hanging

I'd like to ask you all about the passing/accepting the challenge baton.

I picked five as the winner of 'circles' challenge today and she suggested me to pick another one so did I. She seems very busy next few weeks and I totally understand that.

We all sometimes have very difficult situations like disasters, family issues or works we do daily. And sometimes, can't spend much or at all time here at TD.

I love this community challenges and would love to participate as much as I can.
But sometimes, it's not easy to create the new challenge and host it even though feel great honor of doing it.

I believe some of you might be feeling as I do and in fact, I assume, some people don't want to participate in the challenges because of the pressure when you are passed the baton.

I thought we should discuss about it.
And hopefully, we can come up with the solution.

cathyallheart

i see, and zum, with tuna's

clorophilla

Sorry if I misunderstood as my English is not so well...
Are you saying that someone would prefer to avoid owning the challenge bc it's too much difficult then to chose a winner without making someone worry?

I'm amazed if it's so: clearly the challenges in the forum are pure fun, many time the "winner" was not one of the best drawers, but he/she was chosen for the idea or simply the personal liking of the owner.

Moreover, the challenges are becoming more and more a collective experimentation, a way to start beautiful gallery ongoing far beyond the end of the challenge, and this is IMO a great improvement.

On the other side, it was becoming more and more difficult to "close" the challenge: they where going on for a week, now usually is about 2-3 weeks... and then, sometime passing the baton and rise a new challenge is a very complicate process, that needs many other days...

This is a bit boring for me, bc I miss the quick swich from an idea to another, wich gave me more inspiration.

We have 24h/challenges (funny twesday), 15 days/challenges (Showcase), may be the forum challenges should fit better between those two, and being about a week. A more quick passing of the baton may be should lessen the importance of the "win", expecially if we'll keep the topic alife also after the close, adding new pics and doing a permanent gallery of good themes.

Dragon

The challenges always used to be a week long but sometimes people give a little extra time if it's around a holiday or something like that. I wouldn't mind seeing it go back down to a week rather than the 2-3 week windows there often are but that's totally up to who ever is in charge of the challenge.

I think what hanging was getting at wasn't so much that people are nervous about choosing a winner (though some may be) but more about how people can be so busy they don't feel they can do the challenge justice. I know the rare time I've been in charge of one I feel like I should comment on every picture. I feel like if someone took the time and effort to make a picture and post it I should take the time and effort to really look at it and make a comment. Sometimes I'm just so busy that I can only get on TD for a little bit at a time so it can be daunting if I come on and find 8 new pics in the challenge since I last checked.
I've never turned down a challenge because I've always felt so honoured by being named the winner, but I can totally understand not being able to host one and I would never feel slighted if the person I chose asked me to choose someone else.

hanging

clo, you are so right and I agree that the challenges in the forum are fun and they are supposed to be that way.

Please please please clo, don't take this wrong.
Receive the baton is a great honor to me and I love it!
But sometimes when you don't have time to host the challenge (try to encourage people to participate, keep the gallery moving, etc.), you have no choice other than refusing it like five and Vals did for my 'circles'.
I'm so glad that they expressed honestly.

But some people might hesitate to refuse it, try hard to manage it good, and still the gallery would turn out slow, then the experience of hosting the challenge won't be a good one.

Going back to the bottom line.
The challenges are supposed to be fun things.

I've been enjoying these challenges, which motivate me to draw more and better pics, and feel great honor when being passed the baton!
But except once in the past when I was so busy but didn't want to refuse it so I accepted. And unfortunately at the time, the challenge itself didn't attract people much, I guess, and TD crowd itself was very slow and I had very few submissions, which was a bit discouraging to me.
(I think this is one of the biggest reasons that authors (hosts) try to make the longer term for each challenge so people get enough time to submit the pics.)
(By the way, it was great for me at this time for 'circles' and thank you clo for passing the baton to me!)

And I think, maybe, I might be so wrong..., some people are feeling as I did once.
I've brought up this issue because I want to keep this challenges going and if some people don't feel positive about it, I'd like to discuss about it and maybe, hopefully, we can do something for it.
Once again, I might be so wrong so let me know if I am.

In addition, as I mentioned, two winners have refused the baton from me recently and I don't know what to do... Does anyone have any suggestion to me?

hanging

Dragon posted the message while I was writing.

Sorry about my poor English but Dragon has got my point! (THANK YOU DRAGON!)

