I vote for starting on the 14th. Once they announce the nominees, that's when I start my scramble to see all of the movies that I haven't already watched.

I start looking into what movies I plan to watch once the nominations are announced too, so add my vote to starting on the 14th.

This sounds like a good compromise to me.

Unless there are any objections, we'll go with Mao's plan. I'll put the threads up this weekend.

So the 10th Annual Academy Award Challenge is officially over. Folks seemed to enjoy themselves and there were some good debates. Now the prizes are (hopefully) being claimed. Some suggestions that were proposed for next year:

1. Run the entire challenge from announcements to awards. Keeps things simple and not everyone has access to current nominees so this keeps things equitable.

2. Change the decades portion of the checklist from calendar decades (ie 1920s, 1930s, etc) to span the decades of awards (1927-1937; 1938-1948 etc). There are so few nominees and winners from the 1920s that this makes life easier plus, this is how the Academy segments its lists.

3. Eliminate the ratings portion of the checkist as the MPAA and the Academy are unrelated.

Whoever runs next years Challenge can decided what they want to do. BTW, do I need to request that the list thread be un-sticky-ed?

Sometimes a mod notices that the month has changed and swaps the two stickies, but maybe someone reminds them each time. You'd have to actually PM them probably. I rarely bother, stickies are the devil.

Given that these were my suggestions, I'm in favor of all three!

I wanna go ahead and stake a first-pass claim on hosting the Oscar challenge next year.

Once a mod advised that the easiest way was to hit the "alert mod about this post" button, even though you get scary warnings about only using it for spam, etc.

In fairness, a number of us have been pitching the first point for years.

Granted!

My only gripe is we have so much overflow with other challenges. 2 weeks of the holiday is crossover with the tv, 2 weeks of tv crossed over with the Academy Awards.

Keeping it to the months, had some structure. I understand February is the shortest, so do a day on either side.. Midnight January 31st to 1159 March 1st. (30 days).

Either way I'll partake anyway.

I don't really see this as a problem. For one thing, we don't all participate in every challenge. I only participate in about four of them on a consistent basis, for instance.

But also, I'm of the mind that the scope of a challenge should be defined by what feels right for that challenge. Holiday makes sense to begin shortly before Thanksgiving, so as to include movies and shows related to that day, and to end on New Year's Day. It's not a tidy month, but it makes the most sense. We've talked about starting Historical Appreciation over Memorial Weekend in years where that's adjacent to the first of June.

Running Oscars from announcement to presentation feels like the right way to celebrate the spirit of Oscar season.

The points don't matter much to me. I didn't really enjoy myself. So I'm not sure if I'm even doing this Challenge next year.

I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything the host/hostess can do to make the Challenge a more enjoyable experience?

I understand your point about clean dates, but in fairness there aren't really that many challenges that overlap, and both of your specific examples are related to the same one (TV). The fact that the overlaps run consecutively might make it seem more prevalent, though.

As Travis said, it makes sense to run long when they naturally coincide with calendar events like Thanksgiving and the announcement of nominations. TV starting early is the only one that seems a little random, but I certainly took advantage as I was watching a lot of TV during that time. And as Travis also said, we're all free to participate as we wish, including not watching and counting during the overlap windows.

No, it wasn't the way the challenge was run. I think I just didn't have the interest in Oscar films this year.

I'm just wondering if there is a Make Your Own Challenge this year? I'm curious, as last year there was talk of that one being the last year for the challenge.

Thanks for showing interest. Yes, I will host it again this year. I was hoping to start the discussion thread sometime today actually. I've already talked to GoldenWheels, and he's all for offering the Pick-Your-Own Prize option again, so everything's ready, I just have to get a few moments.

I kinda lost track of things, but I'm formally stepping aside as host of the Historical Appreciation Challenge. I thought I had a successor in place, but that fell through and I forgot to post about it until now. I like to think I did an alright job getting that one up and running (with quite a lot of much appreciated help!), and I hope whoever takes the reins benefits from the same support that I enjoyed.

(I'm presently intent to continue hosting TV on DVD*, in case anyone wondered.)

I'll take over. I always enjoyed this challenge, and would be sad to see it go away.

I already have it shado, thanks anyway.

The discussion thread is up.

Didn't see your post, ignore my discussion post then.

Thanks, can you please delete your thread to avoid confusion.

How do you delete threads? I've never known.

I requested that a mod delete it.