Monthly Challenges:January 2014

[Jippd]

I don't mean confusing for the admin team I mean confusing for people that may want to participate in the monthly challenge or find out more about what it is all about.

For example, if someone has a question in March about the monthly tournament they may not know where to start searching to see if there question has already been answered. If there is a thread for each monthly challenge there is a more finite number of pages that they would need to check in on and see what people are talking about regarding the specific challenge.

Another advantage to a separate thread is for people that are creating games or looking for people to join games towards the challenge. Again a finite number of pages with one thread per monthly challenge will make it easier for people to be able to use that to the best of their ability.

It also might get more attention since a new announcement goes towards the top of the list. As the time goes on the thread topic will slowly move down the list in the announcement forum as new announcements go above it.

[Dukasaur]

I don't mean confusing for the admin team I mean confusing for people that may want to participate in the monthly challenge or find out more about what it is all about.

For example, if someone has a question in March about the monthly tournament they may not know where to start searching to see if there question has already been answered. If there is a thread for each monthly challenge there is a more finite number of pages that they would need to check in on and see what people are talking about regarding the specific challenge.

Another advantage to a separate thread is for people that are creating games or looking for people to join games towards the challenge. Again a finite number of pages with one thread per monthly challenge will make it easier for people to be able to use that to the best of their ability.

It also might get more attention since a new announcement goes towards the top of the list. As the time goes on the thread topic will slowly move down the list in the announcement forum as new announcements go above it.

Yeah, furthermore, with new challenges being pasted over the old ones, the records of the old ones will not be archived anywhere, and the medals will soon be meaningless. When you get a medal for winning the "Big Knockers and Fast Bikers" tournament, or whatever, you can go back and look at the tournament thread and see exactly what the tournament involved. But with this, how will you go back after winning the medal for the Scotland challenge and see what it was for? You will see "won the Scotland Challenge" or "Won the December 2013 Challenge" and there will be no way to look up and see exactly what the terms of that challenge were.

[betiko]

Agreed with the anti-anarkists.

[DoomYoshi]

Both of these concerns are addressed in the posts following the OP. There is a FAQ post, and a Past Challenges post.

[Dukasaur]

Both of these concerns are addressed in the posts following the OP. There is a FAQ post, and a Past Challenges post.

Okay, that's good. I missed the Past Challenges archive.

[Leehar]

Why are quads scored less than (4p) dubs, but more than (6p) trips?

[denominator]

There is going to be a problem in that this thread will gradually fall further down the announcements forum as new threads are posted.

[Gilligan]

It's also nice to see some discussion that went along with it, not just a description.

[sempaispellcheck]

There is going to be a problem in that this thread will gradually fall further down the announcements forum as new threads are posted.

It will be headlined and moved back to the top of the forum every time a new challenge is posted.

sempai

[Jippd]

There is going to be a problem in that this thread will gradually fall further down the announcements forum as new threads are posted.

It will be headlined and moved back to the top of the forum every time a new challenge is posted.

sempai

Except for this time?

Is there an advantage to keeping everything in one thread that I am missing? Just curious.

Also there is still the issue of people not knowing where discussion pertaining to a certain months challenge starts and stops when the thread will keep growing in posts. Look how many pages you have and it has only been through 1 month.

If I come into the forums and find this thread in the middle of March and want to see where all of the discussion for the March challenge started I feel it would be more convenient to go to the second post and start reading discussion about that challenge then try to guess through the pages where it starts by checking dates of posts.

[DoomYoshi]

There is going to be a problem in that this thread will gradually fall further down the announcements forum as new threads are posted.

It will be headlined and moved back to the top of the forum every time a new challenge is posted.

sempai

Except for this time?

Is there an advantage to keeping everything in one thread that I am missing? Just curious.

Also there is still the issue of people not knowing where discussion pertaining to a certain months challenge starts and stops when the thread will keep growing in posts. Look how many pages you have and it has only been through 1 month.

If I come into the forums and find this thread in the middle of March and want to see where all of the discussion for the March challenge started I feel it would be more convenient to go to the second post and start reading discussion about that challenge then try to guess through the pages where it starts by checking dates of posts.

I am not a member of Team CC. I can not make new posts to the Announcements forum.

[DoomYoshi]

Why are quads scored less than (4p) dubs, but more than (6p) trips?

The scoring for team games is such that the expected value when you join an 8p game is the same no matter what the settings are (except assassin which is worth less).

In 8p dubs you have a 25% chance of winning 120 points and a 75% chance of winning 10 points, for a total expected points of 37.5.
In 8p standard, you have a 12.5% chance of winning 230 points and a 87.5% chance of scoring 10 points for a total expected points of 37.5.

Good thing you caught that I messed up the numbers.

Going to fix it now.

