I second redV6. 3 days left, only two trucks in. The reason the TOTM was gone for over a year just a little while ago was lack of participation, and it looks like history is repeating itself once again.

What if you include the nominees from the previous month? Another idea is to run the TOTM on a "quarterly" basis, but do a THREAD OF THE MONTH to promote useful threads to the foreground.

 

Thanks for your input. I'm going to address this later (in its own thread) when I have time to post something thoughtful.

 

Looks like a nice truck, and not many of us can afford to do all those crazy mods and upgrades, that you typically see with all the TOTM winners.
I do like all the nominees trucks so far, but money always seems to win, and I think that needs to change...
Maybe different classes for the TOTM?
Not trying to detract from the award, just thinking of ways to get more participation.

 

I moved the TOTM discussion-type posts to their own thread (this thread). I've been planning on creating a thread like this anyway because I want to change the way the contest is run in 2016.

I'll come back later and add my own thoughts and questions to this thread. In the meantime, please share your opinions on TOTM here, not in the nomination thread.

 

Can it be morphed in to truck of the month / member of the month thing? I feel like there are members who while they have not and maybe will not be building an epic trail rig, are contributing large amounts of info to the forum.

From that, request a few pics of their truck and what modifications they have done, how their truck is used, future plans, etc.

Or, have the member / truck of the month become a thing where folks put their own name "in a hat" and one person is picked from that list and they and their truck is featured?

 

Can it be morphed in to truck of the month / member of the month thing? I feel like there are members who while they have not and maybe will not be building an epic trail rig.

This^, plus if you look at the past winners while they may have a nice rigs, the pic will win. Sometimes we're all guilty of wishing I was there, so we vote with our hearts desire to make that trip and not the rig itself.
I've seen some nice two wheel street rigs submitted, but after seeing the results you realize it's a waste of time to enter your truck unless it fits a certain look. So maybe you can have several categories and rotate them monthly. For example, December could be lowered month.
I will submit this rig again. This will make my point. There is no scenery and you have to look at it closely. This guy has more money and work in just his wheel clearance because he refused to do a low budget hack job on his truck, than some have in all their bolt on parts.
Just some thoughts.
Maxacceleration

 

I was just about to launch into a lengthy speech, but I'm going to pause for a moment after seeing shizzy's post...

This is the second time I've seen "Member of the Month" come up as a suggestion and I'm somewhat intrigued by the idea. Ever since I have started running this contest, I constantly get complaints about how TOTM is "always" the built 4WD trucks that go off road and that it isn't fair. There are a lot of members here who are valuable contributors to the forum, but they are never recognized for their efforts. Tweaking the contest would place the emphasis on the member as a whole and not just the vehicle that they drive.

Separating this contest out into different classes (4WD/lifted/off road and 2WD/street) has come up a bunch of times...but unless you guys could talk another moderator into doing it that's simply not happening. If you guys want to keep these "Thing of the Month" contests going in 2016, then I am happy to do it for you. But for personal reasons, there are going to be changes made to the contest that will cause me to need to spend less time on it, not more. The older I get, the more I'm learning not to stretch myself thin, and I'm not sure you guys realize how much time goes into these things. Sorry if that sounds selfish. The last thing I want to do is end up like the last moderator who got burned out doing these and virtually disappeared off the face of the earth.

But enough about me, let's keep going down the path of this "Member of the Month" idea. I'd really like to hear some other thoughts on this (for or against).

 

I hear you on the spreading yourself too thing part. I own / live in an 85 year old Duplex with my disabled Mother in law living in the lower unit, have two jobs and multiple hobbies.

And that, is one reason why I will never have a highly modified truck. Never the time and or money.

Well, I have nominated Chuck a few times because he is a cool cat on this forum and his truck is almost stock. Both times, he never got voted as TOTM - the masses vote how the masses like. Though this sounds like a virtuous idea, I think it will fail.

THis is why I was suggesting the "name in a hat" thing.

