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 Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 5:41 am
This is the only guide allowed in this forum!
The Art of Creating a Contest. So you want to run your your own contest? Then there are a few things you can do whilst setting it up to make it look more professional, so more people sign up!
Perhaps you want to run a contest but you need inspiration to make it more original? This guide also helps you there!
Low on gold? Need a prize? No problem! Just read the guide!
But first, remember that people like big prizes. So the number one rule is:
The bigger the prize, the more conteststants you'll get!
Pshh, obviously!!CONTENTS:
-> 1. The Art of Creating a Contest
2. The Idea
3. The Posts.
4. The Prizes.
5. The Entrants.
6. The Bit Where You Get Bored Of It.
7. The Reserved Post with the Picture of Midna.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:29 am
The Idea! You'll need to think of a cool idea for your contest of course! Make it original and plausible, e.g.: don't set up a lottery with 10 000 000 tickets if there's no chance of getting 10 000 000 contestants!! (Which I have to say, you probably won't! ....Unless the prize is a Halo or something......)Some Ideas~Avatar Contests Normal, 2+ contestant avatar contest
"Tektek"/Dream Avatar Contest
1 on 1 Avatar Contest
"Use This Item" Custom Avatar Contest
Themed Contest, e.g.: Easter Avatar, Angelic Avatar etc.
"Modify my avatar" contest
Win by poll vote or the thread creator's (or creators') choice. Art Contests Normal, any-art, 2+ contestant contest
"Draw my Avatar" art contest
"Draw This Character" contest
Style of Art, e.g.: Only manga/pseudo-manga pieces
"Draw my avatar with this character in super-deform manga-style, and keep it uner 500kb plz?" Contest (Although people may get the impression you're just after lots of free art...)
Draw the funniest picture!
"Draw the Avatar Above You! - First post on page 20 wins, and if it hasn't got art, you're OUT!" Contest
Win by poll vote or the thread creator's (or creators') choice. Bump Contests, Giveaways and Similar First Post on Page 5, 10, 15 etc. wins a prize!
100th/1000th/10000th/364th etc. Post wins a prize!
"Roll/get this number on the dice roll/random number generator to win!"
"The person with the inventory most similar to mine wins!"
"The person who can guess which name is my mule wins!"
Give away a prize to a random person who posts SPAM in your thread. Other Funniest Joke Contest
Best Quote Contest
Funniest Screenshot Contest
"Person who does my homework fastest and best wins!" Contest (This one is awesome!)
Give a prize to the person who can find the picture of the biggest rabbit.
General Knowledge Quiz (Although these are easily Google-d. Think about what you are asking and check Google and Wikipedia to see if they have the answer, ready and easy to find... ^^; )
Guess which box the prize is in to win it! (You'll have to draw some boxes. And don't cheat by changing them!! D: )
This is probably enough for now, isn't it? CONTENTS:
1. The Art of Creating a Contest
-> 2. The Idea
3. The Posts.
4. The Prizes.
5. The Entrants.
6. The Bit Where You Get Bored Of It.
7. The Reserved Post with the Picture of Midna.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:30 am
The Posts So now you have an idea, I hope! I know I still have lots! xD So now everyone will join your awesome contest, right?
Um... Well no. Some people might be fishy. If it's an art contest, maybe you're inventing the 3k prize and are just going to take the free art! How can we rid them of this ridiculous notion!?
