The Competitions Department

[James]

Hey guys!

I could write a very long thread here fighting my cause, but truthfully, it doesn't matter what I think of the Competitions department; it all depends on what you guys think of it.

I just have a few questions for you guys, please answer as brutally honest as you like.


1a. Do you enter competitions?
1b. Why (not)?
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough?
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition?
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed?
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently?
3b. Why (not)?
3c. What would you change?
4a. What is the worst thing about the department?
4b. What is the best thing about the department?
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10.
5. Anything you want to add.

Your feedback would be great to help us progress forward. The competitions department has great potential and I think with the community's feedback, it can be fabulous.

We do have plenty of events and big competitions coming up as well so keep an eye out for that!

Thanks,
James
Competitions Manager

[David]

1a. Do you enter competitions? no
1b. Why (not)? no particular reason, just haven't been
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? sure, some of them don't suit the competition but overall it works out i guess
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? -
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? probably not, but nothing to do with the prizes
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? yes drew's bringing new life to it
3b. Why (not)? -
3c. What would you change? announcing winners could be done sooner, i've seen people asking about it when they find out results, and once a month seems too much of a gap
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? every manager seems to do one of these question forms, but i haven't seen any changes after any of them
4b. What is the best thing about the department? idk
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. 6 maybe
5. Anything you want to add. the thread icons are still not being used, and why wasn't mike's cards against habbox hosted? he planned everything and no one used it

[FlyingJesus]

1a. Do you enter competitions? Ya
1b. Why (not)? Because I think of hilarious answers and stuff
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? Yeah sure why not I don't really pay that much attention actually
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? Blue man tube mans
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? If they were comps I wanted to do yeah
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? It's a bit slow
3b. Why (not)? 7 comps this month 3 weeks in for an average of just over 2 comps a week divided by 4 staff members, that's about half a competition a week per member of staff
3c. What would you change? Make them more frequent and have some with shorter lifespans when they're not something that requires effort, also why not do random spur of the moment comps on the client when it's busy just for a cred or two or whatev to get people involved not necessarily anything big just keeping up a presence
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? Coral eating her children
4b. What is the best thing about the department? My entries
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. No make me
5. Anything you want to add. Bone Thugs 4 lyfe

[Cerys]

1a. Do you enter competitions? occasionally
1b. Why (not)? bcos im desperate and want creds
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? umm yeah i guess
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? I'd prefer 10c prizes but that's unrealistic
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? I'd enter more yes
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? yep
3b. Why (not)?
3c. What would you change? nothing tis perfect xox
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? umm sometimes there isisn't a great range of comps but I don't mind it's rare
4b. What is the best thing about the department? you xx lmfao idk th amount of comps at one time
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. 8
5. Anything you want to add. ​if there was more higher coin prizes id enter mmore but it's unrealistic so dw you're doing perfect x

[Inseriousity.]

why wasn't mike's cards against habbox hosted? he planned everything and no one used it

No he didn't lol. He had the concept and a fairly reasonable structure. He didn't have the important bit: the cards (in his defence, it was a tricky one) :P

1a. Do you enter competitions? No
1b. Why (not)? I'm just too old to care now.
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? Still using a similar prize structure to what I introduced in 2010 so obviously I'm biased but I'm sure a revamp wouldn't hurt.
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? What that revamp is won't really matter to me so got no suggestions.
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? No (see above)
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? No
3b. Why (not)? More suffering from Habbox's overall problems.
3c. What would you change? I like Tom's idea. Generally speaking, trying to get forum members to enter isn't going to work. If anyone dares say competitions isn't a community department because they're on the forum, ignore them, you need to be active on Habbo and encouraging them to enter.
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? I haven't really paid much attention so no idea. The lack of entries really sucks though, I feel for ya.
4b. What is the best thing about the department? I haven't really paid much attention so no idea. Being the smallest department does have its advantages though.
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. Would be unfair to say.
5. Anything you want to add. Good luck :)

[David]

No he didn't lol. He had the concept and a fairly reasonable structure. He didn't have the important bit: the cards (in his defence, it was a tricky one) :P

oh he said he did in hxhd a while back. just before hxss

[Inseriousity.]

If he had I'd have hosted it myself but as it wasn't finished, we just went with the Pokemon idea. I did like the idea but you'd need a ton of cards to pull it off and the ideas were just not forthcoming.

[dbgtz]

1a. Do you enter competitions? rarely
1b. Why (not)? bit boring, cant be bothered, dont care
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? can be ok can be awful just as is with almost any event/competitions
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? no clue
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? only if I needed vip which I do not
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? dont really pay enough attention to notice
3b. Why (not)? see above
3c. What would you change? management. Kidding idk more exposure of sorts
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? EXPOSURE - THERES BASICALLY NO ADVERTISEMENTS ESPECIALLY IN THE BIG COMPETITIONS
4b. What is the best thing about the department? free shit
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. :¬:
5. Anything you want to add.

[lawrawrrr]

ok I'm not going to fill out the form as I can't enter comps anyway BUT I think a huge thing is advertising, I think more (especially credit comps) would be entered if they were advertised more on twitter, the habbox group forum on habbo, community notice boards for bigger ones - also like, cross-platform comps? Like maybe ones on the main site, twitter, habbo forum?

