davidh777

A few thoughts from that discussion:

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

What's the sheep games?

Trevor

As others have said, I don't look at participating in a Challenge as work. I watch what I want, and just list the stuff that qualifies.

Have I ever had months where I tried hard to make sure everything qualified? Yes. Have I had months where the motivation and 'challenge' of it made me go overboard? Yes. But those months are pretty much behind me. Nowadays perhaps 25% of what I watch qualifies. And the Challenges are still just as much fun thanks to the discussions and purchase or viewing ideas.

davidh777

Family Feud games that we have here. There's a compendium thread, but it might be more instructive to watch the live game:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/...d-sheep-5.html

BobO'Link

Sorry... I already are... I do not trust Zuckerberg or any of his associates. I've seen too many issues over the years with the site and its general lack of security or ability to establish privacy settings that stick.
Sorry, no. I pretty much stick to the "DVD Talk" and "Bargains" sub forums with occasional jaunts into the Video Game and Music forums.

Dimension X

But you don't care that I'm one of those people.
Then you needn't concern yourself with it, but Geoff (the guy who created DVD Talk and later sold it) has started a new "general discussion" forum (that's what I earlier in this thread referred to as a "New Other Forum").
I only "work" at the Horror and Drive-In Challenges. The other ones I watch what I feel like watching and list what counts.

Thanks for posting that. I might see if I can read it myself later tonight if I get time.

Trevor

I'm sorry DX, I actually would love to have you as a FB friend.

And Bob, Dvdtalk has no more privacy than FB really. It's all in what you share.

Dimension X

I clicked on the FB link in your sig earlier this evening and it said I had to be signed in to view the page.

Travis McClain

Yeah, I guess it was in the FB group. Thanks for copying and pasting those excerpts, David, 'cause I don't think I'd have ever come up with it. I tend to remember ideas a lot more than where they come up in conversation!

So we're all agreed that most of us don't go for the "raw numbers" approach to challenges, but how do we make it clearer to other forum members that that isn't the primary objective? In TV on DVD*, I mostly focus on watching shows and related movies that I have on DVD. There aren't a lot in my library, but there are enough to fill my month. In Academy Awards and Criterion, I go for the completion of the checklist. The rest, I primarily try to hit certain things that cross my mind and if I accrue enough checks in the process, I make a run at the checklist in the second half.

I know right now in the Historical Appreciation Challenge, we have a participant whose first post on the entire forum was in the list thread. Another newcomer with just a handful of posts has declared next month's Sci-Fi/Fantasy Challenge will be his or her first ever challenge. We are attracting newcomers, which is nice, and I hope to see more of that but I'd also like to get more of the established community to dabble in some of the challenges. How do we do that?

pacaway

I've been collecting DVDs pretty much since their inception and now easily have over 3000 DVD/BD titles. I've also been reading reviews on DVDTalk for most of those years. I was never much of a forum person on any website, except maybe the one on DVD Profiler for awhile. Last year I read something about the B-Movie challenge in the DVDTalk newsletter and thought it was a great idea but it was too late in the month to participate. This year again I saw it mentioned and it was only a couple of days into the month and went for it. I also participated in last month's Make Your Own challenge and plan to try the SciFi challenge next month. So I guess you could call me a dabbling 'newcomer'.

I guess my point is that what attracted me was a brief mention in the newsletter. My suggestion, if possible, would be to have a bigger presence there, and a mention prior to the beginning of the month. That would have had me participating a year ago.

pacaway

Oh, I should say that the appeal of the challenges to me is the opportunity to shrink my unwatched pile! Is it "work"? YES. And it should be! That's what shrinking that pile should be for me. Trying to do it leisurely does not work for me. Leisure time is for BUYING.

But seriously, and maybe it's just because I'm a newbie, I don't see it as work. I could see it that way if I was forced to participate every month. But I'm not. If I participate in the challenges that appeal to me and I can keep working on my unwatched pile I don't see why it would feel that way.

Travis McClain

Wait. There's a newsletter?

davidh777

Yeah, I used to get the newsletter years ago, but I switched e-mail addresses, and the sign-up is tied to that address rather than to one's account. I'd forgotten about the newsletter till this mention.

Of course the next question is who controls that content? I guess it's probably like how content is selected for the main entry page.

Travis McClain

I'll be honest: I think I've looked at the main site maybe three or four times, ever. 99.999999% of my visits to DVD Talk have just been for the forum. I forget that there even is anything else to this site.

Dimension X

I assume the newsletter is the same stuff as the "DVD Talk Headlines" up at the top of every page (I didn't know they emailed newsletters either). I've seen the Horror and the Drive-In Challenges mentioned in that space (but no others). Maybe Chad contacted someone. Maybe some anonymous IB employee is a fan of horror flicks.

pacaway

There's more to the newsletter than just the headlines above. I have never seen any challenge mentioned other than the Drive-In challenge last year and this year. Doesn't mean there hasn't been more, but that's the only times I've seen it.

I was pretty much the opposite of MinLShaw. I used the site strictly for reviews and info on upcoming releases. I never visited the forum before I looked into the DI challenge.

Trevor

Yeah, I alternatively blame IB for not caring enough about the site to put things in the newsletter that may encourage more visitors, like our Challenges; and blame myself for not contacting them every month with a blurb for the upcoming Challenge.

If only we had someone well suited for that task: an active Challenger who was also a writer, someone who not only participated in most of the Challenges but moderated two of them......

Travis McClain

If only...!

lisadoris

Now I don't feel too bad b/c I didn't know there was a newsletter either (didn't realize there was a facebook page either). Hey, if it helps bring new people in to the Challenges, and it's not too much work for the moderator, why not advertise.

pacaway

Looking the DVDTalk home page, it looks a lot like the newsletter.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I remember being contacted by one of the mods during the first or second sci-fi challenge, 4-5 years ago, saying they put it in the newsletter. Other than that, I've never heard anything and don't read the newsletter either.

davidh777

Considering how much traffic and discussion the Challenges and Sheep games create, and how much work members put into them, to my knowledge the site doesn't really do anything to support them. The only thing I know of was the offer to expand the PM boxes of people who run the things after it was requested in the feedback thread. This didn't help me because I had already gone premium specifically for the PM capacity to run a Sheep game.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

That would have been nice if I knew to ask for it.

caligulathegod

About a week before the challenge, I contact the mod who first contacted me and give him a heads up about the Drive-in challenge.

Dimension X

Which mod was that?