Forum Contests\Forum Leaders

[Pino]

This is something i have not seen here at the VBForums, before i settled here i did use other forums and almost all of them had a contest section where mods or people (allowed by mods) ran contests and the winner recieved a simple logo next to there name, i suppose its just soemthing to keep people entertained when they have no coding to do

Would this be possible to add to the forums?

Antoher thing here at the forums, (i make them sound so bad but its not i'd be lost without this place ) we only have moderators, would we ever be able to implement a expert\guru\leader status so then people who know there stuff are recognised by other forum members,

just an idea

[Electroman]

Posted by Pino
This is something i have not seen here at the VBForums, before i settled here i did use other forums and almost all of them had a contest section where mods or people (allowed by mods) ran contests and the winner recieved a simple logo next to there name, i suppose its just soemthing to keep people entertained when they have no coding to do

Would this be possible to add to the forums?

Antoher thing here at the forums, (i make them sound so bad but its not i'd be lost without this place ) we only have moderators, would we ever be able to implement a expert\guru\leader status so then people who know there stuff are recognised by other forum members,

just an idea

The first thing sounds good to me, dunno what kind of competitions you mean though.


As for the second point we do, just its based on the post count. Not the best of ways but its rather reliable, Madboy excluded .

[Pino]

maybe the 'special people' could get a icon next to there name lol it just show people they are highly regarded in the forums, because post count generally isnt everything

I mean like, contest such as the contests starter gives half an app and you have to finish it or you have to write an app such as Alarm Clock etc

Maybe you could write a tic tac toe game (or any game) and leave the ai out and the ai is written by us, then you test to see which is the best ai system

[brad jones]

Contests have to be managed. I've tried a few in the past and they have puttered out. I'd be willing to give it a try again though. I may even be willing to give a copy of my C# or C book to the winner -- unless that would drive everyone away .

I find that for these things to work, there needs to be well stated rules and clear instructions. We can convert a forum or change an areas to do this. If an existing moderator (other than Marty who is already doing enough ), wants to volunteer to help drive this, then I'll see what we can do.

Brad!

[brad jones]

As to "special people" icons or status, that has a million issues it can cause. This generally becomes subjective, can cause feelings to be hurt, and ......

I am, however, willing to discuss this with the moderators.

Brad!

[Electroman]

I suppose I could be up for that, depending on what would be involved.

[Dillinger4]

The contests sound like a good idea.

[Pino]

thanks brad and i'll look forward to your reply

*Mod meeting*

[NoteMe]

Both the ideas sounds like they are comming from that other big VB forum with all the nazi moderators.....well I have mentioned for brad before that we should have more moderator and maybe leaders and stuff, but back then the only thing happend was that we got more moderators. So at least it helped a bit.. crossing our fingers again..


For the contest bit...that sounds great. But yeah it sounds like a lot of work. And rules. What language to use, what does the "judge" have to make before the contest can start and so on. I once saw a cometition like this where the judges made a maze app, and everyone had to write a AI to get out of that maze. And then afterward all the mods has to check the speed of all of them. So it will be a lot of work. Maybe more then one person should be the judge, so it could speed up a few things. Not sure tho.

Looking forward to see the results of that meeting....would love too have a sneak peek into the mod section...

[visualAd]

I'll be a judge - I like judging things.

Competitions are a good idea. They have them over at WDF and they seem very popular. The prize has to worth winning though, otherwise they won't generate enough interested. Sure a book on C is great for a C/C++ contest but might scare the VB developers away. Some forums offer a period of free web hosting, or a useful piece of software. Potentially it could make Jupita Media a bit of money becuase companies could sponsor the competitions by offering some of their services as a contest prize. Other forums give the winners priviledges that others don't like a temporary custom status or being able to close and / or delete threads - but as was mentioned earlier something like that could cause hard feeling and jealousy and winning the right to close a single thread (why I would find that useful ) - it isn't really a prize.

Great idea though and if you guys need help with the organising of or judging I would be happy to help.

[NoteMe]

I am not so sure if prizes are needed at all....why are we all her? not to get money or prizes. It would be nice to win some of those books or what ever...but for most people I think the fame is enough. Looks like most people here is struggeling for post count and a costum title anyway. Might be wrong tho'. The thing I am most concerned about is the time. Most members have work and/or school to to be concerned with. So if a contest like that should be held then it would need a lot of time to be completed.

ØØ

[brad jones]

So we will let Pino and Electroman work to get the details together.

Brad!

[Pino]

Wow, i am really pleased with the repsonse here so thanks for that!