Well the best way is to set up a really good, pretty thread, that looks like it has had some EFFORT put into it!~A Bad Contest! ContestOwner My ContestI'm trying to Find th best art! I need u 2 entr plz??????? blaugh U must giv me 4k 2 entrthen i wil deside if ur art is th best! Good luck! ya. Oh ye, obey the tos. or else i kik u ouy!!!! entres: none crying BLAKLIST!!!tHES PPL ARE SO NUBS!!!!!!!1!!11! noone YET!!! evil evil evil evil evil evil scream scream scream scream scream mad So... yeeeeaaahhh.... it's not looking so healthy. Poor little contest! Let's go through everything that's wrong to make him look more professional and so more people join!! 1. SPELLING, GRAMMAR and PUNCTUATION - make it easy to read!The first thing that ContestOwner should do is spellcheck his post! He has made many errors, making him look like a " n00b". He should also change his "nub tlk" to proper english, by changing "u" to "you" and "2" to "to" etc. ContestOwner My ContestI'm trying to find the best art! I need you to enter please??????? blaugh You must give me 4k to enterThen I will decide if your art is the best! Good luck! Ya. Oh yeah, obey the TOS. Or else I'll kick you out!!!! Entries: None crying BLACKLIST!!!THESE PEOPLE ARE SUCH NUBS!!!!!!!!!! No-one YET!!! evil evil evil evil evil evil scream scream scream scream scream mad Now ContestOwner has a slightly better-looking contest. Now we should think about the layout. He's got a title, which is good, but how about making it a little more prominent? Also, subheadings for parts such as the rules should be included, in case a contestant wishes to check for certain information about the contest. In this case, the contest will all be in post 1, but sometimes it could be better to have different sections in different posts, like in this guide! The more information, the more posts you should use. ContestOwner My ContestI'm trying to find the best art!I need you to enter please??????? blaugh How to Enter:You must give me 4k to enterThen I will decide if your art is the best! Good luck! Ya. RulesOh yeah, obey the TOS. Or else I'll kick you out!!!! Entries:None crying BLACKLIST!!!THESE PEOPLE ARE SUCH NUBS!!!!!!!!!! No-one YET!!! evil evil evil evil evil evil scream scream scream scream scream mad Lastly, ContestOwner should probably change his content a little! No information on the prize, yet it's 4k to enter!? No thanks. Also, what is he looking for a picture of? His avatar? A certain character? A pineapple? If he's looking for any art, then he should say so! Another thing to change in the content would be his tone! Look at the way the rules are just stuck in with an "Oh yeah". Aren't they important to the contest? Of course! Also, it's batter not to just say "obey the TOS" - you may want to remind people that Gaia is a PG-13 site. ContestOwner may also want to add in a couple of rules about entering in his "How to Enter" section. Finally, he sounds like he wants to put people in his Blacklist. Very offputting! Let's change that too, shall we ContestOwner? ContestOwner My ContestI'm trying to find the best art!I need you to enter please??????? blaugh I'm looking for art of my avatar! I'd prefer it to be Manga, but you can do other cartoon styles if you can't draw Manga very well. How to Enter:You must give me 400 gold to enterI will take 6 entries! Then I will decide if your art is the best! Prize!2000 gold!My Profit: 400 gold. Good luck! Ya. RulesOBEY THE TOS! Post the entries in this thread. Please keep your entries under 500kilobytes! No SPAM please. Entries:None yet! BLACKLIST!!!THESE PEOPLE ARE BANNED!! No-one! Cool! CONTENTS:
-> 1. The Art of Creating a Contest
2. The Idea
-> 3. The Posts.
4. The Prizes.
5. The Entrants.
6. The Bit Where You Get Bored Of It.
7. The Reserved Post with the Picture of Midna.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:31 am
exclaim The Prizes! exclaim A prize is certainly important! Otherwise you're not going to get many entries!!! Please please please don't lie about the prize, as this is called scamming and can get you in a lot of trouble!!
Deciding on a prize is hard. It needs to be quite a bit more than the entry fee, and yet you don't want the entry fee to be too high!! How do you decide!?How many contestants does your contest have? ~ Decide on how many entries you will take. This is important to working out the amount of gold you will get from the entries, so choose now if you haven't already! Now work out a suitable entry fee! ~ Not too much, but enough to make a decent prize. 300-500 gold might be a good idea if you have 5 or more entries. If you have less than 5 entries, you may want to raise the fee to have a bigger prize. Really though, it depends on the contest. ...And multiply! ~ Now multiply the number of entries by the entry fee! That's your prize! Your profit? ~ If you're planning on taking some profit from your contest, remember to subtract in from the prize. Don't take too much though! EXAMPLE:10 contestants 300 gold entry fee 10 x 300 = 30003000 gold prize! { -500 gold profit = 2500 gold prize }
Remember to tell people about the prize, including what you'll take as profit! 3nodding CONTENTS:
1. The Art of Creating a Contest
2. The Idea
3. The Posts.
-> 4. The Prizes.
