[S] 'Spotlights' are back. Nominate now! -help us!-

[Faid Shadowlight]

I'll admit I'm terrible when it comes to spotlights, I never know when or where to send nominations even if I could make up my mind which soquili and/or teepee I wanted to nominate. However I do miss the changes to the front page. I miss seeing other peoples soquili shown some love and having a look through the winning Teepee.

I'd like to see them back, be it monthly or quarterly, however I do think it would help to make it clear when nominations open and close.

 

[nekolulu]

I agree faid  

[Sirenz]

Hiya! The reason I stopped doing them was no one was nominating people. I had posted up 2 weeks in advance to send nominations to the Tasunke account but only 3 people did it. I rather have nominations instead of choosing someone myself so that it doesn't look like favoritism. Can anyone think of a good way besides asking for nominations in order to elect people to the current month spotlight??  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

I've had the idea for awhile as "incentive".

That Sirenz or Mind write down somewhere (no one else) a special month that instead of a gold prize, when the winner is announced--they get a pet instead.

Do it once a year, twice at most.

Or else, even say--out of the 12 nominated this year, there will be a raffle between those 12 for a pet. But I like the random aspect of it, because no one but Sirenz or Mind would know which month the pet instead of the gold was being awarded. Just a simple-precoloured common--or mini.

And you could reward the nominator of the winner (first person to nominate or if more than one nominated raffle between them) for a gold prize or twin pet, or a familiar.

*scurries away*  

[StecMasle]

not exactly sure what a 'Spotlight' is, but im up for the Idea ^^  

[She-Ra of Etheria]

I think if the announcement to send in nominations is simply posted in thread it can easily get lost in the pages and pages that fly by each day. Not everyone can or does backread fully through 50+ pages, and while you can post stalk the mule I know I for one don't do so on a regular basis. However if it's added to the front page, or perhaps sent out as a guild announcement, as that would reach practically the whole population of shop goers, then there might be more of a response to it.

Also if there is a set schedule, of say a spotlight occurring every X number of months and nominations need to be in by Y day of said month, then people might remember and get nominations in. Things like this, if they happen quite randomly, can easily be overlooked or forgotten. If any of this happened before hand you can ignore me since the spotlights were stopped around the time I really got into the shop.

I know I would love to see the spotlight return, and while it's been mentioned that having a pet as a reward for it, I really don't see that as a necessity. I think winning spotlight is in of itself a great reward, however if the colorists decide to include a pet as part of the reward then that's a nice bonus to it. I would certainly be sure to nominate someone if I knew the when, where and how of it all. I also liked the idea of the self nomination that was done back in December, now obviously you wouldn't want to do that every month, but perhaps once a year there could be a self nomination for teepee and pet spotlight.  

[Celeanor]

D'awww, I miss Spotlights. D=!!!

For my two cents, I am concerned that putting a pet win in as an incentive would make it less about having a cool teepee/well thought out character .. and more about securing a raffle nomination. It is inevitable that people will ask their friends to nominate them, and could get messy. You could potentially go from having too few nominations to too many.

Perhaps tie the nominations in with Stats? Figure out who has been RPing the most and set up a Idol-esue voting procedure. Basically staffers make a generic list of people who have been writing their tails off based purely on the stats, publish the list, and shop-goers PM in their votes for who should get what. (I'm not sure how Mouse keeps track of stats, but if a spread sheet is used, it should be easy enough to sort based on stat points accumulated per soquili. Am uncertain about the logistics of doing it per owner though. Could get messy. D= !!! ) To account for folks who don't RP but put an awful lot of work into their teepees, perhaps have a write-in option. I.E if I didn't like anyone on that months list... I could write in my own pick of someone I saw in passing. Maybe make a stipulation you can't vote for yourself etcccc.

Or maybe a mix of the two? Stats based for soquili nominations, and write-ins for Teepees?

