A Conversation for Introducing the Volunteer Teams

Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 21

Z

Hypatia - that was such a great idea, I'm so sorry it didn't work out. The whole concept of the creative challenge is to encourage writing and we certainly have been discussing contests with prizes - as well as those for glory and badges. That's what the creative challenge team is here to do, host contests which would include prizes.

I think we'd be wanting to host the whole thing on h2g2 itself, and ideally to lower the age limit when possible.


So I take it you've volunteered smiley - evilgrin


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 22

Sol

Hurrah! This is exactly what we are working towards, Hyp! Exactly!

Thing is (there's an announcement coming up relating to these threads which is why they are a bit cryptic at the moment) I'd like to start small and work up to that sort of thing, and I'd like to start with regular smallish challenges rather than outright competitions, although I do take your point about the motivational usefulness of (small) prizes.

During the transition period, then, it would work, I hope, a bit like memes do in blogland, where the fun of it is seeing how other people have responded to this week's prompt. It would be targetted at the moment, at current users and (perhaps especially) new users, and I'm hoping that people would participate partly because we do know each other and are nosy and partly (in the case of newbies) because we want to get to know each other).

HOWEVER, we would need to run at least one competition in that time to see how we could organise them successfully (We've been getting some feedback from Bel and the Post team on the trickiness of running comps here) AND we would really want one nice big outward facing comp to coincide with when we think h2g2 is finished transitioning and ready to take over the world. Which is where this could really come into its own.

Anyway, what we need volunteers for is partly to think up the challenges and sort out an a page describing them (I envisage that people could leave links to their entries under this page so everybody could go and read them and , hopefully, comment - not in a peer review kind of way - although we will have EG challenges so that would be in a peer review kind of way, but more generally).

But we also need people to participate regularly, both in submitting and in commenting and answering questions, too I suppose.

And in admin for the comps when we get there.


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 23

Sol

Incidentally, if the challenge thing doesn't work out, if any aspect of this isn't working or we think something else might work better, we'll change it.

I, too, am glad to have you on board, Hyp.


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 24

Z

So we appear to have volunteers without offically asking for them,or in fact getting their consent.

That's totally ethical isn't it?

smiley - evilgrin


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 25

Rev Nick - dead man walking (mostly)

The offer of the paid host domain for a year, and contributions to an award 'pot' stand. The rest are details for the consortium and foundation to dwell on


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 26

lil ~ Auntie Giggles with added login ~ returned


Of course it is smiley - whistle

Now where's that button? smiley - ok


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 27

lil ~ Auntie Giggles with added login ~ returned


Oops smiley - simpost

That was to post 24 smiley - smiley


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 28

Hypatia

The prizes don't have to be expensive. They don't have to be cash. But things work out better with some sort of prizes. Being a library, we use popular books sometimes. Sets generally, the titles dependent on the age level. We've used things like photo frames and albums for photography contests, gift certificates to an art supply store, gift certificates to a book store, magazine subscriptions, etc. And we've done several with cash prizes.


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 29

Hypatia

We use books because I have fab discounts that aren't available to most folks. smiley - blush


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 30

aka Bel - A87832164

The whole can be found at (links provided with the whole http bit for those in barlesque): Writing Contest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A38600129 BBC scandal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6905095.stm As you'll see, the scandal was about a year previously, which is why no prizes were allowed to be given out. Even the Editors T-Shirt Challenges had to stop, and they weren't even prizes for a competition. You'll find a lot of good ideas in the 'Rules and Guidelines' thread: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F10715902?thread=5688008 The youngsters were banned from h2g2 only a good month later: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F77636?thread=5901859 (they had been banned elsewhere on the BBC a lot earlier, iirc) So lots of unfortunate circumstances came together, but we had the wonderful Stretcher as a result: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A45104906


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 31

Rev Nick - dead man walking (mostly)

Ah, so in fact BBC in-house turmoil was a-foot perhaps when Hypatia raised the idea. Give or take some months. (It is really not easy to see which or what was first)

The Stretcher thing was a nice exercise ... for people already within h2g2. It may still be only my interpretation, but I understood that Hypatia's idea was to reach people in the real world, and perhaps even bring some into this site. While encouraging creative writing and interests in that vein


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 32

aka Bel - A87832164

Everybody could have joined the Stretcher, it was by no means limited to people who were already on h2g2. Alas, we didn't have the means to promote it outside of h2g2.


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 33

aka Bel - A87832164

Oh, and 'nice exercise' is incredibly condescending for the bloody best contest with fantastic results I've ever seen here on h2g2. I can't believe that somebody who has no idea can call it a 'nice exercise'.


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 34

lil ~ Auntie Giggles with added login ~ returned


Oooooo smiley - yikes

*hides under her Matt* smiley - lurk


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 35

Rev Nick - dead man walking (mostly)

To return to the original post and request, Post #25 (I think) states what I am willing to do for challenges.

On please, with Solushka's post, which was: (for them what missed it)

"This is the place to sign up if you would like to get involved in h2g2's first Foundation inspired initiative, setting and running regular creative challenges for users of the site."


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 36

Lanzababy - Guide Editor

So - has anyone actually signed up to assist Solnushka? smiley - bigeyes


Joins lil smiley - lurk


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 37

Rev Nick - dead man walking (mostly)

Posts 6, 8, 10, 12, 17 and 25 pretty much commit me. And believe me, I know that I deserve to be committed some days ... smiley - silly


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 38

Lanzababy - Guide Editor

Really? It sounded to me as if you were just raking up the past. Okay, I've got the message.


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 39

Rev Nick - dead man walking (mostly)

smiley - sigh It's not easy some days ...


Volunteer for the Creative Challenges Team here.

Post 40

Mrs Zen

There are times when I think we need a simley - smiley - cdouble perhaps. smiley - hug doesn't quite do it.

Let's focus on where we are now - or where we will be soon, lawyer eyes and teas permitting - without any of the constraints of the BBC.

So we've serveral hieritages to draw on:

The stretcher
Nick and Hypatia's plans
The existing challenges in the Post and QI
Previous challenges in the Post

Sol - to what extent does what you want to do simply pull these all together, and to what extent is it something brand new?

Ben

PS - there was a teacher once in the US who told his class to put their entries into PR regardless of the site rules for accuracy and being in the 3rd person. He gave extra credit if any of them made the Front page. That caused ructions.


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