Post Season Playground

[Chris]

OK, so I got tired of seeing the "Please don't leave" title at the top of the thread everyone's been talking in, it just sounded so sad and desperate. It is amazing how many hard core OL'ers just disappear into the darkness, once the season ends. Judging from the board traffic, I will have to guess that some of them may just turn into lurkers come October 31st!

Don't lurk, come out and play in the Post Season Playground!

Chris

Woah, just noticed I'm now a Poltergeist! Boo!

Chris

[Luv2BScared]

I agree. The "Please Don't Leave" topic was making me feel like a desperate woman...It's nice to see that a few have stayed on, but would be better if the rest would come back. Maybe they think the boards are down like they normally are?????

Okay you lurkers....come out, come out!!!!

[WelchWitch]

At my age, I am to old not to be desperate. http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

[Hellraiser15]

hey i started that topic! that makes me sad. but i guess your right that was pretty depressing.

oh and I am not leaving the boards but I am going on vacation tday! I wont be posting for a week or two. BUT ILL BE BACK!!!! MWAWAWAHHHH

[Skelterbet]

What would you think of creating a whole section to be the Post Season Playground instead of it being just a topic in the 2007 Haunting Season? I remember last year (I mean....well, 2006, since 2008 is about here) we had the Pre-Season Playground and then when October hit they made the 2006 Haunting Season the main section. I think that might let any lurkers see that we are still active in a way and encourage them to join in the discussions.

[Luv2BScared]

Good idea, but anyone coming on here that has been gone for a bit will see the headline that is already created. Also, most don&#39;t know we&#39;re still here. Chris and I had discussed sending out a mass email to users to let them know we&#39;re here. HD needs to be sure that the boards will stay up the entire year before that can happen.

[Chris]

Christmas killed the boards eh, we were on a roll there for a while. Might be able to set up new category, gotta check, see if I can do it without screwing anything up.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc. etc. etc.

Chris

[Luv2BScared]

Christmas, business month/year end dealings, etc...I have been busier than a one armed paper hanger this past week..ICK!!

Lets see what kind of topic we can get rolling!!!

[Shade]

Went to the movies last night and saw "Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street." LOVED it. Very bizarre, macabre, gory and flat-out fun.

Definitely my kind of movie -- something bloody, twisted and grotesque, but with artistic flair, panache, music and a tiny sprinkling of humor.

[Haunted Denver]

OK, here&#39;s the new topic, what changes would you like to see for Haunted Denver next year? What do you like about the site, what are your suggestions for changes or additions to the site?

Chime in!

[Luv2BScared]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shade @ Dec 29 2007, 12:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=3341)</div>
Went to the movies last night and saw "Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street." LOVED it. Very bizarre, macabre, gory and flat-out fun.

Definitely my kind of movie -- something bloody, twisted and grotesque, but with artistic flair, panache, music and a tiny sprinkling of humor.[/b]


I want to go see this. The trailers reminded me of Edward Scissorhands....did it have a sense of that, or did they stay away from that altogether?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Haunted Denver @ Dec 30 2007, 09:21 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=3342)</div>
OK, here&#39;s the new topic, what changes would you like to see for Haunted Denver next year? What do you like about the site, what are your suggestions for changes or additions to the site?

Chime in![/b]

I would love to see bios come back. I loved being able to see and read bios to figure out which critic shared my taste in haunts the most. That way I could base my haunt visits on their reviews. It was nice to have that up so people could identify with the critics on some level.

[Shade]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Luv2BScared @ Dec 30 2007, 09:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=3343)</div>
I want to go see this. The trailers reminded me of Edward Scissorhands....did it have a sense of that, or did they stay away from that altogether?[/b]
Umm, kind of yes, and kind of no. I mean, it&#39;s definitely another instance of Johnny Depp as a dark character that&#39;s still the protagonist, and the movie is unmistakably straight from the soul of Tim Burton in the same way that Edward was.

It&#39;s so different, though, because it&#39;s done in the context of a musical. There&#39;s not a whole lot of spoken dialogue, but rather mostly singing. For some reason, it doesn&#39;t come across crappy, though, like that stupid Evita movie which did the same thing.

Todd is definitely the gorier movie, but in such an over-the-top way that it doesn&#39;t have the stomach-twisting element of, say, Saw or Hostel.

