Should we add another prize for the Best TR?

[jon]

Please vote in our very important pole.

[jon]

Come on peeps we all know you are in your office sulking over this weak weather. Put your vote in! This is a democracy and we won't be shutting down on Friday!

[wayne]

Yes, prizes are great. but I need clarification on which contest we are discussing. The March tr or the all time? Is there an efficient voting page? Clarity is nice.

[Rad]

I like the idea of having more attention on TRs and applaud your creative efforts to achieve that. But I vote against a Best of All Time prize for reasons below.

 

Random prizes for new TRs in March was a GREAT idea. It got everyone to contribute, no matter whether they had Patagonia FAs or cragging TRs. Mission accomplished.

 

Threads to resurrect and debate the best TRs in all of cc.com may have the unintended consequence of alienating the average joes and actually discourage them/us from posting less exciting TRs. The thought chain might go, "Why should I post my TR of climbing Stuart when everyone is oooing and aahing over Patagonia FAs? I can't compete, so I won't bother posting at all, I'll just admire fat cats and post on bolting threads." Backfire.

 

So how to incent more TR focus? Change it up. April could be three prizes: two from randomly drawn new freshiez TRs and one for the best March TR as determined by voting in a poll. May could be three prizes: 2 drawn randomly from new ice TRs and one for the best TR from April. June could be cragging routes....July for the best climbing video...and on

 

Then get creative for other categories you want to incent. A starving newbie award to get kids some gear. A community service award for someone who helps in the newbie forum. Another prize for someone who contributes to access issues. These are just random ideas.

 

Prizes are powerful motivators. I'd be curious to see if the traffic to your site changed in March 2011. If so, use that result to entice sponsors to pony up bigger prizes for future work. A positive spiral.

 

Just a thought.

 

Rad

[jon]

Rad, we really appreciate your comments on this. We were really excited about the March contest. We wanted to try out the best TR off all time contest. We wanted to reward people for past contributions here, not create an atmosphere to discourage people who have less exciting TRs.

 

We are going to talk this over and figure out how to proceed. We really value everyones feedback on this.

[olyclimber]

I would encourage everyone on the board to provide input on this matter.

 

We hate to change things after already launching, but the goal is to reward you people posting great TRs (and a great TR can really work on so many different angles...it really doesn't have to be some super committing climb in an exotic location...it can be amusing, feature great photographs, great writing, there are so many ways for a TR to be great).

 

Lets find a way that best benefits us all! We were also hoping this contest would illuminate those lost TR gems, and I can tell you that to a certain extent it has succeeded in that regard.

 

Anyway, please comment if you have better ideas! We are looking for positive ways to keep the TRs coming in and the quality up (as well as highlighting past examples of TRs that you love).

 

 

 

[selkirk]

Maybe just limit the Best TR contests? I like Rad's suggestion though of splitting any prizes between randomly selected TR's and best TR's of the preceeding month. Do one now for all TR's up til now, and maybe an annual January grand prize for the best TR of 20xx with one prize set aside for the best TR from previous years? It is really neat to see the old TR's dug up, some great stuff that I hadn't seen before!

 

Might also be worth filtering the TR's a little bit so that there is at least a minimum quality threshold. It would be a shame to give a prize to a TR that boiled down to...

"We drove out, conditions were crap, we drove home"

Maybe anyone who wants to get a TR considered could put up a poll allowing people to recommend the TR (something akin to a facebook style like?) , and anything with 2 or 3 recommendations get's considered for the random TR drawing. The top 10 TR's with the most recommends could then be voted on for the best TR prize.

 

I also like Rad's idea for the rotation prize. Could go with 1 random TR prize, 1 best TR prize, and then a rotating Prize of the month that left up to the Mod's? (best community service, best advocacy, best starving student, best ... )

[Rad]

Above all, I encourage experimentation. Don't lay out an elaborate plan that we debate publicly. Surprise us. Wondering what will come next is also a draw.

 

The best way to strengthen behavior patterns is to provide intermittent (random) reinforcement. This is true on studies of rodents all the way up to people. Think about slot machines... make it work for you.

[jon]

Hey everyone. We've decided to go ahead and make a change to the prizes for this contest. This is not a bait and switch. Well it is, but we've switched it with bait. The AAI prize will move to the photo contest. Remember our last photo contest?