Darth Maher

Is this a new thing?? Telling people to delete their list if it isn't updated fast enough?

Wow, 12 years of challenges ends like this.....

Mao

I'll post my response here since you've clearly misunderstood the private message.

No, this is nothing new and it was simply a suggestion. Notice the word "consider" used twice! Several people post in these challenges and then do not participate. The challenge is almost halfway done...just trying to clean up the thread.

That's all.

Trevor

Wow, I’m all for expressing my OCD about wanting things a certain way, but this was completely out of line Mao.

If I want to leave my list post un-updated until the end of the Challenge, the month after, or ten years later, then that’s my prerogative and I’m a participant in the Challenge as equal as someone who spends an hour a day on their list.

I rarely complete my list until a week or two after the Challenge, and have updated it months or even years later as I find my notes or decide to add comments.

Wanting and kindly asking people to update their lists, using the main thread, is one thing, but to even think about suggesting someone delete it is ridiculous.

And to do it with the ‘moderator’ signature in your message is beyond ridiculous.

Mao

I have already acknowledged my mistake privately to Darth Maher. And I do so here now.

It's not the first time I've made a error in judgement. And it won't be my last.

Trevor

And I apologize for being zealous in stating my opinion. I acknowledge that you were trying to do something good for the forum, and Challenges, and sincerely appreciate that. I just get irked easily when something happens that makes a long-time Challenge mainstay like Darth think about leaving. Everyone, please forgive my rather strident post.

davidh777

I hope Darth sticks around for this and other Challenges!

LJG765

I'm not angry or trying to rile things up, but I also got this message from the moderator and have decided not to participate this month. Life got in the way and I planned on starting a bit closer to the challenge. Now, I will still do so, just not as part of the challenge.

As a host of two of these challenges, I have to say this was not something I would ever do. I feel like every year less and less people are participating and by calling people out about not creating a list or updating it (other than a gentle reminder with no names in the thread list if prizes are dependent on creating one), it makes people less likely to participate than they already are. Quite frankly, I've never even thought twice about it. Someone thought they could join in and for whatever reason, changed their mind or had something happen that changed their plans. No big deal.

I am a little frustrated here, though, and just wanted to let my feelings about this be known and that's the end of it for me. However, maybe before calling out people concerning challenges and participating, you might want to double check to see if that is the right thing to do.

Darth Maher

My process for these challenges is usually to take pictures of the TV screen or the media case with my phone to keep track of my viewings and then next time I am on the site, I update my list. But, I also like to have a nifty little picture with the title and year at the top of my lists. But I have not gotten to that yet for the Academy Awards Challenge so I haven't updated my list accordingly. I didn't think there was any urgency to do it since most people follow the discussion thread during the challenge and the List thread is more for "documenting" viewings.

Anyway, when I got the PM from Mao, I was pretty hurt so I deleted all of my pictures on my phone as well as my un-updated list in the "List" thread. Unfortunately, I act hastily sometimes, and yeah, it's kind of immature. So I apologize for posting the message in two threads complaining about it. It just seemed so out of the blue and in 12 years, I've never received any "warning" like that so I was just...shocked and felt a little blindsided.

Ok, so that's all. Just wanted to get that all out there. Carry on...

davidh777

I've only hosted one challenge for two years, but I've participated in many, and when I scroll through the list thread, I'm never bothered by blank lists. Like LJG, the extent of my mentions as host have been to point out that lists with at least one item are eligible for prizes. It's discouraging to hear that LJG, a multiple host and frequent discussion participant, was also called out. I'm glad that the practice has been determined to be an error in judgment. We need more participants, not fewer.

LJG765

Hi all, trying to finalize everything for the upcoming Sci-Fi/Fantasy Challenge. (BTW, the thread link is up and active! Come and join in!)

My question is are we doing prizes with GoldenWheel still? I noticed the trend to let the winners pick their prizes and was going through the last 4 or 5 challenge threads looking for ideas and haven't seen any prizes handed out. I didn't want to bother him if we're not.

Thanks!

Trevor

We only do prizes if someone (typically the thread starter) reaches out to GW and they mutually decide on something. We shouldn’t expect Rich and HamiltonBooks to support us 12 months a year, but I know that many months we don’t even bring it up. Personally, I’ve initially planned on prizes for a few of my past Challenges, but then I always fail to do the minimal work (a few posts and messages) to bring it to fruition.

shadokitty

I’m not doing prizes in the Historical Challenge myself. There has never been prizes handed out in that Challenge afaik. That being said, I think it’s up to you LJG. I know I don’t participate in the Challenges in order to win a prize. I just enjoy the camaraderie of the challenges, and at times when they are my favorite challenges, like the Sci Fi/Fantasy or Animation Challenges watching things I love.

LJG765

Thanks! I usually do reach out to ask and you're right, Rich and HamiltonBooks are very generous to us here doing the challenges! Usually, I do reach out for the Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Animation challenges. I just didn't want to disturb him if he'd asked us not to anymore...

I agree about participating...though, it's always kind of a nice surprise the couple times I've been lucky enough to win! (And no, I've never "won" one of my own challenges...lol! )

Thanks for the quick answers, guys!

shadokitty

I agree that winning a prize is always a pleasant surprise. I still watch the Thunderbirds Blu Ray that I won a few years ago.

Dimension X

I'm sure GoldenWheels would still be up for it, but I told him last year that I wouldn't be asking him for prizes for this year's MYOC (my decision alone, he never said anything that influenced me), so I didn't ask.

People still participated without prizes, which is great (as others have said, I think we participate in the challenges we want to and prizes are just a nice extra).

Travis McClain

I took the initiative and started the discussion and list threads for next month's Criterion Challenge.

Trevor

Thank you!

lisadoris

Unless someone else wants to volunteer, I'll post the Oscar Challenge Discussion thread next week. Nominations will be announced on the 22nd.

Trevor

Hopefully it’s just me, but this new look to the website has completely messed up my default Challenge list formatting. Formatting codes aren’t exactly what they used to be apparently. My current list looks awful, and editing my holiday list screwed it up too.

Surfinhank

It's not just you. I turned off "infinite scroll" and that solved some of the problems I was seeing, but I'm still seeing others. Using HTML tables seems to be a big problem now.

Trevor

Also, you can no longer truly link to a single post. This change sucks.

BobO'Link

I'm not liking the "upgrade" but apparently we're stuck with it. All they seem to be "fixing" is the amount of white space in some areas.

shadokitty

Add me to the list of people not liking this new look.

Trevor

Played around with the various editor options. This default and only fully supported CKEditor is useless, at least on safari. You can’t select groups of words to edit.

But “Standard Editor - Extra formatting controls” appears to be the only one to work well, but I haven’t fully tested it.

BobO'Link

I, too, have found the "fully supported CKEditor" to be pretty useless. If you've done any special colors/formatting in a challenge list you'll not see them in that editor.

I've switched to the "Standard Editor - Extra formatting controls” as it lets me do what I want/need to do more easily. The biggest drawback is if you reply to a post you get an editor window that's pretty small horizontally. It can be pulled down as far as you want, you just can't get it to go to more than ~1/3 screen width. The real screwy part is that it's a proper width if you edit an existing post. If that's the case you'd think the "fix" for replying would be easy. It sucks...

They need to fix one or the other. Make the "CKEditor" work properly or fix the compatibility issues with the "Standard Editor - Extra formatting controls.”