I overheard two guys talking about it after the second time I saw it, and they summed up how I think a lot of people probably felt. One said, "I hate musicals, and I don&#39;t really like horror films, and I think I would have walked out on it except that it was so freaking good!"

[Chris]

No more suggestions? I might be mistaken, but I thought the people on this board had opinions! http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

Shade, you of all people have no input? Glad to hear you liked Sweeney Todd, gotta go see that one.

Happy New Year everyone!

Chris

[Shade]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris @ Jan 1 2008, 10:01 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=3345)</div>
Shade, you of all people have no input?[/b]
Some of this will sound familiar because my suggestions are the same as they were during this past season itself, and even those were spillover from when I was steering.

Fix the Freak Pass -- get it lined up well in advance so that it&#39;s available from the very beginning of the season. HD has better in-roads to all of the Denver haunt owners now because they are all well acquainted with its management. Get as many haunts to participate in this as possible, resulting in better savings and deals for all of the HD fans.

Get the infrastructure and manpower lined up to get reviews posted the second they leave the editor&#39;s desk. I always struggled with this, but it was strictly a time issue because I was doing it all myself. This was the first year HD had professionals managing the site&#39;s construction, optimization and maintenance, and now they have a full season under their belts and understand the site better. Use that for the advantage of the readers next year and get stuff posted right away.

Do the People&#39;s Choice during the season, not after the fact. The more airtight you can make the voting the better, but I think this year&#39;s format discouraged partcipation because it can&#39;t be done from the convenience of either this site or the HD site. Obviously people shouldn&#39;t be able to manipulate the system, but hell, we ended up with George W again because our country can&#39;t even manage an airtight voting system, so don&#39;t expect a perfect system here, either. This year felt more like, "If it can&#39;t be perfect, we won&#39;t bother" but then someone had a different afterthought and decided to do it here after the season was over and haunts weren&#39;t that fresh in our minds.

As has already been mentioned, bring your critics into the spotlight. Bios are awesome and should be posted in September. Remember when Jamie, Frosty and Frank did haunted houses one year on Alice? It was really fun to hear the three unique perspectives from three very recognizable personalities. Make your critics the D-list celebrities of Haunted Denver. Have "meet the critics and win free swag" nights at various haunts. Take it to the extreme -- each critic has some bizarre horror-related nickname and persona. Who knows how much fun you could have with that.

That&#39;s all I can think of for now. Happy new year, all!

[Chris]

Shade,

Thought about making a response to you directly, but figured I&#39;d put it out here, that way some of the folks who seem to gripe about how things are run, can get a bit of an inside look. Definitely valid points, here&#39;s some of my thoughts though.

Freak Pass - Most of the haunts offer discounts online on their sites, the ones that don&#39;t probably don&#39;t offer much of a discount anywhere else either, maybe with a canned food donation? So although no decision has been made, aren&#39;t the Freak Pass discounts a bit redundant.

Reviews - Hmmmm, herein lies the multi million dollar questions. Depending on how the reviewers schedule the reviews (opening weekend or not, weekdays or not, etc etc) the reviews may or may not get done in the first couple of weeks. If only a handful are done, and these reviews are posted, there are still haunts to be reviewed that will quite possibly receive a better score. Because there are no scores for the haunts that are not rated people may think they aren&#39;t as good and make their selection from the haunts that have been rated. This may not be a good service to the public, or at least to the portion of the public that are concerned with the reviews. Here&#39;s the other issue. Yes, HD is now run by a "team" of professionals, all with valuable insight and ideas for HD, unfortunately, they don&#39;t always see eye to eye. Some thinking about HD as a service site to the public, others concerned with the structural integrity and web presence of the site, (which in a roundabout way is focusing on the same thing). This tug of war can sometimes lead to decisions being made for the good of the site, not necessarily the good of the users, and vice versa. In all reality, when it was Rob as the "lone ranger", decisions were I&#39;m sure mad much quicker.

Peoples Choice - There is a way to make this work, just haven&#39;t found it yet. The users of HD, or should I say the "faithful users" of HD, deserve a voice. Unfortunately, some of the "faithful" have close affiliations with haunted houses on HD, and therefore probably can&#39;t be unbiased (pauses, as giant can of worms opens) Interesting that many of these folks accuse the critcis of being unbiased, when not a single critic is affiliated with any haunt. As far as this years PC, intentionally done after the season, so the haunts couldn&#39;t wrangle their actors etc. etc. to stuff the ballot box, and so that the regular users on the OL, could have a voice. Was it a perfect system, no, not yet, but may have been a more accurate result than some in the past.

