Art Contest revamping!

[Agrias]

Hey guys!

We noticed that the interest on the art contest is declining at each month. Till now, we only had 1 entry to June's Amateur contest and 3 to Advanced, so we'll have to extend it again...

Due to that, we're studying some actions that can turn the contests more interesting. Here are some of my thoughts, and I want to hear your comments too!

Those are suggestions, ideas that are still in making and are to be discussed between the staff. No decision will be made right now.
You guys are the ones that actually make the contest; your opinion matters a lot and will be taken into account!

Problems

The contests are now running in an "almost monthly" basis - that means, they're supposed to be monthly, but due to the lack of contestants we're having to extend them, sometimes only for a few days, sometimes for weeks.

The contests aren't well promoted. They are forgotten there in the shoutbox, and here inside the section. The votings aren't big - we're an enormous forum with thousands of members, but this month we only had 20 votes for each category! Most of the members don't even know about it, and it's our fault.

Rewards....well, you guys work hard to make awesome art. Then you win the contest, wee!....and we post your great art inside a stickied thread that is not that popular. How cool is to win a contest like that, with small competition and almost no recognition? =/

The new Mangahelpers Art Contest

We're thinking about having a big contest, with more categories:

- Fanart contests (color/ b/w),
- Colorings (Amateur/Advanced)
- Short stories contest (one page, 4koma, full one shots, things like that)
- Creativity contest (freestyle art, drawings plus anything you can come up with so the "non-artists-as-we-know-them" can also have a bit of fun :3).

This contest would be promoted on the front page, shoutbox and announcements, and the results would also be shown there instead of being kept on the results thread only. We'd give prizes too if we could, but sadly we can't - but well, the front page is a nice thing, isn't it? :3

But then...a contest as big as that will have a longer periodicity - we're thinking about a seasonal contest. 4 big contests per year (not themed, although we can also have a category like "spring fanart" if you guys like it ;p)

There are another options: keep the monthly contests and have a "best of the year" in december, having the winner entries from every month competing between themselves; just keeping the current monthly contests; changing the periodicity to 2 months. The problem with those is that I don't think we'll be able to use the front page for promoting so much, as it would have to be constantly be updated with contest info (3 posts every month for the contest and all...). But well, if you still think this should be done, just say it!

So, tell us! In your opinion, what would make our contests interesting? :3

[nat]

I think there is more than just advertising the contest, mainly people go to contests for prizes.
@ NF they have some sort of custom title name, or sparkly name, or even a slightly bigger avy for a limited time to all winners. They're small things but they attract people like bees to honey.

Artists like getting a bit of fame and prizes ^^

Also there's the nomination thing, where anyone can nominate up to 3 pictures they like. No need to be an artist or colorist, just a normal member who saw a picture by an artist he/she likes and wants to promote.

I think that could be a first step

Ps: you can always push people at the Naruto and Bleach art forums to join, Jaime can make an announcement in a sticky thread or something.

[Agrias]

Hm...sorry, but that can't be done here, goes against our policies. We don't give any user special treatment.

The artists already have an user group for self-promotion. The contest's goal is to have fun and improve your art, not inflate egos. The best we can do is the contest winners promotion in the frontpage, shoutbox and threads, as said before. :/

[Uozumi]

To be honest what would help me most was to know for certain that a contest will go forward. I've been so reticient to participate because when I do have the time, the contests end up extended or put off for months on end. I'm busy, I need to be able to budget my time, and I don't want to waste it by doing a coloring when I could be doing something else only to find out that the contest was extended and my entry from the month prior still stands.

It's just a quirk of mine to want to provide fresh work for each contest I enter. I don't feel that a coloring I did a month ago acuratly represents what I've picked up since I colored it, so I don't really want to color something and sit on a month before I can post it for a contest.

Also, the time the art contests were most popular was when the winners were announced on the front page of MH. Perhaps if you guys started to announce winners for everyone to see, that would generate more intrest. That was part of the appeal - win and then everyone gets to see your hard work.

[nat]

I didn't mean for special treatment or inflating egos. you misunderstand. Thing is, when most people want to be attracted to something there has to be a goal in the end. Most contests have to have something in the end, other than 2 words in the same thread.

To elaborate more, If a person wins a contest few others will see, that's not very enticing. with all due respect, because you know how most members check the art threads...they usually don't, unless they are artists themselves or regulars.

The prizes last for a short time, not all eternity. But if it's against the policies, then I don't see why prizes should be added.
That's the thing in the art section recently, there is little participation towards the community. Everyone does what he/she has to self promote and that's it (other than supplying linearts). Little sharing and no nominating.

That's how I see it, maybe it's just me and not the real situation.


