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CCCC: Commentary Category Commentary Contest (3 Points to the Winner, Weekly)
Written By Gnorb on Feb. 20, 2007.
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In light of the recent-ish changes (ok, so I'm a few weeks behind: blame the gods), as community lead of the Commentary section, I've decided to put up the following challenge in order to (a) increase the readership of the sites of the section and (b) increase the level of intelligent feedback for those articles within 9Rules Notes.
Here are the details:
Task Description: Pick a recent (past month) article from one of the Commentary sites and write a well thought out response (addendum or rebuttal) to the article as a Note here. The article must be named and linked within your post.
Here's an example:
Title: Parking Nightmares (CCCC)
You know one thing I hate? When people break the traffic laws in parking lots. Now, QuietPaws.com has a great post about this (Public Interest Courtesy Rule #14), but I wanted to chime in with my own story:
[Insert story here]
So that's it. What do you think: should traffic laws within parking lots be enforced? Why or Why Not?
(I know: horrible example. Still it gets the point across. By the way, the article over at QuietPaws is a rather good one, so go check it out.)
Threads will be judged by how interesting they are, as chosen by myself and Tyme, the other CL, if she wants to. If they spur discussion, even better, since that will also be taken into consideration.
Reward:
- For the creator of the best thread (as determined by us): 3 Points awarded.
- For the blog post author: recognition and hopefully traffic.
- For me: nothing unless you happen to pick one of my posts, in which case refer to the bullet point prior this.
Judging will take place weekly, starting Monday, February 26 with an announcement here (9Rules Notes) as to who won. I'll even post up a note about it on my own site (Gnorb.NET) about the winning post and the winning post's subject... post...uhm, yeah, whatever, you get the point. (Bloggers, you can influence this by writing the goodest content evar! See it as a way to stretch yourself, and a way you can get more incoming links.)
Who can enter:
Anyone, even people within the Commentary community. However, for Commentary community folks, you can't cover your own posts or posts on your own site, only other people's posts on other people's sites. The point of this is to gain exposure to the content being generated in that category and to (hopefully) increase the quality/quantity of the posts within those sites.
Important
In order for me to be able to easily spot entries to the Commentary Category Commentary Contest (CCCC), please make sure to include "(CCCC)" in the title of your post. (See example post above)
Finally...
The last thing I want is for this little contest to leech possible comments at the host sites, so if you write a post about someone's post, at least drop them a line.
(Did I forget anything? If I did, let's clear it up here. Thanks.)
dook
Written Feb. 20, 2007 / Report /
Kudos to you for a tremendously great idea, and even further kudos in your use of my favorite literary element in the title: alliteration. I might be participating just for that.
Tyme
Written Feb. 20, 2007 / Report /
Excellent! Remember anyone can enter. Yeah!
Gnorb
Written Feb. 20, 2007 / Report /
Tyme: Almost anyone. I'll not enter for obvious reasons.
Gnorb
Written Feb. 22, 2007 / Report /
Actually, I'm just writing this so people don't forget this is still going on.
Written Feb. 22, 2007 / Edit / Report /
Is this just a reminder? Is it already going on somewhere?
I'm not sure if it's possible but if you are doing something like this wouldn't it be be better to put it as a sticky at the top of the notes in commentary?
Is it open to only nine rules members? I'm still not clear on that.
Gnorb
Written Feb. 23, 2007 / Report /
1) OK, maybe I'm simply a VERY slow learner (read: closet luddite), but how do I "sticky" this atop the Notes commentary? I haven't seen any sticky notes here. (I'm showing my ignorance, I know. Sorry 'bout that.)
2) Yep. Already going on. Right now. As we speak. The bolded line reading starting Monday, February 26 should read with the first judging taking place on Monday, February 26, to judge all entries made between Tuesday February 20 and Sunday the 25th.
3) *scrolling up* Ah, there it is...
Open to anyone. Even you, cooper. Everyone except me, since I'm the one running the competition.
Seeing as there's been almost no interest as of yet (and after some other considerations) I'll up the points awarded to 6. (If I could change the title of this post to reflect this, I would.) Maybe I'll be awarded enough points in the future to keep this up for more than 3 weeks winking smiley face emoticon.
Gnorb
Written Feb. 26, 2007 / Report /
Well, seeing as no one entered (yeah, that makes me feel real adequate), I guess no one wins.
And, seeing as there's obviously no interest (or maybe I was just myserable at explaining things) I draw this contest to a close.
Cas
Written Feb. 26, 2007 / Report /
Gnorb,
From my own point of view it wasn't that it was a boring competition. Rather I was all rabbit-in-headlights over the amount of articles to choose from. Commentary has 27 blogs and what put me off was the fact I would have to look through those 26 (not counting my own for obvious reasons), find a relevant post, and then write my response. On top of the blogs etc I read already. I know it doesn't sound much but it was just enough to put me off.
Perhaps if you approached it with a bit more of a focused manner, picking one (or two, or three?) blogs from the list and say "choose what you want to respond to from one of these three".
I am thinking off the top of my head here whilst at work after a long meeting, but from my own point of view that would snag me more - tell me what I have to do and I will do it. Give me too much choice and I'm the proverbial woman in a shoe store, unable to pick just the one pair!
Don't give up, please! I think Commentary deserves competitions just like the other communities. You just need to tweak it some :)
(And as for sticky notes, I'm not sure it's possible the way things are currently set up. Perhaps you leaders should get more godlike powers ;) )
Gnorb
Written Feb. 26, 2007 / Report /
Thanks for the suppport, Cas. To alieve some of your... uhm, fears, I guess... I wasn't planning on giving up, but rather re-tooling it to improve the competition and trying it later, which is why I closed the competition (for now). I suppose my somewhat terse statement doesn't reveal my intent.
Your suggestions are very appreciated, and if you (or anyone else) have any more, go for it: I'm all <strike>ears</strike> eyes.
One assumption I made is that people could simply to go the actual commentary section and pick a piece from the blogroll that's there, reading what they want and ignoring what they don't, seeing as some sites, Internet Zillionaire, don't update but once per month, while others like Quiet Paws and Gnorb.NET update multiple times per week. The lesson "Never Assume..." is one I aparently forgot in this case.
Again, thank you for your input. I'll be starting up another contest sometime this week or next. Again, if you or anyone else have any suggestions, go for it.
Tyme
Written Feb. 26, 2007 / Report /
One thing I want to do is make these contests stickies. With notes moving as fast as they are, it's challenging for me to find something, let alone the users.
Actually what would be nice is to have some sort of events calendar so people can easily keep track.
Gnorb
Written Feb. 26, 2007 / Report /
up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start.
("iddqd" would also be good...)
How' bout it, Mike?
Written Feb. 26, 2007 / Edit / Report /
Basically I still have trouble trolling around here and I guess I was too lazy to bother trying to scroll blogs of people I don't know who may have no interest in even having anyone write an opinion about their opinion.
Maybe if you had your little commentary people, the ones who wanted to be part of it list themselves somewhere or choose a few blogs only spotlighting a few blogs each time.