TwilightDeku
Sage of the Dark Forest
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2012
- Location
- Deku Palace, Termina
In my eyes, the April contest was a disaster. Some other members and I have agreed that the contests need to stop. Why? Let me explain:
Problem #1: The objective
From what I understand about the contests, they are designed to attract new members to the forums. I will agree that lots of new members DO join during the contests. Key word: "During". Many new members come here and get to 100 posts, then they leave never to come back again. Besides the annoying amount of innactive users, this shouldn't be a problem. However it does become a problem with problem 2.
Problem #2: The requirements
The contests require that each member have 100 posts total and 50 posts in April. New members that join the forums during the contests have to get to 100 posts in order to have a chance to win. So most new members just spam there way to 100 posts. I have seen one too many three word replies. Come to think of it, I have also seen many ONE word replies too. You know something is wrong when the "top-poster" has 30+ posts in ONE DAY!
Problem #3: The aftermath
After the contest is over, the forums calm down and are not as active. The giant storm of new users spamming there way to 100 posts has passed. The forums are filled with inactive users and many repeated threads for the mods to sort out.
Quality vs. Quantity:
All these problems come down to one thing: quality vs. quantity. The contests are entirely quantity based and have no regard to quality. If you demand a high quantity, you are going to get low quality. When you just set a quantity goal, people are going to throw quality in the trash. People could just post 100 one word responses to everything and still be eligible. The contests could become a good thing if you flipped the foundation upside down. If the contests were quality based instead of quantity you would get rid of the spammers and get a bunch of willing and devoted new users. I have some ideas how you could do this.
Ideas:
•A contest for the best artwork
•Best article
•Best Zelda-themed musical composition
•People who do the best in some Zelda-jeopardy type game
•ANYTHING THAT IS NOT QUANTITY BASED
The end of the june contest was a relief for some of our members. Including me. But when I saw the MAY contest, I was all like:
Please Mases, stop encouraging people to wreck the forums. Please conceder my ideas to attract more willing and devoted users. That is my rant for today, thank you for reading.
~Twilightdeku
Problem #1: The objective
From what I understand about the contests, they are designed to attract new members to the forums. I will agree that lots of new members DO join during the contests. Key word: "During". Many new members come here and get to 100 posts, then they leave never to come back again. Besides the annoying amount of innactive users, this shouldn't be a problem. However it does become a problem with problem 2.
Problem #2: The requirements
The contests require that each member have 100 posts total and 50 posts in April. New members that join the forums during the contests have to get to 100 posts in order to have a chance to win. So most new members just spam there way to 100 posts. I have seen one too many three word replies. Come to think of it, I have also seen many ONE word replies too. You know something is wrong when the "top-poster" has 30+ posts in ONE DAY!
Problem #3: The aftermath
After the contest is over, the forums calm down and are not as active. The giant storm of new users spamming there way to 100 posts has passed. The forums are filled with inactive users and many repeated threads for the mods to sort out.
Quality vs. Quantity:
All these problems come down to one thing: quality vs. quantity. The contests are entirely quantity based and have no regard to quality. If you demand a high quantity, you are going to get low quality. When you just set a quantity goal, people are going to throw quality in the trash. People could just post 100 one word responses to everything and still be eligible. The contests could become a good thing if you flipped the foundation upside down. If the contests were quality based instead of quantity you would get rid of the spammers and get a bunch of willing and devoted new users. I have some ideas how you could do this.
Ideas:
•A contest for the best artwork
•Best article
•Best Zelda-themed musical composition
•People who do the best in some Zelda-jeopardy type game
•ANYTHING THAT IS NOT QUANTITY BASED
The end of the june contest was a relief for some of our members. Including me. But when I saw the MAY contest, I was all like:
Please Mases, stop encouraging people to wreck the forums. Please conceder my ideas to attract more willing and devoted users. That is my rant for today, thank you for reading.
~Twilightdeku