[iAmCaffeine]

How about a sub-forum for Monthly Challenges and separate threads within it? Seems like the most logical solution to me.

[Frito Bandito]

It will be nice to have the medal, but man, I am tired of Scotland!

[JOHNNYROCKET24]

When do I get my medal ?

[DoomYoshi]

I don't like the idea of new threads as it makes it impossible to find stuff. I don't want to have to go searching through a hundred threads to find details of one challenge. The only solution would then be to copy and paste the details of the past challenges every time. Which would result in more work than now for little reward.

As for jippd's main complaint. I prefer if all the discussion is in the same thread. In the OP, I can add a link for where the discussion on one particular challenge starts. That will avoid players having to search the last 5 or so pages to get to the start.

I would prefer if players just used the search function though. If somebody asks a protocol question about getting the medal during the January challenge, it is probably equally applicable for the August challenge.

The F400 is one of the longest-lasting institutions on this website, and it uses the same thread, with a periodic update once it becomes too sprawl-y. I imagine this will use the same method.

[Dukasaur]

I don't like the idea of new threads as it makes it impossible to find stuff. I don't want to have to go searching through a hundred threads to find details of one challenge. The only solution would then be to copy and paste the details of the past challenges every time. Which would result in more work than now for little reward.

As for jippd's main complaint. I prefer if all the discussion is in the same thread. In the OP, I can add a link for where the discussion on one particular challenge starts. That will avoid players having to search the last 5 or so pages to get to the start.

I would prefer if players just used the search function though. If somebody asks a protocol question about getting the medal during the January challenge, it is probably equally applicable for the August challenge.

The F400 is one of the longest-lasting institutions on this website, and it uses the same thread, with a periodic update once it becomes too sprawl-y. I imagine this will use the same method.

This works. Especially the highlighted part.

[chapcrap]

I don't like the idea of new threads as it makes it impossible to find stuff. I don't want to have to go searching through a hundred threads to find details of one challenge. The only solution would then be to copy and paste the details of the past challenges every time. Which would result in more work than now for little reward.

As for jippd's main complaint. I prefer if all the discussion is in the same thread. In the OP, I can add a link for where the discussion on one particular challenge starts. That will avoid players having to search the last 5 or so pages to get to the start.

I would prefer if players just used the search function though. If somebody asks a protocol question about getting the medal during the January challenge, it is probably equally applicable for the August challenge.

The F400 is one of the longest-lasting institutions on this website, and it uses the same thread, with a periodic update once it becomes too sprawl-y. I imagine this will use the same method.

This works. Especially the highlighted part.

I completely disagree. This is gonna be a gigantic mess in a few months.

I don't know why'd you would need to search through 100 threads to find things. Just put a description in the thread title. December 2013: Scotland Terminator I don't know why you would prefer things from so many discussions in one thread. And if there are protocol questions, it probably should be addressed in the OP. Searching is nice, but the info should just be in the OP. If there are questions about protocol in January, then the August OP should have them answered.

This is completely different that the F400. This is like a tournament or an event. Each of which has it's own thread. Does each anniversary announcement use the same thread? No. They all have new ones.

This is just really confusing to do it this way.

[Sirius Kase]

Since I'd never heard of the F400, i stuck it in the search box and found something I would hope you would never try to emulate. Since the messages the search linked to didn't make any sense, I went to the OP, post 1. It had a place for the Faq and the Policy and Procedure to hide, but they weren't hiding, they weren't there at all. The OP didn't have a word about the purpose of the thread or the competition if that is what it was, just a bunch of fancy charts, no explanations. You would have to already know what it was about to know what it was about. This is probably fine for some things, but not for something you want new people to join up with.

I've hesitated to comment since I don't agree with the idea of having a long convoluted thread where new stuff is cut and pasted ahead of old stuff. But, you have your reasons which I respect. It is a big job hosting something like this and the convenience of the host is very important, if you can't manage more than one thread, then I'll adapt, not that hard to click on the 1, now that I know you plan to update it. I ordinarily start at the end of long threads since OP is usually not up to date and in many cases very obsolete. And when people do go back and edit old posts, I don't know it, it doesn't seem to trigger the email notification like a completely new post does. So, I'll probably be reading along the new posts until someone mentions, oh btw, the OP has been edited. But, usually, for me, I prefer short threads covering single topic to long threads covering lots of things.

Just my opinion. I wasn't going to comment at all until I got curious and went to the F400 thread. I'm adaptable, but if you have a choice, don't make me adapt to something as badly organized as the F400 thread.

[iAmCaffeine]

Since I'd never heard of the F400, i stuck it in the search box and found something I would hope you would never try to emulate. Since the messages the search linked to didn't make any sense, I went to the OP, post 1. It had a place for the Faq and the Policy and Procedure to hide, but they weren't hiding, they weren't there at all. The OP didn't have a word about the purpose of the thread or the competition if that is what it was, just a bunch of fancy charts, no explanations. You would have to already know what it was about to know what it was about. This is probably fine for some things, but not for something you want new people to join up with.

