So, random thought I had last night, I usually don’t post them but was curious what others might think… (and I’m sure later I’ll realize I shouldn’t have posted). Contests at BA are good fun, but seem to have lost the voting draw they once use to have… which is sad… Likewise, many have had strong opinions on the forum gallery.
Well, the notion is not a contest or a gallery thing, but rather something that sort of ties everything together and promotes projects in a larger sense. What if each month we had a “Best Of” for the month, a voting thread. Anything posted in Finished projects (for that month) is game to be submitted to the poll. Nothing to win really, but the idea is that finished works that otherwise might be missed by people who scan quickly would get some additional exposure. Likewise, the higher votes would possibly help draw moderators attention to some art for possible gallery consideration. Overall though, kind of sums up nicely the month of projects at BA. I don’t know, could be a motivator too for some projects.
Again, just a thought. The point isn’t to increase contest voters or make more gallery entries (it is a hopeful side-effect) rather it’s just to try to elevate some of the months best work and generate some awareness of it. I also know this requires someone’s time to organize it and I also recognize voting threads seem to be on a decline in interest here… Most likely nothing will come of this, but I was curious what others think of such an idea.
Would a monthly best of poll heighten awareness and/or have impact?
you know, that sounds like a great idea maybe a new section could even be created in Artwork specifically for that? could work the same way as Weekend Challenges, but in reverse - voting coming first, that month’s entries being the result of the votes.
I don’t know what’s involved in creating and reorganizing sub-forums though
This is a good idea, it would definitely make it easier for me and the other moderators to get ideas for things to put in the gallery (it’s hard to keep track of it all).
I don’t think a reorganization of forums is necessary, though, which is good because those are hard to arrange.
I think it could be done rather simply, all it would need to be is once a month 2 things are done:
1.) A new thread (for the upcoming month) is started where users who post finished work, if they want to be considered for the poll, can just post the link to their thread (& thumbnails if they wanted).
2.) The (existing) previous months thread with all the links gets compiled down into a poll.
Basically what Theeth does now for the Weekend Challenges, only this would be less frequent (monthly). Just basic, simple and quick… summarizing and showcasing the month.
I think that would be awesome! But I don’t think the users should have to submit their threads for consideration. I think all of the finished projects should be fair game. Not sure how that would work but I just think a lot of the best projects out there would not get submitted if you did it the other way.
The one problem would be the moderators having to look through all of the threads
Maybe it could simply use the star system? The thread with the most and highest ratings would be first and so on. I think that would be really cool
I like this idea! Lets do it. Sounds like a great way to get new art noticed. I think we should be able to nominate pieces as well, like if you see someone elses work that is awesome, you can link to it in the thread.
it would be cool to have some grading system in the vote, separate scores for lighting/materials/composition/concept/modeling.etc
that way also a ranking list can be kept of the entries with the highest qualities in the various categories.
While the current ‘overall’ mark is useful, it is also undeniably vague. So if a search is done for ‘excellent lighting’ or something, entries will return that probably best answer the query. (I.E., high lighting scores)
plus those entries that have decent documentation can help blender users to acquire new skills.
I bet there’s a way to use the RSS + http://www.rssowl.org/overview2 to generate the monthly forum post too that could be cut and pasted. I’ll have to poke around with this.
maybe a new section could even be created in Artwork specifically for that? could work the same way as Weekend Challenges, but in reverse - voting coming first, that month’s entries being the result of the votes. 
