Why Not Create A New Forum Category for Contests?
 

Many threads are filled with meaningless drivel and bumps from contest whores and bots, so let's give them their own forum category, since they provide almost no meaningful input to the Fucking Around and Program Discussion forum.

Good riddance to bad trash...

ADG

I 100% agree, but in that case, there will be about 99% less competitions... because real webmasters won't even see them.

I'm sick of logging on here every damn day to find 80% of the first page filled with this shit...

So I take your comments as a YES - there should be a separate forum category for contests...

ADG

yes.. new category. Nice meeting you at the discussion the other night by the way. :)

bump for the early afternoon saturday crowd.

Never gonna happen. It defeats the whole purpose. While you might not look in those threads, you're not representative of the 20K+ webmasters who post here.

theres got to be a simpler solution.

put the words "[contest]" in every contest title... and put a checkmark option that'll hide all contest threads in the main forum.

the ppl who don't like contest threads won't see them!

Actually, if GFY just told Lars to pound sand, there wouldn't be very many contest threads. In fact, since Lars became persona non grata around here, the amount of that crap has dropped quite a bit.

Stellar idea. I absolutely hate those contest threads and it always seems like there are way too many of them going on at the same time.

you can always tell when the contest trolls wake up, because right around 8 am EST, the board lights up with all the contest threads.

because the idea of contests as advertising will become useless :2 cents:

that make sense

Like who said, if you move contests elsewhere, the entire point of having them is just about moot.

Too, if you disallow contests, you're only a horse shoe's toss from disallowing any promotional announcements...

Maybe taking steps to disallow for or prevent the "bump this thread and win" aspect of contests is the way to go.

/shrug

So many people just don't understand the point of the contests.

A sponsor has a major announcement they want to be seen. So they add a contest to the thread and know that's what will keep the announcement bumped.

I guess ultimately it's a form of censorship, and well.. that's just plain wrong. HOLY SHIT, for a minute I felt like a republican.

I know the contest threads suck, it brings down GFY, I don't hit GFY during certain times of the day because of them, I think contests are lame, but in the end... they have every right to be here as we do. And we must accept the good with the bad.

But personally.. I hate them.

Here is a theory:

Less contests = less traffic from the whores
less traffic from the whores = smaller BW bill
smaller BW bill = larger profit
Larger profit = no need for payed contest threads that only bots and whores look in
No contests = more happy webmasters
more happy webmasters = more business
More business = less drama
Less drama = better community
Better community = less scammers
Less scammers = more profit for the webmasters

But it could also mean that if contests was banned, the bots would fuck up every other content with "see sig" replies

The only reason people have contests are for views. Putting them in another forum would result in very few views, so no point in having contests.

I have a feeling that sponsors that have these contests would not be very happy.

If they want exposure, they should be forced to buy ad space. I find it fairly ironic that one of the only types of boards where its allowed to spam is webmaster boards, adult webmaster in particular

Pretty sure most contests are held by those that do purchase ad space.

Why do you think that? I have never clicked that link in 6 1/2 years.

the rules are:
The rules would be fine if they were inforced. After the 10 days it should be locked.

i agree with this..

Real webmasters don't give a shit about them. But, having the name of the program in the top 20 threads helps brand the program I guess.

Also, the amount of page views the contest threads bring probably helps GFY sell more ads.

So, in short, I doubt they will be going anywhere.

good idea

Why not just give them a sticky at the top? It cuts down on the 10,000 useless posts in a thread and would probably speed up GFY quite a bit. Would also benefit the advertisers who wouldn't need to spend the time and money on the contests.

Pretty sure that top advertisers get a certain number of hours per month of stickied posts as part of the package.

Only top banner advertisers are allowed to run contests, and THEY are the ones who make the decisions around here.

The advertising revenue is what keeps the board going, so the owners are going to cater to the advertisers.

Im well aware of that, I posted it myself above as well.



In the end there is no board if there are no webmasters left. And the webmaster/surfer ration get worse each month.

Considering that GFY is forever killing the gerbils with way too many bots and screwups, the last thing they need is extra threads giving the bots reasons to bang at the boards.

IMHO, sponsors should get MAYBE one contest thread a year, and after 7 days or 5000 posts it should be locked and done with.

Perhaps a section for "would you hit it" threads as well would be nice.

I agree 100%

It would be a good ideea :thumbsup