Contests Notifications

[Panda-chan]

Well I noticed a lot of contests on MLK go unnoticed and eventually die, mostly because no one really knew they existed in the first place. For example, while browsing through the Fan Art section, I noticed NTQL's Simba Contest for the first time as well as TG's Subcanon Character Marathon which almost no one participated in and seems to have been abandoned completely, and also mine which seems to be suffering from lack of participation >.>. Now I realize some of this inactivity may be due to the fact that not many people are willing to submit anything, but wouldn't it be nice to have some sort of bulletin up that announces all the current MLK contests? I'm not just talking about fan art contests either mind you.
I can forsee one problem with this idea: it would be annoying to constantly update all the current contests, and *cough* I don't really have a solution to it. Maybe we could have a Current Contests and Upcoming Deadlines box like they have on TLKFAA..? Or... some kind of e-mail notification? Sorry I must be sounding so lame for coming up with a problem and not having any way to fix it.

[KiarasMate]

I strongly believe that it's more lack of interest on the part of members, rather than not knowing about the contests, that lead some contests to fade into obscurity. There has been a recent influx of contests popping up on MLK and that leads to competition in and among itself. You can't expect every contest to take off, like Mike's Fan Art contest, and the more contests that come up here on MLK, the more others will be pushed to the side. It's just the way things go. Maybe I'm wrong about this but a lot of the lesser known contests just don't have the same appeal or popularity of the more well known contests. It's a shame, but I don't think posting updates about every little contest will help many of them all that much. Again though, just my opinion. ^^

[Mike]

MLK's policy on member made contests is that everyone is allowed to create a contest, but they take responsability themselves of making sure it has enough activity and participation. That way only the contests that attract members stay active while the rest die out. That's how we keep the forums clean and avoid a dozen contests about the same thing. It's a sort of survival of the fittest.

I think the best that we could do would be to make a "master" thread of all the member-made contests. It'd fit best in the MLK Awards forum I think. Just the name of the contest and a brief sentence saying what it's all about.

[SnowyCheetah]

Don't we already have that, Mike? The Awards section is pretty much a master contest area. For official ones, anyway. Though KK is in charge of it (if I am not mistaken) and if you want to have a contest in there, where it's more likely to get noticed, you've got to ask him.

[Mike]

MLK contests are run by the staff, it doesn't really matter who in particular. You're a sort of odd exception I guess =3 But I meant a roster thread of all <un>official contests, because like you said, the official ones already have their roster in the MLK awards section.

[SnowyCheetah]

That sounds like a good idea. Ooooor, maybe Moka would be willing to add another link to the forum template, which leads to a page with simply a list with links to all contests? Perhaps such a page could be something members would need to ask Moka to have their contests added to? Of course... such a page would be a real nightmare to keep current...

[Mike]

Which is why I figured a simple thread would be more efficient =3

[SnowyCheetah]

lol, yeah. Where would such a thread go? I don't think a directory of all contests on MLK would fit in the more official Awards Ceremonies... Perhaps we could just have an entire section in The Den for all unofficial contests. Since there are so many, maybe subforums for voting and submission/nomination threads would be in order.

[Moka]

I kinda have to disagree with you there. I don't think the staff should be responsible for keeping up with every member's contest. I don't think a list of contests will help, either. Members can plainly see the contests in the forum they're viewing. Like KM said, I think it has to do more with members' lack of interest than ability to find stuff.

Personally I would have a tougher time finding the thread with all the contests listed than finding the contest I'm actually looking for

[Mike]

Good point. You're right come to think of it. A roster thread wouldn't be bumped very often, if ever, and it'd die real fast unless we really went out of our way to spam it.