How "interesting" would it be if Jeff Hoard brought back the Answer of the Day Contest?

The big problem I had with Answer of the Day, was the timezone/date issues involved in running a daily contest on a global site. A) maybe Its because I'm not on PST, but I often got confused as to which was todays contest. B)because a question could be open for several days, answers could be nominated on Monday, Tuesday, wednesday etc... c) Some members were even staking claims before the contest opened on a particular day.

These combined factors meant that 'new' players in the contest game were put at a significant disadvantage due to the fact that they were too confused to enter. Perhaps a weekly or monthly contest would be better than a daily one. It also looked like there was a bit of lobbying in the background to be nominated.. I'll nominate you if you nominate me etc.A new answerer who wasn't part of the circle would find it off putting.

Now I'm NOT saying that this was the case to any degree... but it appeared to look like that and the contest wasn't really drawing in many new low belt members. If the contest is to be a success... or useful to Mahalo as a whole then whatever system is brought in should be judged by how many 'new' people participate in the contest. For the purpose of working out how a 'new' person is defined I'd say that it should be people who haven't got a purple belt yet.

I'm not adverse to everyone being able to enter, but unless there are more 'new' people entries every time then I'd consider the contest a failure. Otherwise it just turns into a system to remind people how great Bunny, GNO, Budda,& Rob etc... are... and we know how awesome they are without the reminders ;) The aim of the contest should be to encourage ALL members to give better answers, and the best way of doing that is to get more buy in at the bottom, rather than pat heads at the top.

I would love to see the AotD contest return under it's 2nd-to-last incarnation. With great quality answers being submitted, the person submitting and the user who answered getting the bonuses, and @robbrown's awesome tiki torch trophies! Being able to keep the AotD thread alive on the front page would increase participation to the levels it was before, and even beyond.

I liked the Answer of the Day contest a lot and I would love to see it come back. For the most part I would like it to come back the same (nominated answers and people vote on them) but the other changes I would like to see are fundamental changes. In the new incarnation I would like to see users nominate their own answers.

This is works well in a few ways, it gives motivation to give stellar answers, it gives motivation to enter the contest and it removes any need for any type of split tip or duel reward (answerer and nominator). I would also like to see it be prohibited to vote if you have entered. This eliminates any favoritism in voting by the entrants and therefore allows for the truest measure of voting possible.

I could not see the usefulness in the requirement to vote in the last incarnation. The main purpose of the AotD contest was to highlight the best answer of the day and the *secondary purpose* was to by example educate the newer users as to just what kind of answers are the "best answer" and so good of a "best answer" that one would become an Answer of the Day. The first of those two purposes was being met in the last incarnation of the AotD the second was not or could have been done better.

I believe if users would nominate their own answers they would see that either the answer they nominated was good enough to win or they would see that is was good enough to come close or they would see that the answer that they nominated (of their own) was not good enough at all and could use some improvement. This nominating of our own answers allows the second purpose of the AotD contest to really shine as well.

I think this is a great idea! I would even love to see the the "Question of the Day" contest back but redo it as "Question of the Week" My ideas for the contest... I still like the idea of having the users vote helpful to choose the winner. Never did like the staff choosing the winners.

Team tipping would be great to help get the prize up but I am thinking that team tipping should be a requirement. Something like if you want to nominate someone you should tip a quarter. Lots of people participated in the contest but only a couple people actually tipped.

I think all the other rules we had for the contest will fit in very nicely.

I too would really like to see the AOTD reincarnated. I agree with @buddawiggi that there should be some changes, and I would suggest the following, with some borrowing from him. - Allow (and encourage) members to nominate their favorite answer of their own from the past few days.

- Require M$0.25 tip per answer to nominate your own answer. - Require M$0.05 tip per answer to nominate someone else's answer. - Require M$0.05 tip for each answer you vote for.

- Collect all the tips for a given day's contest and divide them as follows: * 40% first place answer * 20% second place answer * 10% third place answer * 15% first place nominator * 10% second place nominator * 5% third place nominator - In case of a tie, sum the fractions and divide by two (or three). E.g. If two answers tie for first place, give each a first place tiki, and each 30% (=(40%+20%)/2) of the combined tips for answers; Give 12.5% of combined tips for the nominators of the two (=(15%+10%)/2).

- Do not allow anyone to vote for their own answer. - Determine the winners based on member votes. Allow staff to also vote, but count their votes just like any other member's.

- Put the tiki emblems on the winners' member pages with the date each was won (sort of like fighter-pilots painting "kills" on the side of their plane :) ). - Have Mahalo provide a prize of M$5 through a random drawing to someone who nominated an answer, or who voted for an answer, whether their nominee or "votee" wins. This is to encourage lively participation.

If M$5 is too high, some lower number is possible, but I think M$5 is likely to be the lowest amount that would generate enough buzz to get a lot of participation.

I didn't get to see much of the AOTD contest as it was done away with shortly after I joined Mahalo, but I'd love to see it return. It was a great way to acknowledge some of the people here who just go above and beyond when answering questions and really help people. It was suggested in one of final AOTD questions when it was announced the contest was no longer running to have staff nominate answers for the contest.

I think this would be an awesome way to get the contest back in gear. While user nominations should still be allowed, the staff should pick a few each day as well to ensure a wider pool of users are nominated. Many people expressed their disinterest in the contest spurred from a lack of variety in the winners.It was always the same people being nominated even if they deserved the nominations, and the same people winning.

(I can't really comment much there as I said I wasn't here long during the contest) I like the answer of the week idea as well. Perhaps lower the price money on daily answer's and raise it on weekly or simply limit it to a weekly contest so that there is more time for great answers to be discovered. Anyway, that's my two cents.

It will be great getting it back. It will flood Mahalo with the best each Mahaloian can contribute. People need a motive to put in the best and this will be the motive.

I advocate following rules; i. The answers must not be plagiarized. Being original should be the first and foremost condition.Ii.

The answer must be supported with at least one link pointing to a reasonable source. The source may directly or indirectly support the idea or the data provided in the answer.Iii. The answer must not be exactly repeated in Mahalo.

However, it may be similar to the answer provided by the same user before, with change in words and idea remaining the same. But it should not be copied from anybody else's answer. Iv.

Nominating the answer should not be made compulsory. However, if somebody else, other than the answerer, chooses to nominate an answer, he/she must has to tip it. Let the servers pick the best answer (nominated or not) based on the votes.V.

Any belt holder should be permitted to enter the contest. This will let free flow of best answers. After all, Mahalo is more about sharing the best knowledge than holding belts.

Hope I made myself clear. Thanks.

I would like to see the contest return, but some parts of the contest should be automated. I would like to see the ten answers which got the most 'helpful' votes get nominated automatically. I know this may be arbitrarily, but it also puts more emphasis on the 'helpful' votes, which are pretty useless nowadays, as the asker can choose any answer he likes anyway.It would also ensure enough participants, as there are always ten 'most voted' answers.

As there would be no more 'nominators', the prize money could then be shared amongst the most voted for answerers. To stimulate voting 'helpful', I would encourage getting points for a vote. May be a small thing, but it might really help.

Plus, like @opher suggested, I would really like to see the Tikis feature on the member's page as a collectors' item.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.