Would add another RP perk for sure! It is really nice to be recognized for working hard on your teepee/character... and I hope the spotlights stay that way, as opposed to becoming just another way to win a pet. One of my fondest soquili memories is signing on one day and seeing that I'd been recognized for my teepee way back when. Didn't need gold or a pet to feel good, that's for sure. 8D!  

[That Artemis]

Nah, 'cause then it wouldn't anonymous. Fewer people would nominate because they wouldn't want it to be public.

How about:

Make a mule, 'soquili-nominations' or 'spotlight' or something. Have a little banner at the bottom of the 'spotlight' section on the front page, 'Know someone who deserves this award? Nominate them for next month starting the 25th. Nominations are open through the end of the month.'

Then...I dunno, have someone read through them and pick one I guess.

xD My idea petered out as it went, I guess.

As far as the pet raffle thing, I dunno. I think Celeanor is right in that it would become a 'hey, I need to find someone to nominate' or a 'hey, nominate me!!' just to get a raffle ticket.  

[Faid Shadowlight]

-Tosses in 2 more cents-

Ok I've read through some more of the comments and my new thoughts are as follows...

I HATED the self nomination month. Not everyone has that kind of confidence and in all honesty seeing one person win everything took all the fun out of it. Whenever you win a spotlight you go to all 3 winners teepees and look over their pets regardless so its like winning all 3 anyway. Speaking as a past winner it was a wonderful surprise to find out that someone had taken the time to appreciate the work I had put in and voice that. I don't think it would have felt anywhere close to as good had I tooted my own horn... So yeah conclusion of my ramble is that I for one don't want to see self nominations done again, but then I'm only one voice in many.

Pets as a reward/incentive... While its always nice to get a pet from soquili and while this would definitely boost the number of nominations I don't think it is a good idea. The prizes for winning a spotlight are perfectly fine as they are, soquili are in such high demand that having a pet as a prize would take away from the joy and honour of winning the spotlight and lean it more towards another way to get a free pet... I might be wrong but that's my thoughts on it.

The one thing I would like is to see more done for the staff winners. All the staff work very hard and I think there needs to be more recognition for them. IF I could think of something I'd love to see a way for the customers to give a little back to the staff. I have no idea how but something would be nice.

Finally I think the nominations should remain anonymous, people might not bother to send one in if they see another has already nominated that person/soquili/teepee. Not to mention that some might just not want everyone to be able to read what they have to say.

 

[Syaoran-Puu]

Hmmmm.... this is just what I think XD

1) Pet prize incentive: NO! I don't believe there needs to be a prize for getting a spotlight.... I know my boy Maion got a spotlight with his mate back in August 2010 and I was just over the moon at getting acknowlegded for all the hard work and plotting. I didn't feel disappointed at not getting something 'extra'... though if I remember correctly the winners did recieve gold/sealed letter, but I don't think even this is needed.

2) Linking with stats: I don't actually like this.... for the reason that those who are already 100% may get overlooked since their stats don't need to continue to be checked, plus it may make some people almost turn away from their maxed out pets in the hope that one of their other pets may get the spotlight instead. And, I don't think that stats always mean you're pet is not worthy of a spotllight.... for example; just because your pet hasn't got many stats you could have done say 10 RPs in a month and done a lot of great development, plotting/ideas while... but they still only count towards the stats gained in that month.... does that make sense? So maybe using stats would only open the system up to other issues. Plus... this would likely mean more work for mouse which seems unfair since she already does so much and I don't think it would be right to add more work to her already heavy workload.

3) Set dates for nominations: I think if it is a set thing every month and not just more of "oh wait, not done nominations yet...*post announcement*" maybe more people will enter (and cause less stress for staff?)... I guess we won't know though until this is actually implimented and put into place.
I still think that a good set would be say the 1st of the month until 5 days before the end (only say this because we have to take into account Feb that only has 27/8 days in comparison to others that have 31). so maybe a good way to phrase this, a little banner on the front page (I still think first post for this so that people will see it along with the new spotlight banner for the month).
Most people stalk the store drop-off mule so I think maybe getting Mind to just write a little message at the bottom of one of her drops each month of: "Don't forget to PM your spotlight nominations to ***link****" may also help remind people?

