What shall become of SOTW?

In February last year (and months prior to that) I faced the reality that if action was not taken to restore livelihood to the Signature of the Week competition, it would end. I made the difficult choice of retiring the SOTW Judges; not at all a decision taken lightly. Judges were an integral part of the competition operations, having been present from the very beginning. Not only from the beginning of SOTW but from practically the very beginning of the community itself; SOTW predates the Informer and even the podcast. In my opinion, involving all of you guys in deciding weekly winners, as opposed to exclusivity, was the way to go - and in hindsight it was the right decision. Bias among votes is irrelevant, as is whether wins are based on skill or popularity. Would you rather have seen SOTW just... die?

This, chaps, is a decision that I am faced with again. My question to you: is it worth prolonging the inevitable? And if it is, what are we to do?

In other words, I need some ideas.

I think the site has simply moved in another direction. Art really isn't a thing here anymore. Neither are sigs.

I could come up with ideas but there really aren't many sig makers or artists here anymore so I believe it'd probably be wasted good ideas or not. Maybe a revamp of it would get people interested and at least trying to make sigs..can't see it tho.

Would it be better if instead of having SOTW, we just had SOTM? I know SOTM existed for some time, but I don't know where it went. If people had more time to create a signature, there would definitely be an increase in the amount of sigs received.

Well, I've never been into SOTW that much myself, but I think it would be worth keeping as long as people kept participating. I like the SOTM idea. If you give people more time to come up with a sig, I think there would be a change in the number of participants for the better. I also understand what Kenny is saying in that SOTW would just be so changed that it wouldn't the same thing anymore. It's kind of like one of Aesop's fables where a man's boat needs to be fixed. Whenever a plank is no longer usable, he replaces it with a new one until all the planks of the boat are replaced. Is it still the same boat as when he first began? Sure, it was nice to remember SOTW the way it was, but I think if people really want to keep it and keep participating, every attempt should be made to keep it as close to the way it was. Otherwise, I agree with Kenny that maybe it should be dropped entirely.

Speaking as an ex-judge, someone who entered regularly when it was in it's prime (around week 80 onwards) and someone who's been entering recently. If SOTW were to be changed to SOTM I think I'd simply lose track of the threads, I know if it's monthly I wouldn't check back very often, or I'd just think to myself "I've got a month to enter, I'll make a sig some other time...". I also don't think you'd get many more entries than a SOTW anyway. A week is plenty of time for anyone who wants to enter, most people get their sigs in the thread within the first few days of it being posted.
I think unless you can totally rework it into a different direction (I've no idea how) then simply extending the deadline from a week to a month isn't going to do anything. Rsbandb has lost it's graphic designers. My suggestion would be to simply stop for now, Chief, you're just wasting time that can be better spent on other things sorting out all SOTW threads and the database while only getting 2 or 3 entrants. I'd say keep Graphics Central and if it were to ever pick up again (because that's pretty dead aswell now) then ask the community if they'd like SOTW to return, but until then it's rather pointless carrying on.

I used to love making signatures. I still do, but I have never had time since I got into highschool. The truth is that we that actually do want to do it are either gone or busy. I think the SOTM is a good idea. You wouldn't have to work on it so much and just have small traffic flow in. I might try and tip in some times. I would hate to see it die altogether though.

Why does it have to be based on time so much? Calling it "sig of the whatever amount of time" just puts a huge limit on it, which looks incredibly bad when not many people enter for a time. Just make the thread, wait until it gets 4-5 sig entries, then put it up for voting. Simple. Of course, we would need to think of a catchy name if we did do that...

Perhaps to encourage creativity, we could abolish the "1 sig per person" rule.

'Sigs of the Unlimited Period of Time That Will Be Put Up For Voting Frequently' or SOTUPOTTWBPUFVF

Two cookies. Such a great name, it just flows right off of the tongue