Few suggestions for the Arena

[FrIkY]

Okay, so... I was thinking, and I came upon few small suggestions that could improve our Arena.

1. Counter

A simple counter that counts how long is contest, or poll, gonna last. For example: A theme for a modeling contest has been decided, and someone is now going to host it. When someone hosts that contest thread, a counter appears that starts counting 30 days when the contest will end (or make it possible to set how long the counter will count). Some kind of a counter that is shown like this:

DD : HH : MM : SS

Why is this useful? Well, there are many people asking about "when is this contest gonna end?" "how much time do we got left?" or something like that... so, if we had a counter, in contests and polls, then this should solve the problem and answer those questions easily.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think that kind of counter is pretty easy to set. Maybe the only problem would be with vBulletin, is something like this possible with vBulletin? I'm not really into that stuff...

2. Winners font

When the results thread is made, and all scores were put together, 3 winners are decided and revealed to public! First place winner recieves a yellow (simbolizes gold) font, second winner recieves gray (simbolizes silver) and third winner recieves brown (simbolizes bronze) font. Okay, that's great... but, what kinda annoys me is the font size. I don't think they should be all different, they should all be the same. First winner will of course feel happy (or some kind of pleasure), second one will feel happy (or some kind of pleasure), but also a little bit sad for not winning the first place, and third winner will feel happy (or some kind of pleasure), but less than others, and probably feel a little dissapointed for not winning second or first place. This might not be true for everyone, but that's how I think it is...
So what I'm suggesting is... when revealing the winners, they all need to have the same font size. Hmm... You're probably asking yourself "And why is that?" "lolwut?" or "wutaburger?".

This could be shown like this... but this is how I think it is, with most of the people... but I could, or may be very very wrong.

text

in the eyes of a regular member who didn't participate in the contest:

regular

1st - >name<

2nd ->name<

3rd ->name<

in the eyes of a first place winner:

first

1st - I AM THE BEST!!!!
2nd - lol, this one did not get the first place that only I deserve!! Muahaha!
3rd - xD

in the eyes of a second place winner:

second

1st - He was better than me... oh well...

2nd - Yay!

3rd - pfew... almost

in the eyes of a third place winner:

third

1st - >name<
2nd - >name<
3rd - *sigh* >_>

If, what I said in the hidden text is (partially) true, then I think we need to change the font to equal. Winners might also feel a bit more equal and realize that from all of the contestants, they were the ones who won, and to everyone to realize it's not about being first, second or third... it's about participating, having fun and comunicating with the community...

3. Final Submission - post tag

When tagged to your post, it means that's your final submission for the contest. I think this will be very useful for creating a poll to vote, because then you just search for "Final Submission" tagged posts and use them for judging, creating a poll etc... it takes some time to search for the whole contest thread to find all of the final submissions, and then you forgot some people and they don't even end up in the poll (it happened before).
That tag could be achived with the prefix to your post... you know, kinda like in the "Bugs Report Forum", you have Solved, Unsolved and Ignored... this "Final Submission" should work in that principle... probably...

4. Pixel Art Contest

An idea for a new type of contest! I hope you all know what 'Pixel Art' is and I don't need to explain... maybe we can even create a special name for it just like Icons contests (Phoenix Trials) and Spell contests (Zephyr Challenge) have! So, my idea for a name is "Pixel Hunt" or "Pixel Hunting"... got any better idea for the name, or keep it "Pixel Art Contest/Competition"?

5. Thread icons for each type of contest

Well... this is actually a small thing, really small, but if people agree with this, then someone could create 'thread-icons' for each type of contest (if no one is up to, then I could probably do it)
So, the idea is kinda like... well, each contest to have it's own Thread-icon, just like I used the

icon for this thread. Some kind of small symbol that represents the type of that contest... but really, it's a small thing, not important...
_________________________________________________________

So, What do you agree with, what do you disagree with? What do you agree with but still change the idea a bit? Any suggestions on your own? Please, discuss!
Help Hive to become a better community and place to hang out!