5. The Entrants.
6. The Bit Where You Get Bored Of It.
7. The Reserved Post with the Picture of Midna.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:33 am
The Entrants! The one thing all contests need is contestants! But they can sometimes be tricky and try to cheat! Sometimes they will break the rules, posting spam (bleargh!) and messing up your awesomeness contest!! D': How can we stop 'em!?Special Users!Whitelist biggrin The people on your whitelist will be the people who have done something GOOD for the contest! Perhaps they made you a banner? Bumped it up to the top of the page a lot? Maybe they even sent you gold for prizes! There are nice people on Gaia, and they deserve to be recognised!! Give people an incentive to do good things by putting up a whitelist! ^_^ Blacklist mad The people who break the rules should go here. People on the blacklist are effectively "banned" from your contest thread. Although there's no way to prevent them from posting, putting them here will mean they are exempt from any prizes and no longer have an incentive to post here. If they complain about being banned by being rude to you, you can report them using the  button, or if they conteact you via PM, the  button! This is because continuing to harass you (in a rude way at least) is considered "flaming". Thread ModeratorsObviously you're not always going to be online to check whether people are obeying your thread's rules. If this is the case, you might want to hire some "Thread Moderators". They could be friends or people off your whitelist who are willing to watch the thread and report any posts that break the Terms of Service, and generally keep everything in order. They wouldn't have the same powers as you because they would not be able to edit/delete any but their own posts, since only one person can be the thread creator. However, they can still tell people to "stop" and you can grant them the power to disqualify people. This way, you don't have to worry about your contest while you sleep! xD Cheating!You want to watch out for cheaters in contests! Obviously, anyone caught cheating will be warned or perhaps sent straight to the blacklist. I have provided a list of ways people cheat to help you catch 'em out! Getting mules accounts to vote for them.
Getting their friends to vote for them.
Posting other people's art and saying it's theirs in art contests.
Similarly, stealing other people's avatar designs (especially from the two links on this page!)
Advertising in other threads for people to vote for them.
In general knowledge/riddle contests, searching for the answer on websites like Google or Wikipedia. CONTENTS:
1. The Art of Creating a Contest
2. The Idea
3. The Posts.
4. The Prizes.
-> 5. The Entrants.
6. The Bit Where You Get Bored Of It.
7. The Reserved Post with the Picture of Midna.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:34 am
The Part Where You Get Bored Of It... sweatdrop So you've made your contest, got some contestants, given out prizes and made some friends! But now, you no longer want to keep the contest...
Perhaps you don't even have all the contestants, and you're already bored!
But whatever the reason, you want to get rid of the durn thing!!If it's in the GuildPM me! I can delete your thread, and you can be done with it. HOWEVER!If you had contestants, I will be checking to see if you returned their entry fees first. Also, I will NOT delete art or dream avatar contests, as art is worth gold on Gaia, you could very well have put up the contest to get free art! I will NOT be pleased if I hear of people taking the art and running. stare If it's NOT in the GuildChange the title to "Closed" or "ContestOwner's Art Contest! -closed-" or similar so people know it's all over. Also, post in the thread, as some people might not read the title! If you have taken entry fees, send them back! Or else you could get banned for SCAMMING. Also, don't close uncompleted art or dream avatar contests, as this is very unfair to the people who put so much effort into creating something for you. They may think you planned on closing the contest and taking the art/avatar idea all along, and report you for SCAMMING!! CONTENTS:
1. The Art of Creating a Contest
2. The Idea
3. The Posts.
4. The Prizes.
5. The Entrants.
-> 6. The Bit Where You Get Bored Of It.
7. The Reserved Post with the Picture of Midna.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:34 am
~*reserved for future use*~ CONTENTS:
1. The Art of Creating a Contest
2. The Idea
3. The Posts.
4. The Prizes.
5. The Entrants.
6. The Bit Where You Get Bored Of It.
-> 7. The Reserved Post with the Picture of Midna.
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