How about another Best Post contest?

September 19, 2005 4:53 PM

I suggest we do another contest like amberglow's, on October 1 prehaps? There wouldd be no prizes from me but if someone else steps up and offers that would be ideal. I wont be posting anything because frankly I suck at posts lately. Anyone up to this? After all the crap/shit posts lately, we need happier MeFi days here!!
posted by wheelieman to Feature Requests at 4:53 PM (28 comments total)

Um, you mean anastasiav, right?
posted by SeizeTheDay at 4:57 PM on September 19, 2005

i was against it, actually, and still am.

if you want to post, post.

(and yours don't suck at all, wheelie)
posted by amberglow at 5:00 PM on September 19, 2005

I agree with the crap shit part. Someone needs to sponsor a non-political, non-farkfilter day on Metafilter.
posted by fire&wings at 5:18 PM on September 19, 2005

What was the prize for the last contest? I'm thinking I might sponsor this. Perhaps the winner could recieve a bottle of wine from my local winery.
posted by snsranch at 5:53 PM on September 19, 2005

The big deal in such an endeavor is not the money, but the time in evaluating critically and fairly all of the entries. I bet anastasiav spent many hours going over the links, and the comments in the posts.

It was a great gift to Metafilter. It seemed to up the posting quality for weeks after. I think we are still seeing it.
posted by caddis at 6:16 PM on September 19, 2005

I think if we do it again we should vote on the links here in MeTalk. Also, what was the last prize? I know, I'm lazy for not looking it up, but I'm busy feeding kids and helping with thier homework.
posted by snsranch at 6:38 PM on September 19, 2005

How about

Great link on PinkStainlessTail's blog My Boring Political Opinions Interspersed with Referrer Links. It's about cats and a great new line of handcrafted potholders shaped like cats!

posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:38 PM on September 19, 2005

Shit, I forgot to sprinkle it with misspellings.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:39 PM on September 19, 2005

Crap/shit posts? What crap/shit posts? Oh, you mean that Pirate Talk thing! Well, okay, one, but what others? tsk tsk
posted by mischief at 7:05 PM on September 19, 2005

Sorry wheelieman, but this idea went from "remotely possible" to "Shit, I forgot to sprinkle it with misspellings." in about 1.5 hrs.
posted by snsranch at 7:11 PM on September 19, 2005

On preview; Arrr, tell that tale ta me scabbard ye city-dwellin panty-waiste.
posted by snsranch at 7:24 PM on September 19, 2005

Hey i do the misspellings around here!! Thats my job!!
posted by wheelieman at 7:30 PM on September 19, 2005

Crap ?slash? shit?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:30 PM on September 19, 2005

And check out my first contest entry, I dont have any other stuff to post except on certain dates. I plan ahead a long time.
posted by wheelieman at 7:33 PM on September 19, 2005

Can we see more potholders shaped like dogs? I'm tired of this incessant CatFilter we seem to have turned into.
posted by boo_radley at 7:43 PM on September 19, 2005

*rubs hands together*
posted by JRun at 7:56 PM on September 19, 2005

*rubs hooks together*


(arrrr!)
posted by amberglow at 8:49 PM on September 19, 2005

I was in one of amberglow's contests once, and I haven't been able to get the taste of sperm out of my mouth, no matter how much Listerine i gargle.
posted by jonson at 11:35 PM on September 19, 2005

I'll give the spare change in my pocket to the person who can out as many anonymous and semi-anon Metafilter users as possible in 24 hours.
posted by Rothko at 11:54 PM on September 19, 2005

frankly I suck at posts lately.

Sweet, delicious irony.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:36 AM on September 20, 2005

I'll put up a prize. I've been wanting to make it for awhile now, and this is just the excuse I needed. It's the one, the only, the extraordinary... Metafilter necklace! Now you can show your affection for your favorite website by blazoning its colors 'round your neck (or the neck of a loved one). Blue and green Swarovski crystal, and smoky quartz in that ambiguous shade of MetaTalk brown-gray. And I'll even post a picture of it if...ahem...someone tells me the secret of how to put pictures on metafilter.

