Welcome to Gaia! ::

~+~When I find the end of this road....

Hello there! I'd like to say that this is a banner contest for the guild! The reason we're doing this is because we'd like to see more banners for Shop-a-palooza, and we'd love to see your creative talent as well.

To enter all you have to do is make your banner and then PM it to Teh Killer or [ Rose ].

Prize: 5k.

Requirements/Rules:
Banners can be as large as 500x500, but the preferred size is 350x150.
The text “Shop-a-palooza” must be somewhere in the banner.
PARTICIPANTS MAY ENTER UP TO TWO BANNERS.

The cut-off day for entries is November 30th. We will also stop accepting banners once ten have already been submitted. The reason for this is because we will decide who wins by a poll, and only up to ten options can be used in a poll.

Polls will open on December 1st and will close on December 15th.

Examples and inspiration heart

by Teh Killer



by [ Rose ]

Anyways start making those banners and submit 'em!

Edited by Rose

Since this contest is rather official, seeing as it has to do with the guild, I think that you should keep your post style out of it, to make it seem... herm, neutral? More important? Official-like? I think it should also be a sticky to attract more interest ^_^ .

I think you could add more info to help people out, such as...

A max banner size

Any mandatory text?

Good banner theme/colors/ideas

Deadline

When voting starts/ends

How you vote (poll, PM, post in thread, etc.?)

Max amount of banners that can be entered into the contest (by everyone overall)

And... you know, all that information XD .

<3 Ali

Ali,im sorry to say but when you suggest stuff it gets annoying.You do it in almost every thread.If I didnt post the size than that must mean any size.And for the voting part you should know how we are going to do it.The only way to vote is a poll.The end date.I said that!!When people stop entering.Text and that stuff is your choice!And dang it read!I said up to two banners!God stare

I suggest stuff because I see improvement can be made, because I thought this guild welcomed improvement, seeing as there's a suggestion thread. I know it's probably annoying, but I figure that the best way to help this guild is to be brutally honest in where I see flaws RIGHT NOW before the guild becomes popular. That is, if it ever does; hundreds of guilds die all the time, especially big projects like this. You have to try to make everything look as good as possible for a shop-keeper to take you seriously enough to join, take the trouble of making a new shop thread, and come back regularly to check on it.

Making and maintaining a guild aint' easy, I can tell you that, and I myself welcome and would be grateful for advice; I would pay to get WindowOpener to look over and thoroughly analyze my guild (he does this for free, and is very meticulous about it, but has been busy of late, especially with his new mod status).

I don't criticize just to be annoying. People usually appreciate when I give them constructive criticism on things because I try to touch on everything I can; because I'm honest unlike most people who wouldn't want to hurt their feelings. I don't take my time to give advice or criticism to just anybody either; it DOES take time and effort out of my own life you know... I did it because you guys are my friends, and I wanted to help you out somehow. Someone once PMed me and said they'd PAY to get my help to make their guild look nice and organized. I didn't; was too busy with my own guild. I can't 'stay active' to help out, I'm not an active poster, and I suck at recruiting. Giving advice, thoughts, suggestions and criticism was the best way that I thought I could help out. I didn't read through Window-kun's Guild Services article 3+ times, browse the Captain's Guild every day for months, and look at various different guilds as reference points just to learn nothing about guilds and successfulness of them.

Sorry, but even with your apology, it hasn't defused my being, how shall I say, pissed. I think I have a right to be; my posts were made entirely to be helpful, and I was hoping that you would be mature enough to be able to take criticism and know that I give it because I'm trying to help, not to be an a**.

- - - - -

With size of banner... many people don't seem to know that the largest picture size you can have in your signature in Gaia is, what was it, 500x500? And I'm guessing you wouldn't want button or quilt-patch size like 50x50 or 100x80 or something?

Polls are not the only way to vote. Some people are afraid of mules voting (aka cheating), so they might vote by way of PM or by posting in the thread; it's uncommon, but not unheard of. I've seen voting done this way before.

The end date; 'when people stop entering'? No one IS entering yet. What if no one ever joins? Or what if only one person joined and it's been two months or something? Etc.. It's much better to have a set cut-off date so people know; 'when people stop entering' is entirely vague. Either that or 'after 10 banners are entered' since that's the limit that the polls have. Side-note, that's another reason why someone wouldn't polls; it only allows ten choices.

Recommended text is usually given in contests, at least in my little experience; I've only seen a couple, which I took time to check out and study in order to make my own contest (which is why I'm giving advice; I've studied a tad up on it and had advice to give). Such as the name of the guild; that's always good to have when advertising a guild, no?

It's always nice to have a direction to work towards; some suggestions or keywords that might help people to think of something. Also, when does voting start and end? Do people have up to a week to vote, only a day, a month or something even?

Max amount of banners that can be entered into the contest (by everyone overall) . That means, is there a cut-off of when people can't enter banners anymore? Like, if 5 people joined with 2 banners each, does that mean since there are 10 banners entered, nobody else can join since there are already 10 banners in the contest? Since you're voting by poll, I'm guessing that yes, the cut-off is indeed 10.

This contest, to be frank, is not something that I personally would take very seriously at all; no effort was put into setting this up nicely. If there wasn't effort into making the contest nice (or at with least clear, concise, and informative), why should I put effort into making a banner nice? Or at all, really?

Also... it didn't just 'sound like you were being mean', it WAS mean. And this tripped my bitchy-long-rant-switch, and even though I know I'll regret it later, it's not something that's easily switched back off. I'm sorry in advance because I know I'll be beating myself up over this post when I calm down, but even rereading it I don't feel like just deleting it all.

Signed,
AMK

EDIT: OK, I've calmed down a bit and taken the time to comb over the post three or four times to cut it down; that's a few paragaph's worth.