I'm gonna keep quiet now

[Agrias]

Exactly, we're not adding prizes, we're trying to make the existing ones - the actual results - more visible. The goal is still the same, to compete, win and improve in the end ^^;

About regular users not checking the art threads: I pointed that out on the 1st post too, and that's what we'll try to improve from now on - more promoting to get more interaction from everyone, making the contests a special occasion for the site and all users, not only a monthly habit no one but the artists pays attention to.

Uozumi, I explained the reasons for your point above, and yes, I agree that the time extensions are annoying. But it's a vicious cycle...if we dont extend, we dont get entries, but then by extending we also lose possible contestants for the next ones. I also get upset when I see the "neverending deadline" thing, but we don't like to end a contest and declare the only submission a winner for the month for W.O. =/ I understand how you feel completely (used to work aaaall weekend on things for uni, only to see the teacher extending the deadline so the others wouldn't be affected ¬¬')

That's why we want to give a real long time for submissions, so there aren't excuses for not having time. Also, less contests will give you more time to make many artworks and choosing only your best. We'll improve the overall quality of the submissions, making it more interesting and competitive.

[Uozumi]

Yeah but my comment I meant that's why I stopped competing. The hiatus randomly last summer (when I finally had all the free time in the world to do a contest) and then again recently with all the extentions (even after we had several entries in one of the contests) just doesn't motivate me to participate. Also, when there would be a contest and no communication why it was still open when the deadline came, it gave me the impression that the people moderating the contest didn't care enough to even tell us they extended it until asked.

I just want to have a concrete deadline and feel like people actually care about these things. If there is no intrest to keep them running on schedule or communicate when things will be extended, then maybe they shouldn't exist at all.

[Agrias]

The hiatus randomly last summer (when I finally had all the free time in the world to do a contest)

The announced hiatus, by the way. We had our reasons. Nami can explain this better than me, as I wasn't in charge of it at that moment.

and then again recently with all the extentions (even after we had several entries in one of the contests)

We had a miscommunication problem on the january/february one, indeed. But after that, things went back to normal.

Also, when there would be a contest and no communication why it was still open when the deadline came, it gave me the impression that the people moderating the contest didn't care enough to even tell us they extended it until asked.

It was also on the january/feb one. In that we really failed, we should have posted before as we're doing for the latest ones.

If there is no intrest to keep them running on schedule or communicate when things will be extended, then maybe they shouldn't exist at all.

If there wasn't interest, this thread wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be trying to solve the problems and making things better.
In fact, we could just make the new rules by ourselves and just throw them out, but we love hearing everyone. Don't be so negative.

[PhoenixRoy]

If you guys decide to go with the themed as in single panel, full pages, or double spreads you could have the winner pick the next theme. I think promoting these contest is a big thing as well. I mean being in the Artist user group and lurking in those areas in the forum I could also pop in a thread and suggest they enter it in a contest hear after a critique.

For the prize thing I think there should be something. Like have the winners listed in the next art contest thread and possibly the winning pieces as well. Another idea is a GFX badge that you could put in your signature saying you a won an art contest at Mangahelpers.

[Mugiwara_no_Jack]

In my opinion the main problem is that the announcements regarding the coloring contests are in the shoutbox which can disabled.
I think most of the users here collapeses the shoutbox and don't see when a contest starts ... though because it is monthly they should know there's a contest O.o

@poll: Should be monthly ... and with best of the year, I guess that would be nice.

[RyuSensei]

Erhm, already late but took my time to read the whole thread, I'll just answer quickly before getting killed xD.
You won't get more artists without breaking your policies, people don't compete to improve, if they want to improve they have arts sections where they can post as much coloring as they want and get quickly critiques and advices, thing you don't get in a contest since you gotta wait a whole month -or more- to get feedback on your coloring, moreover you won't really know how the others artists feel about it. People compete for prizes, for something, tbh winning is enough for my ego but that's not the case of everyone, no wonder there are almost nobody in the contests, there're actually only regulars and people used to them, because we know em for a long time.
nat's idea was something I thought about, that's how they do in every damn manga forums where contests take place and that's why it works.
PhoenixRoy's idea is pretty good too but since the winner could kinda feel "powerful" and confident since he'll be able to choose something that suits him &/or his next coloring.
And as for the time a contest should take place, honestly, 1 month is so damn long, you don't take one month to do a manga coloring, even if it's painting, 2 weeks would be way enough, and more contests -> more winners -> more people getting aware of them.
Ehm, might have forgotten some things but I gotta get out now.

