TOTW/TOTM suggestions and ideas

[Chopper]

Hi Guys,

 

It seems that the idea for a Topic of the Week has been received in a mostly positive fashion, so I would like to get into the nitty gritty of it.

 

Should it be weekly or monthly?

What are the minimum requirements for being eligible -

Created in the last week or sufficient activity in the last week?

What is classed as sufficient activity?

Should it have a medal attached to it?

Should we bother to do it at all?

 

Thanks guys,

 

Chopper.

[Slade]

Nice, I like this idea.

Weekly. Though we could do monthly first as a test phase.

Nominations should be based on a thread's overall amount of quality.

[Rissole25]

I really like this idea.

Not sure if this is even possible, but if it ends up happening, I feel like it needs to be something other than just a sticky thread directing us there. I think a TOTM/TOTW little side widget (like UOTM info, Statuses, Twitter Updates, etc) would be great. Have the thread title, a small description about the thread and the creator, and have it link to it.

So I think it should be weekly. Having it monthly just makes it a bit dull IMO and way too similar to UOTM. If it's weekly, it will promote great and constant activity, and the great thing is it does not necessarily have to be zombies related. Could be a well received site/community thread, or even just a great story. Basically all threads have a chance at being TOTW. Not to mention, some gems that may not get seen could have traffic directed too it.

 

The minimum requirements being eligible? Not to sure, I was going to say the usual 1 month/100 posts thing, but there have been some great threads from users who don't meet these requirements. I think if their threads were nominated or got TOTW, I'd like to think this would reinforce to these people to stick around at CoDz.

So I hope we do weekly. I think Saturday would be the best day to take nominations or whatever, because it's at the end of the week. All threads from the start of the week (Sunday) till the end (Saturday, that day) can all be nominated. Than it's awarded Sunday, the next day. Wait a week, rinse and repeat with a new thread. Basically how we do UOTM but in a shorter time frame.

But if we do monthly, it could basically just follow how UOTM does it.

 

Not sure about the sufficient activity question either, that goes into the nomination area. What do you nominate for? Views, Comment, Brains? Or just that you liked the thread? Some will vote because they want more attention and activity on a thread, not necessarily a bad thing. This will probably a hard one to decide. The question at the end of the day is, which thread do you want to see in the spotlight for one week?

 

I think a medal should be included. It's a site related award in the same vein as UOTM, that everyone can get. I don't think it will be to hard for everyone to achieve it, and that's alright. Not all medals have to be hard to achieve or rare to have. Most likely, we'll end up with people winning TOTW multiple times.


All in all, if done weekly, I think this will really help people when nominating and voting in UOTM. There's basically 4 examples of good threads to choose from that will help make your mind up if you're having trouble nominating or voting.

[Dahniska]

Rissole nailed it. I second his post.

[ETEl2NAL407]

Hi Guys,

 

It seems that the idea for a Topic of the Week has been received in a mostly positive fashion, so I would like to get into the nitty gritty of it.

 

Should it be weekly or monthly?

What are the minimum requirements for being eligible -

Created in the last week or sufficient activity in the last week?

What is classed as sufficient activity?

Should it have a medal attached to it?

Should we bother to do it at all?

 

Thanks guys,

 

Chopper.

 

Weekly. Rissole nailed the reasons, and implementing a feed with the TotW as well as a few posts from our UotM is brilliant.

 

Minimum requirement should have nothing to do with the poster/user/member (that's what the UotM contest is for), but instead have everything to do with the topic. 

• # of replies = >12
• Content must be objective (no silly posts)
• Multiple users engaged in discussion (at least 5 different users excluding the OP)

 

Th beauty of this (if we implement the corresponding feed) is that we could have past TotW winners in the feed as well as the current winner so the discussion can continue, thus I don't think we should be concerned with the level of activity within a certain timeframe. After all, an old topic could be revived that's completely pertinent to current events that gets everyone talking and It should deserve to win regardless of when it was originally created.

 

As for sufficient activity and keeping to the weekly award, we could use the above criteria, but the post would have to attain it all within a week. Obviously our awarding will be a week behind this way, but there won't really be a way around that.

 

I definitely agree with a medal, but not multiple medals, e.g. Sam wins the first week of April and gets her medal. Sam wins again the first week of June, but will not receive another medal.

[Chopper]

Thanks for the detailed responses guys.

 

I like weekly, with Rissoles time suggestions and Eternals requirements.

 

I'll speak to Craig about what possible widgets are available and how we can implement this.

 

I think it's most important that even old threads can win this, when they have sufficient activity in the voting week.

