EyeWire’s Competition Swag Policy

Last updated October 26, 2018.

Overview

In our current partnership with KT, EyeWire is offering physical prizes for certain achievements during our competitions and monthly marathons. Our policy for awarding and distributing these prizes is as follows, and we expect it to apply for at least the duration of our KT partnership. The policy (including the existence of any prizes) may alter if the status of that partnership changes, and we at EyeWire also reserve the right to alter the policy under current conditions.

Eligibility

You are eligible to receive prizes under the following conditions:

• You have won a component of a competition that is prize-eligible in that competition’s parameters (e.g. for a given competition, the top-scoring player of the VS challenge’s winning team may receive x item), or you placed behind a prize winner whose prize had to be forfeited, or your username was selected by random raffle.
• Sometimes there will be “tiered” prizes, e.g. the top 15 players of a challenge will receive y item and z item, whereas the other players will only receive z (a cumulative setup). There may also be tiers where the top 15 players only receive y and then the other players only receive z (a discrete setup). In determining eligibility we will be precise and firm about not “doubling up” prizes for people who have cleared cumulative tiers if the tiers are discrete.
• EyeWire’s admins must be certain that you have earned your achievement(s) honestly. We reserve the right to revoke prize eligibility, either for a single competition or for all future competitions, from anybody whom we believe to be cheating or otherwise failing to play in the spirit of the game. This means no playing on secondary accounts, no playing on other players’ accounts, no sabotage, no bot tracing, no flagrant violations of our chat code of conduct, no other harassment or intimidation of fellow players, etc. The staff at EyeWire will be the sole arbiters of whether a given behavior constitutes cheating or foul play. If you are caught cheating or playing inappropriately, any prize for which you might otherwise qualify will be forfeited to the next logical player.

You may still win multiple prizes in a competition if they are for different components. For instance, you can get the top accuracy in the Accuracy Happy Hours, also win the most Trivia points, and receive each attendant prize. Also, you may voluntarily decline/forfeit your prize at any time, at your own discretion.

Prizes

How to check what is an available prize

For multi-part competitions, specific prizes themselves will be detailed in blog posts that announce those upcomings events, as well as in blog posts reminding players of particular competition components. (For example, prizes for Evil Cubes in a multi-part competition will be described in the general competition announcement post, and then they will be described in the post advertising those Evil Cubes.) For standalone monthly marathons, specific prizes will be detailed in any blog posts announcing or reminding about a particular marathon.

Which events in multi-part competitions have prizes

There is usually an option to receive prizes for certain achievements in Accuracy Happy Hours, Evil Cubes, Trivia, VS Challenges, and Marathons. At our own discretion, EyeWire may add or remove prize-bestowing events for particular multi-part competitions. There is also usually an option to receive other prizes via a raffle for random players who have earned the Participation badge for the competition. At our own discretion, EyeWire may opt not to hold a raffle.

Prize types

The quantity and type of each prize for any event is subject to variability. General types of prizes include, but are not limited to (and are also not guaranteed):

• Posters
• Mugs
• Copies of Sebastian Seung’s book Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are
• Stickers
• T-shirts

Different designs may be available for certain items; these designs can be selected by the players who win the items. T-shirt sizes run between XS and 2XL depending on style (women’s vs. unisex). For some competitions, but not all, there may be competition-themed t-shirts awarded. For some competitions, but not all, there may be specific prizes distributed only to residents of a particular country (including, but not limited to, the United States or the Republic of Korea).

Claiming Your Prize(s)

If you have been determined within the awards process to have won one or more prizes, EyeWire HQ will contact you via an in-game notification with a link to a Google Form where you can provide us with your name, mailing address, and (if applicable) sizing/design preferences for your prize(s). EyeWire does not supply any of your personal information to third parties, and this information will be stored securely. If you do not log in to view your swag notification, we will not be able to reliably reach you for this purpose.

If you do not fill out the Google Form within one week of the form being sent, your prize(s) will be forfeited. The form will not be considered complete if it lacks a mailing address.

If you are under the age of 18, parental permission is required for EyeWire to send you your prize(s). If this permission cannot be obtained within one week of the Google Form being sent, your prize(s) will be forfeited to the next logical candidate(s).

For players in the United States, P.O. boxes are currently acceptable forms of mailing address. We will update this policy if that should ever change. For international players, please provide extremely clear information in giving us your address, especially if you know of any formatting challenges that may cause difficulties in having a package reach you from the United States.

Substituting Prizes

Substitutions are available for some prizes under certain conditions:

• If you have won a t-shirt and your desired size is not available, either a poster or a mug can be substituted at your preference.
• If you have already won and received one copy of Prof. Seung’s book, you may substitute a different prize. This is due to the fact that there are various permutations available of most prizes except for this book.

Should you wish for such substitutions, feel free to specify as much when you fill out the Google Form that we send you; you can also speak with an admin in chat or contact support@eyewire.org, as long as you do so within one week of prizes being announced.

Questions?

If you have any questions about our policy in general or about how it may apply to you as a competition participant, please feel free to shoot us an e-mail at support@eyewire.org.