The Hopper: Themes to be Scheduled

[orionid]

I kinda smell what U-Man‘s cooking, too. As far as less enthusiasm, I blame outside influences more than anything, but I think revisiting classic more often could be a good thing. There were alot of early contests that most of the current regular participants missed out on, and to not revisit them seems to be a shame.

Also, as Morningbreath pointed out, the recent “narrow” scope contests, I think stems from that. Just about everything that has been suggested recently in broad scopes seems to be responded to with “we did that in…..”

/I really dig the ones that seem narrow, but can be made broad with a little creativity.

[corsec67]

Maybe we need to revisit how we schedule themes. It’s been done in the rough order of suggestion/critical mass, but we’re open to other options. Once upon a time themes were almost entirely mod chosen, not that general interest wasn’t taken into consideration, just that the process wasn’t as consensus driven as it is now. The current method was an attempt to incorporate more community consensus with mod direction only where needed. We need to repopulate the hopper now, so if you have any ideas on a better way to schedule themes, let us know!

So, the whole “use themes that have interest” could be a good thing, but scheduling them based on when you/admins notice that they have that interest seems to be a very silly thing.

When contests are scheduled needs more intelligent design than that, and as you noticed that would tend to leave out the instant classics. At this point we should have enough classic themes that you could say “One classic, wide open, restrictive, and bizarre theme per month”, or something like that so we don’t get too many of one style of theme in a row.

Hmm, actually that seems like a good way to allocate the themes:
first week of month: Classic, like a color
second week: wide open, like “Animals: The whole kingdom”
Third week: restrictive theme, like “Frankly my Deer, I don’t give a Dam”
fourth week: Bizarre, like “Training documents”
And then on the 5th Wednsday of a month, have a special theme

or something to that effect.

[U-Man]

corsec67 might be on to something. I like how he broke that down. While I would give lots of flexibility to the modmins and perhaps not try to wedge them in 1-2-3-4, I like the overall idea.

[corsec67]

corsec67 might be on to something. I like how he broke that down. While I would give lots of flexibility to the modmins and perhaps not try to wedge them in 1-2-3-4, I like the overall idea.

Well, I think the key part of my idea is to group themes into different styles based on how easy/specific they are, and then to make sure that the upcoming themes represent a good mix by making sure that 2 themes from the same style don’t follow each other/come too often.

The trick is figuring out what those groups/styles are.

[Elsinore]

OK, I like that in general. The key is finding a way to schedule the new themes so no one feels like they’re being passed over or favorites are being played (this was the driver behind scheduling things as they reached critical mass/order of suggestion).

[corsec67]

OK, I like that in general. The key is finding a way to schedule the new themes so no one feels like they’re being passed over or favorites are being played (this was the driver behind scheduling things as they reached critical mass/order of suggestion).

(Maybe this discussion should be pulled out into a separate thread?)

Yeah, there were times where it seemed like 3 or 4 themes in a row were suggested by the same person.

SilverStag stands out in my (bad) memory as one of the people who did that.

[U-Man]

If it is made known that in general we’re going to try to have a nice mix of theme styles, I think folks will be cool. If there is a reason to plug something in (Halloween, Christmas, something in the news) there should be enough flexibility to do it.

Perhaps the theme category should be discussed along with the +1’s on the main theme forum.

[clouddancer]

Also, as Morningbreath pointed out, the recent “narrow” scope contests, I think stems from that. Just about everything that has been suggested recently in broad scopes seems to be responded to with “we did that in…..”

When I suggested the geek one that’s the response I got. Actually, that’s been most of what I’ve heard. Pretty much it comes down to “we already did that” even if it was 3 years ago or whatever. Kind of discouraging for a newbie like me to suggest something if that’s the response I’m going to get.

I’m somewhat of a fan of broad themes myself in that it allows room for less of the same shots or same interpretations. I would like a variety, and sometimes making room for holiday themes or something is nice too.

[bucky_bacon]

I’m a big, big supporter of regular “classics.” There really are a lot of us who missed a bunch of great contests in the past. And for those that were in those contests 2 or 3 years ago, would it really be a pain to come up with a few new pictures since then? You don’t have to enter I suppose. But us n00wbs would really enjoy trying some out.

I support this movement.

/heh… movement.

[U-Man]

When I suggested the geek one that’s the response I got. Actually, that’s been most of what I’ve heard. Pretty much it comes down to “we already did that” even if it was 3 years ago or whatever. Kind of discouraging for a newbie like me to suggest something if that’s the response I’m going to get.

I’m somewhat of a fan of broad themes myself in that it allows room for less of the same shots or same interpretations. I would like a variety, and sometimes making room for holiday themes or something is nice too.

Aaaah. Yeah. We already said that. Like, 3 years ago. n00b.

/:) just kidding.
// you and I are on the same page
/// nudge, nudge, know what I mean

[clouddancer]

hehe, thanks U-Man.

Can we do some of the classics more, or soon? I’m thinking of like Wallpaper This and a couple of others I saw in there that were really awesome sounding or had a lot of participation or something, but were also really fun to do, and all of which I missed out on because I wasn’t a member or aware of what was going on at the time these were happening.

/Just sayin’ is all.

[Elsinore]

I scheduled two classics for the next 6 weeks: Less is More and Black and White. Agree we should probably make this discussion its own thread, so I’ll go do that now.

[nobigdeal]

So umm, when we gonna repopulate the hoppah?

[Elsinore]

I’m on it now, actually.

[nobigdeal]

awesome! 😀

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