Signature of the Month Contest Generic Discussion Thread

[Rennir]

Originally Posted by Dist

And how do you suppose this would work? A person sees another one with a sig that breaks the normal rules, does not know he won the SOTM and reports it to a mod => More work for the mod as now they have to check if they're allowed to break the rules or not. If you had a notification in user information that he won, it would be almost same as custom user title. Plus increasing the avatar rules is impossible since it's built-in to the forum software, else everyone would be able to use 150kb.

Personally I don't really mind the rep reward, though 50 points like in Scavenger Hunt is ridiculous. But then again, the original meaning of rep is lost if you get it for something like this... Well, it already is like felix explained <.<. A simple Hall of Fame thread would do the winners justice with each month's winner have his signature presented there or something.


Why do you even need rewards? This isn't a gfx forum only, and to have something to show off to others... bleh. I'm sure that the signature makers feel happy enough if they just manage to win. Do you seriously need a reward to attract more competitors? I thought some, if not all sig makers mostly participate to practice their sig making, get feedback on their work so far and how to improve it and such. There are some people that have never won yet still participate. Obviously they're not doing it just to win.

Chances are the winner will probably be reported a couple of times As for how it will work, I can't propose a perfectly apt solution as I have no idea of the limits of what vB can or cannot do. Ideally, any report of the user that has the word signature or sig or tag or some other variant automatically gets filtered out and deleted, but as I previously stated, I don't know whether or not this is possible.

Also, updating the Hall of Fame thread would also creates extra work

Well, Solace noted the apparent drop in participation in the SOTM, which is where the original idea about changing the entire format of the SOTM originated. You'll see the post a couple of pages back. I'm fine with the current reward. But other people suspected that the drop in participation was due to the fact that because the winner usually picked something that he/she liked, which may or may not reflect the interests of the rest of the gfx artists, the participation in the next month took a big drop. So I proposed to not let the winner choose the theme next month, but give them something else instead, rather than simply getting rid of any type of reward.

I, personally, don't need any type of reward to satisfy me. Knowing that I beat x number of entries in any particular month is enough satisfaction for me However, seeing as how some additional form of reward has been brought up repeatedly in this thread in the past, I'm assuming that other people want something more, or suspect that the reason of the drop in participation is an insufficient reward.

And while some people do gfx just out of passion, there are some who don't have such a noble reason.

[Suomi]

If we're talking prizes, what if the winner got a sig and avatar set or something?
From whom, I don't know, but...maybe a volunteer, the same or different each month? Just throwing that out there. Doesn't have to be fancy, could say "SOTM winner x month" and a character of their choice or something. If we didn't have a volunteer...well, we could deal with that when/if it came to that. Or another way.
And the theme could be picked by them still or by a community input, then chosen from that by popular vote or a mod? (within a certain period, maybe a week or so?)
Just an idea...
Personally, I'm happy the way it is but would be fine with it changing, I don't really care. I'm just in it to improve my gfx skills

[felix]

So by now this contest is officially dead, yes?

[Miko Miko]

Originally Posted by felix

So by now this contest is officially dead, yes?

I hope not.. I miss it.

[The Drunk Demoman]

Yeah, I was wondering as well where the SOTM thread is.

Someone should make one.

[felix]

Originally Posted by The Drunk Demoman

Yeah, I was wondering as well where the SOTM thread is.

Someone should make one.

Can't bro. Solace has copyright and all that nonsense.

[Miko Miko]

Well where is Solace these days?

[felix]

Originally Posted by Miko Miko

Well where is Solace these days?

Banner contest I think... he jumped the gun pretty quick too.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Miko Miko

Well where is Solace these days?

Dealing with many things at once.

The contest isn't dead. I had stated that it was going to return last month, but to be honest my mind has been occupied with other things and motivation hasn't been strong in restarting it asap.

When will it return? Soon™.

[Miko Miko]

Originally Posted by Solace

Dealing with many things at once.

The contest isn't dead. I had stated that it was going to return last month, but to be honest my mind has been occupied with other things and motivation hasn't been strong in restarting it asap.

When will it return? Soon™.

Yaaay!!!

Ahh well I will be waiting ~ good luck with everything else you got going on too ~

[MagicaLideaL]

Originally Posted by Solace

Dealing with many things at once.

The contest isn't dead. I had stated that it was going to return last month, but to be honest my mind has been occupied with other things and motivation hasn't been strong in restarting it asap.

When will it return? Soon™.

Ahh.. How i missed the days where i could see plenty of amazing signatures. Maybe you could look back at the previous SoTM to find back the motivation.

[Suomi]

Solace: if it returns, maybe you could enlist some help running it, if you wanted.

I can't wait for the return~! my PS is getting rusty!

[CMSensei]

Solace: I have been missing it a lot lately I have been looking to challenging it again XD

[Urei]

SOTM is one of the things I really, greatly enjoy on Animesuki. Would love to compete in it once again.

[Marina]

I think after fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving AS will probably focus on new year-round banners, so SOTM will probably be postponed a bit longer?

[Sanaki]

I will definitely try to enlist in this contest, if its possible for me to, that is.

[Dist]

Originally Posted by Marina

I think after fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving AS will probably focus on new year-round banners, so SOTM will probably be postponed a bit longer?

Why? SOTM isn't about banners, and Solace isn't in charge of those contests so this should be able to run independent of other contests. Makes me really wonder how busy can Solace be that he can't run the contest when it hardly requires any works. Few posts here and there, rally up votes, put them in Excel, oh we're done.

[ganbaru]

The issue isn't about who's being in charge, it's about thoses than would participate to the contest(s); some barely managed to get the time to participate to one, many won't be abble to participate to two.

[CMSensei]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

The issue isn't about who's being in charge, it's about thoses than would participate to the contest(s); some barely managed to get the time to participate to one, many won't be abble to participate to two.

Shouldn't we then make a poll to see how many would try to participate?

[Marina]

Originally Posted by CMHerrera

Shouldn't we then make a poll to see how many would try to participate?

If you just look at the numbers of participants in the SOTM competition for each one since 2008 when it first started, you'll notice a significant decline in participants. When we first opened up the competition, there were around 30-some entries. Our more recent ones only number somewhere in the low teens.

I agree with ganbaru that it's important to take into consideration multiple contests, number of participants, and staff involved. An upcoming banner competition will be more than enough to keep graphic artists focused on improving their works, and if not, they should still be able to work independently through their own threads here in the fan creations subforum, or try contributing to sig/avatar request threads.