Spring Programming Competition

[jsj795]

Voted for TCG. I always wanted to make one, and this seems to be a good incentive to do so! There aren't many TCG out there I believe

[Art_of_camelot]

Wow, trading card games are leading the way! I'm a bit surprised!

[ferox]

why being surprised. trading cards games are epic!
tcg are rare, i have looked for them on ticalc, and i was able to find one, but i didn't really like it, so now im gonna make my own one

[Xeda112358]

Awesome! And hi ferox! I'm not going to be here to see what the final votes will look like, but I cannot wait!

[NETWizz]

It is nice to see a new contest, but I was hoping to have more items hammered out prior to moving forward.

Sounds good with a few unresolved issues:

This weekend I will work on creating a section and testing the uploads and downloads for contest entries as well as setting up the Staff from both sites that will be judging the contest.

The rules have not been decided and bargained, either.

We were thinking it depends on who (what sponsor) is providing the prize(s):

1. Nobody on the UTI Staff or Revsoft Staff (or anyone judging) may submit an entry.

2. Under 25 and a student to be eligible

3. No illegal copyright infringement

4. No late entries for any reason

5. BASIC will be accepted to allow more people to participate (I would like us to not accept ASM to put everyone on an even playing field, but I don't know what Revsoft wants on this & they represent 50% of the contest)

6. The winning person must be located in the United States if United-TI is responsible for shipping the prize. Last time someone in Canada won and customs messed everything up seeming to think we somehow provided them a source of tax revenue for a Graphing Calculator... it is not fair if the winner has to pay customs fees.

7. Should the prize be a cash-prize via Pay Pal, we will pay the fees for domestic. Should the money need to get converted i.e. into Euros, the amount issued will be the same US Dollar amount, but we will NOT be paying the conversion fees or any additional foreign fees.


*. Regretfully at this time, we have no idea who will tender the prize(s) or remit payment. Before we can figure out these "business-type details", we need to figure out if we can get a corporate sponsorship/grant, but this will require such things as negotiation of the rules as well as establishing a paradigm of values of integrity and a solid methodology for fair/just scoring through the use of an objective rubric and certification through signed affidavits that we are in compliance. We will need to be able to explain every detail such as the setup of the management of the contest, and write an official letter to-sell our ideas for the contest to the sponsor for some good Public Relations(i.e. giving a prize to a student <25). This is our "hopeful" plan, but since United-TI is NOT affiliated with any companies we will have to start from scratch and come up with adequate documentation each step of the way. Unfortunately, this will take considerable time to get things into place before we are willing to write the letter and sign our names asking for a sponsor.

[AlienCC]

It is great to see a new contest going forward, considering that when the last official United-TI programming contest was run, I did play a significant role in administering it, the prize, and so on.

However, I was hoping to get a few more details sorted out before moving forward with this contest, such as corporate sponsorship, if possible. It is possible that in order to gain corporate sponsorship we may have to coordinate and bargain rules of the contest with the sponsor. In all fairness United-TI will not officially be ready on the 7th to move forward with the contest, if we are to involve a business, those things take time.

Also as far as shipping with prizes, I don't recommend shipping anything across country borders because of the incredibly high costs shipping, customs fees, and amount of corrupt customs agents where packages will often just disappear, or only the shipping label makes it to the destination.

Having said those things, I am very glad to see movement in a new contest, the enthusiasm from the members who are willing to participate, and cross-community effort to coordinate and administrate this contest. Good luck to all.

[NETWizz]

I would like to point out that United-TI will be affiliating with Revsoft for the purpose of this 2011 programming contest. I am also sorry if anyone thinks it is unfair that we at United-TI is holding up the process because we need more time, but there is a lot of private stuff going on in our lives and also behind-the-scenes of United-TI: April fools planning, and a possible migration to another web host just to name a couple.

It is important that everyone know that neither AlienCC nor I are killing this topic or this contest; on the contrary, we will be supporting it one-step at at time and dealing with the documentation, core planning, and sponsorship issues on behalf of the United-TI organization. Please everyone continue to vote; since, we all need a topic. I am going to concurrently try to figure out a way to handle the upload/download of the entries and proper security rights, when I get a chance as well as appointing all of the moderators for this contest.

We at United-TI just want everyone to know that we will not be officially announcing any prize(s) that we will be paying for on Monday the 7th; since, we have not thought it through or prepared any documentation nor attempted to gain sponsorship at this time. In our opinions, it is too early to start programming for the contest because the participants do not even have a scoring rubric to know what criteria we will be judging.

[Alan]

Wow! Its good to see another contest of this caliber! Good luck to everyone

[FinaleTI]

Can't wait for more info!
I've already come up with my idea, and started some sprites.

This might be what UTI needs to get more people visiting again.

[Madskillz]

The contest will officially start on March 7th whether it comes with UTI on board or not. We may not have the first place prize figured out yet, but we will have some more information posted tomorrow about other contest related stuff. We will have a rubric this week so you know what it is you have to have to get a good score.

[NETWizz]

Madskillz,

As AlienCC and I, two of the core founders of United-TI, have clearly indicated we are on-board for this contest and will be happy to affiliate with you and the representative Revsoft staff - after-all, it is our mission to unite the various programming groups and facilitate joint ventures.

