Monthly Monthly Contest Contest

[Mouse]

The monthly contests, which haven't been held monthly for a few years now, are quite popular.  So why don't they get held monthly?  Because coming up for ideas for monthly contests is hard!  And that's why I propose that, in January of next year, we hold a monthly contest where people suggest a monthly contest to hold.  The winners, as voted on by us as is usual for monthly contests will then be held throughout the year, the most voted for first.  Depending on how many entries we get and how good they are we might not get enough for a whole year, but having a contest every other month should at least be doable.  We can probably get six solid ideas from the entire forums using playerbase.

We've already done this before, haven't we.

[freedo5]

I agree, but only if we also do a monthly contest for the monthly contests to choose the monthly contests

[Lefinch]

Yeah I like this. I also appreciate there seems to be a lot of forum busywork for the ones studenterhue hosted earlier this year: Setting up the poll system, answering questions about the quiz and the final implementation/awards giving phase at the end. I don't know how much or little that is but I know MyBB (what this forum runs on) is awful. So I'm also open to using an easier method to poll entries or making one up. I know we've got the in-game voting booths, but I assume that integrating that with presenting what you're voting on is not feasible.

I just enjoyed the competitions, we clearly have a lot of artistically inclined people, so if there's anything we can do to run more of them while also making it relatively untaxing to do so I'm game.

[Mouse]

Polls at least are trivially easy on myBB or related software.  There's a built in option for them, I'm guessing it's just disabled for non-admin team accounts.

[Lefinch]

Yeah it's not just the poll, it's doing the old collating entries, and putting the posts up on a monthly basis for volunteers. Depending on what the contest is like some implementation stuff (though I'd guess not a huge amount since you have small pools of winners rather than everyone) and maybe some background stuff like rules/spirit of fairness stuff but the truth is its all speculation there, since whether that's a lot of work is entirely in the hand of whoever's up to it.

But that's getting off the point that hosting more competitions would indeed be cool. EDIT: and more to the point, doing some brainstorming for more contests in a contest-based format. If that falls through it might be good to just brainstorm contest ideas anyway.

[Studenterhue]

I wanted to reply earlier, seeing as I've run the most recent contests, but I've been busy. Still, it's better late than never. I have a lot to say, but the gist is this: I'm open to brainstorming, I feel doubtful about but not opposed to a contest for contest themes because I have particular criteria, and, for now, I can't stomach six contests a year.

Yes, it would be great to hear other suggestions for contest themes. I'm not facing a shortage of possible themes, but it doesn't hurt to hear other people's thoughts.

I have a particular philosophy when picking contest themes. I prefer that they be simple, accessible, and doable by anybody. I did fall drinks and in-game movie posters for previous contests, because it's not too hard to come up with a list of chems with a fun theme or draw a single piece of pixel art with a simple perspective. However, I would never have people do, say, clothing, because clothing uses multiple sets of sprites and requires people to pay attention to perspective and color palette. Because of this, I'm somewhat skeptical of a contest to decide contest themes. I'm not opposed to the idea on principle, it's just that in my view, such a contest would need to meet these guidelines.

My current plans are to run a contest for each season, so four times a year. The last two contests have been seasonal as well, which I do not think I have conveyed very well. The movie poster one was meant to be summer-themed, referencing summer blockbusters, and the fall drink one was for autumn. I do plan on continuing the theme by doing a winter or winter-adjacent theme for January, but I'm not indebted to this plan. If life circumstances eat into my time for a potential January contest, or if I do not have the energy for it, I have the freedom to put the winter-themed one closer to the end of the year. 

To give some insights into what it's like to run these contests, I mostly do these by myself, but I do ask other admins for feedback on announcements and such, and I definitely do ask if there's an entry that's just too cool not to implement. Unlike with rule changes, we, as admins, don't vote to do a contest at such and such time, in such and such intervals, or something. Usually, the contests occur when an admin wants to do one. 

As lefinch has alluded to, there's a lot of work involved: writing the threads and announcements, combining entries into a vote thread, coding the winning entries, giving medals, etc. Making polls is actually fairly easy, but it proved quite onerous during the fall drink contest. I attempted to streamline the poll by putting the entries in the poll itself, but because MyBB only shows part of the poll option, checking each entry and correcting mistakes was quite arduous. That's partly why in previous contests, the poll options were just a bunch of numbers, and the actual entries were in the thread itself.

