brash, first of, thanks for clarifying your position, is very much appreciated!

Now to what you said...

Quote:

I wonder how you come to this conclusion....

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...if that's the case, why would they bother enter a competition regarding designing a theme?

Again coming back to selfconfidence! If you want to win, or if you want to take part in a design comp, you'll make sure you understand this. If not, you shouldn't participate, or better expressed, you wont even think about participating.

Further, it is not desireable (in my eyes) to have a bunch of people to sign up, only to have them halfway through realize, they are not up to it, giving up, and leaving us with too many expected entries which never arrive (which will be unavoidable, but as you mentioned business process, this is in someway labelled Risk Minimization - just as you are attempting with the pole!)

Are these people you want to motivate? Why motivate someone to do something that needs a level of expertise (as you have pointed out), as much as it takes a bit of ambition and passion for design, if they have never shown previously this kind of interest? Sorry mate, but that sounds like the people you are trying to attract.

POLL
The convincing argument: if we want sponsors, they will want to know how many people to expect! Everything else is not of interest, as this theme contest is more about calling attention, getting people motivated to churn out themes, and establish the Theme Forge. I see this all in the light of the Theme Forge opening!

OR , maybe we have allready talked too much, and you guys are right, at the end only a handfull sign up...my suggestion, instead of a poll, a pre-signup: let's create a list, where people enter themselves, or the group they will be the head/project manager of, as interested. We will then email all, two week before official signup beginnn.

To share some thoughts:
- announce comp beginn with opening of forge
- 6 weeks until submission
- one can sign up, until one week before end (leaving enough room and time, for those that change their mind, and do want to participate; maybe an individual will be inspiered by the team work, and decied to also hand in, their indiv. theme)

Regarding resources managing all submissions, the above mentioned period gives us enough time to organize this.

I should also mention, that I'm not only thinking about having entrants from the XOOPS community. Actually, I am hopeing, that we might attract some designers from other portal/cms/label of the day/..., as well as those interested in web design in generall.


OK, so I take back my statement regarding a pole being a waste of time: brash and Jmass have convinced me! I chat with Herko about this, and see what he thinks (if he doesn't post his opinion prior )

Update
Sent a message to Herko, asking for his opinion (regarding poll)...

Quote:

I'm also loosing my hair

What do you expect from this pole? In my eyes, wasted energy!

Let's work on the realization of the Forge and the Comp, not dabble around in time waisting, inefficient democracy exercises, we have enough time for this, once the submissions are in

brash: I'm taking the perspective of a submitter! But how low do you want to go? Please explain to me, why you percieve my perspective as that of someone interested only in the outcome (check my member page for IM info)!


Now, could we have some more input regarding prizes. We might be able to get a (cash prize) sponsor. Now we have discussed this point earlier, but that was in hypothetical terms, now I can say, we will be able to offer money, as well as hosting.

My suggestion:
1) for this first comp there will only be one winner, and an honourable mentioning for each cat
2) cats Tech and Art will have a $200 cash prize
3) rising star will recieve a $50 cash prize
4) all winning themes (also rising star) will be used in the following 4 weeks, in randomly changing order (per day), as the theme used on Theme Forge
5) all winners and honourable mentionings, will have the opportunaty to present themselves/their team, and what they do etc. on an individual page; links to the winners pages, will be prominently display in a side block

Please, I need some input on this.....


Note: please exchange ideas, not positions! This is a discussion, and not me making decision and getting the nod of! I would like to see more arguments for or against ideas, and more suggestions.....

JMorris: another reason is, we need to have a limit on time to submit!

Further, as has been partly stated, we have members that would enjoy participating in such a comp, but that have a limited skill set.

I just read a thread where two people got togehter to create a theme, one was proficient in using PS, the other with using CSS. This skill set split should be very common amongst users/community members.

Teams allow for the overcoming of limitedness in skills and abilities....

Unfortunatly this thread had a split, so I'm reposting a post from Going forward with Theme Contest, which contains the time aspect, which we also need to discuss....

To fill you in, in that thread it had been proposed, that from opening of the contest, participants should have 3 months time to submit...this is my reply...

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I would like you take on the organisation of the contest as a sub project (if you're eager enough and motivated to do more than just posting threads )...are you following the other thread? Have you recieved my PM? Please contact me!

Quote:

Very nice idea, I like that very much, but let's focuson this event....we are still not sure, if we will have more than one contest, as it will be dependent on the outcome of this one. Though an excellent idea, that I would want to see implemented!

There have been a few misunderstanding, but instead of clarifying, let me sum up what we have up to now, and put forward my latest suggestions:

CATEGORIES
Artistic Pro
Techno Pro
Rising Star - Great Theme
Rising Star - Honourable Mentioning

SUBMISSION
- team or individual
- individuals can additionaly be part of ONE team that has a seperate submission (so each participant can have max to themes in the run - this could be another way to overcome the inadequaty obstacle, that might prevent people from submitting, if they work with others they might be more likely to give it a try)



One last note, this is a competition to create more than just nice themes, we don't need more of what we have allready in the Theme Repository. Much of what has been said, will be taken care of by the Theme Forge, once it is set up. I would like to see this contest as (develop into) an opening event of the Theme Forge.

Hey fellow XOOPSers!

The past month has been nothing but a headacke, concerning my host mysitespace.com!

Their service sucks, and their support is inadequate, and a lying bunch as well!

For the last week I have been constantly issueing problem tickets, all are answered, but with loads of BS. Telling me the site works, when it clearly doesn't, telling me stuff that just ain't true (e.g. it's your network - why can I ping google then?), etc...

Just wanted to let others know, that are shooping for cheap hosting...it may be cheap, but comes with much pain!

(...ahhh, my site is workin' again...they knew I was posting ...)

One question : who's a pro, and who not? How are you going to judge this?

I guess I'm just a little anal and rightous.

Never the less, all this talk about extra cat, I still can't see how the Rising Star cat doesn't fulfill just this purpose....

Templates

As it stands currently, I would leave out templates. In the future, XOOPS will be distributed without any modules, besides the system mod.

But maybe this could be a follow up contest...taking the winning theme, create matching template sets? Wouldn't this also suffice the feelings of inadequacy?

Sorry if I sound harsh, but guys, this is your problem! If you have an issue with selfconfidence, don't force others to reduce their standards! I suggested for each cat a "Rising Star", which would celebrate the efforts of those non-professional/upcoming/learning/etc. theme designers. Why don't you believe this to be sufficient?