us. I just found it disparaging the way you attacked your readership, which yes, I understand from your previous post isn't that high priority to you. After all, I'm sure the site would go far without any readership at all.
The segment of the readership that can express critical opinions in an adult-like capacity with rationality and respect, even when I don't agree with them-- those people are a high priority for me. The ones who lack the capacity to do that and instead feel the need to express their points of view by insulting others don't garner much of my respect. I don't think that's a foreign reaction, nor do I think I've "reached" any level. I didn't call TBS a "twit," for example, which was more respect than he afforded Fruit Brute.
If you find my relatively civil responses expressing shock at the nastiness from some people to be attacking the site's readership as a whole, I guess I'll just have to accept that. I will not, however, make any apologies for expecting some better manners from some people. I personally thought it was pretty obvious what behavior I personally had a problem with. Phrasing my complaints as a dismissal of the readers as a whole is an intellectually dishonest strawman.
Oh, Mixy, you flip-flop more than a fish on dry land.
I would have called Fruit Brute a disgusting baby (since you seem to think that's better than twit somehow) but it had too many syllables.
Besides it was a friggin haiku! A haiku meant to express the point that writing a long haiku isn't hard or particularly creative. And I called him a twit (Webster's definition: an annoying person---so harsh!) because only a twit would reward someone for not following the rules. It's clear to anyone who's not a twit that the vast majority (all except one) of people who entered the competition thought they had to submit just one haiku. When presented with such a situation, most people err on the side of caution. Twits don't.
I can lose quite gracefully...but not when the cards are stacked against me.
Eh, who cares if it's one or a million haikus, a winner was picked. If you want completely fair, a random number generator picking a random post is the fairest. I see any contest based on a single person's opinion on a topic as random as haiku as being only slightly less arbitrary than a random number generator and quite a bit more entertaining.
Though, in goes without saying that my entry should have won. =p
Fruit Brute was trying to do a nice thing for the readers. He wanted to give away a copy of a game and do so in what he thought would be a fun way, by having readers submit haikus. Because he did not have pages and pages of rules written in official contract language, some people are now upset that they didn't have what they feel is a fair chance of winning. The tone of the complaints, however, took what should have been a little spontaneous contest and removed any shred of fun from it.
The rules, as stated, were certainly vague enough that Fruit Brute's choice of winner is reasonable. "Create an original haiku" does not mean "Create one and only one original haiku." The indefinite article ("a" or "an") is often used existentially, meaning "at least one." The winner did indeed write an original haiku -- in fact, he wrote six of them. Reading comprehension, indeed. The analogy regarding macaroni and Legos is completely off. A better analogy would be "Create a piece of art using a piece of macaroni" and some kid used multiple pieces of macaroni (which, by the way, fulfills the requirements of "using a piece of macaroni"). The winner did not win for creating a sonnet, or a limerick, or a rondeau, or a "long haiku".
If you want the contests to have more legalistic rules, that's your opinion, I suppose. I would rather let the guys have enough flexibility than they can make a contest on the spur of the moment without having to run everything through a team of lawyers. In the end, I like that Fruit Brute was able to pick what he thought was the best submission, even if it didn't fit with some people's interpretations of a very vague set of rules. I can always get my legalese fix from Microsoft, Blizzard, McDonald's, Pfizer, Time-Warner, the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Apple, Sony, Nintendo, etc., etc.,etc.... In the future, I would suggest that If you can't live with the ambiguity of the rules of a contest, then don't enter the contest.
As for the personal attacks, Mixvio is right... they are completely uncalled for, and I think the staff has been remarkably restrained in dealing with them. The vitriol and petulance had already been dialed up to eleven before any of the staff waded in at all. So, for example, Willbabe's reasonable argument that spelling out the rules in more detail would be useful (though I disagree with it) is lost because others are calling the editors names and making ad hominem attacks.
A lesson is learned:
To write haikus spells bloodshed,
Best stick to short plays.
I guess I should have some kind of input as the cause of all these hard feelings. Before I begin I would like to give a personal thanks to gaygamer.net for always being a super great site that has satisfied all my gaymer needs! You guys are the best!
I'd like to begin with stating that winning by cheating of any means was never my intention from the beginning and up to this point. I take pride in the sense of integrity that I carry with me everyday in life. The fact that many of you feel that I cheated with malicious intent definitely hits hard. That's just really not what I was going for.
Next, I want to address the issue of how I personally understood the rules and the gamble I took on my interpretation. So when I first read the rules I felt that I already knew what the traditional haiku was recognized as: a 17 syllable poem broken into three lines of 5-7-5, more than usually incorporating a season (or Borderlands) at the beginning, and using a cut, or kire, to compare two focus points. At this point I read over the few haiku that were already posted and thought, "How could I do something more dynamic?" I thought about how other forms of poetry have stanzas and that maybe I could write a story made of more than one haiku. I thought about it being seen as cheating or too much but then I also thought, "Well what if I'm disqualified right off the bat from deviating from everyone else's haiku? But if poetry is an art and art is open to interpretation then why not?" And then I wrote the six haiku and went to look after my gay youth group. Bon Fin.