But, In the end, I'd say keep it dead simple or eliminate it all together.

 

These are all good ideas and as is now, you can always nominate any member you see fit for any reason. However, as said, it is usually the most extreme 4x4s that win time and time again, but hey, this is a democracy and if that's how the majority wishes to vote, then so be it.

My two cents - I think that the nomination thread needs to be made simple. People can put up as many names as they see fit, no second needed, and then the vote thread just links back to the nomination thread. Therefore, you need to explain who and why you are nominating someone (or yourself) in order to gain votes. Easy peasy. Every quarter isn't a bad idea, either.

 

These are all good ideas and as is now, you can always nominate any member you see fit for any reason. However, as said, it is usually the most extreme 4x4s that win time and time again, but hey, this is a democracy and if that's how the majority wishes to vote, then so be it.

You were typing as I was editing my post. People can nominate or vote for whoever they want either way, but I think the idea here is to put the emphasis on the member (which can include their truck) rather than putting the emphasis on the truck itself.

My two cents - I think that the nomination thread needs to be made simple. People can put up as many names as they see fit, no second needed, and then the vote thread just links back to the nomination thread. Therefore, you need to explain who and why you are nominating someone (or yourself) in order to gain votes. Easy peasy. Every quarter isn't a bad idea, either.

I've already decided to simplify the voting thread. Putting pics in two different threads is redundant and unnecessary.

If we stick with TOTM rather than MOTM, other ideas I'm considering are changing it to a quarterly contest or limiting it to 5 trucks.

 

I like the member of the month, and possibly do it by quarter instead of by month to save time.

An example of this I remember in the past is Suzokie, who is not on here much anymore because his truck got rear ended.

Suzokie noticed a new members post who said they were looking for a truck to buy, but it was too far away from them to look at it.

Suzokie noticed it was near where he was taking a business trip shortly, and took an hour out of his business trip, to find the truck, look at it, and write up a complete review on the the truck with pictures, for this new member.

Suzokie may have never been a candidate for truck of the month, but with member of the month he would at least leave the opportunity to be recognized.

 

Offroad TOTM
Street-Truck TOTM

Realizing most here are into wheeling, some of us are on-road only.

 

Yes, and without my plea there were only two trucks nominated for TOTM as 4x4s. The participation is low, therefore the interest must be low, therefore less work, not more work, is needed for us Mods if the masses do not wish to participate.

 

I think that we could have three categories: TOTM, thread of the month, and member of the month.

TOTM: As mentioned above this seems to focus more on how built up a rig is, so perhaps the mods could tweak the competition a bit each month (or quarter), such as PRETTIEST WHITE TRUCK OF THE MONTH - a totally stock white truck could win this, for example. Another example could be: BEST LOOKING SEATS IN THE HOUSE. Whatever!

The other two categories could simply be DESIGNATED by the mods (and save the headaches of running them as "elections"). I trust my mods to point me to a helpful member, and a useful thread - mods see way more threads than any of us does over the course of a month, so should be most qualified to make these decisions. This should be less work for the mods than having to run two additional elections each month.

 

Maybe just require a minimum number of nominations to participate, then randomly display a different one each month (once you are displayed, you are removed until the others have cycled through)... Then it becomes more of a featured truck/member and less of a competition. Might also draw some of the lurkers out of the shadows as well...

 

I'm liking this idea.

 

Just another idea here....
On the Subaru forum I'm on they do "ride of the month" but its themed and its the opposite over there. Street Roo's are all to common and the off road guys always got left out so they have a different theme each month. Ones I can think of were "Show your roo getting dirty", "show your roo at a car meet", "show your roo doing work", etc. It makes it interesting each month as the variety on mods is very different each month with members from all walks of life.

Link: http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/f141/

I do like the member one though as I agree with the others that there are some awesome people here that have stockish trucks that don't seem to get much love when pitted against the super modded.

