Author Topic: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?  (Read 11663 times)

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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As you could notice in the past few months, there are several good programs on ticalc.org that were ignored and some feature requests ignored. In some cases, for example with Axe Parser, it took everything to get it featured. I even had to make a video showing it in action to convince them. No offense to ticalc.org staff, they did a great job, especially on file archiving and posted more news, but I noticed a decline on the later in the past months. I had to bug tev so he feature certain programs.

I remember in late 2005, there were fewer and fewer features afterward there. Eventually it seemed like the community activity dropped. People thought nothing good were released anymore. With the large amount of files released in a month, sometimes, it's good to give the best ones some recognition. Now it seems like features are heading in the bad direction again, and despite my efforts and I am sure a bunch of other people shared their concern too (both on IRC, ticalc news or forums), still not much have changed. Contra 83, Robot War 82 (which doesn't need to be tested to know it's a great game), FFTOM2, Orbit, that bubble game Thepengiun made and Geometry Wars...

This is why in the past month, I started wondering if Omnimaga should start its own "POTY" award? Following example on BrandonW's release of the OS 2.53 and 2.54 MP patches, fixing bugs TI would not fix, we would do what people on ticalc.org don't want to do (or rarely wants to do). We would focus only on games and dev tools, though, since this is what Omnimaga focuses on. I am not too sure about making news articles about programs yet, since this would require a considerable amount of work, but for sure, every month, we would add calculator games to a new featured program page that would be added on Omni. At the end of the year, we would run polls where people would vote on their favorite 83+ tool, 68k and Nspire. There would also be a computer poll and one for other calc models, if applicable.

My only concern against that is that some people may see this as competition against ticalc.org. However, our goal would simply be to feature games/tools we feel that should have been featured (or that was featured). We would host NO file here (except maybe the RPGs and tools, since we have those sections in our archives). On the featured page, we would link to the respective File info pages on ticalc.org. Authors would still get their downloads there.

I thought about the idea also because Omnimaga traffic increased a lot in the past year, so featured programs (or stuff we felt that should have been featured) would get even more recognition.

I would most likely find new names for the page and the award, though.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2010, 01:40:16 am by DJ Omnimaga »

Offline Quigibo

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2010, 01:52:41 am »
I think it would be awesome to create a POTM award instead.  I think ticalc does a good job over the long run, but not too well in the short term.  Its the beginning of the month right about now anyway so its the perfect opportunity.  Maybe 3 or 4 people/programs get nominated every month (completed ones) and then the voting starts on the first of the following month and the winner is announced soon after.  It would be more exciting than a yearly award in my opinion becasue it is more frequent and current which I think is your main intention for suggesting this.  This award could even prompt ticalc to feature more programs since a highlighted program would be available every month.  A community vote would of course be used.
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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2010, 01:56:29 am »
Yeah, good idea, why we wait for the others to do it while we can do it ourselves? Of course, it would feature Omnimaga stuff only. And I really feel that this board needs some featured program section.

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2010, 02:00:09 am »
My only concern about POTM is activity slumps. In 2000, some months they only had 5 programs featured and they had to merge 68k/z80/windows/etc together in one poll. It became messy and they stopped it.

We could maybe do a seasonal award, like Best Program of Winter 2010, for example. We would be certain that there wouldn't be too many program winning by default and the competition would be better. That said, the community has picked up a lot, lately. Maybe there will be more program releases in long term, so POTM would work. One other issue with POTM, though, is that it would require much more work. I would most likely need to assign someone for managing the polls and the award pages

Offline ztrumpet

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2010, 11:11:50 am »
I think it's a good idea.  Bring on the POTMs again! (maybe) ;D

Offline nemo

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #5 on: July 01, 2010, 11:20:14 am »
i think POTM isn't enough time to make a program that's notable. for example, what if there are many entries, 8-10, but none of the programs are of good quality? i think program of the season (lol, POTS?) would be better, because that gives time to perfect the program but frequent enough. Two month intervals, i think, would also work pretty well.


