Form for Contest Submissions

[kdwyer]

I've perused many of the contest submissions, and I'm always impressed and inspired (and chagrined and shamed etc.)

In the interest of making your life easier (yeah, right!) when judging the various efforts, have you given any thought to making a standard form for the descriptions? Nothing too rigid, more along the lines of insuring contestants don't omit some vital or interesting fact or feature.

Something like...

Objective:
To take over Earth in the shortest time possible blah blah blah...

Components:
1 nuclear blathinator
4 independent ion drives
45 miles of #12 wire

Capabilities:
Able to leap tall buildings with a running start
Faster than a 1964 Volkwagen

Construction Details:
Made entirely of Silly Putty, with chocolate sprinkles :eek:

Commentary:
This cost me my marriage and custody of my children


A standardized submission would certainly simplify judging, and might ensure some fleshed-out posts (pun intended.)

Always looking to offload work onto others,
Sincerely,
your friend (yeah, right again!)

kdwyer

[Alex]

do you mean a template/outline or a form? I'd think that a template of some sort for contestants to follow would be really helpful for everyone (including the TR crew:)), but an actual form for contestants to fill out I'm thinking is a bit overkill.

[kdwyer]

!Gak!
(cough)
Yes! That's it! A t-t-t- template!

Now why was it so hard for me to say that?

Form? FORM?
I hate forms!
We don't need no stinkin' forms!

Or is that life-forms?

A template is exactly what I meant. For some reason the word 'template' was stuck in my microprocessor and simply wouldn't come out.
Or maybe it was my keyboard.

[Matt]

Yeah, unfortunately it's been really hard to even get the submissions we do get. People just don't want to profile projects as much as they like just building them. I wouldn't want to add more barriers to people posting. Either they do post all the relevant info or they don't and that does affect our voting. We do explain that in the details page that it's necessary to expect to win and either people will listen or they won't... Thanks for the thought though. We always appreciate kicking around ideas.