I've hesitated to comment since I don't agree with the idea of having a long convoluted thread where new stuff is cut and pasted ahead of old stuff. But, you have your reasons which I respect. It is a big job hosting something like this and the convenience of the host is very important, if you can't manage more than one thread, then I'll adapt, not that hard to click on the 1, now that I know you plan to update it. I ordinarily start at the end of long threads since OP is usually not up to date and in many cases very obsolete. And when people do go back and edit old posts, I don't know it, it doesn't seem to trigger the email notification like a completely new post does. So, I'll probably be reading along the new posts until someone mentions, oh btw, the OP has been edited. But, usually, for me, I prefer short threads covering single topic to long threads covering lots of things.

Just my opinion. I wasn't going to comment at all until I got curious and went to the F400 thread. I'm adaptable, but if you have a choice, don't make me adapt to something as badly organized as the F400 thread.

The F400 is still a work in progress mate. Things like the FAQ are still being worked on to ensure they're as useful as possible when completed.

I agree with chap.

[Dukasaur]

I think you guys should give Doom the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes for a few months. If after four or five months it looks like a mess and stuff is hard to find, then start agitating for separate threads. In the meantime, he's obviously thought about how to organise it, he's going to archive old challenges in Post 3 (which answered my main objection); he's going to post links in Post 1 to the start dates of new challenges (which answered the main objection raised by Jippd), and we should just stand back maybe and see how he proceeds.

This is the guy who created the concept, and pushed it through, from non-existence to experimental prototype to fully-sanctioned version, and at some point you have to back off and let the conductor conduct.

[Sirius Kase]

I agree, he's posted enough to show he has thought about it and isn't being random. He has already shown he can organize these challenges, he can organize a thread, too, I'm sure. I'm willing to give him the chance. No more comments out of me, now I need to decide whether to participate in January. I still have a lot of Scotlands to complete.

[iAmCaffeine]

I think you guys should give Doom the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes for a few months. If after four or five months it looks like a mess and stuff is hard to find, then start agitating for separate threads. In the meantime, he's obviously thought about how to organise it, he's going to archive old challenges in Post 3 (which answered my main objection); he's going to post links in Post 1 to the start dates of new challenges (which answered the main objection raised by Jippd), and we should just stand back maybe and see how he proceeds.

This is the guy who created the concept, and pushed it through, from non-existence to experimental prototype to fully-sanctioned version, and at some point you have to back off and let the conductor conduct.

You say "at some point" but it's only been a minor project in Callouts up to this point, so the constructive criticism has only just started. It's not that we have a problem with the way Doom is intending to run this, just suggesting ways which would be more efficient.

[Jippd]

You can do whatever you want Yoshi, this is your baby but there is just one minor point that I brought up that still won't be addressed. What about the thread slowly dropping to the bottom of the announcements page. This will make the thread less noticeable. CC can give you the power to adjust the thread to the top of the forum then that is an easy fix for me.

I don't like the idea of new threads as it makes it impossible to find stuff. I don't want to have to go searching through a hundred threads to find details of one challenge. The only solution would then be to copy and paste the details of the past challenges every time. Which would result in more work than now for little reward.

This could easily be done by creating a spoiler that has the old challenges in them with a hyperlink that you would just add to each new thread. You could post this in the OP for every new month's challenge. Many TO's do this so people can see past tournaments they have hosted if they wish to do so.

show

You don't need the details all written out as you can easily jump to a certain challenges thread for a month if you need to.

As for jippd's main complaint. I prefer if all the discussion is in the same thread. In the OP, I can add a link for where the discussion on one particular challenge starts. That will avoid players having to search the last 5 or so pages to get to the start.

This is a good idea to help with the discussion start points issue.

I would prefer if players just used the search function though. If somebody asks a protocol question about getting the medal during the January challenge, it is probably equally applicable for the August challenge.

The average CC user does not have time to use a search function or know how to use a search function would be my guess. If you want this challenge to be open to as many people as possible I think it should be made as user friendly as possible. It may mean a little more work for you but if that work saves a fraction of the time for hundreds of users I think it is worth it. Since this is an official challenge and medals are being given is why I think it should be a user friendly event.

The F400 is one of the longest-lasting institutions on this website, and it uses the same thread, with a periodic update once it becomes too sprawl-y. I imagine this will use the same method.

I agree with you that the F400 is a long running event but I don't think that is anything like the official challenges because there are no medals given for the F400. If you were running this event and it wasn't giving away medalsit would be less important to me regarding how you want to run it.

[DoomYoshi]

Which announcement page do you mean?