Sabachthan
05-02-2007, 03:33 PM
mortica is awesome. Period.
For nearly a year and a half I've been running the Weekly Contest, which involves:
1) updating the current entries list throughout the week (which I've been seriously slacking on lately)
2) waiting till midnight Monday night to set up the poll. This is done by copy/pasting the list of entries into excel, running a random/sort on the list, then copy/pasting that list into the poll (line by line). Then I have to do some minor modification to the header HTML so the vote image shows up to remind people it's Tuesday :).
3) waiting till midnight Tuesday night to get the results of the poll and return the site back to "accepting" status. If I have work early the next day I'll often wait till I get to work to check the results. Late night dungeon crawling will sometimes delay getting the results also.
4) update the "list of past winners" here, and on the official forums.
5) come up with something witty that will hopefully be relevant to the story and post it in the news.
6) log in and send people their prize money.
7) rinse/repeat.
I dunno why, but step #1 and step #5 are the "work" part to me. The rest I don't mind and really doesn't take that much time to do.
#5 used to be easy, but I seem to have exhausted my creativity in announcing each week's winner(s) in a way that to me seems fresh and "fun".
Step #1 will hopefully go away when we get the wiki setup (it is definitely happening now since I'm being forced to change webhosts and having more than one database will be a requirement of the new host).
Step #5 I'm going to just axe, unless people get in an uproar. My reasoning is probably 90% of you never even see this page. Yes, I'm obviously typing this at the people who DO see the front page, but y'all are in the minority. I have webstats. They don't lie ^^
So! If you think this is a bad idea, and want to make me suffer in coming up with new ways to announce winners, just create a post in the "Suggestions/Bugs" section (or reply if someone beat you to it) and I'll reconsider :)
Although I understand the desire to be creative and "witty" in the posting of winners, I also understand that the mood is not always there. Frankly, I wouldn't mind a "boring" announcement if the mood is not there for you.
"Sabachthan wins this week with his story 'HA HA I PWNZ U ALL NUBS!', congrats!" would be just as fine to me as your more interesting announcements in the past. Maybe because that would involve me winning; though that would involve me writing ... I've gotten distracted...
Instead of axing step five, could you bear posting non-fun news each time? A simple line of who won and then a quick synopses of any events would be sufficient in my eyes. You could mention the look for a new service, etc. This is the first page first-time visitors to the site would see.
Though if you'd rather not post "boring" news, I suppose I could live without the news section...
For nearly a year and a half I've been running the Weekly Contest, which involves:
1) updating the current entries list throughout the week (which I've been seriously slacking on lately)
2) waiting till midnight Monday night to set up the poll. This is done by copy/pasting the list of entries into excel, running a random/sort on the list, then copy/pasting that list into the poll (line by line). Then I have to do some minor modification to the header HTML so the vote image shows up to remind people it's Tuesday :).
3) waiting till midnight Tuesday night to get the results of the poll and return the site back to "accepting" status. If I have work early the next day I'll often wait till I get to work to check the results. Late night dungeon crawling will sometimes delay getting the results also.
4) update the "list of past winners" here, and on the official forums.
5) come up with something witty that will hopefully be relevant to the story and post it in the news.
6) log in and send people their prize money.
7) rinse/repeat.
I dunno why, but step #1 and step #5 are the "work" part to me. The rest I don't mind and really doesn't take that much time to do.
#5 used to be easy, but I seem to have exhausted my creativity in announcing each week's winner(s) in a way that to me seems fresh and "fun".
Step #1 will hopefully go away when we get the wiki setup (it is definitely happening now since I'm being forced to change webhosts and having more than one database will be a requirement of the new host).
Step #5 I'm going to just axe, unless people get in an uproar. My reasoning is probably 90% of you never even see this page. Yes, I'm obviously typing this at the people who DO see the front page, but y'all are in the minority. I have webstats. They don't lie ^^
So! If you think this is a bad idea, and want to make me suffer in coming up with new ways to announce winners, just create a post in the "Suggestions/Bugs" section (or reply if someone beat you to it) and I'll reconsider :)
Although I understand the desire to be creative and "witty" in the posting of winners, I also understand that the mood is not always there. Frankly, I wouldn't mind a "boring" announcement if the mood is not there for you.
"Sabachthan wins this week with his story 'HA HA I PWNZ U ALL NUBS!', congrats!" would be just as fine to me as your more interesting announcements in the past. Maybe because that would involve me winning; though that would involve me writing ... I've gotten distracted...
Instead of axing step five, could you bear posting non-fun news each time? A simple line of who won and then a quick synopses of any events would be sufficient in my eyes. You could mention the look for a new service, etc. This is the first page first-time visitors to the site would see.
Though if you'd rather not post "boring" news, I suppose I could live without the news section...