The Competitions Department

[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
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" 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 (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.