COMPETITIONS FEEDBACK

[Sho]

Perfect, thank you! Did you promote using a seperate account or just your regular habbo name?

just my regular account! ust don't spam rooms with it and it should be fine. i used to just chill in the help desk or in the event and whenever someone mentioned credits or whenever people were waiting to play a game, i'd just mention habbox.com/comps and advertise some of the current competitions. during big tournaments is a good time to advertise, shame you just missed habboxween some djs used to advertise on air while i was in management too, gina was one, but not sure if the djs still do that

[Cerys]

OK SO lets think hmm I'm just gonna write down ideas as they come to me so if it seems all over the place then i'm sorry x

Firstly I think too long has been spent trying to increase prize quality rather than competition quality. Who knows if behind the scenes the previous manager was trying to increase competition quality as well but it certainly didn't come across that way to me But yeah I think rather than focusing on bigger and better prizes it's more important to actually make the competitions fun again cos no matter how big the prize is it's unlikely that people will enter a dull and boring comp just cos they get 5 extra credits than before. And if they do happen to enter for the better prize e.g. a voucher, obviously you can't give them out for every single comp so it's gonna be a lil bit extra activity just for that one comp. (Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the voucher prizes etc but in the long run I don't see them as a solution !)

So leading on from that, the competitions are so samey you know, it's always just 'blah blah little introduction, do this for me, prize' it gets a bit boring! I dunno maybe like expand from that template, encourage staff to experiment with their ideas and formats. Maybe also stop isolating the comps just to the comps forum? Yknow if there's a comp that relates to TV post it in the TV subforum as well, or music-in the music subforum. That way people who wouldn't usually go in the comps forum but are interested in music or TV etc will see the comp and be like ooh i can do that that sounds fun woo. You know what I mean? (obviously still keep posting them in the comps forum aswell otherwise it'd get too tricky to keep track of whats where haha so maybe post the comp in e.g. the music forum then at the end say to enter post here then give a link IDK : ) )

Another idea is bring comps onto habbo every now and then. I don't think you were around for the past few months where we had little games with a scoreboard and you got a point for reaching the end, but they seemed to go down really well! Or a nice lil competition of last man standing, people always love them. It is bordering into events territory I guess but im sure nobody will mind cos its not as if events is really doing much anyway, so I'm sure theyd appreciate the collaboration!

Idk what else to say really. I do think something needs to be done to actually get people to even look at the comps subforum cos I won't lie I don't bother even looking to see if the comp is fun enough to enter, so I bet if I do that then others definitely will too! I dunno what solution there is to that tho, so youre on your own there

I'm looking forward to seeing you as a manager tbh, it'll be nice to see you bring a department back from being dead for so many months!

[lemons]

i find nearly all of the competitions on hxf very cringey

[Samantha]

i find nearly all of the competitions on hxf very cringey

You're going to love my next one then isn't he @Catchy;?

[Catchy]

You're going to love my next one then isn't he @Catchy;?

definitely! @lemons; there a new one out to win a dino egg which isn't too cringe!

[Yupt]

The forum is even quieter than it used to be and the same system comps has had for years simply won't work anymore - bulk comps that last 5ish days. Nah. If it were me then i'd look for have less competitions coming out but of a better quality that last longer. If you write a competition and you're not irritated because you can't enter it yourself then your competition is shit and shouldn't go public, you should be focussing on bringing the quality of competitions up, not having more of them to enter. With quality will hopefully come enjoyment of entering > more regular entrees > more entries.

Also even tho I don't really use habbox much anymore I still really care for the dept, the new way (don't know its just a test or not) of displaying the competition threads "WIN THIS FURNI AND THIS THING" is really ugly and is the kind of thing that instantly makes me want to look away. Imagine flicking through facebook and you see "WIN AN IPAD" how often do you ever actually stop and look at it. Just my thoughts.

Good luck in the role tho.

[Samantha]

The forum is even quieter than it used to be and the same system comps has had for years simply won't work anymore - bulk comps that last 5ish days. Nah. If it were me then i'd look for have less competitions coming out but of a better quality that last longer. If you write a competition and you're not irritated because you can't enter it yourself then your competition is shit and shouldn't go public, you should be focussing on bringing the quality of competitions up, not having more of them to enter. With quality will hopefully come enjoyment of entering > more regular entrees > more entries.

Also even tho I don't really use habbox much anymore I still really care for the dept, the new way (don't know its just a test or not) of displaying the competition threads "WIN THIS FURNI AND THIS THING" is really ugly and is the kind of thing that instantly makes me want to look away. Imagine flicking through facebook and you see "WIN AN IPAD" how often do you ever actually stop and look at it. Just my thoughts.

Good luck in the role tho.