Login

Hanging, it's a valid question and there are so many different reasons why a winner can not take the baton. Maybe a solution would be to choose three drawings and number them 1, 2 and 3. If number one cannot (or fails to) take the baton within 24 hours, number two automatically moves into number 1 place, and so on.

gremmy

I think Login's idea, like that used in Miss America pageant, of a winner and two runners up. If for some reason the winner can't take the baton (we all have times that it may not be judicial for us to take some things on and not do it justice), it would go to the first runner up. I think that makes the most sense. Plus, in my meager opinion, one week seems like enough time to grab interest and generate some awesome submissions, thus keeping the challenge just that...a challenge.

five

It doesn't happen very often that the baton winner does not have the time to monitor a new challenge. Hanging I'd just make a third pick. Sorry for any inconvenience or frustration I may have caused. I'm usually pretty good about not entering if I don't have time or saying ahead of time not to pick me but this tine my schedule got unexpectedly busy.

hanging

Thank you Login for suggesting 1, 2 and 3rd winners.
I don't know why I was thinking so complicated about picking the next one... It's that simple!

And thank you gremmy for your comment.
I still don't know about how long the length of each challenge should be.
I get clo's point of making the challenge cycle shorter... But I also respect each author's decision though.

Ahhhh five, no apology please!!!
I really understand how your situation happens and as I said, am so glad you could honestly express that.
My biggest reason for bringing this up is to eliminate any sorry and reduce the pressure from all of us to be selected when we can't accept the baton.
And it's not because of you or what's happening at my challenge right now.
I've been thinking about it for while and maybe, this happened to be the good occasion for me to bring it up.

I'll pick the third one from 'circles' but please wait another day or so.

(I wished I could express myself better than this... Maybe I would be better in writing English tomorrow...! )

clorophilla

Hanging, I find your English well understandable (may be bc I'm not English to?? :-D)

I expressed my thoughts about how long I'd like a challenge to be, but of course it's a choice for the person in charge, and I think that the rules of challenges should be quite relaxed, as the challenges are mainly fun.

I suggest people who join the challenge for fun but know they will be too busy for get the baton, to say this before. Once I did it, knowing I'd have not the time to carry on a new challenge; I think this could help the owner of the challenge in his/her choice of a new winner.

hanging

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.
My head is a bit clearer now... I think....

What I wanted to say the most is:
"It's okay to say, 'I can't' without apology when you can't accept the baton."

As Dragon translated for me, it's not about choosing the winner.
It's about the whole process of creating new challenges to attract people to join, and check/comment on all pics submitted as the host.
Hosting challenges sometimes become very difficult.

And I can sense that many people draw many pics but never submit for the challenges because they don't want to host the challenges.

I wonder if there is anyway for everyone to stipulate either 'like to host' or 'no thanks' to the baton without guilt when they submit the pics for challenges.
Maybe we can choose a winner and next host separately...?

I'd like to hear people's opinion for that.

clorophilla

I always guess that chosing the next owner for a challenge is not a matter of "win/best picture/best artist" etc. It's just to decide who can pic up the baton.

keeping in mind this fact, I feel quite relaxed on this. When I chose my successor in a challenge I did it for many different ways: I try to avoid chosing a person who was in charge just the previous round; I look for an artist that could be inspiring and give us good ideas; some time is an encouragement for a new entry or a reward for an entusiastic partecipation; and, obviously, I chose also by my preferenc for the pics. But that is never an assessment of pictures of artists.

I think it's important to remark this concept for the new entries. If a "winner" refuse, no problem, I can pass the baton to the next.

I like to own a challenge bc it make me the chance to propose something I find difficult to draw, so learning more from other artists; or simply look what so many amazing artists will do with an intriguing idea.

Obiously, sometime there is a few interest for a challenge and this is difficult to accept, but it may happen for various reasons; c'est la vie!

Login

A philosophical answer, Clo. Your method of choosing the next baton holder makes a lot of sense. I have always avoided passing to the previous holder,
a). to give them a breathing space from the procedure,
b). to allow others to introduce fresh ideas and
c). to give a newcomer a bit of encouragement, especially if their entry is particularly creative.

Dragon

I think it's kind of an unwritten rule that we don't choose the previous baton holder when it's our turn to host a challenge. Of course, as with other parts of the challenge, that's really only a guideline. As clorophilla said, the challenges are really meant to be about having fun and getting ideas.
Even though I don't get a chance to enter the challenges very often I love that they're there. Sometimes the topic gets me thinking and up pops a new idea that I might like to do in the future, even if I can't get it into the current round. I'm glad to see so many people interested in the way the challenges work, to me that says that they are going to grow and continue for a good long while.