I like the idea of everyone voting in Metatalk on October 2nd. What do you elders think?
posted by leapingsheep at 3:58 AM on September 20, 2005

So wheelieman, basically what you're saying is: 'I'm not going to contribute to the prize or the entries but can you guys just make the front page more to my tastes please?'

Well that's me sold. And a career in motivational speaking awaits your good self.

Joking aside, the thing that really puts me off this idea, like anastasiav's original, is the way the proposal is used to get in a nice little sucker punch as to how rubbish MeFi is these days, blah, blah, blah.

MeFi has never been full of shit posts. I'll happily admit that there have been days when I've not been particulary inspired by what's appeared on the front page, but you know what? There are a whole bunch a folks here who have been.

I'm tempted to propose a prize day for any of the following:

Best and most sustained trolling in one thread;

Best 'You guys all suck, I'm so outta here!' MeTa post;

Longest surviving self-link;

Comment most likely to inspire contract being placed on poster's head; (Could be split into up to $500, $501 to $5,000 and $5,001 and over categories.)

And so forth...
posted by i_cola at 4:10 AM on September 20, 2005

I didn't like this the first time it happened and I would continue to not like it were it to happen again.

Posts are not something that should be hoarded and refined, nor ginned up for some prize day. If you come across something good in your daily travels on the internet, you should post it. If you don't, you shouldn't.
posted by blacklite at 5:54 AM on September 20, 2005

Make the judging day a secret. "It will occur in October" or something. I liked the last contest because it generated interest and enthusiasm and wasn't developed so far in advance that there seemed to be much hording.

But then again, people should want to post good stuff because well, that's what this site is actually about. It's a little like the workplace that gives out incentives for people to do their regular job - it's sweet to take the bonus but kind of strange at the same time, because the work was already expected.

I have 2 minds and both are active.
posted by peacay at 8:39 AM on September 20, 2005

I liked the first one... And I definitely didn't see it as a sucker punch at all. I saw it as a creative idea from a sincere person who wanted to be encouraging and motivating instead of whining and complaining.

I don't know about further contests like this... One problem is that people are complaining that it's like posters are needing to be "paid" for making good posts. In the first one, I know that the prize was just like a token, or a marker... It wasn't meant to be a payoff; the whole thing was just a nice communal inspiration, a reminder. And I thought it worked well to get people back into a more creative mindset generally. Just a fun thing to help us recall why we love it here, and why we should try to continue (or resume) devoting some effort toward keeping it good.

However, I don't know that subsequent ones could necessarily strike that spark again, and, really, I don't look forward to all the nastiness that it will probably generate here. I thought it was nice, though, and really enjoyed the fresher, more - dare I say "hopeful", even (somehow) "innocent" - feeling for what turned out to be weeks. It reminded me of my mefi youth. *sigh!*
posted by taz at 9:21 AM on September 20, 2005

Just to clarify; I didn't say it was a sucker punch but that it had one. Coming up with a great idea & offering a prize was a good thing. Using that to get in a little dig about baaaad MeFi has become was not so good. IMVHO.

I s'pose that there is an issue with certain members getting the sort of MeFi they want by paying for it altho' I'm sure that wasn't the original intention.
posted by i_cola at 9:43 AM on September 20, 2005

Make that '...about how baaaad MeFi has become...'
posted by i_cola at 9:44 AM on September 20, 2005

I like the idea of a contest mostly because I see it as motivating infrequent posters to get their hands dirty and throw in. My posting history shows just how much time I usually set aside for web-crawling -- I don't come across much neat stuff before other people, and I don't have the sort of encyclopedic bent that drives me to put together Concept Posts out of the blue.

So if a "contest" inspires people like me to get off our duffs and maybe contribute an interesting, well-constructed post, yay for the contest.

I don't see it as a sucker punch to MeFi, I see it as an incentive to the otherwise lax. And I don't see it as leading to the hoarding of post material -- people who post good stuff regularly are not going to stop doing so, and people who don't aren't going to be prevented from starting.

We aren't exactly short on self-motivated, contest-independant Mefites.
posted by cortex at 9:50 AM on September 20, 2005