I am not sure about the contest, but I can update you on the Theme Forge activities.
We are currently putting the team together that will build the forge. I guess, once we have the Theme Forge in place and active, we can start talking again about the contest. As brash noted, currently there aren't many with the skill set and knowledge, able to create themes worth rating.
Having this said, there is still much to be clarified regarding this idea.
Currently we only have Jmorris's suggestion up for debate, with little feedback (look who's talking
).
Quote:
Artistic Impression: Emphasis on artistry, uniqueness, graphic design, and creative use of CSS. Themes *should* still be XHTML/CSS compliant and cross browser compatible. Lower penalties for large file size and resolution limitations.
Technical Proficiency: Emphasis on standards compliance, documentation, cross browser compatibility, 800x600dpi min. compatibility, and clean, uncluttered code. Must include matching template set. Lower penalties for plain appearance, but should still be aesthetically appealing.
Rising Stars: Emphasis on newcomers and best effort. Themes *should* be XHTML/CSS compliant (consideration is given to good themes that are close, but not quite compliant) and should not be submitted by anyone who has already submitted under the other two categories (this is just fair). Extra points are awarded to those themes that meet any of the criteria specified under the other two categories.
Common to all: Themes MUST be original! Penalties for "hack" jobs. Themes must be 2/3 column compatible. Themes must come from 1 individual (no team projects).
Regarding what I said above, I believe the third cat (rising star) is a must, and a reason why we should wait until the forge is running.
The contest could be a way of acknowledging forge members efforts (be it individuals or groups). Especially those aspiring dev's!
Hence my first suggestion, two top categories:
(1) Teams Contributions
(2) Individual Contributions
with
(1)|(2)-a: Creativety
Which is the most creative and artistic impressive theme? Might be fixed theme, not compatable with 800px, use of tables allowed, and doesn't have to validate. Emphasis is fully on visiual impression.
(1)|(2)-b: Technical Beauty
Theme has to validate XHTML1.0 and CSS, be viewable with 800px monitors, work with 1/2/3 collumns, be original in its use of colours and images (but doesn't have to give the woowww-effekt thats what the Creativety cat is for
).
Giving us 4 categories, which is sufficient at the beginning. Maybe once the forge community is thriving, we can think about addictional categories like gaming site themes, busines-site themes, etc. Right now, we just have enough designers to make a 4 cat comp of any interest.
Each of the above cat's would have a Runners Up (something like a silver medall), and a Rising Star (mentioning of a newstarter, that has made a contribution worth mentioning).
The later showing the need of this price to be related with the forge, as how are we otherwise to judge, how well someone has done relatively?
What we need to work out now, is a rating system. Penalty points have been mentioned...a point system might do the trick. Though on what and how to give out points? And what should be penalized? This needs to be clarified for each cat.
And who is going to judge? Especially as theme forge members, especially those heavily involved, will most likely want to participate. I would like to see a mixture of community polling and pro input. Maybe we could get some non-xoops web designers, that are generally interested in design advancement, to give us some of their time and expertise, to act as judges....or am I just dreaming too much....well, this would also give us 8 main prices and 8 runner ups.....that might just be the whole designer community
Well I'm just writing this up, so that discussion might continue.
All other questions, sponsorship, timesetting, can be handled later on...