Prizes I think are just like, repetitive which isn't necessarily bad per se but the odd like, bigger comp with furni/rares or a bigger coin value, room bundle, HC memership - poss even real life prizes like amazon or spotify gift cards which obviously you wouldn't have to fund James but I can look into if people like that idea every so often - might attract more entries/members!

[Cerys]

Yeah I agree with Laura, more advertising needs to be done. I only come across comps when I see them in the comps forum, when the comps staff come into hxhd and stuff they're only advertising applications, not the comps themselves ;)

[dbgtz]

Not just advertisement, advertisement in ADVANCE. As an example, that Pokemon competition got no advertisement before it started and most people didn't have a clue about it until a couple of days in and by that time it was too late to catch up. Needs at least a weeks advertisement beforehand with a nice notice on the forum at the top :)

[Sho]

1a. Do you enter competitions? sometimes
1b. Why (not)? i enter the ones that sound interesting, but the ones that are like "if you could go back in time, where would you go and why?" are posted all the time and i cba with them because they're so boring :(
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? i tried revamping the prizes when i was comps manager. introduced rare prizes, exclusive vip and none of them really made a huge difference. i even increased the prize from 5c to 10c and that did nothing, so i can't really think of anything else you can offer. mike and i were gonna introduce a comps forum icon that someone could win through monthly competitions or something, but we both resigned before we sorted that out. not sure if you'd be interested in that.
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? oh erm i think i've already answered this
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? nah i enter because i'm bored idc about prizes
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? i agree that more advertising is needed. do you still use the comps subscription? a few people were signed up to that when i was manager, but idk what it's like now because i've not seen the notices for a while. more fun and creative competitions instead of the same old comps being re-posted, more monthly competitions, get other department involved and encourage them to write a monthly to promote their departments too. drew used to post graphic competitions when i was manager and oldlovesong used to write one called hummingbirds.
3b. Why (not)? see above
3c. What would you change? see 3a
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? low entries, i suppose, but that's been a problem for a while now. we managed to boost it a bit just before we resigned through an awful lot of advertising, so advertising really is key. from my experience, a lot of people are willing to enter comps, they just forget they're there and when they see them being advertised they'll go check them out. seemed to work for me anyway. maybe also lack of variety in comps.
4b. What is the best thing about the department? prizes because i like free stuff
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. no idea soz
5. Anything you want to add. :¬:

[Samantha]

1a. Do you enter competitions? Sometimes.
1b. Why (not)? Honestly, I enter near the end date when there are hardly many entries as I hate seeing competitions will little/no entries. I don't enter as some of them are very long winded and I don't want to read a wall of text and I've been staff so long that I've seen most ideas before.
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? As you know I wanted to make the prizes better, have occasional 'bigger' competitions that could be opened for a bit longer (i.e. a week) and take a bit more thought and effort into entering.
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? I really think asking Nick and Matt about icons for competition winners could be great!
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? Perhaps, some of them aren't worthwhile for the time taken sometimes.
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? As I've seen the back end yes!
3b. Why (not)?
3c. What would you change?
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? The little amount of entries, I think just more emphasis on that you can win free prizes etc. is needed.
4b. What is the best thing about the department? The manager and staff actually act like they want to be there now as there's a manager who hasn't taken it backwards instead of forwards (not me by the way).
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10.
5. Anything you want to add.

[Empired]

1a. Do you enter competitions? Haven't done for a long time
1b. Why (not)? I don't like thinking up answers and prizes are of very little importance to me.
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? I have no interest in prizes of any sort (as in, you could be offering 100c and 2000 rep and I still wouldn't be that bothered) but I think for others they're pretty generous.
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? -
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? Sorry, no :P
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? I don't know much about the department exactly but I do think the competitions that are run are more than a little stale.
3b. Why (not)? They're always the same: "here's something funny that happened to me this week, now come up with something funny yourself" and so they get very repetitive very fast, or else staff seem to run low on ideas and come up with rubbish. For example (I hate to bring up specific cases but this one totally illustrates my point) who thought "tell me your favourite cereal (http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=830079)" would be a good idea?
3c. What would you change? Mix it up a bit. Was it Mike (Yupt) who came up with a load of different types of competitions? Like creative writing ones and stuff. Mike (Inseriousity.)'s idea for CAH is a good one. That doesn't have to be followed through but comps staff need to start thinking outside the box. But I should mention that I really hate the massive competitions that take place over a long period of time like Draw My Thing (was it?) because I just never had the time for them. Probably just me there though as I know a lot of people liked Draw My Thing.
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? The same-old feeling.
4b. What is the best thing about the department? How much potential I think it could have for new users. As I've got older I lost interest in comps but I remember that this department was the one thing that kept me coming back to HxF in the beginning.
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. A strong 6.5
5. Anything you want to add. toot toot

[Kyle]

1a. Do you enter competitions? NO.
1b. Why (not)? they're boring and I'm horrendously rich
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? for peasants yes. less forum prizes and more credit prizes would be good so otherdepartments have good alternatives to advertise.
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? effort should be equivalent to reward.
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? doubt5ful
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? couldn't possibly comment
3b. Why (not)? I don't know enough about it
3c. What would you change? work with events more
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? the people who enter comps with 1 sentence, like those people who fill out surveys by picking the same answer for everything
4b. What is the best thing about the department? the collab campaigns that used to happen
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. 4/10
5. Anything you want to add. good luck lol

[James]

Thank you all for your fabulous feedback x

So the things i see cropping up multiple times are
- Advertising
- Varied prizes to fit competition difficulty/length
- Varied competitions.
- Working alongside other departments.