Critic Bios - These should be on HD, somewhere, I agree. Quite honestly I think these were just a casualty of a time crunch this year.

Frosty, Frank and Jamie - When did they review haunts? I would have loved to have heard that, I really enjoyed their show, don&#39;t think there&#39;s been as good of a morning show in Denver since. Interesting side note, check out http://www.971freefm.com/pages/3885.php Frosty and Franks station in LA and also check out http://www.971freefm.com/WELCOME-TO-DANNYBONADUCE-FM/1388504 seems this station has become the landing spot for Jamie&#39;s castoffs!

[Hellraiser15]

back from glenwood fun trip.

[Luv2BScared]

Is there a way that we as critics can really bust out all of the haunts as quickly as possible at the start of the season so that reviews of all haunts can go up within the first 10 days of the season?? I think that reviews of all haunts should go up at one time. It comes across as biased if some go up before others in my mind. What can we as critics do to get the editing done and reviews posted? I would be more than willing to assist with that process. Several of us can edit reviews faster than one person. If we work together on editing reviews we can get them done much faster. What can we do to help the site administrators get them up on the site? Is that something we can help with? I know that we all have jobs, families, responsibilities, etc...but I personally feel that if we agree to do the job we should free up our schedules for the season as part of that agreement. I let it be known by June that I am only available on a limited basis during the haunt season as I have a commitment to HD that must be fulfilled. I take it very seriously, and think all the critics should as well and make themselves available. I&#39;m not trying to rail on the critics team in the least as they are a great team, but I think we could do a better job of clearing our schedules for the season.I am not opposed in the least to doing reviews on the weeknights so that we can get as many done early one as we can. We have no control over haunts not being ready, but I think we can overcome the worst of that. Reviews very easily could be done, edited and posted much earlier if we work together and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

As for the Freak Pass, many people either don&#39;t know, or don&#39;t know how to get discount coupons from haunts or their websites. I think some people rely on the Freak Pass for their discount. It would be nice to have it back up and I don&#39;t think it&#39;s redundant. Why go to 20 sites for discounts when you can come here? It&#39;s one stop shopping so to speak.

HD meet the critics nights, giveaways, contests are a great way for people to get to know the HD team and a great opportunity for marketing HD as well. Meet and greets are always fun, the public likes them a lot! We could have contests with the chance to go to a haunt with the critics team to see it from our perspective or something like that....after reviews are done of course. We could promote all kinds of fun events during the season...Throw a pie at the critics for charity? Match the creepy name with the critic? Pick critics favorite horror movie, favorite food, most embarrasing moment?? I don&#39;t know, but we could really have some fun with it. I&#39;d be game for sure!! Contest winners could win free passes to haunts, etc.

Just the first of I&#39;m sure many thoughts that bang around in my head...at the company I work for we have contests all year long to engage not only our clients, but also our referrals. It helps people connect with our staff and build lasting business and personal relationships which is important. We want HD to be a household name not just during the season, but all year long. We want HD and OL readers to be here all year long....we should build excitement for them, and things to look forward to so we build a strong user base.

I think we should definitely add more catgories to the reviews to give a broader insight to the haunts we visit. We can give out awards, and make that part of the HD nights at a haunt??? Just a thought...

As for the People&#39;s Choice Awards, I think it should happen at least after reviews are up, and yes we need to come up with a good way to control the votes so the ballots aren&#39;t stuffed by haunt staff, etc. I think that requiring voters to be a registered, participating user would help with some of that, but not all. There would have to be some way of screening voters to ensure the voting is fair and as accurate as possible. How? I don&#39;t know, but I&#39;m thinking about it...I&#39;ll let you know what I come up with.

It might also be fun to have a horror trivia contest on HD for a chance to win free passes...Once the field is narrowed down to a couple of contestants we could have a trivia face off to determine the winner...

I would also like to see the HD critics more active here on the OL.

Just my twisted thoughts for today...there will be more tomorrow.

[Luv2BScared]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shade @ Dec 31 2007, 01:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=3344)</div>
Umm, kind of yes, and kind of no. I mean, it&#39;s definitely another instance of Johnny Depp as a dark character that&#39;s still the protagonist, and the movie is unmistakably straight from the soul of Tim Burton in the same way that Edward was.