 

[Insincerity]

I think it would be worth it to make a special page for contests that works differently (somewhat like how the resource section is different from the rest of the forums). It would have a button to submit entries, and they would be automatically added to the OP. The rating function would then be just like the resource section, you would rate each entry out of 5, but in order for your rates to count, you would have to rate every submission (otherwise it wouldn't make sense...).

 

[XenoStalker]

Having the final submissions actually linked in the judging posts would be nice...

 

[Panda]

I think all 3 people should be rewarded with something unknown.

 

[Pyritie]

1. Counter

3. Final Submission - post tag

5. Thread icons for each type of contest

I like these ideas.


As for the winners font, that's mostly just something I do (I think). I didn't think it would offend anyone but if it is then I'll make the font sizes equal

 

[ike_ike]

The font thing is pretty dumb.

"Winners might also feel a bit more equal"

Well, evidently not. What's the point of having the same font size if they're gonna get different icons and prizes? And, uh, don't really think anyone noticed the fonts too much, but meh.

Counter is a good idea. Should autolock the thread too. Is a shame that no one on the forum seems to understand how GMT works though ...

Pixel art seems a bit random. Also, a pixel hunt is actually some kinda game genre, so could be misleading.

Don't see need for thread icon. You'd hope the blobby text that screams PHOENIX TRIAL BLAH BLAH would be all ye'd need.

 

[Deolrin]

I agree with most of the ideas. I don't think we need a special thread icon for each contest, though.

 

[Hakeem]

I think it would be worth it to make a special page for contests.

Same. I wouldn't assign it high priority, personally, though.

 

[Duragon]

A counter would be neat and all, but people need to really learn to figure this stuff out on their own. When something says it ends at midnight, X day, GMT, you can even use google to find out what that means if you have no idea. We should really try to motivate them to learn and be more self-sufficient, so I don't think a counter is the best of ideas.

The final submission post tag could be useful, but really, I don't understand why they can't just put "Final Submission" in their post. Then you can run a thread search for that set of terms and voillah, list of final submissions. (This would end up with minor overlap if people started talking about final submissions or something, but it'd be easy to sort out)

And yeah, as cute as new icons would be, the thread titles are pretty clear. At most, maybe two icons to distinguish development contests from art contests (since that would be cool), but that's it.

 

[Kwah]

1) The timer is a nice idea, and one I support.

The other four range from not terrible to totally pointless. Having final submission tags could be handy for certain people/judges.

I'm totally against the Fonts, and don't really see the point to the thread icons.

This is not the place to suggest new contests, so I'd take the Pixel Art suggestion to the Arena. But personally, I'd be okay with one.

 

[Pyritie]

3w 2d 11h 37m

3 weeks, 2 days, 11 hours, and 37 minutes until this contest is over

 

[FrIkY]

So... what about the suggestions, are any of them going to be made?

 

[Ralle]

Well. It would require some haxxing and I feel I have more important things to do. Maybe somebody could make a countdown in JS where you give it the unix timestamp it has to count down to.
My only question though. When getting the unix timestamp in JS, is it timezoned? Or is it the same all around the world? Cause then it would be an easy hack to make.

 

[Pyritie]

Well. It would require some haxxing and I feel I have more important things to do. Maybe somebody could make a countdown in JS where you give it the unix timestamp it has to count down to.
My only question though. When getting the unix timestamp in JS, is it timezoned? Or is it the same all around the world? Cause then it would be an easy hack to make.

Timezoned, I think. I remember hakeem once gave unix timestamps and told us to use those for figuring out when SUPER SECRET THINGS were.

 

[Hakeem]

JavaScript timestamps are standard UNIX timestamps * 1000 for milliseconds. When displaying a Date.toString() it will be localized. If it were me, I'd make all times on the site as timestamps that would be localized by the client machine.

 

[Paladon]

Speaking of arena changes, i'd like to see winners of just expired contests as well as their awarded work on the News page again, like it was done sometimes yet rarely in the past.