Advertising is definitely something that needs to happen more, i 100% agree with you all. There will be a lot more advertising happening, including using the Habbox Group Forum, Habbox Twitter account and of course my never-ending spamming in the Helpdesk and events :). Obviously not every single individual competition will be advertised specifically, but any bigger or special competitions and, of course, habbox.com/comps in general will be.

I will definitely be looking over the prizes and seeing if there are any other options available to offer. I really like the idea of the forum icon, so I'll see if I can get that sorted and have a chat with the boss to see if that could work.

Oh, I almost forgot, I'll probably be announcing competitions winners 3 times per month, fitting in with the competitions calendar. (This will be starting as of November as October calendar is almost over woo).

[Red]

Basically I had no vip and for months and when I wanted to enter comps for it there was none available for having it as a prize! Really not interested in credit/rep prizes. Basically only things I would be interested in is vip or like online vouchers or something

[despect]

I remember when new competitions were out there used to be a post telling everyone about them. Does that get done anymore? If it doesnt then perhaps that could help for a part of the advertisement?

[Yupt]

Got told to sign on and come do this so hello. Most of it won't be accurate responses as I don't really take much notice of what is going on with habbo anymore let alone habbox or the comps dept.

Also, saw some people talking about my idea when I was manager, Cards Against Habbox. The idea and planning was set up and ready to go, the cards were to be made by a mixture of both staff and the general public submitting their ideas for cards to then be approved by the manager and agm community. This was so 1) save me a hell of a lot of time thinking of card ideas and 2) act as an ongoing advertisement method and get people involved and excited for the event in general. Would still be relatively easy to do tbh. If management want to revive the idea then get someone like matt laura or sho who have my number to let me know and ill come chat with you on Skype.

1a. Do you enter competitions? - No.

1b. Why (not)? - Because i'm no longer an active member of habbox in general.

2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? - No, but I know how hard it is to drive them up, people don't realise that Comps is more or less entirely funded by the management of the department and not the AGM's (who will help when asked).

2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition? - I always wanted more types of Comps exclusive VIP but was told I wasn't allowed (still disagree with that decision, sorry Sho).

2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? - No but I'm sure other more active users would.

3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? - Unfair of me to answer as I haven't even looked at the staff list or comps forum. But i'm going to guess no as I often see people complaining and moaning in Hxhd or to me on Skype etc.

3b. Why (not)? - ^ ^

3c. What would you change? - What is this nonsense I'm seeing about advertising? A competitions department without relentless advertising is like Football without a ball.. It's imperative to getting entries, you need to be bordering the point of being annoying with your advertising but not to the extent it's causing people to actively avoid entering. habbox.com/comps

4a. What is the worst thing about the department? - ^ ^

4b. What is the best thing about the department? - Unfair as I don't really pay attention anymore.

4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. - ^ ^

5. Anything you want to add. - www.habbox.com/comps (http://www.habbox.com/comps) (see it isn't that hard)

edit; i forgot this.

are CNB's still made, and is the competitions subscription thing still happening?! they're great tools at your disposal! I was terrible at remembering to do them but they're so worth. *SHIA LEBOUF JUST DO IT MEME GOES HERE*

[buttons]

i like forum competitions that get many people involved, not just threads which require a slogan, a graphic or a sentence.

[iJim.]

1a. Do you enter competitions? Sometimes
1b. Why (not) For some funz
2a. Do you think the prizes are good enough? Yes, I'm not a money grabber
2b. If not, what would suitable (and realistic) prizes be per competition If its 5 minute game I don't expect 1000000000000 coins
2c. Would you enter competitions if the prizes were changed? Depends what to
3a. Do you think the department is working well currently? Yea
3b. Why (not)?
3c. What would you change? More team events?/More Advertisement
4a. What is the worst thing about the department? Sometimes host don't seem bothered?
4b. What is the best thing about the department? Not Sure
4c. Rate the department as a whole /10. 8/10
5. Anything you want to add I tend to only notice events at the time of the event it's happening. I don't come on specifically for an event.

[James]

Hey Guys!
Just to keep you a little more updated. Myself and Drew spent almost the entire morning updating and perfecting the Competitions winner thread, which can now be found HERE (http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=830683). We will be working on keeping this as updated as possible. This was long overdue, but now that it's done, it should be easier to stay on top of it. You will still receive winner PM's if you win, but you will also be logged onto this page.

Anymore updates you want to see that are within reason, let me know and I'll get on it!

That's all for now guys.