Suggestion: Master Post List of Past Topics is Competition Forum

Started by Sinitrena, Sat 08/02/2020 17:51:44

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Sinitrena

I wasn't sure where to post this, as it's only relevant for the Competition Forum and not really a technical issue, nor a suggestion for a new competition.

We have several competitions that have been running for multiple years now (MAGS, Writing, Background...) and I think most people who are to set a new theme for any next round, try to avoid using one that has been used before. It can be a bit tedious to go through old topics to find what themes were already used, so I would suggest to have one thread that collects all past topics for all regular competitions stickied for easy access. It would be a bit of work to collect all past topics now, of course, unless someone has already done so (I know that Baron has a list of past topics for the Fortnightly Writing Competition) but maintaining the list once created would be very little work, I think. I thought a similiar format to the Hall of Fame thread would work, with one competition per post.

AGA

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/temp/Competition_topics.csv <- a list of every topic ever in this forum.  If you can use that to pick out the patterns you want me to narrow down to ('threads containing the word MAGS' etc), then I can do that.  Although some Excel magic might also allow that.

Baron

Most competitions should be easy enough to sort by thread title.  Every writing competition would have "Fortnightly Writing Competition" or "FWC" in the title, for example. 

Honestly, I was just going to post my raw list of themes from the last decade with how many participants each theme generated, but probably a more useful list would be hyperlinked to the actual competitions so that people could do their own research.  Of course, they could just use the search feature or scroll through the old comp boards like I did....

Sinitrena

Let's start with...

What are the active competitions we currently have:

- Background Blitz
- Coloring Ball (currently on hiatus since December but I don't think it's dead)
- Fortnightly Writing Competition
- MAGS
- Music Competition (kind of dead?)
- Sprite Jam (also on hiatus since December)

So I think these should be the ones to end up in the list.


Also around in the forum are:
- Artjam thread, which isn't a competition in the forum but a collection for IRC stuff
- Game Pitch Competition, which isn't regular and doesn't really use themes
- Coverbox Art Competition, which never really took off and isn't really maintained

I'll leave out older competitions that haven't been around for years.

Of the six competitons mentioned above that seem suitable for such a list, nearly all use  the same format: General Name of the Competition, then either a colon or a dash, then the actual theme, then some information where the competition is in its life circle (open untill, Results, Closed, ...) The main exception is MAGS, which uses MAGS, then the month, then the topic in quatation marks.  I think it might be possible to filter this automatically from the list of all topic, but I have no idea how (there are people around here who are better with this than I am, right?  ;)).

Ideally, a finished master list would contain: Topic, who set it, from when to when it ran, link to the actual topic - but honestly just a list that avoids scrolling through pages and pages of old competitions would be helpful.

Sinitrena

Okay, I think I can get most stuff automatically, and do a bit of clean-up manually.

This results in this list for the Writing Competition:

