Comment Speedway Has Reached 2,500 Members!

Yep, you read right -- we've reached 2,500 members, and for a long time I've been planning on doing a special contest once we've gotten there. And, indeed, I'm starting to do prep work for this one -- codename, Ignition Impossible, named after our original Comment Ignition series whereby we focused on items with three or less comments exclusively. This one, however, as with our prior two contests, will likely be focusing on burning through our oldest content, and trying to burn straight through to the modern age.

So. A bit of administrative work to do first -- first off, I've noticed that I've had some trouble with getting time to do Gather moderation work during the week (which is when I originally had my article posts scheduled), so I may have to revise my posting strategy (and therefore, my contest handling strategy) to take this into account.

Secondly, we're entering into the holiday season -- which, granted, is an excellent time to get money from contests, but also means that everyone's lives (including mine) are going to be incredibly hectic during this period.

Chances are that our contest will last for two weeks, just as the last one did -- that seems to be just long enough for everyone to get a chance to enter, for many people to participate, and for a few Gatherers to really shine.

As previously, our contest prizes will all be in the form of Amazon.com gift cards - they're easy for me to distribute to people, and you can spend them on practically anything (and given the fact that Christmas isn't too far away, having an extra gift card there might help out.)

I'm checking over my personal budget (the money's coming out of my pocket, after all) to determine what I can afford for the prize budget this time around, so I haven't set any prize amounts in stone yet. I want to make it bigger than last time, and I want to give people a good reason to do their best, after all.

I'll write up a more formal interpretation of The Rules as we get closer to our contest start date, but a few things up front:

Only content posted before the beginning of the contest will be included in the contest. (In previous contests, we had a limit of one month before the contest began - this time, it's anything before the date the contest is posted, so you may want to start posting your content here now before the contest gets into gear.)

Content that does not allow comments, or requires approval for comments, is invalid for contest purposes (and is against the group rules, as well) and will be removed from the group if found.

Contest winners must be members of Gather.com, and members of the group Comment Speedway, and cannot be moderators. Moderators who wish to participate can opt to temporarily have their moderator privileges removed in order to participate.

During this contest, content on Comment Speedway that is not currently at or above 10 comments is selected. Any comments (up to the tenth comment on that piece of content) made on contest content earns one contest point (not to be confused with Gather Points) for the commenter; the person who leaves the tenth comment ('clearing' the content) earns a bonus point. Commenting multiple times on a single piece of contest content does not earn additional points, beyond the bonus point for being the tenth commenter. Prizes are to be awarded primarily based on total contest points earned. There may be more fanciness to it, depending on whether I can code up a better scorekeeper / interpreter this time around. (It takes a lonnnng time to score things manually -- and that's been our limiting factor on previous occasions.)

Comment Speedway would like to remind you that Gather disapproves of generic comments for purposes beyond group administration - so be sure to comment thoughtfully on what you view. Comment Speedway will not serve as the judge and jury regarding what 'generic' means, but would like to remind you up front before anyone gets stuffy about it later.

International people are welcome to participate in this contest; the contest prizes will be in Amazon.com emailed gift cards, so if you intend to participate you may wish to familiarize yourself with Amazon's gift card policies. In particular, Amazon.com gift cards are only valid on Amazon.com, and not on Amazon.co.uk, for example, according to their terms.

So, that's my plans so far -- I don't have a fixed date set, or a fixed budget yet, but I'm planning and plotting, and hopefully we'll have a wonderful time -- and some people will earn a little extra for their Christmas shopping, and everyone will prosper from having their content exposed to the world.