When I saw that I had won I was with my friend. I had told him about the contest and that I wanted to check if they had picked a winner. I could NOT believe it when I saw my name and my poem on a website I frequent multiple times a day! I actually, literally jumped for joy. Then I scrolled down to see the comments and I quickly lost that good feeling you get when something great suddenly happens. Of course I did see the writer comments and the member comments saying "good job" or "way to go for thinking outside the box." Those definitely set a part of me at ease but ultimately, I just feel really guilty for even winning.
In closing, I feel torn. Almost half of me feels like forfeiting the position as winner and having the runner up be declared winner. The other almost half of me feels like defending my position in the name of trying something different and taking risks that more than likely mean no reward. And that last bit that was missing just feels really down about this whole thing.
-VoiceOfGosh
The contest said to "create an original haiku" which, yes, would be one. But the contest never stated that more couldn't be done. If the rules had said "one haiku per person, multiple entries will be disqualified" then I would agree that it was a BS decision, but that's not what the rules said. There was nothing about the contest that stated or implied that writing more than one haiku, or a series of connected haiku, would be against the rules. There was no guarantee of winning if you do more, but there was also no penalty mentioned for doing more.
True, every other entry only submitted one haiku, and there is a very legitimate point to be made about what the perception of the rules were. In the future I think that we at the site should be more clear in the rules, so I think that the matter of clarity is a fair criticism. But what I also see as troubling is that now that the winner was announced people are saying that they would have submitted more haiku if they knew they could, and yet in the original contest comments I didn't see one of those people even ask if they could submit a second haiku. If the rules don't explicitly forbid it, and you have the motivation to do it, then what's the harm in at least asking for clarification? If even one of the people complaining now had indicated at the time that they wished they could submit more, then I would have an easier time sympathizing. I would think, at the very least, if people thought that they could only submit once that after seeing VoiceOfGosh's submission of multiple haiku it would spark the question in someone regarding "can we do that?" But nobody asked that question, which to me says that they didn't care about multiple submissions.
The contest was meant to be fun. If someone writes more haiku than the contest requires then it seems to indicate that they are having more fun with it, and so are more in line with the spirit of the contest. Not to mention that he was one of only 2 haiku that actually made a gay reference in it, which is in line with the spirit of the site.
...what JeffreyOSU and NaviFairy said.
And congratulations VoiceOfGosh, you should be proud.
I don't think FruitBrute meant any harm. After all, this was just supposed to be a fun contest. And neither do I think did VoiceOfGosh, who it seems to me didn't even suspect to win.
As such it's a shame there were a few nasty responses.
On the other hand, I can see the point in people's grievance over this. While 'a haiku' doesn't necesairily mean only one, the very nature of a haiku is that it is a short message. Multiple haiku rather defeats the purpose of this.
As to what a solution to this argument might be, I don't know. Maybe get a second copy and give it to the winner of the best single haiku or something like that.
Alternatively you could do nothing, which certainly is within your right as creator and moderators of this site, but be aware that in that case you run the risk of disatisfaction festering over time.
And last, in regards to Gaygamer's answer to FoxNews. You'd have more chance to get maturity and respect from Rosemary's baby.
Going forward, to help prevent future damaged feelings & unnecessary work, I think there might be value in having a wee link to a page on the site summarising the spirit of the site & some simple rules/conventions that can be fleshed out when the need arises.
That way in the future when the writers have some sort of giveaway they can just say ‘as per the usual Gaygamer.net giveaway rules’.
I recognise penning a piece of work designed to solve future conflict before it even happens is a bit of a hassle, but hey, it wouldn’t hurt the C.V. of whomever does it.
I completely agree that the chosen winner did not follow the rules stated, but I don't think anything will be solved from Name Calling or Scapegoating.
I'm sure this little contest will pass, the winner will unjustly get his prize, and everyone will move on with their lives, no better or worse off.
Wow, what an interesting way to wake up and read all of these comments.
First of all, I would like to congratulate VoiceofGosh. You should not feel guilty about winning, you entered a contest, you were chosen as the winner, take your prize and have lots of fun. Don't let the comments here taint your enjoyment of the game.
As someone who entered the contest, and also someone who works as a moderator on another site, I can actually see both sides of this issue. I understand people's frustrations about what they saw as following the rules of the contest and only submitting one; I know I only submitted one and tried to be creative within the confines of a single haiku; but I also understand that this is a free site and the owner's of said site can do whatever they feel like. In turn, if you don't like the decision of said site, and the site doesn't change their policies after voicing your concerns in a reasonable manner, you are welcome to stop coming to the site or even start your own. I deal with this all the time with a user base acting like they are owed something as readers of the site and I can see the GG's staff point of view in that realm.