4) A Nomination thread: I don't think this would work, it would probably stop people from actually wanting to nominate anyone because they will feel they need to pick their friends and don't want to upset anyone, while if its to a mule they are more likely to actually pick someone they think is worthy and not always within their friendship group.... smile

5) Spotlight mule: I believe there already is a spotlight mule, Tasunke was always used before.

6) Banner to remind people: Yes! =D I think this would help.

7) Special month: I don't really like this... only because RL gets in the way, and it would be slightly unfair to exclude those who had been RPing constantly for months before and then unable to for a month or two due to something major in RL or whatever..... plus I think this would be more work for Sisi/Mind and in a way I would like to try and take some of the stress off them. =D  

[Syaoran-Puu]

Just a crappy little sample of what could be put on the front page to remind people:
((Yes.... my banner is epic fail XD I am not suggesting actually using it!))

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Spotlight nominations needed for Male pet, Female pet and Teepee. PM Tasunke. Thank you.

Nominating: Link and Owner's name
For: What catagory?
Reason:

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I know you are trying to keep word content to a minimum on the front page.... but I couldn't think of another way to reduce this more UNLESS there is a link to a guild thread where the form and mule are? (Not to post nominations just to keep the forms for easy access.... this thread could also be 'bumped' once or twice a month so that people are likely to spot it on the guild feeds and remind people?)  

[Syaoran-Puu]

iJimmytheKitty

not exactly sure what a 'Spotlight' is, but im up for the Idea ^^

A 'Spotlight' is where a selection of soquili and a teepee are given an award for their hard work and stunning upkeep. The soquili are often used in the banner at the top of the first post of the main thread for everyone to see.

So the spotlighted pet's head appears something like this....

(They used to rotate on a random generator to show the two different winning soquili's... though mates did sometimes get put together)

Also they recieve a 'medal' to keep in their Teepee or whatever to remember the honor they have recieved.

Soquili

Partaking in roleplay gives many perks, including everything from increased breeding sizes, more likelihood of being chosen for Meta-plot events, ability to win gifts and other soquili, and possibly even an award for outstanding roleplaying during the last month. Here are the prizes from the month of December!




Past Awards
Nov Teepee | Male Pet | Female Pet
Oct Teepee | Female Pet | Male Pet
Sept Teepee | Female Pet | Male Pet
Aug Teepee | Male Pet | Female Pet
May-July: Break
April Teepee | Female Pet | Male Pet
March Teepee | Pet
February Teepee | Pet
January teepee | pet
December: Teepee | Pet

As you can see there are THREE catagories.

Male Pet
Female Pet
Teepee

An announcement was made by the Tasunke mule with a link to the pet(s) and teepee so people could have look. It also sometimes posted the reason given by the person nominating the pet or teepee.


I hope that explains it. =D  

[Phail Ninja]

I definitely agree with bringing the Spotlights back, I used to dream about getting one of these when they were here and they really make you feel good if you get one. My thoughts are as follows:

Pet incentives are bad. Soquili already gives out loads of pets, and it would be unfair to the colorists. Giving one to the winner of the spotlight is unnecessary, as the honor of winning one is the only prize you really need. Also, it would be unfair on the colorists to have to raffle one off to nominees. So I'm a negative on this idea.

Stats linkage is also a negative from me, for the reasons Sya said. Not everyone who has 100% stats RPs anymore, and some people who only just get their pets may RP loads and have developed their character despite not having full stats. Stats are more an indication of how long you have been RPing, so I don't think they are really a fair criteria.

I think setting dates for nominations would be good, because then everyone knows when they can send them in. It prevents confusion and people missing out.

PMs over thread. People would get shy posting in a thread where everyone had read what they've written.