Amendment II - Going Away/Coming Back topic are not allowed
While these aren’t necessarily trends, they do nothing to add to any form of discussion on the Message Boards. Usually, topics like these are started when a person is leaving for an extended period of time or coming back after said extended period of time. Often times, the topic will be made, and the person won’t do either of the above and just make the topic to have it.
While this isn’t always the case, it’s also not really necessary since this is something that can be handled in private messaging groups.
Contests are a fun way to engage with others in the community, and challenge them into achieving a goal through certain parameters. However, in some cases, contests can also be used to work around Amendment I. As such, here is what you need to know about Contests.
You must have a physical prize for the winner. Either that, or the prize must be a method that allows the winner to get a physical item, such as a gift card.
Contests can only last a maximum of 3 weeks from their starting point. After that, they must be ended and a winner must be chosen.
Contests can only be hosted by Masters.
Additionally, only 3 contests can be hosted a year, per Master.
It’s kinda sad that all of these cool things are being restricted to masters. The concept of masters is good, separating dedicated members from those who aren’t, but it’s just too difficult to become a master. I’ve been on this site for almost a year, but I’m nowhere close to being a master.
It’s a shame, but it’s what happens when something becomes a trend, or spam in a way. We don’t want to take it away completely, but we also can no longer let just anyone do it because it gets abused.
I understand your wanting to keep out spam, and crush trends.
What really bothers me about this is that it seems to be just one relatively new member, who is making lots of contests. Would it not be better to discipline this person, instead of completely ruining contests for everyone?
Could there be a potential loophole were someone can “suggest” that members of the community build something with a certain “theme” and try to make a “better version” than their peers? Just saying. /s
Okay, so let’s enforce a rule that doesn’t exist. And this has been a thing for a bit longer than the last week or so. Additionally, this will close up the loophole regarding Community Projects, so it kills two birds with one stone.
It’s a requirement to ensure that people don’t use contests as a method of creating “community projects” where the prize is “to be included” or other such events. It’s also a way of reducing spam topics on the boards.
Is it an archaic rule? Maybe a little, but ultimately we’d rather not deal with dozens of member run “contests” running on the boards where the prize is solely “accomplishment.” This is simply a method of ensuring that there is an appropriate amount of commitment in place.
Besides, there’s no strict monetary value requirement.
Eljay also explains well enough above - it might be from 4 years ago but with the recent influx of members due to the canon contests I am reticent to revoke a rule that was implemented specifically because of spam.
I understand that this rule is meant to decrease spam, and I agree about “winning” not being a suitable reward. However, I also strongly believe that digital artwork should be an allowed prize.
In my opinion, allowing artwork as a prize would increase the number of contests by a reasonable margin. I’d also argue that in some cases, a contest winner would prefer artwork over another prize.
Is there really a difference between sending artwork via the internet, and shipping a piece of artwork? The way I see, it, they have the same result, only one is much cheaper, safer, faster, and generally less of a hassle.
Which is not something we are interested in doing. We’re not looking for an increase in contests. If you’re running a contest here, the barrier to hosting will be high.