Brad do you mean me and Electroman finalise the details about the contests? Electroman i'll Pm you soon

As for noteme's comment about them other forums with evil nazi moderators () yea there is a few of them out there but i have seen the leader and simialar positions on other forums, we have a few moderators here and sometimes there isnt any online and we get people like snake boy and there is nothing we can do about it

Also if a user is having problems with the software or rules or other users a leader would be the person to go to so a leader would be an active member of the foums who is willing to help out with the day to day running of it and to offer suppourt to other users

Then theres the expert rating this would just be to let other users know that these people know there stuff and it makes them feel good

anyways there just my ideas, once again thanks for the keen interest

PINO

[Pino]

Did this idea take off?

[brad jones]

Originally posted by Pino
Did this idea take off?

Where are you and Elect.. with the details...

I have been busy, and will be busy for the next week or two with a special project on another site. As such, I need you guys to hammer out the details of how you want this to work --

Note I can create new forums, but we can't really do much more than that. It will be important that you guys write what you will want to post in the forum in a sticky post or announcement that describes what is happening.

When we are ready to launch this, I'll also create a small, short announcement to post across the forum.

Okay?

Brad!

[Pino]

arr ok, i'll get working on it,

Pino

[Electroman]

Yea I "think" I have the stuff all sorted apart from some actually contests to run, I have a couple of ideas, mainly built on whats been mentioned. I am planning to write the code for a project or two and leaving out a function (say an AI funtion or something like that) so that if people want to test their function as they work they can just slip it into the project I have made.....also this would be used for the testing once the competition is over.

I should get some time in the ext couple of days as I've been working a lot recently.

[Sgt-Peppa]

Why not just assign whole Projects? For example on CodeProject
they did a Screensaver Competition. (Ok, Fox would win that one with her Matrix Source), but do similiar small Projects of interest!

(ReCode an old Arcade Game, built a useful Toolbar for either IE or Firefox, built a reusable clock / calendar component in VB / C# .....,.....)

I think there are lot of topics you could achieve alone or in small teams(if you like), which could actually lead to usefull components that everyone could use in their Projects or just to learn!

Just my thoughts on that topic!

Stephan

[Pino]

electroman did you get my e-mail with the document with all the details in it?

i have a few contests i'd like to run, once i get my results tommorow i have a few free days to set some stuff up

[Electroman]

Posted by Pino
electroman did you get my e-mail with the document with all the details in it?

i have a few contests i'd like to run, once i get my results tommorow i have a few free days to set some stuff up

Yep, I've made some changes to it and just showed the other mods this seconds....I was just about to reply and show you the chnages......actually I'll PM you it .


Good luck with your results .

[Electroman]

Posted by Sgt-Peppa
Why not just assign whole Projects? For example on CodeProject
they did a Screensaver Competition. (Ok, Fox would win that one with her Matrix Source), but do similiar small Projects of interest!

(ReCode an old Arcade Game, built a useful Toolbar for either IE or Firefox, built a reusable clock / calendar component in VB / C# .....,.....)

I think there are lot of topics you could achieve alone or in small teams(if you like), which could actually lead to usefull components that everyone could use in their Projects or just to learn!

Just my thoughts on that topic!

Stephan

Fox is a girl? I always assumed shes a bloke....or are you just guessing?

Getting people to write whole applications may be a bit too much, could be a possibility though....for the first few I think we plan to make them algorithms and stuff like that .

[Pino]

arr cool ok

*Awaits Pm *

[Sgt-Peppa]

Fox is a girl? I always assumed shes a bloke....or are you just guessing?

Ähm, Sorry just guessing because the avatar. But You are probably correct and fox is a guy!

It was probably just a wish to know a girl that programs like Fox does!

Thanks for ruining my dreams again e-man

Just kidding!

Getting people to write whole applications may be a bit too much ...

As I said nothing big, Screensavers, Arcade Games, UserControls,Toolbars,....

Stephan

[Electroman]

I've just emailed it to you, turned out the limit on PMs is 2000 characters and it was 2600 odd .

[Electroman]

Posted by Sgt-Peppa
Ähm, Sorry just guessing because the avatar. But You are probably correct and fox is a guy!

It was probably just a wish to know a girl that programs like Fox does!

Thanks for ruining my dreams again e-man

Just kidding!

haha, well you never know, I was just guessing .

Posted by Sgt-Peppa
As I said nothing big, Screensavers, Arcade Games, UserControls,Toolbars,....

Stephan

I saw once a Retro Remakes competition a while back (I made a post in the Games Section for it to, must have been at least a year ago now) but that was a one that got people to make simply remakes of old classic games. It would be great if we could do that but for something that size you need rather a lot of people taking part not to mention a rather long time limit too.


