Hey everyone.

So I'm wanting to do a skinning contest, and will actually be doing one. I haven't worked out the details, so I'm looking for some feedback from everyone here.

The idea is, out of my pocket I wanna put up $200.00 bucks for the winnner...winner takes all.

I've set up the demo portals module to allow free automatic portals on my site, with skin upload permissions available to the portals. Am I opening myself up to a big headache?  I Have nothign really all that important on the server yet anyhow, so my theory is, if for some reason someone can take advantage of my server and somehow crash it with a malicious skin, big whoop, I'll just reinstall it :->...

More importantly...Does anyone know the legalities of my offering 200 bucks (US) to anyone in the world who I decide wins, or who is voted a winnner by community( I havne't decided how to safely allow fair voting yet, this is why I say "if I decided..I'd rather have the community decide, but don't want someone voting theres a bunch).

Anyhow you can get the free portal now, and you can skin a site if you want for fun.  You can be certain that I WILL announce a official end date with a 200 buck prize..I just wanna hammer out hte details before say the words "officially announced" so I don't end up getting sued or something.

Let me know...If you've read my posts here before, you can tell I'm just a normal guy, loving this DNN, and looking to create some fun stuff, and get some creative skins out of the community.

BTW the one rule I do know is that I"m giong to require that when you submit your demo skinned site, that the skin/template will have to include some open source licenense that allows the community to HAVE it.  I don't plan to keep the rights to them myself, but I do want the the world to get em free.

Any ideas, or recomendations, or warnings?

thanks

Josh

Josh Martin

I like your idea alot, I'm not sure what you are meaning my core module skinning though.  Assuming you mean containers too.

How about this though.  Lets eliminate the non-container levels, and require containers for all...'cause IMO a skin without a container design is incomplete...instead we could do.

75.00 for winning portal skin + skinning core modules : non css/xhtml compliant(tables ok)

125.00for winning portal skin + skinning core modules : css/xhtml compliant(tableless)

I was trying to think of a way, and you are helping with that....of rewarding the newbies too....the people who aren't quite up to full css/xhtml and tableless design, but are graphically talented.  How can we reward someone for just good flow, good use of the "color wheel' etc etc.  Well I guess someone with good use of color, and design techniques will win either way.

So the question is...how to keep it fair.  I would like the community to vote, but want to reduce the chances in someone voting for themselves over and over.  I could require registration and track votes by ID, but then the number of votes will be reduced significantly.

Know any good voting modules that track IPs to prevent duplicates?

Josh Martin

I like the initiative. I'm still using the Tranquility skin that Tyler Fawcett won the old skinning contest with.

However, I have a few suggestions:

• Let people and companies donate money to the prize pot
  • Let donaters decide if they want their name and/or the donation to be listed publicly
  • Have DNN Corp handle the money
• Set best practice goals, for instance:
  • xhtml compliance
  • include containers and, if necessary, an admin skin
  • easy to customize by changing images and setting different colors
  • under a certain file size
• Mod the competition portal to be xhtml compliant
• Let it be up to each voter how they weight possible best practice shortcomings against the overall artistic impression
• Distribute money between 1st through 5th place by a ratio, for instance 50, 20, 15, 10, 5 %

\tom