[dedal_x]

Participant of a couple of first contests on MH in 2007 here. ( and even a one-time amateur winner XD )

To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure when I stopped submitting for contests, but I must tell you that what made me stop was the drastic lack of participants. It felt alright to be second even among seven, but second among four? No. And don't forget that it was back in 2007 when contests were a curious novelty everyone had to try.

The biggest problem are participants. Some have time and inspiration to make a breath-taking piece every week, others have trouble with making two mediocre a year(like me). I've been watching the contests from time to time since then and I see that the problem still exists. The solution would be seasonal contest, but that would be too dragged out. One month, on the other hand is too few for many people... So, I vote for 60 days of submissions. Plus ads of it put everywhere where possible. IN CAPS. IN RED BOLD CAPS

Prizes... I see the point in policy, but I also see membergroups like Artists who get nifty color for the username and a sign under it (I purposely leave out Scanlators, Translators, RAW providers and such, sine they are actively contributing to the readers, while Artists aren't given a damn about most of the time). In fact I don't see why making an "Art Contest Winner" membergroup and putting winners into it till next winners are announced can be such a problem. Yes, it's a hassle, but hey! It might draw people in. But then again - policy. It's a hard choice between rules and a tactic that might not even work...

Oh, and yeah! Polls are fine, but a solid judge is needed. Not to pick winner, no - but to sort entries between Advanced and Amateur. It seems that contestants have trouble doing it themselves.

P.S> If you read my whole post and understood it - you're a hero, 'cuz you can do what I can't. XD

[eni]

nat's idea was something I thought about, that's how they do in every damn manga forums where contests take place and that's why it works.

The problem is that we're not a usual manga discussion forum but a scanlator and translator support forum.

While the series discussions, reviews and art forums are certainly a big and important part of MH, the actual process of bringing the manga to the people is our main priority. It is not fair to reward one user group with prices when the another one, the one this forum was created for in the first place, isn't motivated in a similar way which, as Agrias said, would go completely against our policy of free and unconditioned releases. It's a matter of fairness.

As an artist myself, I can't really follow on this motivation anyway. The contests are for fun and improvement (which doesn't need to mean critique, you also improve by try-and-fail) for the members of this community. If there's a need for prices to motivate them on participating, I'd rather see the contests getting stalled. I don't want people coming over here just to grab the goodies without being interested in the community.

And as for the time a contest should take place, honestly, 1 month is so damn long, you don't take one month to do a manga coloring, even if it's painting, 2 weeks would be way enough, and more contests -> more winners -> more people getting aware of them.

Depends on your time. A month is barely enough for me due to work, studies and families. Not all participants have that much free time to do an artwork every week.

I voted for seasonal contest. Four really big and well promoted contests with e.g. six sub categories (coloring advanced, beginner, fanart freestyle, fanart themed, fanfic and creativity) sounds really nice to me and would motivate me to actually participate (if I wouldn't be staff and prohibited from doing so ._.) in more than one (if not all) contest. Of course, with winner announcement on the front page <3
Actually, last decision was that staff was allowed to participate too, wasn't it? xD No one did, though ;p ~ Agrias

[RyuSensei]

So what eni? You want to reward scanlators and translators? That point was so useless, scanlating manga isn't a competition, even if some try to be first it stays something you do just cause you wanna do it.

You might tell me then that contests can be done just cause we want to do it but as far as you can see it's not the case, we're like 5 regulars and still, tbh, I'm getting tired of it and that's why I take my time to explain my point of view here.

If forums' members aren't smart enough to see that there's no harm in rewarding people who win ART contests (which has so totally nothing to do with scanlating) then they're f******* (auto censured just for you <3) immature, we're all in the same boat, we all have our special usergroups showing our "function" on the forums, art is just something that can be made into contest and there's nothing wrong with rewarding someone who works his ass off to win.

As for the time periods you wanna put, you're gonna kill it imo, if you're planning on doing 4 contests a year it's gonna be god forsaken, I'd rather stay with 1 months contests, or else do 2 types contests at a time, short ones and long ones.

[Xman]

Well, I have some suggestions.
but 1st, "more than 1 month contest" is too much in my opinion. why? because people start forgetting about it by the time.

anyway, for the suggestions. I have 2 ideas;
1st, make each contest about 1catagory each time. for an example, this month lets say Advance coloring, next month amateur, etc...
The idea of that, to make people check and wait for the next contest, sometimes the long waiting makes the artist try to join with the current running contest till his/her category becomes available.
"note: I would suggest this becomes randomly, no schedule to follow. making people work hoping for their category the next month"


2nd, add new categories, like Forum Skin contest, where winner's skin can be option for everyone to pick.
Avatar contests for another idea.


P.S. excuse my crappy English :3