That brings me to a key point. Running these is definitely fun, and it really warms my heart to see people come up with clever/funny entries and generally have a good time. However, I also feel very tired afterwards, and I don't want to do anything contest-related for roughly a month. Ergo, I hope you see why I'm weary about running one every other month. I chalk this up to my workflow; I mostly act alone, working in bursts, and there are definitely some places where I could delegate tasks or split them up into more manageable pieces for a sustained pace. I would prefer to go at a light pace and work on the workflow, rather than jump to a demanding schedule

[Lefinch]

I wanted to reply earlier, seeing as I've run the most recent contests, but I've been busy. Still, it's better late than never. I have a lot to say, but the gist is this: I'm open to brainstorming, I feel doubtful about but not opposed to a contest for contest themes because I have particular criteria, and, for now, I can't stomach six contests a year.

Yes, it would be great to hear other suggestions for contest themes. I'm not facing a shortage of possible themes, but it doesn't hurt to hear other people's thoughts.

I have a particular philosophy when picking contest themes. I prefer that they be simple, accessible, and doable by anybody. I did fall drinks and in-game movie posters for previous contests, because it's not too hard to come up with a list of chems with a fun theme or draw a single piece of pixel art with a simple perspective. However, I would never have people do, say, clothing, because clothing uses multiple sets of sprites and requires people to pay attention to perspective and color palette. Because of this, I'm somewhat skeptical of a contest to decide contest themes. I'm not opposed to the idea on principle, it's just that in my view, such a contest would need to meet these guidelines.

My current plans are to run a contest for each season, so four times a year. The last two contests have been seasonal as well, which I do not think I have conveyed very well. The movie poster one was meant to be summer-themed, referencing summer blockbusters, and the fall drink one was for autumn. I do plan on continuing the theme by doing a winter or winter-adjacent theme for January, but I'm not indebted to this plan. If life circumstances eat into my time for a potential January contest, or if I do not have the energy for it, I have the freedom to put the winter-themed one closer to the end of the year. 

To give some insights into what it's like to run these contests, I mostly do these by myself, but I do ask other admins for feedback on announcements and such, and I definitely do ask if there's an entry that's just too cool not to implement. Unlike with rule changes, we, as admins, don't vote to do a contest at such and such time, in such and such intervals, or something. Usually, the contests occur when an admin wants to do one. 

As lefinch has alluded to, there's a lot of work involved: writing the threads and announcements, combining entries into a vote thread, coding the winning entries, giving medals, etc. Making polls is actually fairly easy, but it proved quite onerous during the fall drink contest. I attempted to streamline the poll by putting the entries in the poll itself, but because MyBB only shows part of the poll option, checking each entry and correcting mistakes was quite arduous. That's partly why in previous contests, the poll options were just a bunch of numbers, and the actual entries were in the thread itself.

That brings me to a key point. Running these is definitely fun, and it really warms my heart to see people come up with clever/funny entries and generally have a good time. However, I also feel very tired afterwards, and I don't want to do anything contest-related for roughly a month. Ergo, I hope you see why I'm weary about running one every other month. I chalk this up to my workflow; I mostly act alone, working in bursts, and there are definitely some places where I could delegate tasks or split them up into more manageable pieces for a sustained pace. I would prefer to go at a light pace and work on the workflow, rather than jump to a demanding schedule

Appreciate the feedback very much and it does for me and hopefully everyone who enjoyed them give a sense of both that more contests are on the horizon and also what's involved in setting them up. I think one a season works out just fine too, it gives a general expectation and time to prep, there's a reasonable time window so that the competitions are not what I'd call "just up to meet the deadline" but something that might be timed well both for scheduling/organising as well as people entering the contest themselves.

One thing you highlighted that I do personally recognise: accessibility. We have a lot of very talented people here for art, writing, spriting, or even just ideas. One "problem" we used to have with contests for Achaea from the business end was that we'd have one or two very, very good professional writers/artists who would, through no fault of their own just their talent and practice being able to stomp the competition so the "draw or write something" events we had would have a very high skill bar. It meant some really nice stuff was made but it kept people who were passionate and had a really good idea that might have won from competing because there was a slight feeling of "well what's the point" so again, that's something I think is a good policy to have. It doesn't mean we can't have more specific contests or something else too that's more specific but having the regular competitions being simple and not requiring artisanal skills aren't shut out. 

I did completely miss the summer theming for the movie posters, but I'm my defence I'm not very bright and it was my first contest, so I suspect it was a bit more apparent. The halloween drinks were certainly right on the money. 

I think lastly one reason the contests were fun is that there was a genuine interest and drive for them. If they're so regular as to be knackering out admins they'd also probably be regular enough to produce some interest fatigue in the playerbase. I'm fine with having more and considering ideas as Mouse suggested, that sounds fun even if it's just in a basic forum thread that sounds fun. but keeping them to around once a season makes sense with the context you've given, so thanks for the events and feedback.

[Mouse]

Dang, I didn't know you were the only person involved in the contests.  That's rough.  Thanks for the clarification about where things stand w/r/t the contests!