Then you went ahead and jumped the gun without working together with us and posted this topic to coerce our early, unprepared involvement concurrently PMing us starting out with, "I'm sorry if you guys felt like you needed more time, but I think we had ample time. We had over a week to come up with rules since I posted a start on February 24th via our little conversation here. As for prizes, I don't think they have to be nailed down by the 7th..."

Please try and understand AlienCC and I have significant business experience, very demanding careers, families to provide for, and past-experience knowing how much leg-work it takes to make something like this contest really work. As we explained, we have a prime opportunity to get corporate sponsorship, which would provide nearly free marketing publicity for our sponsor and good business all around with active community involvement for all of our members. It is great public relations & it is great marketing!

It is important to us to have the contest rules, objective scoring rubric, and price secured before we announce the start of the contest.

I.e. If the contest were to construct a card game, we would not be able to score the entires because we would be comparing apples to oranges because we could not compare solitaire to black jack or poker.

Please heed the wisdom of AlienCC via the Private Messages specifically when he posed the question, "Are we trying to have just another contest, or are we trying to have a contest worth having?"


Please only announce the topic of the programming contest on the 7th then forward us all an actual, printable score sheet, so we can agree on the objectives and the scoring methodology. Also have anyone who is going to score entries register for this forum and PM us the names and a small amount of background info on each person, so we can set everything up on our end. Please, Please do this instead of starting a contest on our behalf...

[Madskillz]

Obviously nobody from a senior level of staff reads there pms around here.

The truth is that this has been in discussion for about a month now. I have sent countless PMs to everybody with little response from AlienCC or anyone else from the staff besides some effort by NetWizz and Xeda. I see they feel like our discussions need to be public which is a shame. We all have busy lives. I manage work, family time, bills, programming and other activities and still find the time to read my PMs. That is no excuse for not making an effort.

I posted this topic to get people interested in a contest and to let the community get involved and allow them to choose something that they would be interested in. Everybody knew a well that the contest was to start in March and end in May. Revolution Software was ready to start a few weeks ago, we offered a separate neutral forum for the participants to join and have their own individual threads for their entry. Instead UTI wanted to host, I said fine. But they never made any effort for it. NetWizz even said that they hadn't sent anything out to a sponsor (edited by NETWIzz to remove potential sponsor name) about sponsoring a contest yet. When he said himself that he would write to ******* ******* (Edit to remove name) in a PM on Feb 10th. The lack of not being ready is not my fault. If you fail to act nothing is ever going to get done. The contest is already pushed back a week the way it is. There are other groups in the community that have their own contests coming up, I do not want to take up any of their time for their own contests!

[NETWizz]

Travis, Please quit mentioning a potential sponsor's name. It is NOT okay to mention their name publicly putting them in a position to face bad PR should they turn down this offer; since, they have not been asked nor made any official statement to us. As a founder & webmaster of another community-driven programming group, you understand this.

We at United-TI have provided our reasons for needing more time to which you have not accepted, yet you have not personally secured any prizes (aside from a $10 gift-card to somewhere that you probably intend to re-gift). You have also suggested we all set aside $20, which is totally fine in theory, but in practice many people won't do it even if they commit to it. Should we eventually accept this, we wouldo take responsibility to ensure the full-amount of the prize is paid out even if various donors fall through.

Lastly, I assure you the Senior Level staff read all of the PMs and discussed them in private before we make any official response. The truth is that initial talks began February 10th about doing a programming contest, and we agreed. On March 1st you went ahead and made an official announcement on our behalf without giving us any heads-up that you were going to do that. We would have asked you to describe your plan and time-table and that all your ducks be in a row before you begin the contest.

We saw your rubric. It is a rough draft at best and the United-TI Staff has not had a chance to discuss it and get back to you. Again, please announce what the contest will be about tomorrow, PM me a list of moderators, and create a printable rubric in a format such as Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF and attach it for our review. We will get back to you as soon as at least two of us get to discuss it.


******************************

[NETWizz]

I want everyone to know we are equals for the purpose of this project. I think we just need to work together to come up with mutually acceptable rules for this project.

[Madskillz]

Misunderstanding on everyone's part. We are good to go this following week.

[NETWizz]

Yes, we are good to go. Thanks for helping work things out, Madskillz. I think we had a productive phone call.

[Madskillz]

The joint programming competition starts today. The contest will run until June 6th. The judges will be representatives from United-TI, Revolution Software and Maxcoderz. If you would like to enter into the contest, you may create a topic in the Programming Competitions section of the United-TI forums. The rules and scoring rubric will be posted on March 11th. As well as some information regarding the prizes. If anyone has any questions you can post them here or send any one of the United-TI staff, Revolution Software staff or Maxcoderz staff a private message.

All participants in the contest must create a trading card type of game.
We would recommend holding off on programming anything until the scoring rubric/rules are posted on the 11th.

All parties want to thank all the people who voted in the contest poll.
We are all committed to making this an excellent competition with excellent prizes!

Thanks again and good luck,
-Madskillz