That being said, I feel like any response from GG was a bit slow and also further egged on the situation to some degree. I also find it a bit odd that Fruit Brute's decision is at the heart of the issue and he has chosen not to comment either. That is, of course, their prerogative, but I've also learned that stepping in with a quick response can go a long way; even if the GG staff did not feel an apology was necessary, I think it would have gone a long way to simply have said "Hey, sorry guys, we should have been more clear about the rules, we'll do better next time, thanks". Also, any reasonable complaints should be addressed and the readership base has to be taken into account.
It's really hard sometimes to find that balance between owning a site and having policies and your readership base and I think that's where a lot of conflict tends to arise in these matters.
Finally, even if we all thought, except for one person, that we were limited to just one haiku, there are ways of submitting more than one. See, there is no registration required on this site in order to comment, which I think is a whole other problem and issue, so if we had really wanted to submit a second one, we could have just entered a different name and email address and voila, 2nd entry. Of course having required registration to comment wouldn't have stopped that work around either, but I do find it odd that there is no correlation between user names here and the registered names in the forums. Also, I don't quite understand what would stop someone from posting as another user in the comments with the current setup.
I know no one likes rules and moderation but with some specific guidelines in place, I've learned, you can avoid a lot of the drama that has occurred as apart of this contest.
I hope both sides can take a step back and maybe learn something here.
This is why, in mathematics, when we mean "one and only one," we say "one and only one" (or "exactly one," etc.). For those desiring more clarity in the rules and claiming that they would have submitted more than one if they hadn't thought it against the rules: when have you ever seen a contest that intended to disallow multiple entries that didn't make that restriction really explicit? Fruit Brute did not intend to disallow multiple entries, and so he didn't write in that restriction, regardless of your (mis-)interpretation of the rules.
The OP conveniently inserted and/or changed words from the original rules to try to justify his/her claims that the contest was unfair, but nowhere in the original rules does it use the phrases "single haiku" or "ONE HAIKU." Yes or no: did the winner "create an original haiku using Borderlands as the theme and post it in the comments section of [that] article"? Yes -- he did. He followed the rules, as written, regardless of what you _thought_ the rules said. Could or should the rules have been more clear? That is an area for debate -- I've already stated my opinion about that. Any talk about the winner not deserving to win because he didn't follow the rules? That's just nonsense.
BTW, VoiceOfGosh... I think your middle four haikus were easily among the best individually, and it was a very nice creative touch to use those four standalone haikus together to make a single poem. Very nice job!
Oh, come now. Would it help if he simply picked -one- of those six as the winner? After all, I saw nothing barring against multiple entries.
I nominate:
Brick the *Bear*serker
Ironclad and oh so bad
Muscled Melee Man
I like that one a lot. XD
I must say I'm a bit taken aback by this whole situation. I have been away from my computer since I posted the winner yesterday and have only now seen this thread. I chose the person who I thought embodied the spirit of the contest the best. Apparently some of you don't agree with my decision so to alleviate any further anger, misunderstandings or bad feelings, I will provide a second copy of the game to the best single haiku, the winner of which will be announced next week. Next time, I will endeavor to be more specific in the rules of free contests so as to avoid situations such as this.
I will, however, say that name calling, personal attacks and degrading the site because you don't like the subject of a particular post is not appropriate. This site is provided to readers free of charge by people who write articles for free and often pay for things, including the games they review, out of their own pockets. The copy of Borderlands to be given away was NOT provided by the publisher. It was purchased by me to give away because I think it's a cool game that people would enjoy.
This was meant to be a fun contest to give back a little bit to the readers and it seems to have gone awry. We'll be sure to be more vigilant in the future.
Applause abound! Excellent way to settle the situation, and no one has any right to put blame on anyone or to call people names.
I'm sure we get enough of that from our own lives as it is.
The phrase "ungrateful little shits" springs to mind. What a collection of whiny, bitter, selfish and thoughtless comments. Shame on all of you.
Fruit Brute gives you a safe space and spends his own money to make his readers happy and you have the bile to call him a twit? You don't deserve a free game.
Not all of the comments were of the disappointed variety...
Cheers to Fruit Brute! As many have pointed out, a haiku must follow the 5,7,5 syllable count, or its something else entirely. Rather than argue with the unsatisfied contestants, or take offense to the undeserved personal attacks, Fruit Brute has taken the high road and has (possibly at personal expense) provided a solution that no one can take qualms with.
I don't need a reminder to keep reading Gay Gamer, but such reminders (like this) are always nice.
...though some of the irate haikus in this posts comments were pretty clever.