Our Next Contest: Ideas?

Howdy folks,

With the great success of our last two contests (thanks to our active members), we have decided to continue on and organize a third for this community. However, we have run out of ideas and would like to gain some perspective on what you, as members of this community, would like to see. What sort of contest would entice current (along with prospective) members to contribute to the discussion on an even larger scope?

We're looking forward to hearing your feedback.

 

A referral contest, whoever refers the most members wins, of course it would need monitoring properly and I wouldnt know how to do that myself.

A threadding only contest, more threads you make the higher chance of winning. Posting doesnt count.

Admin Addict banner contest, whoever designs the best AA advert/banner wins.

Article competition, allowing us to post our articles and whoevers voted highest wins.

Mega COTM - Everyone here needs/is asked to submit their sites for a big COTM competition with a free premium membership as a prize.

Just a few I can think of

 

Graphics design contest.

An extended version of the COTM/Best Community mentioned by Michael, above.

Who can find and add Chris on Facebook.

Referral contests are a joke. Do not want.

 

We should do that Chani's idea with the separate forum, that'd really be fun.

Maybe a design contest[juuuuust kidding]. Erm... Helpful posts I don't think it might be a good idea, sometimes opinions about what's helpful and what's not might get biased.

 

They may be hard to trace who referred who but surely referring loads of new people to AA wouldnt be a joke?

 

Who knows? You can sometimes reffer yourself:frown:

 

=\ Well, people like me have a hard time finding people who are interested in Webmastering. I run an anime site that knows nothing of what I am talking about when I say "MyBB version 1.4.8"

I would think contests would like to be kept at a range that EVERYONE could participate...? That's why I said j/k about the graphic design competition, not everyone would be able to participate.

 

No contest will ever be perfect.

Next one could be the most helpful posts,
next one could be new referrals.
next one for articles written.

Change it up a bit, do them monthly? Keep the prizes not too big because then people try too hard.

 

That's what I was getting at. Plus, you may bring in loads of people to AA, but how many have more than 5 posts after three months? How many even return? I'd rather see less members, but more active, than seeing a lot of inactive members with a few active ones.

 

How about you turn things into a bit of a game - perhaps set up a random domain (or use an unused one), and drop clear (but subtle) hints throughout the site/forum giving clues to the address of that domain.

The one who finds/posts the domain name in the given thread wins

 

Online scavenger hunt!!

 

Too simple and easy for cheating. The benefits won't be worth the hassle. (See end of post for elaboration on the lack of benefits).

I think it's too similar to the usual posting contests. :shrug:

This would make only very few of the members anywhere near eligible to participate.

I really like this idea. In fact, of all the ideas presented, it is the most appealing to me. Articles could be submitted privately and posted by administration so that there is absolutely no bias. Once the votes are cast, we can reveal the identities of the authors, then move the articles to the Articles section of the site.

Eh, I don't see Premium Memberships as upgrades and aren't worth much of anything. They are for people who have the desire to contribute to AA.

100% agreed / my thoughts exactly. Referral contests are no bueno.

 

Seems the domain and vBulletin Licenses kept the site active. But some of these new members have been quite active, Most of the members dont even have posts.

 

Hi All,

As I mentioned in another thread, I would love the idea of a "helpful post" contest. We need an opportunity to recognize that this community should be more about quality than quantity.

In such a contest I think it would be important to lay out a few ground rules.

*First provide a definition of what a "helpful post" is so that everyone sort of has a measure to start from. This would be up to the AA staff to determine (I'd assume that they would get some community thoughts before creating the "perfect" definition).

*Second, since the purpose would be quality over quantity I would suggest the person with the greatest number of helpful posts divided by the number of total posts should win. (I suggest this mostly becuase I am not a fan of "yea, me too" posts that just agree with the previous posts and don't add anything of substance to the conversation.) But we could always go with the greatest number of positive points... would we subtract the negitive points?

*Third, obviously if people are concerned about bias there would need to be a general statement made that neither positive points nor negitive points should be given based on the person offering the content. Instead points should be provided based on the quality of the content. I really hope that no one here would give points to somebody just becuase they are friends. (That's so Jr. High :frown
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Just suggestions. I'm thinking that I will initiate some sort of "Sr." member role in my community and use criteria kind of like this so it's good to actually write it out (if for no other reason).

I also like the article idea. There are a lot of people here that know a boat load of info that I would love to hear more about!!

Finally, I don't think the prize should cost anything. Perhaps a new rank badge or icon or something that the winner can display.

Thanks!
RR

 

Best promotion example

Give a real life example of how to promote your forum in a unique way.

But that suggestion is slanted and I would probably blow everyone out of the water.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA2Dcz1aC1I"]YouTube - Complacency with disaster preparedness[/ame]

 

Not really I work with Adobe After Effects, I can do videos, not as good as I can design, but I'm good enough. ;D I just never show anyone.

 

I think he's talking about CONTENT, not editing. :p

I use Sony Vegas Pro, and I'm pretty damn good with it.

 

An articles competition would be great for both the members (as we would potentially get some great resource/helpful information) and AA would get some great content to promote the site and expand that section of the site.

I kinda like the promotional aspect of the 'create a promo video for AA' sort of contest. Or, just a general 'promote AA' award given to the person who best promoted the site (without spamming and stuff like that) and share videos, audio/podcasts, banners/graphics, etc.

 

I wasn't talking about editing either, I can make a promo video without having actually to be in the video, typography only.

 

This thread is full of wonderful ideas. Thanks, all.

Now, in terms of prizes for the winner(s) of the contest, what would be ideal? If you were to win such a contest, what would you like to receive as the reward?