Dear members of MFGG, Ever since competitions have been reintroduced to MFGG we got quite a good amount of entries. We always had a top 5 so far and the drawing competition even set up a new record with more than 10 entries. Coincidence? Probably not so much. The drawing competition had a broad and interesting theme being Beta Elements that got people interested to enter. A good theme that sparks your motivation is important. Therefore, to ensure further competitions keep the entries this high, we need to ensure the theme isn't a flop. That means, picking "80's pop music" a music competition theme should not be happening anymore. Sure, we never had that theme in particular, but we have some bad themes here and there. Mostly, good themes are picked anyway that people are fond of. But to ensure a quality theme, we will have a quality control for themes from now on! So, instead of the winner making the new thread with the new theme it will work as follows from now on: The winner sends his suggestion to the [b][url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=2880]Competition Leader[/url][/b], a new account created for this purpose. This is an account all staff members have access to. When we are okay with your suggestion we will let you know and post the new topic with said theme. If we aren't all that happy with it, we will let you know too, so you can think of something else. If you run a blank, you can always let us decide, or inform the runner-up to pick the theme for you. If the Competition Leader does not receive a theme in time, we will just use our own. This probably sounds more strict than it really is. Your theme will mostly pass, and if we have some nitpicks, it will probably be minor adjustments. A good guideline for your theme is: Make it interesting and so that everyone can enter! Thanks for your attention and keep the high rate of competition entries up!

I always liked the idea of having the winner of the previous comp to host, though this could help with the activity.

I don't mind the idea of competition ideas being picked... but that seems kind of convoluted. Why not just have people, at the end of a competition, suggest a bunch of themes and then create a poll where people can vote on their favourite theme. At least then you're guaranteed more entrants if you're doing a competition based on the fan favourite. And also then both the admins AND the members get a say, not just the admins. Also you could run suggesting / voting as an announcement to get more people to see it outside of the designated competition forum (though I always felt having all competitions held in the General Chat was better, but maybe that's just me)

[quote="Kritter"]I don't mind the idea of competition ideas being picked... but that seems kind of convoluted. Why not just have people, at the end of a competition, suggest a bunch of themes and then create a poll where people can vote on their favourite theme. At least then you're guaranteed more entrants if you're doing a competition based on the fan favourite. And also then both the admins AND the members get a say, not just the admins. Also you could run suggesting / voting as an announcement to get more people to see it outside of the designated competition forum (though I always felt having all competitions held in the General Chat was better, but maybe that's just me)[/quote]That is a terrible idea, honestly. That way, people would already know the themes beforehand and could start working on their entries early and it would further delay the competitions. This way it's just how it has always been - the winner picks the theme, we only assure it will be of quality and we don't get a theme that is so specific only 1 - 2 people will enter after a 2 week extension.

All true, except who are you to decide quality? What you think is a great idea, I might think is awful, so really the whole thing becomes pointless and unnecessary. Give it a go though.

I'm with Kritter, but how about the admins and the previous winner comes up with multiple themes. Then a day or two before the actual start of a competition, a poll will be held to choose one. Yeah, people can still start early, but I don't think one or two extra days would hurt anyone. However, if noone likes any of the themes, I don't think there should be an "Other" option. I feel like the initial set of themes should be strict so there are no delays. If no one votes, a default or random theme will be set out of the theme set. -- You also can get a feel for how many people are interested in the competition depending on the total number of votes.

Anyway, if everyone has the option of starting a bit early, it's still even ground then isn't it? [img]http://www.unclesmiley.com/Smiley%20Faces/winking_smiley.png[/img] I dunno, still try it the new way, can't hurt to give it a go, but to me it just seems to add extra confusion.

[quote="Kritter"]All true, except who are you to decide quality? What you think is a great idea, I might think is awful, so really the whole thing becomes pointless and unnecessary. Give it a go though.[/quote] They decide what kinds of sprites and games get accepted onto the main site, so why is it so bad that they decide which themes are acceptable?

If anything, a poll would be extra confusion. That would be overly unnecessary. All we do is check if the themes meet our standards - it's also handled like this on the MW, and the system works there. I'm sorry if you feel like the staff members take control of the themes as opposed to the community deciding, but that's not the case. I also doubt that any ideas filtered out by us would seem good to you. All we do is make sure they are broad and interesting enough, and I doubt we will have many cases where we need to outright decline the theme.

Oh it works on the minus world, that's OK then.

[quote="Evil Yoshi"] They decide what kinds of sprites and games get accepted onto the main site, so why is it so bad that they decide which themes are acceptable?[/quote] Its not bad, we just feel like the idea was better in a community way. It also gets the community atleast somewhat more involved. It might even allow for a little momentum to get going for comps. We also didn't say anything against admins still filtering out the theme set.

[quote="TheShyGuy"]Its not bad, I just feel like my idea was better in a community way.[/quote] That's pretty much how I feel about it. I like the idea of getting the community involved more.

Hehehe I just reread your first post and realized that I just repeated the same thing =/

I would give this thing the benefit of the doubt. I know the music competition in particular has been notorious for total flops, simply collaborating with another user (and for a little bit, almost the entire site staff) has brought us the current theme for that, which at this point has come up with 6 entries. With an average of 1-3 entries in the music comp, I would say that this system has so far worked well. http://wiki.mfgg.net/index.php?title=Music_Competitions I would call the current step part of the testing phase, but I think this is going to work out well.

Still, essentially this competition was "remix any song from any Mario game in any style you want" which is incredibly broad and may have something to do with the amount of entrants.

[quote="Kritter"]Still, essentially this competition was "remix any song from any Mario game in any style you want" which is incredibly broad and may have something to do with the amount of entrants.[/quote] You make this sound like a bad thing. The music comps have been notorious for poor entries, and yet this one has seen 6. Perhaps this is a sign that the music comp theme should be as broad as possible? The current theme may be right on the edge of being "Too broad", yes, but there is something here, especially when it is compared to the others.

No i'm not saying it's a bad thing at all, just saying it's probably why there were more entries, i'm all for broad music competitions that encourage people to be creative in their own way.