Coupled with random thread generator some real gems might be dug up and brought to life!

[Lenne]

In my honest opinion it is kind of strange how the UOTM contest gets restrictions but only a couple of weeks later you guys bring something like this up.

 

I am not saying that I am against it.

 

I just think it is "unfair"

[Chopper]

IMO this actually encourages activity which could lead to less of the issues that some people have been finding with UOTM.

At the end of every month I promise that I would take a look at the 4 or 5 threads which won that month and I'm sure it will give me a better feel for who to vote for that month.  If one guy in particular has been on most of those threads responding and being active, they are probably going to get my vote even if I hadn't personally seen what they were saying at the time.

 

I understand all the arguments around UOTM atm, and we may have been somewhat hasty to just remove it.  What's done is done, and there are some good threads now with what we can do with it.

 

I sometimes feel that the staff are expected to be perfect in all we do, and everything we plan will logically fit together and always make sense.  We are all going to make mistakes, the only thing we can do is try not to repeat them.

 

This to me is a good idea.  That is to me.  I have floated it with users who have mostly been positive.

 

UOTM is the most prestigious award on the site, which is clear from the arguments around the change of it.

Unfortunately you can only ever have 12 per year.  This award to me is a slight step down from that, but would still be the 2nd most prestigious medal on the site....and there are 52 chances per year to win one.

 

I have in the past seen particular months when you can tell someone has UOTM in mind.  They just hit the site with a whirl of new posts, all throughout the month even if they had been quiet the prior couple of month.

TOTW would give users who aren't going to ever win UOTM a chance to win something by posting one particularly good thread, as opposed to a month of sustained greatness.

 

I honestly do not see what the problem is with that.

If the issue is that it happens to have come after the UOTM thing, it's nothing more than coincidence.

[MegaAfroMan]

TotW I am for the idea. It sounds great.

I'm just not sure how to go about it democratically to be honest.

It's a very short timeframe to operate it.

I think it might run better if Staff, and maybe UotM and previous TotW author are the only voters and/or nominators.

Just saying. Democracy takes time, and to try and honestly represent CoDz opinion on "the topic of the week" with a vote which opens and closes in less than 24 hours is sketchy at best.

That being said, I wouldn't be upset with a vote persay. I just think it because "topic of the week *for those who happen to come online that day*"

[Slade]

I think it might run better if Staff, and maybe UotM and previous TotW author are the only voters and/or nominators.

Nice points.

The problem here is that people who let's say nominated thread B, will almost always complain if thread A, C or D won because they had no input in the voting.

 

I think if whoever organizes this pulls the nominations online saturday, the poll on sunday and makes the changes on monday evening, we'll be okay.

The only way to see if this is - or isn't - enough time like Mega said, will be just to test it out I suppose.

[MegaAfroMan]

People will find reasons to complain regardless.

However I suppose it could be worth a test run for each case.

One week of voting and one week of just staff and/or utom and/or prior totw winner doing the voting and nominating.

[Hells Warrrior]

ToTW is my thoughts, I don't think any topic should be excluded, I would say allow nominations for any topic, it's up to you the users to vote for the best out of all the ones nominated. Putting limits of 12 posts and so forth, just means you and us needs to check on these prerequisites before nominating.

 

I'm not taken anything away from Naitrix here, he has been on at us (PM'ing me) to remind me about the featured topic and random topic feature that he suggested and I said I would take forward. I was taken it forward, once we had the applications (which we happen to have now).

 

It just so happens to tie into the ToTW suggestion that Chopper has come up with as well.

 

Anyway, screen shot time

 

[MysteryMachineX]

I think the idea should be scrapped completely. Sure it sounds good if people keep up with it. But in the end it is another thing for the staff to do and keep up with. A possible scenario a couple months from now includes the same thread being recommended, unchanged from the weeks prior since no one changes it, no one votes, no one cares.

 

I mean, sure, if you do it, good luck with that. I just think we'd be better off without it.

Edited April 8, 2014 by MurderMachineX

[Hells Warrrior]

Why?

I understand that it something else to do, however, in this period of off season anything that can assist in bring contributions forward and making the activity of the site thrive surely needs to be looked at and tested.

[MegaAfroMan]

It comes to the reason UotM was changed.

Because of low activity.

So if activity is too low to find one good user a month, how is activity good enough to support finding FOUR good topics in the same time frame?

I like the idea, but you have to acknowledge the skepticism in people when considering how much more work will need to be put in, especially when there supposedly isn't enough action to support an already existing and less frequent event.

[Hells Warrrior]

Exactly.