I know Jake has some good ideas and has been thinking about how long the competitions run for as well as other aspects! He got the role a couple of days ago so it's fairly new to him, and he's trying to put his own stamp on it I think (hence you see a competition saying WIN A DRAGON EGG to try and entice people to enter). He's probably just trying to see what works!

I have more feedback to give so I'll post it here, as Jake will take it on board at some point. I'm not sure if forum members know these things about the department though, but one of them I would push to try increase applications.

Firstly, the forum where we submit competitions is now private, meaning we can enter any competitions from another person in the department providing it's not our own. Although this has been a long time coming, I don't actually know if forum members know this and may all believe that we still cant enter competitions ourselves. To a point, I believe it's a good idea as there should have been no reason for us not to enter them. However, to me personally, it takes away the fact that we are a team and therefore we should act like one - give feedback on each other's competitions, help others out when they need it. It shouldn't solely rely on the manager, on in other cases the Senior Competitions Staff if there is one!

Secondly, we no longer pick competition winners, again it's down to the managers, which again I don't think it should be, a department shouldn't be run like if the manager is away then the department can't run. Competitions is a department that can run without a manager providing there's someone to move out competitions or to check that their up to scratch (other members of staff can do the latter). I returned a couple of days ago to find that we don't pick our winners - the only link we have to the community is the competition we wrote for them, but surely if it was our idea for the competition, then we know ourselves what we're looking for in terms of entries and have a different train of thought from the manager. Now I'm not saying the manager can't give feedback on our winner if they don't believe the one we chose was the best entry, but a department shouldn't solely be down to putting all the work onto the manager.

There's currently a competition I wrote that's out, and I've noticed with Jake already that he's all about staff interaction and trying to make the department great again, he's not someone who just goes through the motions and hopes it will improve in time by doing nothing. He wants to bring real life prizes and sought after Habbo prizes to the table, which he has begun to do. Not only that, but he actually okayed it with me about the prize we were offering for my competition - I've never really experienced that (unless we wanted to put a prize on the competition ourselves), but I thought that it was a really nice addition to the department! I informed him it doesn't usually work like that, but like I said he's wanting to make the department great again and I think to start with, although the quality of competitions need to improve, so does staff communication and the link we have between the members entering our competitions too.

[Reality]

I agree with what @Samanfa; says about the Quick fire quizes I think they're a good way of giving incentive to users for entering quick comps that are only active for max of 48 hours and have some great prizes.

I think the Forum Department did a great job releasing these and it's a shame they're only released during specific event times - as I feel these are greatly popular because they don't follow the tradition rules of competitions where you need to:

come up with 'x' and explain 'y' or purpose a new 'x' to help 'y'

These are so generic now and as @Sho; has said they have started to recirculate within the department which makes them meaningless and boring to enter.

I anticipate that introducing Amazon vouchers could be another great incentive for the department and its partakers but how long will this be sustained? and, how long will this keep users happy? Multiple people have tried to do the same thing by offering "real-life" prizes as a prize form but haven't followed through - I would love it if it was followed through as it is definitely something worth entering for then.

I think that the department could also benefit from more advertisement around the forum and this is something I highlighted in my app to @Absently; and is something I think could benefit entry levels. Also, along the lines of advertisement I do think things could be done to strengthen this such as, more Twitter activity, as well as possibly more recognition from the radio dept? Client advertisement too? @Elegance; did an amazing job of constantly adverting competitions and they did spike in entries when they were being advertised as well as the people applying for comps staff - so advertising definitely does work!

[Catchy]

Just want to say a massive thanks for everyone taking the time to feedback, and feedback is always welcome either through this thread or you can pm me directly with any ideas. I'll be going through this thread properly in the next few days and noting down everything people have said and hopefully come up with various ways as a team to implement all this feedback. Will report back shortly. I'm already focousing on better prizes, there is a big prize comp out at the moment which is really easy to enter if anybody is interested

Oh and @scottish; I'd quite like your feedback as you always have lots to say, plz????

[buttons]

the competitions themselves are OK however i think for me personally it's because am not entirely interested in habbox in terms of its events, djing, etc and never have been. the forum has only ever been for me to talk to people, not to gain rewards or to improve the place. what i think would make *me* participate is if it was advertised more, not just "hey enter my comps" but if it was posted in spam and actually appealed to forum members too? really hard to explain what i mean, but the format for competitions events official forum stuff etc is so boring:

[Competition] Title: Ends ____!

just so boring and robotic and doesn't appeal to me although the content isn't that bad

i would like to see more forum based competitions/events, ones that get people participating TOGETHER, or competing with each other at a bigger level? am not imaginative enough to come up with who would be my twin in the womb, or captioning a picture, what appeals to me is more person focuses or team work events.

hope that helps !