RE: Help! Pay It Forward - Contest Theme Ideas Needed
Just my two cents here. I believe you may find less participation if you go with some of the changes you are thinking of. I am not participating myself for the contest rewards, in fact I split my first week reward among the three I featured. I joined because I think it might help someone new decide to stick it out while also benefiting me at finding connections of interest for me.
But to come up with three new people searching areas that interest me takes hours. I read a lot of posts that are poorly put together or do not interest me despite liking the topic before finding three I feel comfortable submitting. I don't see myself having the time to curate subjects that hold zero interest for me, and would feel like a fake submitting posts that held no interest for me.
As for gaining more interest, I am hopeful that those featured by us will see the value and decide to join in making this grow. I kind of hinted at this in my last submission hopeful that the new features would get it.
Maybe you could add a bonus for theme while still allowing those like myself to submit posts not so tightly focused on a subject?
@practicalthought, I must say that I feel the same way. I think that the "constraint" would make it less productive as it takes time to even find persons that are of interest to us. I think the focus should really be placed on encouraging the nominees to participate in the contest. With this, the contest would gain some amount of exposure. I really liked that idea that @freedomshift came up with that offered nominees who participate in the contest for the first time, a bonus. While this is a one time bonus, I still believe it played a vital role in attracting persons.
My voting power is still very low but I would love to be able to use this as I wish rather than feel the need to vote on something that I may not necessarily like, just for eligibility. To this end, what we can do is ask participants who visit and comment on these nominees' posts to state how they found this person's post (as is done by the judges of the contest) and encourage the person to participate.
The theme idea is good but I think it would put a limit on the entries. In times gone by, I have searched high and low and most of what I found were posts that covered a wide-range of topics. If a theme is used, I kinda doubt the options would vary as is the case now. I imagine then that persons would just go searching the specific tags and may end up with maybe a few of the same nominees.
The added constraint I think too would put a bit of pressure on those who are behind the scenes as I can only imagine how time-consuming it must be to visit all the entries, plus visit all the nominees of each entry. I think it best to just give the contest the needed time to grow. It is already a great light at the end of the tunnel for some of us so let's not try to fix what isnt broken. With time new insights and contributions will come but I think it is best to let the contest grow "organically", as we would say.
In agreement with @thedarkhorse though, some of us just post a link and that is it. From some of the entries that I have seen, I didnt feel like the participant was very moved by the nominees that they chose. Or maybe it is just a "can't be bothered attitude." As participants, we should try not to make our entries too long as then we would rob persons of the time that they would use to visit the nominees. But in the same breath, it isn't very encouraging when you just give vague statements about the nominees.
Maybe this is me being too harsh or something but I have seen where participants just drop two sentences about the nominees and that is it. The original thought of the contest (please correct me if I am wrong) is for the participants to convince us as to why we should follow this person or why we should check this person's post; not just to tell us that the person is an artist or a singer. But like I said, this is just what I think.
Yeah, I know. My two cents are more like a dollar, lol. Here is to growing the contest.
Covered the theme issue already. Also same as I said above thank you for speaking freely about your concerns!
Your concern about how some entries have been done is one the judges have also. There has been a clear level of effort put in by many and we love seeing that, but there are a few that just seem to be in this for the rewards. I'm even less concerned with what the person writes (though a good write up really helps) but the lack of quality content being featured by some is surprising.
Definitely @thedarkhorse, quality content is also of major importance. Thanks for your hard work in making this contest the success it already is.
I appreciate your "dollar" view...you make some very valid points for sure! I agree totally with them ;)
lol....no problem my dear. Thank you.
I agree with that completely.
First off thank you for being honest about your concerns. This is the purpose of this post. We need to hear both sides to this.
A thought on the themes then, maybe 2 entries from any category and 1 from the themed topic. You think this would leave it open enough or still feel restricting?
BTW, if you ever want me to note that if you win the winnings are to go to your choice of featured blogger let me know. With only 1 SBI to give splitting it doesn't really work, but we have awarded it based on the winners choice to 1 of their featured bloggers.
I do think it is restrictive. I have had to argue with myself to keep looking sometimes while trying to find 3. Last week I stopped after finding 2 and came back later to hunt for a 3rd. It is really time consuming. There are a lot of posts that are either low quality or not interesting to me.
Thanks for letting me pass on the rewards. I got the first time submission my first week so was easy for me to split. I think if the rewards are passed on it will help further the goal of retention.
Now you have me wondering if 2 featured bloggers vs 3 might create higher quality entries. There are more then a few that have 2 great featured bloggers and then 1 so-so featured post. The blogger might be great even, just the post that was current wasn't anything special...another issue for people as the 7 day payout window sometimes messes up picks.
Anyways 2 featured bloggers vs 3 might increase the number of entries and the quality of those who enter so that might be something to consider. What do you think?
Lowering it to two would definitely save time. I have already picked one of mine in anticipation of the upcoming weeks in an effort to spread it out so I wouldn't spend most of my day finding three. It would also help with looking over submissions as well. I would definitely be game if the others are interested in this change.