Adding Farktography to the Contests Tab on Fark

[Elsinore]

I wanted to solicit your feedback on the idea of adding Farktography contests to the Contests tab on Fark. Really, this makes a lot of sense, given we’re, you’re know, a contest, just as the PS contests are. And what I’d hope to see is that the greater exposure of being listed on that tab would increase participation.

The only real downside I could see for us is that we would be submitting the threads a week or two before they go live, so they’d be sitting there open to submission from TF’ers during that time. Historically, Farktography has been set up to emphasize that we primarily submit our photos at or around 8pm on Wednesdays for TF’ers and after midnight Thurs for everyone else. The argument for that has generally been our sense of community being propped up by that set up, but would it really be hampered if we shifted things? I see our sense of “community” fostered more by our participation here and by our general participation in Farktography threads, and less so by the time we submit our photos in those threads.

So what say you? What benefits or consequences do you see to keeping the status quo (staying off the Contests Tab) vs opening our threads up to listing them a week or two in advance? Do the benefits outweigh the consequences for one or the other option?

[CauseISaidSo]

If I’m honest about it, I don’t think I’d post very far in advance even if/when I had TF just out of competitiveness. There’s too much creativity and talent out there to be giving anyone else ideas and letting them know what they’re up against too far ahead of time! After the contest starts, I’m all about sharing ideas and techniques, but before then, it’s dog-eat-dog, every-man/woman-for-himself/herself! 😆

That said, though, I think that the non-regular TFers who pop in every year or two because they happen to have a shot that fits the theme would post early, so maybe if there’s a lot of that, it would force regular TFers to enter earlier for position. And maybe having examples of the theme available for a week or two prior would get more casuals involved after they see what’s acceptable.

Bottom line, I’m good either way, especially if it’ll help raise participation and voting.

[Elsinore]

Yeah, I was also kinda thinking the regulars wouldn’t necessarily post that far in advance. Good point about the more casual folks and semi-regulars, though!

[ravnostic]

Do they really post that early? I thought about a week was the longest. Personally, I’m for anything that increases participation. The fact that you are limited to three images will (eventually) give pause to people posting in haste very early, I would think, if they become more regular participants.

[ennuipoet]

Tell the truth, I would like to be able to post day of rather than hour of. I also don’t think having the theme open for submission a la Photoshop threads would change the voting results as our threads tend to go for talent rather than kitsch. Finally, having the theme in the Contest Q would encourage others who might not see the theme on Wednesday nights to participate.

I guess what I am really saying is

Elsinore, they bought their Total Fark, they knew what they were getting in to. I say let ’em post!

[orionid]

There used to be a time where TF photoshops were in the queue for maybe two or three days, and it seemed to be semi-random (I’m talking ’02-ish). Any way we could split the difference and make it hit the contest tab 24 or 48 hours in advance? Get the best of both worlds where one could casually drop in and still be early in the thread, whilst not leaving an incredible amount of time for someone like me to take two good ideas and kitbash them together and call it my own?

[Elsinore]

I think it would really come down to when I post the thread as to how long they’re in the queue. So I could probably control that to some extent. I’m not sure 24-48 hrs would be realistic to allow for more casual folks to “happen by” and post (as opposed to, say, a week), but I’m open to it. One thing that might create a bit of randomosity (like you see with PS threads) is that the thread could end up greened at a random time. As in, maybe I post the thread on Thurs for 6 days away, but it isn’t greened until Friday. The next week, it might get nearly insta-greened. It would still go live on Thurs at 12:01am, but the timing of when admin would approve it could end up more random than the 4 hour window we currently have.

[orionid]

One thing that might create a bit of randomosity (like you see with PS threads) is that the thread could end up greened at a random time. As in, maybe I post the thread on Thurs for 6 days away, but it isn’t greened until Friday. The next week, it might get nearly insta-greened. It would still go live on Thurs at 12:01am, but the timing of when admin would approve it could end up more random than the 4 hour window we currently have.

I am vehemently opposed to anything that might cause that.

[Elsinore]

Meaning, you don’t want to see an admin greening something more than 4 hrs after the thread is initially posted? Cause I’m not sure we could ever nail down an exact time insta-green every week. It’s anything from insta-green to nearly midnight before the thread is greened currently. But it’s always greened for our usual Thurs 12:01am. It’s always going to be up to whatever admin(s) is(are) running the queue no matter how we do things.

[Elsinore]

To clarify (maybe?): I’m not suggesting that we randomize the time our threads go live–they would remain as they are now, to go live on the Main Page at 12:01am Thurs of each week. What might be slightly more random is when the admins running the queue work their way through the queue to the point of actually ticking the box that says “greenlight, schedule for Thurs 12:01am to hit Main” There’s currently a 4 hr window in which admins need to green the contest since we don’t actually submit it until 8pm. There have been a few nights that admins haven’t gotten down far enough by 11pm to green Farktography and I’ve had to request a green. Doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. In the case of submitting them a week (or whatever) in advance, there wouldn’t be nearly the concern that if the thread is greened in 6 hrs as opposed to 4 it would be a problem, since it would no longer be. Also, I would have some leeway as to when I submit the threads, so if I can’t submit next week’s thread until 11pm on a Wednesday, it’s no big deal.

[Curious]

what orionid said if there is even the slightest chance of messing up the start time. we have fought this fight repeatedly and really don’t want to have to again.

as for listing it -meh. i doubt many more would see it beyond the serious photoshoppers and they seldom join in.

there is also the potential problem of defining the “rules”. listing the contest would also have to entail posting the Boobies since the title isn’t always clear. so we list it, post the Boobies and here in the farktography contest thread decide that “oh hell no that’s not what that means. any picture like that will be DQ” and who would see that and when?

so no – i’m voting no. nice idea but, no.

[Elsinore]

Well, again, I’m not talking about changing the start time of the contest. Also, if we’re only submitting a week or two in advance, there shouldn’t be any further theme tweaks at that point. We’ve talked before about waiting too long for clarifications. Also, some clarifications entail only mod interpretation of the description and not so much re-writing the theme description.

[linguine]

Im not sure I like the idea of the themes being open on TF for a week before it goes green but if we did a couple of days that could make it easier for European farkers to participate. I’m not sure if we have ayn European regulars right now but I remember the current setup wasn’t that friendly for past European farktographers.

[fluffybunny]

Here’s my $2e-2,…

For the non-regular farktographers out there, LGT always goes to next week’s contest rules right? So there’s plenty of advance notice. Also the long duration of a contest basically affords the same window of opportunity for irregulars, albeit “ex post facto” (pun more than intended). So it seems that the root question is this: Will expanding that window to include pre-contest time bring in more regulars? I’m thinking no. If you’re serious about it, you’re here or you make your way here.

I would like to see more participation also and am as active as I can be to draw people in where the opportunity presents itself, but I don’t think this will do it. That’s like, just my opinion man.

To sum, put me down for status quo.

Also, this:

CauseISaidSo
There’s too much creativity and talent out there to be giving anyone else ideas and letting them know what they’re up against too far ahead of time! After the contest starts, I’m all about sharing ideas and techniques, but before then, it’s dog-eat-dog, every-man/woman-for-himself/herself!

[Elsinore]

Ok, let me also mention that this came up because people have asked on Fark why Farktography contests aren’t on the Contest Tab. So there may actually be a subset of people who follow that tab enough that they would participate more if it were available on Fark.

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