It&#39;s so different, though, because it&#39;s done in the context of a musical. There&#39;s not a whole lot of spoken dialogue, but rather mostly singing. For some reason, it doesn&#39;t come across crappy, though, like that stupid Evita movie which did the same thing.

Todd is definitely the gorier movie, but in such an over-the-top way that it doesn&#39;t have the stomach-twisting element of, say, Saw or Hostel.

I overheard two guys talking about it after the second time I saw it, and they summed up how I think a lot of people probably felt. One said, "I hate musicals, and I don&#39;t really like horror films, and I think I would have walked out on it except that it was so freaking good!"[/b]

Now I have to make time to go see this one!!! Sounds like it&#39;s worth it!!

[WelchWitch]

[quote]
Shade,

The users of HD, or should I say the "faithful users" of HD, deserve a voice. Unfortunately, some of the "faithful" have close affiliations with haunted houses on HD, and therefore probably can&#39;t be unbiased (pauses, as giant can of worms opens)


Ok all I am in the middle of tax season, so if this makes no sense I am sorry now, but.........

Chris, I have to admit that put a smile on my face. Your not as bad as I heard and thought. http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif I think its good that we are all honest, and that was very refreshing to see that honesty. The true regulars here will have some connections to the industry. There is nothing wrong with that, it in fact makes this places more informational and more meaningful. We are able to get the quality with what happens here. I am a member of Hauntworld for the same reasons. The difference just needs to be that we all separate from the haunt operator/actor and be more open to others thoughts and be more bias as someone who is just a member here. There is nothing wrong with boasting and supporting our own haunts, we should be able to shine without the crap from the peanut gallery. The problem is we have some here that aren&#39;t part of that group. That will never be fixed. I do know that Haunted Denver means something in this community. If we don&#39;t separate our haunts from that, HD will have a hard time maintaining that. Every haunt I have worked in as an operator or actor knows who HD is and when they come to the haunt to review. ALL the actors know well before you enter the haunt when and were you&#39;re at during the whole time you go through it. I knew when Erica and the gang came through my room well before they came through. I know that as far as Peoples choice, alot didn&#39;t vote because they felt why bother, Asylum will win anyways. I can&#39;t speak for everyone now, but I can say, I voted, but that was my concern also. And when I voted, I didn&#39;t even put my haunt as number 1. With Rob we all knew of the separation, now that has changed and we are trying to see what is it going to be like now. Does that make any sense? I think to vote, it was a good idea to have it be like you had it this year, with putting our screen names down with our vote, but instead of having the votes go to a private area, and all we see are the end results, could we do the same thing but maybe have the results in full shown here? That way it wouldn&#39;t look like someone fixed the end results. And we can see it all as it unfolds. Just my two cents or whatever they are worth. http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

P.S.
Why did my quote look different? I know one thing we need to have some kind of how to class here for us old farts to know how to work all the gadgets and gizmos here.

[Luv2BScared]

Quoting Welch Witch:

I think to vote, it was a good idea to have it be like you had it this year, with putting our screen names down with our vote, but instead of having the votes go to a private area, and all we see are the end results, could we do the same thing but maybe have the results in full shown here? That way it wouldn&#39;t look like someone fixed the end results. And we can see it all as it unfolds. Just my two cents or whatever they are worth.

I agree with what your saying WW. I think it would be cool if we could see who voted, and what they voted for along with the totaled/averaged votes to determine the winner overall. It could be done in a way that resembles the way we do our reviews. I wouldn&#39;t think that it would be difficult to do that, but I can&#39;t speak for the site techs....
Chris, what&#39;s your take on this??


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hellraiser15 @ Jan 3 2008, 12:42 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=3348)</div>
back from glenwood fun trip.[/b]

Welcome back! Any thoughts on the current topic?? What&#39;s your take on all of this?

[Chris]

Witch,

Appreciate the comment. Eventually we will arrive at a "hopefully" near foolproof system for the People&#39;s choice. Here&#39;s a couple problems with what I think you&#39;re proposing.

Witch and Luv2,

If voting results are "live" on the site, we go back to the Scream Park vs. Field of Corpses scenario, where each one knows how many votes they need to make the top spot. This could be limited by only allowing votes from screen names on OL, but still I don&#39;t think the best idea.

Also, I have a feeling that some on these boards might not want their voting records made public, if they are I think it might adversely affect their voting. Just my thought.