Offline mapar007

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #6 on: July 01, 2010, 11:22:48 am »
I think it's OK to organize a POTM, but we need advertisement on other TI sites for it to work. Do we have some entering criterion? For example, more than n posts in the dev thread/subforum, more than n unique people posted in the development thread, featured on ticalc (that's the ticalc POTY requirement if I'm not mistaken), featured on omnimaga/uti/maxcoderz... (i.e. have a subforum of your own),... These are just possibilities, I'm not giving my opinion there.

Replicating the POTY is, IMHO, not a good idea.
1. Competing with ticalc doesn't really make sense. Most non-developer people end up there on a search (as did I, a few years ago), and it would not have the same 'weight' in download stats as it has when winning the ticalc POTY. (for the simple reason that we are not ticalc, the archive is not here) Ticalc.org has no POTM, so that's safe(r).
2.Certainly in the beginning, the omnimaga POTY would not be the same 'badge of honour' to the author. Ticalc.org's requirements for featuring, more specifically POTY entry, are very high. If we want to outperform ticalc, we'll need higher standards. I understand from DJ's post that that is the opposite of our goal.

One con to the POTM award: it will be a bitch to moderate. Maybe it's better to organize it bimestrially, or even every 3 months.

Just my two cents :)

Offline nemo

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #7 on: July 01, 2010, 11:30:06 am »
i don't think we're competing for ticalc... DJ's message specifically said downloads would be linked to ticalc. the whole z80 community is supposed to be about cooperation. the more people programming calculators, the more we can learn and progress.

that said, i agree that an omnimaga POTY/POTM would not give the same badge of honor. but it would probably get more traffic into omnimaga and ticalc. since people look for good games, if bored math students find out that every month or every couple months omnimaga posts a quality game, they'll come back, and maybe get interested themselves in programming, which is a benefit for all.


Offline mapar007

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #8 on: July 01, 2010, 11:37:15 am »
Mmh, my argumentation totally missed its mark. I should proofread better next time :P

Actually, I just wanted to say that having two awards for basically the same thing does not make sense, and certainly not if one of them is well-established.

Offline nemo

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #9 on: July 01, 2010, 11:43:52 am »
you have a point there. that's why i think it should be more frequent. monthly, once every two months or seasonal. that way, rather than calling in the best of an entire year, it's the best of this short period of time. to me, a POTY means it must be an impressive program to beat out everything else developed in a year. if the time length is a month or two, i know it's a decent program, so i should at least try it out, but i can't expect too much of it. i'm thinking this would 1) give more traffic to Omnimaga and 2) more downloads at ticalc. a program of the year isn't practical since it would rival ticalc's too much, but a more often, less esteemed competition would just give a little boost to activity every few months. on the other side, making a competition too frequent could make the competition dull over time.


Offline mapar007

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #10 on: July 01, 2010, 11:46:09 am »
That's exactly what I meant.

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #11 on: July 01, 2010, 11:47:55 am »
I think if we do this, we'll feature programs that deserve attention but are overlooked by bigger programs that come out in the same year.  For instance, what if calc84maniac releases F-Zero this year.  Isn't it appropriate for both it and Axe Parser to win POTYs, but of course they both can't if they're released in the same year.  This is a problem that I think needs to be solved. :)

Offline mapar007

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #12 on: July 01, 2010, 12:05:26 pm »
Then we could have a system with laureates: e.g. three programs win, but no further distinction is made.

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #13 on: July 01, 2010, 12:15:50 pm »
I think the POTM is a good idea, and it gives more continual excitement to the forums.  If we did add a POTY, what would we be doing right now?  Not much, the end of the year isnt for a bit.  But with a POTM (or every 2 or 3 months) it would add continual excitement and interesting in Omnimaga and the participating programs. 

One thing i just wanted to throw out as well, these are not all going to be Omnimaga programs correct?  I dont think our community produced enough games for a contest every couple of months.  Definetaly they should include all Omnimaga games, but i think we should also comb the archives and find those diamonds in the rough, those really good programs that just never got featured.

Offline mapar007

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Re: Should Omnimaga have its own POTY award/Featured programs page?
« Reply #14 on: July 01, 2010, 12:27:27 pm »
Mmhh... It might be a good idea only to feature active projects or 'fresh' programs. Even if it's only for manageability. And en plus, active stuff draws more people.