 

Despite the fact that my brain is about to explode from all the different suggestions, I'm pleased with the variety and creativity that is being displayed here.

 

I like the themed idea a lot!

What if we kept the structure the same but added a category kind of thing. (I know it's been mentioned but I'd like to tweak the idea). What if we still have the same TOTM structure but did one for 2wd and one for 4x4. So really TOTM would be shared. This way we get the sweet built 4x's and then others, like me, who have less built 2wd's won't be as scared to get it the running. Plus this would open up the categories to more than off road. For example with the addition of a 2wd category the simpler off road trucks would be in the running against street trucks.

 

I also like the themed idea, changing it up every month, randomizing the theme for each months TOTM, but figuring out something to hinge it on, might be the challenge there.

As far as MOTM, I like it! But what do you base that on?
Threads started?
Number of posts?
Likes on their posts?
Hard to measure the amount of helpful contributions...
I think a random MOTM might be the easiest, with a random group of 5-10 member's names drawn from a hat, each one maybe filling out a 5-question "about me" style interview form posted and maybe voted on, or if you don't like voting, how about if the finalist is just randomly selected, from another hat?
Seems like more work for the mods (sorry!), but what do you think?

It all gets a little overwhelming, and makes me respect the Mods that much more, for having the patience to deal with all this...

 

I edited the first post as well, so that new members will understand from the get-go what is happening here. Also added a picture to not mess up the Home page.

 

Also added a picture to not mess up the Home page.

Whoops, did I mess up the home page? I suppose I could have placed this thread in a different section.

 

Just an idea here... eliminate truck of the month since honestly I haven't seen much interest in it lately. However, make a showcase of the month where people just post up their builds with recent pics and current mods/ future mods. That way members can see everyones "awesome and new" builds all on the same page per month?

 

Not a bad idea - perhaps ask people who may want a featured truck, though. Otherwise, people may ask questions to an inactive user.

 

Lngrn36 has a good point in saying each month of the year could be a different catagory to eliminate overload. But what catagories? It would have to be twelve different catagories.
Jen, I think we should include a moderator of the month. MOM. LOL.

 

It could be like, Performance Mod of the month January, Interior Mod of the Month February, Best exterior mod of the month March, Best wheel tire combo of the month April, Best Lift of the month May, Best Off road climb of the month video June, Member of the month, July, Moderator of the month, August, and to make it easier we could just use the "thank button" as our vote or is that too facebook?

 

The thanks idea also allows easier voting from the autoguide app.

Here is another idea.

In December, have a nomination/vote thread for all of the ideas for different categories for 2016. Examples of categories could be member of the month, trip/photo of the month, lifted 4x of the month, non-lifted truck of the month, etc, snow truck pic of the month, and some others mentioned above.

Have everyone vote on the categories for the up coming year 2016, so we know in advance what is coming for the year. The top 12 or top 4 (if quarterly contest is used) categories are the ones that will be used.

The issue with the categories though, is they have to be generic enough to provide the opportunity for easy nominations.

 

The thanks idea also allows easier voting from the autoguide app.

Indeed it does. I'm one of those weirdos who does 95% of my browsing from a smartphone, but I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

 

I'm getting my threads mixed up and repeating myself. :laugh:

How important is voting to members? We generally get about 60 people that vote, from thousands of members. Is it imperative to vote, or have free reign to nominate?

Perhaps I should add a poll to vote on this thread to prove the point?

 

I'm getting my threads mixed up and repeating myself. :laugh:

Then move the private discussion I started here, or forget about it altogether and just post all your opinions here...I don't care. The mod squad doesn't do these contests for ourselves anyway, we do them for all these other guys.

 

Naww you didn't.

 

Here's why I am in favour of ditching the voting (this was said to Jenn in private, but let's air it all out here):

Very few people actually vote. It is a lot of work to create the threads, monitor, then close, make an announcement thread etc to cater to 50 or so people that do vote - out of 62,000 members. Which leads to....

