Competitions Discussion Thread Part 12

beffffff

I've stayed out of it this time as I commented quite a bit last time this was discussed, but just to add my personal thoughts to the current discussion:

1) My main concern is just that a decision HAS to be made about what constitutes a regular comp and where they are posted before they are linked to by PPD or Gilla. I don't mind if this decision is made by majority opinion or by the BGs. But a clear definition would avoid a lot of dupes and confusion.

2) If it is decided that regular comps get posted in the regulars instead of on the main board then I think that they shouldn't be locked after a few months if they are still active (e.g. if new answers are being posted monthly) like they are at the moment. Maybe make them automatically lock after 3 months with no update or something?

3) Re: whether each comp has it's own thread or is done like TAB, Puzzler.....I would probably prefer individual threads because I generally forget about TAB and Puzzler a lot and probably miss half the comps. But whatever is decided I will adapt if I need to.

4) Re: what constitutes a regular comp, I think if you ENTER via the same link daily/weekly/monthly then even if the prize changes it is a regular (an example being the Nurishment comps I post....the prize changes each month but there is ALWAYS a monthly comp so these could be posted as a regular, linked to in monthlies and then someone could just update the original thread with the new answer each month. It would save everyone that posts these type of comps having to remember each month.

5) I don't think the weekly/monthly draws where you only enter once are regulars, but agree it would be great if something like "REGULAR DRAW ENTER EARLY" could be added to the title after the end date as I miss a lot of these type of comps until very near the end.

I think that's all my thoughts/replies. Sorry it's a bit all over the place but I hope it makes enough sense?

Glad

beffffff wrote: »

I've stayed out of it this time as I commented quite a bit last time this was discussed, but just to add my personal thoughts to the current discussion:

1) My main concern is just that a decision HAS to be made about what constitutes a regular comp and where they are posted before they are linked to by PPD or Gilla. I don't mind if this decision is made by majority opinion or by the BGs. But a clear definition would avoid a lot of dupes and confusion.

2) If it is decided that regular comps get posted in the regulars instead of on the main board then I think that they shouldn't be locked after a few months if they are still active (e.g. if new answers are being posted monthly) like they are at the moment. Maybe make them automatically lock after 3 months with no update or something?

3) Re: whether each comp has it's own thread or is done like TAB, Puzzler.....I would probably prefer individual threads because I generally forget about TAB and Puzzler a lot and probably miss half the comps. But whatever is decided I will adapt if I need to.

4) Re: what constitutes a regular comp, I think if you ENTER via the same link daily/weekly/monthly then even if the prize changes it is a regular (an example being the Nurishment comps I post....the prize changes each month but there is ALWAYS a monthly comp so these could be posted as a regular, linked to in monthlies and then someone could just update the original thread with the new answer each month. It would save everyone that posts these type of comps having to remember each month.

5) I don't think the weekly/monthly draws where you only enter once are regulars, but agree it would be great if something like "REGULAR DRAW ENTER EARLY" could be added to the title after the end date as I miss a lot of these type of comps until very near the end.

I think that's all my thoughts/replies. Sorry it's a bit all over the place but I hope it makes enough sense?

good post

re what constitutes a reg comp, your point 4 makes it very well

if someone has asked gilla to put it in the dailies/weeklies thread then it's a regular and should be in the regs board, most people find the reg comps via her thread so shouldn't make a difference that the thread is in the reg board when they follow the link

re locking threads, I think when the comps boards were much smaller the idea was to stop bumping of threads which hid more recent threads, now we have lists of reg comps and better ways to search, I don't think leaving them unlocked them makes a difference, and it allows people to post any changes on them, if there are no updates they will fall down the boards anyway and threads with regular updates will stay near the top
as I'm working my way through every thread/comp on the reg board I have come across some prize changes etc and am posting them on the threads

crin

I actually like the way the dailies and weeklies comps are listed at present it makes it very easy to run through.

The monthlies are a bit of a mishmash at present. PPD does do a monthlies thread but I often find that people then do a thread on the main board somewhere at the beginning of the month and I have sometimes disualified myself by entering a comp twice.