Just had a look while writing this and heres the link, they run a competition every year......they get loads of entries, even those gamming sites that host loads of flash games enter there stuff .
http://www.remakes.org/

[Pino]

i got no e-mail :'(

[Electroman]

Posted by Pino
i got no e-mail :'(

I'd replied to the one you had sent me .

[Pino]

no still not got it it, might be aol ( iwont sya how much i dotn like them) try this one...
<removed by noteme>

[Pino]

ok got it, yea you worded it better than me (I'll fail english tommorow )

Will i be involved in the contest forum? in any way?

[NoteMe]

Originally posted by Sgt-Peppa
(Ok, Fox would win that one with her Matrix Source), but do similiar small Projects of interest!

Hehe...don't think so....if we got enough time, and I was allowed to use C++ and DX and the ScreenSaver framework...I could have done much better....and since Fox said he didn't use that much time on it...I bet he can do better too......

[Sgt-Peppa]

Theres a challenge already!

Get this Competition up and running!

So Note Me can proove that his actions meet his big talk!

[NoteMe]

Originally posted by Pino
no still not got it it, might be aol ( iwont sya how much i dotn like them) try this one...

[email protected]

If you don't like spam you should not write your mail like that...

[NoteMe]

Originally posted by Sgt-Peppa
Theres a challenge already!

Get this Competition up and running!

So Note Me can proove that his actions meet his big talk!

Hehe...is a naked Lara Croft tunning around your screen enough for you......ohh...and read the comment about fox too...



But I must admitt that a prely graphics programming chalange is maybe not what we are looking for...what about something simpler so we can get more then just the 4-5 usuals that hangs around in the graphics section to join?

[brad jones]

Are you going to restrict the programming language that can be used?

Will this be VB.NET only? Or will VB 6, C#, and other languages be usable?

A screensaver is a nice, simple way to start....

Brad!

[Electroman]

I have one read to go for a TicTacToe AI algorythm....as for the language restrictions I think if we work that out on a per contest level. Sort of depends how open each contest is.....

For example say the Screen Saver one we just said "Make a screen saver and you can use anything you like". Then that way we could have some in VB6, some VB.NET, some C++, ect.. but it wouldn't matter how they were made because with that kind of description we'd just be judging the results not really the code.
Mind for this TicTacToe one I started I have a VB6 project which has all but the AI done so that would need to be limited to VB6.

I have another idea for one that I reckon would be limited to VB (6 & .NET) though .

[Pino]

as for the languages, its down to the contest starter, but we have to kinda remmber that the majority of people on these boards are vb6 and vb.net users and wee need a good amount on entries!

Will i be involved in the forum in any way?

[Wokawidget]

Wouldn't it be a good idea, and a more practical one, to write code that actually has some use in real world apps?
Now not wanting to offend anyone, and I'm sure that some of you love Tic-Tac-Finger, but to be fair it's an utterly pointless app.

Also, who will be judging the code?
How are you going to score the code?

No offence, but I wouldn't like a noob (1 to 2 yrs exp) to judge code they don't understand...am I being a muppet?

Whens the 1st comp?

Woof

[Pino]

it depends who starts the contest

if its something like ai, then it will be marked on speed etc,

how it will be marked will be set out in the initial thread!

its meant to be a break from the forums, just to test your coding skills

we need all levels of contests' so there will be some 'noob's running some contests but it will be made clear which contests are for beginners etc

me and electroman put together the basic shape of things and its just being touched up at the moment, when we have it sorted and rhe forum running we'll post it for you asll to see

[brad jones]

I will be a judge, and I should be able to get two others. If we keep it focused in the .NET area, then I may be able to get someone 'high profile' to do some of the judging.


As to Woka's comments, I agree that there should be at least some subtle practicality in what we are doing. For example, I would be okay with doing something such as a "tic tac toe" game for the contenst; however, add to the requirements for the project that it has to be multi-player using a Web Service.....

This, then makes it an interesting, fun program and forces everyone to learn. If someone wanted to get really proactive, they could write an article or find an article on CodeGuru that we could point to in order to give people the basics of doing the "technical" piece of the contest. In this case, the Web Service.

The screen saver idea that I through out could have the requirement of having to have the ability to be configured. That would be a basic requirement. For additional points, it could display an RSS feed. (hint - one of the Express product betas does this...)

Brad!

[Wokawidget]

Sounds like this is something that is being well thought out. Nice one people

When can we expect the 1st contest? When someone comes up with an idea?

Could we have a section for propsed tasks? People may vote in a pole which one they want to do or something like that? Or at least which ones should be added to the "we'll use in a competition" list.

Brad, we hardly see any of your coding on this forum? How do we know you are of a standard to be qualified as a judge?

Wiggles