So, what I&#39;m thinking could be a solution, is to have the voting during the season, or near the end might be better. Reveal the voting after the season when the results are final, but don&#39;t reveal screen names?

Would this work?

Now let&#39;s voyage to the technical side of things, whatever system is implemented, which in my opinon needs to be automated, should block duplicate IP addresses at a minimum. If someone convinces me that this can happen with an automated system, the format of the People&#39;s Choice may be able to go back similarly to what it was, where people can log in and vote, and results could be viewed real time, I don&#39;t know enough about this yet, but I&#39;m doing some research.

Witch and everyone,

On a broader subject, I really hope that the users and haunts in Denver can see now that HD is not rigged in any way, and that it remains what it always has been, an independent review site, posting the critics personal opinions, for the benefit of the public. There were many "shots" that were sent across the bow early in the season (witch, I think you may have pulled the trigger on one or two http://www.octoberlounge.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif ) Once the reviews were out, that seemed to stop, trust me if I had anything remotely to do with the reviews, do you really think I would want the Asylum rated anyting but #1, just to prove a point? Not gonna happen, too many people at The Asylum put their blood, sweat and tears into it for me to think that they are anyting other than #1 In a nutshell, Haunted Denver was purchased to ensure that it will remain what it is for the future.

My comment about opening a can of worms, was really in support of the critics team. They get jabbed at all the time, and because of new ownership, especially this year. Let me tell you my impression of the group.

I went into this season not really knowing what to expect from them. Prior to the season kicking off, we got together and met (which by the way was the only contact we had with the team until they showed up at our haunt, the two new critics we hadn&#39;t even met till that night), so that any questions we had and any questions they had, could be put right out on the table. As a haunt owner, you have some preconceived notions about the critics from what you read online, and after meeting them, realized that these people are truly a great group of "HAUNT ENTHUSIASTS" period. The excitement they have for the season is refreshing as a haunt owner, they were so excited to get started, and contrary to some opinions that have been voiced to me, really enjoy going to ALL the haunts, and seeing what is new. Think about this too, if these folks didn&#39;t love doing this, why put up with, giving up several weekends of your time, and the jabs taken at you on the boards and elsewhere. If I haven&#39;t done so already, I&#39;d like to take this opportunity to thank them again for all the work they did this season!

I&#39;m glad to see the comments on what you like and don&#39;t like about HD, please keep them coming, there will be some changes and upgrades made in the future and we value input from the users.

Chris

[Luv2BScared]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris @ Jan 5 2008, 11:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> (index.php?act=findpost&pid=3353)</div>
Witch,

Appreciate the comment. Eventually we will arrive at a "hopefully" near foolproof system for the People&#39;s choice. Here&#39;s a couple problems with what I think you&#39;re proposing.

Witch and Luv2,

If voting results are "live" on the site, we go back to the Scream Park vs. Field of Corpses scenario, where each one knows how many votes they need to make the top spot. This could be limited by only allowing votes from screen names on OL, but still I don&#39;t think the best idea.

Also, I have a feeling that some on these boards might not want their voting records made public, if they are I think it might adversely affect their voting. Just my thought.

So, what I&#39;m thinking could be a solution, is to have the voting during the season, or near the end might be better. Reveal the voting after the season when the results are final, but don&#39;t reveal screen names?

Would this work?

Now let&#39;s voyage to the technical side of things, whatever system is implemented, which in my opinon needs to be automated, should block duplicate IP addresses at a minimum. If someone convinces me that this can happen with an automated system, the format of the People&#39;s Choice may be able to go back similarly to what it was, where people can log in and vote, and results could be viewed real time, I don&#39;t know enough about this yet, but I&#39;m doing some research.

Chris[/b]

I agree with you on posting PC votes in real time. The votes need to be tabulated and posted after voting is closed so that there is no ballot box stuffing. But can we post them in a way that resembles the critics reviews on voting is closed? That way we can see who liked what, and see how everyone averaged out. Could there be a way to allow annonymous voting for those who don&#39;t want their votes tied to their name? Those who want to be known can be, and we can have a generic total from the annonymous voters. Maybe that is too much work and brain damage, but I&#39;m throwing it out there.

An automated system to block duplicate votes is a very good idea. We want the votes to be as accurate as they can possibly be. It takes the fun out of voting if we have doubts about the numbers.

[Luv2BScared]

Did we ever come up with any new ideas about how this could be done???