yea that would be a good idea. Unless people could force us to just use the bage reward system like ET?

Yea that's why I used Halloween, Xmas/winter Holiday, Easter/Spring and possibly one in the summer.

Contests will be very open, or at least they should be so that anyone can participate no matter their background. I noted eater and xmas as that's when those events will take place, so late dec and mid april.

If anyone has any suggestions for Summer, other than holidays, they'd be most welcome. Or on another point ideas for winter and easter they'd be kindly accepted too.

I agree with [Ash]. It's a good idea.

Well, I ~am~ tired of waiting for something to be put into place...

Do you think badges would motivate people more than text alone?

Fall could be harvest time, as well.

We could also have an international season contest, so all the Canadians might be writing about winter around when all the Australians are writing about summer. We might even get seasons like dry and wet.

I like the idea of monthly themes. It would be a challenge coming up with new ideas that would inspire us. I like the idea of proposing different styles of poetry, as in the Unlazy poets contest.

I think it could work, at least it can work as a reward, so members will have something to work towards.

heh true true... Perhaps we could use unrelated themes aswell, just to be as unbiased as possible.

I do think though that no matter the topic all members who enter should be working frm the same context, so if it's on winter everyone should write about winter, to keep things fair.

Then we should aim to get this in place. If someone can set up a wiki for this and pick a contest for the first month it runs it will be great.

I think this would also be a good starting place for badges if we decide to introduce them.

Perhaps we could aim to have this idea fully functional and ready to go at the end of Nov. That will give us time to think how it will be formatted and get some badges created.

People find out about contests from the main page, but there are a lot of people who never bother reading it after they’ve logged in. Is it possible, or ethical for that matter, to send everyone a message letting them know that we have come up with a new challenge for everyone to participate in, if they want to? I think a lot more people would enter contests if they felt more encouraged to do so.

Also, as for incentives, badges are really nice as souvenirs, but they aren’t very good currency. I think the winner of the competition should have his/her work featured on the main page so that there is a bit of *stardom* involved, as with the featured writings and the poetry duel winners.

What do you think?

Are you sure that this slow community can support monthly themes on top of what we already have every month?