Steampunk
Christmas Crossover
Insomnia
Spooky Party
God
EYE WITNESS! BREAKING NEWS!
THE END
Children's Story
The Odd (Platonic) Couple
All the World's a Stage
Advertisement
Reader's Choice
Time Travel
Courtly Love
Choose Your Own Adventure
Papers, Please!
Happy Ending
Faker's Gonna Fake
But That's Inhuman!
Dwindling Party
UNDER WATER
Dragons, Dragons, Everywhere
Beautiful Brevity
TECHNOBABBLE
National rivalries
The Pilgrimage
FAILURE
THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC
MacGuffin
FAIRY TALE REVAMPED
Competition GREAT WHATEVER
Santa's Helpers
Competition JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
SECOND CHANCE!
Contest - ADVENTURE GAME
SPECTACLE
Redemption
Faustian Bargain
ALTERNATIVE TRUTH
Backstabbing
Cloak and dagger
HANDICAPPED
Broken
Write About What You Don't Know
Fate
STEAMPUNK
Wafts of Mist
BIBLICAL BOOK
MASS DISAPPEARANCES
CAMPING
Last Will and Testament
Scarcity
SERIAL
Revolution!
KING OF RANDOM
Write About What You Know!
Time to Vote
ABANDONED PLACE
CONCRETE POETRY: FESTIVE EDITION
PETTY DEITY
CARPENTARIAN
ARCHER   
LIFEBOAT
A CRIMSON SHADE OF BLUE
LITTLE FOLK
TRAVEL GUIDE!
WHODUNNIT!
CIVILIZATIONS FIRST DIRECT CONTACT
LOST IN TRANSLATION
The Author Strugle
INEPT PERSONAL AD
Pioneers
PRISON DRAMA
DIARIES OF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET
Challenge: HUMANARIUM
Absurdist Pulp Noir
Monumental Memories
MUTATE
Fictional Game Review
THAT'S AN ACTUAL PLACE?
Business of Yore
NOT MY BLUE CUP OF TEA
ODD COUPLE
In the beginning...
When Art Is Conceived
Happiness
Broken Promise
Haunted House
Suddenly: Reality
Rashomon Style
Robbie Burns Edition!
TV Tropes
Impossible Escape
Cast Away!
iRobot!
Invading Aliens!
Leprechaun Edition
Dark moon
Fanfiction
Happy Holidays!
What if?
Spooky!
That's criminal!
Riddle Me This
One Sentence Poem
Extras
Mythopoeia
CENSORED!
Road Trip!
TEXT ADVENTURE!
Mad Scientist Edition!
Catch Phrase!
You Choose
Coffee time!
Drabble / Mini-Saga
A Flick Of The Switch
The American Old West
Surreal
AGS Game Fan Fiction
Next Stop: THE FUTURE!
„... A LIGHT IN THE DARK ...“
HORROR
Transatlantic
Afterlife!
Superheroes!
Santa!
Pirates!
Alternate Apocalypse
HUNT
Diary
Dialogue
HURT
A Secret
Gain
Nonsense
WAR
SCI-FI
Nobody saw it, but...
The Narrator Is a Liar
The reverse
Choose yer own Adventure
Video games

This is sorted newest to oldest.

I can't get the start date of each competition or who posted it out of the file AGA posted and there are some missing where the theme was not in the topic, but I got most that were slightly differently named. So it's a pretty complete list.
Going to work on the next list now.

Technically, I need the permission of a moderator to post this in the Competition Forum, so am I allowed to just start a thread for my lists?

Gilbert

Quote from: Sinitrena on Mon 10/02/2020 19:06:44
Technically, I need the permission of a moderator to post this in the Competition Forum, so am I allowed to just start a thread for my lists?

Yeah, just start a new thread and I think this is a good idea (even though there may be some overlaps with the functionality of the Hall of Fame thread, but adding other information such as topics there is a pain now). I'll make it sticky afterwards.

Sinitrena

Quote from: Gilbert on Tue 11/02/2020 02:56:32
Quote from: Sinitrena on Mon 10/02/2020 19:06:44
Technically, I need the permission of a moderator to post this in the Competition Forum, so am I allowed to just start a thread for my lists?

Yeah, just start a new thread and I think this is a good idea (even though there may be some overlaps with the functionality of the Hall of Fame thread, but adding other information such as topics there is a pain now). I'll make it sticky afterwards.

Done. Though maybe you want to add something to the first post.

Edit:
Oh, by the way, the Forum Charter: Competitions and Activities Forum needs an update. The list of active competitions is not up-to-date.

AGA

Quote from: Sinitrena on Tue 11/02/2020 05:36:54
Oh, by the way, the Forum Charter: Competitions and Activities Forum needs an update. The list of active competitions is not up-to-date.

I moved the ones that seem to be dead to the struck through section, and added Fortnightly Writing Competition to the active section.  Are there any others you'd count as still active?

Sinitrena

I might count some form of the Music Competition as still active, even though it doesn't seem to be - mainly because we should have one. But that's just my opinion.

And the 1000 words description for the FWC is really not acurate. Stories are often longer, sometimes shorter and sometimes a word limit is set.

AGA

If you want to give a more accurate description I'm happy to include it.  This was just the rules I could work out from looking at the last few occurances!

Sinitrena

QuoteWrite a short story of around 1000 words on a given topic / brief, the overall winner is decided by users selecting their favourites in categories such as Character, Plot, Writing Style & Atmosphere.

Not much editing required, just strike "of around 1000 words".

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