hi I am a part time graphic designer and very new to DP. I believe there need to be some rules and regulations for the contest section of DP. In my experience i have seen people starting threads demand for various types of logos , headers, banners and templates and later some of them just go missing or get banned or they just dont pick a winner...other designers may have also faced these kind of experiences. Once we enter a contest we spend our valuable time on it designing and redesigning our submissions, and it is not a pleasant feeling to realize that all that hard work was just in vain. If we dont win a contest it is ok.. but if the contest itself was a scam then that is something to be worried about. i have some suggestions for this problem... It is upto the Moderators to consider this... 1.We gotta have a dedicated moderator taking care of contest section. 2.A contest should be placed with proper information and requirements from the part of contest holder. This includes colour scheme, size of design, type of design etc etc 3.The dead line of the contest should be clearly stated in the first post and it should not be more than 7 days from the first post.. 4. The contest holder should COMPULSORILY PICK a winner from his contest if he has got a minimum of FIVE entries. 5. If contest holder DON'T LIKE any design from the entries and if he has got more that FIVE entries , he should pick the best one out of them and can get it tweaked by the designer to his requirements. 6. If the contestant thread has received less than FIVE entries and if he don't like any of them. he can have the liberty of closing the post down , after informing the participants. 7.Talking about the prize money, the contest holder can submit the prize amount to the moderator( if we are gonna have one) and once the contest holder picks a winner the money will be sent by the moderator. This will make sure that somebody wins the contest every time. 8. NO contest entries should be made by PMs. This is to preserve the public nature of this forum and to protect the contest holders from RIPPED or Copied or copyrighted materials. 9. Not sending the original winning design .PSD or .AI or .swf files after receiving payment could result in BANNING. These are just my propositions, this in NO WAY personal to anybody..and it is open for suggestions. cheers.. jinsona
They aren't bad suggestions but I am afraid that implementing it will not be possible. Moderators cannot baby sit members and act as escrow parties Too many contests floating around. To personally take care of each one of em is simply not possible.
gr8: It would be possible. SP and NP are two who seem to do fine. Sure there are times a contest gets abandoned but more times than not a winner is selected. I'm more inclined to do contests at either one of those forums versus doing any contests here because they have a nice structure that CHs (most of them) actually respect and follow. Webmaster-talk forum is getting better in regards to contests. Besides the comments made by jinsona stated this: The keyword in that statement is "DEDICATED". So you may want to change your mindset in thinking it's not possible. With a dedicated moderator or even two or three it would be VERY possible. I personally think since the idea was jinsona he/she should be one of them.
i am happy to see people who thinks that it is a good idea to have rules and regulations for contest... They aren't bad suggestions but I am afraid that implementing it will not be possible. Moderators cannot baby sit members and act as escrow parties Too many contests floating around. To personally take care of each one of em is simply not possible. Code (markup): i know the existing moderators will be busy managing the whole forum.. it is pointless to ask them to watch over the contest section , because it is always busy... But what i have pointed is to have a dedicated moderator for contest section.. Like a senior member who has a good history and credibility and with lot of free time. His job will be too busy if he is gonna handle the payment system as i proposed.( i doubt this payment system getting accepted by everybody) I personally think since the idea was jinsona he/she should be one of them. Code (markup): Thats so nice of you CU_designs..thank you.. But i personally don't believe i am a good choice.. I am new here.. i get very less free time.. i like to spend that free time designing new stuff.. .. lol..lol.. my I-trader is still '0'...We should find a moderator with qualifications i have mentioned earlier.. cheers.. jinsona