 

So, putting things in place to not only be able to obtain the ToTW, they can also be in with a chance to win UoTM as well. I mean, to get 4 topics featured in one month would deserve a secondary medal. As well as the medal of having a topic featured but at the same time be in with a chance to win UoTM if nominated.

 

As chopper mentioned previously, it's coincidence that these have come around at the same time but they benefit each other hugely.

[MegaAfroMan]

I think they could benefit yes.

But my point is:

Staff (or at least Flammenwerfer) thought that activity was so low that Uotm needed to be made less frequent.

It does NOT logically follow from that train of thought that we should introduce a new contest that is now 8 times more frequent than the current Uotm.

Either Uotm should be reinstated to monthly (I'm sure you've seen my feeble attempts to reach a consensus on that matter) or this idea just shouldn't happen.

By the logic used to reduce Uotm, competitions are not a good way to try to encourage activity because it only degrades the award to "best we had in a dead time".

One of these two policies cannot exist.

You cannot hold that Uotm must be reduced, while saying that introducing a more frequent contest will increase activity.

[ETEl2NAL407]

Kinda taking from what MMX said...

 

 

A possible scenario a couple months from now includes the same thread being recommended, unchanged from the weeks prior since no one changes it, no one votes, no one cares.

 

I don't think these should be up for nomination as it seems virtually impossible to have double digits for votes within a week. If it is a vote, it should be left to the Admin of the site to vote on the weekly topics that made the prereqs, but a public poll may be neglected if it needs to be occurring at such frequency.

 

Perhaps we could do a public poll to determine the exact prereqs?

[Undead]

Did someone say medals?

 

The whole idea sounds good to me, weekly seems more productive as it will keep everyone on their toes constantly I think, especially if this is in effort to promote good threads of any kind. But speaking of medals, how about making several earnable medals?

 

For example:

 

Topic Of The Week - Have a thread win "Topic of the Week"

 

Excellence Award - Win "Topic of the Week" 5 times.

[Stop Mocking Me0]

The topic of every week: What the topic of next week will be. 

[Slade]

I like those medals, Undad.

I can even see a possible Thread of the Year with this, with its own medal. So like at the end of the year we can choose one (or top three) thread(s) from the list of TOTW/TOTM to be crowned best of the year.

[Undead]

Furthermore, why not yearly CoDz awards in general? I know this is kinda jumping off the wagon with that idea, but at the other forums I used to go to before CoDz, they always did these "Favorite, Best, etc" awards that worked basically like UOTM. 

 

For example, a thread for each topic would be made. Let's say "Favorite CoDz forum section of 2014". Everyone would then throw in nominations of their favorite forum sections. After a certain section was nominated 3 times, it was pushed to the voting/poll round to be voted on and so forth. We could even have member-specific awards such as "Most Missed or Favorite Member of 2014, etc." All winners of would be listed on the main page, and those who win member-specific awards, could win some kind of "Grammy Award" that's specific to each year; (ex. "Grammy Award 2014" - Winner of CoDz 2014 year end awards).

 

That's a lot of bite off and chew, but I think it would be a lot of fun given enough thought and discussion. If anyone is actually curious enough about this idea, I could show it in practice and would like to discuss it further but yeah. I like that idea too, Slade.

 

EDIT:

 

I whipped up some medals based on the idea:

 

TOTW:

 

http://imgur.com/MIlpVXV

 

Excellence Award:

 

http://imgur.com/uCytIfq

[Slade]

Very nice ideas, Undad.

I'm interested in those award concepts, perhaps we can work something out together?

[Undead]

I'd love to, hit me up and let's see what we can come up with. 

[JakeDuck]

Get me in on that too, I love the idea of yearly medals.

 

Rather than a voted thread of the week, I think that the "Featured Topic" area that's in Hells Warrior's post had it best. Staff picked, weekly. The user would get an award for it, and it would get the attention it deserves.

 

Each possibilities them have their own reasons.

 

TOTW/M would be an award to the best thread of the week/month, but it would only give recognition. I think user recognition is extremely important, but TOTW/M has no other purpose. Chances are, the has already gotten heavy traffic. Think of this: Would a thread in Suggestions or Deep Thought get this often?

 

A Featured Topic, however, has a different possibility. It has the potential to actually drive traffic to the thread while it is still active. Instead of taking time to vote, it is put up very fast. Think of the previous question again: Would a thread in Suggestions or Deep Thought get this often? A featured thread doesn't necessarily have to be the best, it only needs potential to be the best.

Edited April 9, 2014 by JakeDuck