Most often it is the 4x4 shots that win, and eventually, as discussed, others do not even wish to participate because it can be a little embarrassing to always get nominated and not get any votes. In fact, sometimes I will edit the poll and add at least one vote to a member that has been sitting at zero votes for a while - people that nominate that member don't even vote for them. That's gotta hurt a little.

If the voting was gone, it was strictly a lotto, I think a lot more members would participate in the themed TOTM as everyone would have an equal chance to win. And overall, we want more member forum participation, that's why we come to this site.

And that is why I think voting should be ditched, I really see no down side but hey, you know what they say about opinions....everyone has one. ::grin::

 

I'm guessing the 62,000 are not active members (members who log in once a week or more), but regardless the voting turnout is pretty sad regardless of what the real % is. I've always been surprised at this, especially since a first nomination is a lot harder, finding a good picture, etc.. Voting is much easier.

You make a great point on the zero vote example, that is important and probably overlooked a lot of the time.

Remind us of the capabilities that you mods have, is it only featuring a thread that shows the first picture? If you have more advanced capabilities like being able to load multiple pictures and cycle through them through the day/month AUTOMATICALLY, without extra work from you guys, then I would show all the nominations.

If your capabilities are limited, than the lotto idea does make good sense.

 

I've only been a member for a few short months, but I love this site, I love all the information available, and so I decided to become a lifetime member, to support it.

I know I made a comment that may have started a lot of this, so I do have to apologize for that, but I really like all the suggestions that I'm seeing.
The mods know this site far better than I do, see far more than I do, oh and by the way, thanks for adding that extra vote to my last TOTM entry, Zed! Lol

62000 members?!? WOW!
And only 1% participate?
That's just sad...

So yeah, something definitely needs to be addressed.
The lottery is cool, I like that idea, and it gives a much better chance to those who normally wouldn't be brave enough to enter, especially if you randomize themes in a way to include a wider variety of bone stock, nothing-stock-about-it, 2WD, 4x4, lifted, non-lifted, modded, & non-modded trucks...

 

I've only been a member for a few short months, but I love this site, I love all the information available, and so I decided to become a lifetime member, to support it.

I know I made a comment that may have started a lot of this, so I do have to apologize for that, but I really like all the suggestions that I'm seeing.
The mods know this site far better than I do, see far more than I do, oh and by the way, thanks for adding that extra vote to my last TOTM entry, Zed! Lol

62000 members?!? WOW!
And only 1% participate?
That's just sad...
::wink::
So yeah, something definitely needs to be addressed.
The lottery is cool, I like that idea, and it gives a much better chance to those who normally wouldn't be brave enough to enter, especially if you randomize themes in a way to include a wider variety of bone stock, nothing-stock-about-it, 2WD, 4x4, lifted, non-lifted, modded, & non-modded trucks...

You're welcome, and thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I'm liking what I'm hearing . Just to add - 60 members of 62,000 = 0.09% members voting.

I vote themed monthly photo contests with lotto as selection and quarterly member recognition

Thanks. I'm leaning this way as well.

 

I vote themed monthly photo contests with lotto as selection and quarterly member recognition

 

I like this idea to replace truck of the month with "photo of the month" the focus would shift from the "build" of the truck to what environment it is in. This would level the field a bit though likely this would mean off road shots in the mountains etc would probably win, but there are some great shots in urban areas that I have seen.

This could just be as simple as post a photo in the "what have you done..." thread the one with the most likes or thanks (it seems likes are replaced by thanks here most of the time though I guess its confusing to have both options) gets a thread made to show it maybe with a further blurb about it.

Could also do "post of the month" with a similar format.

My 2C.

 

Jen do you have problems attaching jpg files on photobucket? Every time I try to attach a file using my iPhone 6+ (now with the new ios9) the whole page (in safari) exits. I've tried many times with the same result for months now..

 

Let's keep this on topic, please. There is a forum for site issues.