If there all the dailies were posted under each other in just 1 thread then I feel it would get very messed up very quickly and a lot of people would miss comps because of the way the postings were equally, the bgs and regs work very ard with stickies and stuff on a voluntary basis and giving them much more work to do would detract from time they could spend entering comps on their own behalf.

I agree with befff in item 4 above if that's any help.

I don't normally post in these discussions as they come up frequently asking the same questions time after time.

lushy20

Can i just ask how do you know which competitions are new and which ones are not??

weeowens

lushy20 wrote: »

Can i just ask how do you know which competitions are new and which ones are not??

Just look on the date of posting.If they have not been added to ,they should in in something of date order.Failing that you can click on "New Topic View " & then the first comp will be the newest & so on down the pages.

bargainhuntergal

I think there might have been some misunderstandings somewhere along the line about some of the suggestions for changing the regular board, as far as I'm aware, the suggestion made about having one thread that was updated was one thread for every website but only for the websites with regular competitions, such as the magazines (itv was also mentioned), and not all websites regardless of the type of competition, so the main board as a whole wouldn't be affected by this change, only the regular competitions.

To be honest, I think anything that's working well as it is at the moment doesn't really need changing, unless is causes problems down the line, apart from maybe the board that they're on, but in exactly the same format as they are now, so they're just as easy to find over there, but they're easier see as they're not amongst all the 'single entry, single draw' competitions.

If everything was to be on the main board, it would require very clear labelling of anything that wasn't just a one entry for one draw at the end type competition (ie. something that can be specifically searched for so that those and only those competitions show on search. It would probably need to be something which is like a code as if you search for a sentence, I think search shows up anything that contains any of those words? Unless I'm not searching right, which is entirely possible! )

From what I can see, the main things causing problems/confusion at the moment are:
- When a competition gets posted on the main board that's already on the regular board.
- Dailies/weeklies/monthlies being posted on the main board and not being sent to the daily/weekly/monthly threads for Gilla/PPD to add to the first post/s.
- One entry but multiple draw competitions being posted on the main board, whether daily/weekly or irregular draws, because for people entering by end date all but the last draw is missed.
- Very old and out of date locked posts on the regulars board making it more confusing over there than it needs to be.

I think that's everything, but I may have missed something along the way.

The last part about old, out of date and locked threads should be sorted out over the next few weeks as Glad has very kindly taken on the task, so it's just a case of finding the best way for the other things to be taken care of really?

bargainhuntergal

Glad wrote: »

another thought, if a new reg comp was added to the list and (added 01/12) for eg was put after it, people could quickly see new ones added since they last looked

I'm not sure if you saw my post on this from the previous discussions in October (it's here ) I made the suggestion that maybe all new posts could be added to the top of the post (or the top of each section if it was like sci-fi-online or something) so it's really easy to see which ones are new since the last time you visited the thread?

I think something like this, either the date of adding to the post, or a specific order, needs to happen to convince more people to use the threads as they can be incredibly daunting with so many links listed when you're new to it all, I still find it daunting and I use them all the time.

Glad

bargainhuntergal wrote: »

I'm not sure if you saw my post on this from the previous discussions in October (it's here ) I made the suggestion that maybe all new posts could be added to the top of the post (or the top of each section if it was like sci-fi-online or something) so it's really easy to see which ones are new since the last time you visited the thread?

I think something like this, either the date of adding to the post, or a specific order, needs to happen to convince more people to use the threads as they can be incredibly daunting with so many links listed when you're new to it all, I still find it daunting and I use them all the time.

that would work too :T

sorry I missed it first time round

maybe gilla or princess could decide which way would suit them best

bargainhuntergal

Glad wrote: »

that would work too :T

sorry I missed it first time round

Don't worry about it, there's been so much talk about it all for so long, it's really easy to miss things, I'd just remembered that I'd mentioned it before, so thought I would bring it back to the discussion as more people are joining in this time!

I thought it would probably be easier for Gilla/PPD to quickly add things to the top of the thread as they go along, but the added to thread date is working really well in toniq's advents thread, so either way should work well in the regulars threads too. I guess it's just what works best for Gilla/PPD really

Just popped in to have a nosy at the regulars, you're doing a fine job, thanks again!! :T

ginjim

i think its looking great in there
breath of fresh air