People in the CW Contest were talking about how not everyone is a digital artist and that, sometimes, they might have a lot of really cool ideas for the site that can't be used simply because they can't use Photoshop.

Then, I was cooking up an idea (that might not be really good) that could shine some light on these people, as well as people who get all sorts of really awesome (or sometimes just plain wacky) ideas for the site.

Once per month, the Suggestions and Ideas forum could open a subforum called Clash of Minds, for a week or two; it would be a contest to see which new features/items users could formulate (and then refine) to the site. If said ideas are approved and used by Staff, the one(s) who suggested and refined them could win a SP+CSC prize. The value would depend on how important to the site these items/features would be and how much the "refiners" contributed to the final product.

I like this idea, seems a bit more productive than oh look more wearables.

I'm all for contests that everyone can participate in, no matter what. This seems like the kind of contest that is still a challenge but no one is technically prevented from entering just because they're not rich or artistically inclined. When we're all just coming up with ideas, it's an equal playing field in my opinion. Therefore I support it, not to mention it sounds very interesting and would be something I would try to join in on.

Sooo..it's the suggestions forum with rewards? Suggestions often refine themselves over time on suggestion threads anyways. Coming up with a "percentage" scale of who contributed what to what idea would be insanely difficult and subjective. Plus, how to do you stop people from suggesting repeat ideas? Or stealing copyrighted ideas? Or ideas that would take forever to get implemented but are decent ideas? Just the reward portion of this suggestion would be a mess. I suppose I don't see a point to this really. If you have ideas for the CW contest, you are free to commission a CW artist to draw it up for you, the rewards are pretty good if you win, so the cost would cover itself. There are plenty of over ways someone with creative ideas can already impact the site.

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Plus, we've already had largely "creative" contest where anyone can compete, such as the masquerade mask making one and the recent ornament making one.

I don't really like this idea.

I talked with Rah about creative contests that were more about writing, and I'd rather see that than an idea contest, especially if people just go and steal past ideas from others.

And? We've already had a CW contest this past summer during peka-boo but here it is again. If you're saying we can't have repeat contest types...?

I think doing it once per month and having an exclusive forum is a bit too much. Most surely there'll be a bunch of threads with loads of pictures of pretty clothes taking from the internet, and I don't think someone'd deserve a reward for making a compilation of photos.

But I'd like if all the future contest could be about ideas and not drawing/crafting/whatever skills alone, so pretty much anyone could participate. And since of course the users'd vote for the ideas with fancier art, let staff chose the winners like with the previous no-CW contest. That way we could also get some actual clothing items instead make-up and wigs alone :'D

I can get behind the contest idea, but not the "once a month, the S&I forum holds a..." shit. We don't need all that.

Keep it simple, and don't try to hold it once a month. Instead of just "an idea" (which is essentially what this forum is for in the first place), stick to a theme. Have users come up with an idea for a new experiment, or a new item's design (but within a category, like one time you design a wearable, next time it's a minion or a weapon, etc.), something like that. Maybe for wearables you get to choose the color(s) it comes in. And when it's things that the site artists are going to have to draw, set a limit on the number of winners just for the sake of having deadlines. It's easy enough to say "we had so many great entries that we're doubling the amount of winners" when the art is already what's being submitted, but not when the site artists have to draw them later.

This is something I suggested on the sP sinks thread, but I think could be twisted to work for this sort of thing as well (and tbh it would still be an sP sink): recolors of onsite (official) wearables. Maybe for the contest part, users suggest items they would like to be recolored (and revamped if necessary). Maybe once the winners are chosen, a second round of voting where colors are determined? Or maybe the main perk of having your suggestion win is the chance to choose the colors for it. All I know is that there are way too many versatile items that don't come in enough colors.

Not really a fan of this. People should suggest ways to improve Subeta because they want to see the site improve... not because they want to win a prize.

I would not want to see the mess that this forum would become if this was done.

Making avatars is a contest that truly anyone can enter (provided the wardrobe works for everyone) Making stuff IRL, not so much.

I can get behind this idea. I probably totally missed it on the SP sink.

Also, isn't there a reward already. Isn't that why the helper achievement was originally made?