Okay @Tokoloshe has helped setup up a giveaway, contest…whatever you want to call it. (more details to come)
The issue we are having is voting, or judging. We think it’s best to be anonymous. The options we have are submit pictures to me and on contest day I start a new thread, a single user’s entry in each post, most likes wins.
The issue with that is no one is then incentivized to make a “make” thread for each entry. For me each “make” thread lets me add a picture to the gallery and kind of the point for me, not just to drive traffic to the forums.
Is the anonymous part needed, or just driving traffic to the forums enough? Any other options?
(I can’t find a way to make hidden threads or sections without making a new section for each entry, then moving them all to the public side when the time comes.)
Can’t we make the “Things You’ve Made” entries after the contest is over? On second thought: Printables and Instructables contests are not anonymous either.
Contest subforum maybe? Like you did for LR3 builds?
The voting part is not anonymous here you can see who hearts your post. So the entries sort of need to be. We could add polls since those are anonymous but you can only do 10 per poll. We could do it that way and just keep adding polls to cover all entries. Highest vote count wins?
Yes but then each entrant would need to be added separately, everyone entered would see the others, and then I would have to move it. When it’s done.
I really like the idea of hidden entries until the day of, that way if someone submitted a fusion reactor others would not get intimidated and not enter.
What about having the “entry form” containing most of the info that would be on a “make” thread? E.g. imagine(s), material(s), machine settings… That way people would be more likely to do the thread since it’s already pretty much done. You can pull the images from there for the voting thread. Worst case maybe you could get some volunteers to upload any that were not uploaded by the creator.
It isn’t crazy to make it be judged. Random is fine too. But depending on the contest, someone might spend 80 hours on it. It would be kind of awful to have someone win when they submitted a cardboard box with crayon drawings on it (no offense to my 5yo who makes that stuff all the time).
You could have a 1, 3, 5 person panel choose the winner. Or choose the best several and then randomly pick from those (with runner ip prizes, maybe). Think of the hackaday contests.
And there is no reason it has to be in house. I am sure there are premade websites for something like this. It could be a google form. Or some site that specializes in contests.
I would probably go with judges. If you can get 3 people who know the community and won’t enter, they can solve a lot of problems with common sense. Random or number of votes can be gamed. But judges are hard to beat.
On second thought: Printables and Instructables contests are not anonymous either.