New, Ongoing MVP Contests

[lisa]

You probably already noticed the new banner at the top of the site. It's the start of a series of MVP (Most Valuable Poster) contests I will be running on WB to encourage more useful posts and activity on WB. Please see why Majora won and how this will work.

This is the official MVP thread so I will be using this to announce new winners.

[Majora]

Thanks Lisa and the community. Always glad to help out and feel good that I've earned the spot as the first winner of the Most ValuablePoster award.

[zomex]

Very nice indeed. That's a good way to encorage more quality posts that Website Babble is known for.

[Jordan]

Great Idea!

[patrick0001]

I hope I can be the next winner.

[Ileane]

Wow Lisa, that's really cool. It's a great way to get introduced to different members also because I haven't met Majora yet. Now I'm going to take a look at what they've posted. Thanks Lisa.

[Eleanor]

Once again Lisa, you've put a smile on my face. It's just so refreshing to see an administrator as dedicated as yourself. This is an excellent idea!

[webhunter]

Lisa still make surprises!

Hope I will be the next winner...

[anya]

Wow!
Lisa, this is awesome!
Majora, congratulations!
I think, James should have a special badge, MVP for the month of September!
So members will always be reminded

[xubair]

I would like to see someone winning who has not only made useful replies on the forums but has also made the most of them.

Someone who not only maintained quality but quantity aswell.

Lets see if someone can do that.

[lisa]

Good idea Lisa, and good luck with the contest!

Here's a challenge I face as a contestant.

I'm a programmer, and the most useful contribution I can make to any webmaster forum is free software.

I have a various coding projects I'm happy to share with other webmasters from time to time no charge. But if I mention them I become not a valued contributor who might win a prize, but an evil spammer about to be banned. :-)

I have lots of opinions, advice and general blowharding to share as well. Um, probably too much. Well, ok, ok, maybe way too much. :-) And if that's what you want, I'll try to oblige.

But if I had a choice, I feel I could serve readers better by helping them act, rather than just talking about the general theory. There's so much theory available already.

The prize I would most like to win is the ability to help readers by doing what I do best, without then becoming a nefarious criminal being chased down dark alleys by the spam police. :-)

Just casting my one little vote, that's all. Hoping to put the best of what I have to share on the playing field, instead of the second string.

Well it depends on how you mention them. If you want to insert the actual code snippets into your post the that would be considered a valuable contribution. If you send people to your site, yes that would be spam/self promotion under the rules. I understand what you mean, but spam is too big of a problem here for me to allow people to just recommend their own work and sites. I'm 100% confident that is the right decision for this forum given how much spam we deal with daily.

[lisa]

Apologies, but I don't think 60,000 lines of code will fit in to the form. :-)

Ok, no problem, it's your call of course. If it's chit chat you want, I'll see what I can come up with.

Well, I wasn't sure of the extent of your code. Yes, 60,000 lines may be a tad bit much. I still think there are ways to be helpful, build awareness for your brand and stay within the rules of the forum. One of our members zomex (Jack) is a great example of this. He's generated a handful of new customers to his reseller store simply by being helpful in relevant threads.

[k2zs]

Apologies, but I don't think 60,000 lines of code will fit in to the form. :-)

Ok, no problem, it's your call of course. If it's chit chat you want, I'll see what I can come up with.

But there are ways of informing through example. Sometimes it's better to break down the code into palatable portions rather than present someone with 6000 lines of code.

The user magzaloo asked a question about CodeIgniter yesterday and I posted some things to help start her out. I know she has the desire to learn because we have worked through other problems together. Look at this thread; http://www.websitebabble.com/html-ph...e-ignitor.html . I showed her enough to get her first page running and from there I'm sure there will be other questions. I'm also sure that once she gets to that point, other things will come easier to her. Then when she hits another obstacle, she'll come here for help.

Sometimes it is best to fully understand the question being asked, and address that point as clearly as possible.

[lisa]

I definitely think there is an opportunity to do this in a more CONTROLLED fashion as you said. The offers would definitely have to come through me as you stated because I could see the forum being exploited by unapproved solicitations. Now, you mentioned finding the TIME to do all this. That would be my biggest issue as of now.

I don't know if you were a member then but I toyed with the idea of offering sponsor forums where people could rent a forum for a monthly fee and announce their products. Then I started having issues with hackers and wanted to get that issue fixed before launching such a product. But I think something like that would be better and less time consuming.

[Genie]

Congratulations Majora! You never fail to work up some great ideas Lisa. Love it!