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Seth Dillingham
29/3/2006
@ 7:41 PM
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About the Conversant Patterns Contest
"What's This Pattern Contest I Heard About?"
Categories and Prizes | Rules
It's an open challenge to create some great new designs for Conversant sites.
You create a new Conversant site, give it a cool look and some great features. Create a pattern file with the built-in wizard. Submit your pattern here.
There are three prizes available, one each for the best patterns in three different categories. Each category has a different sponsor!
We've tried to keep the rules and categories fairly simple.
Business Blog
Prize: 60 GB iPod and $50 iTunes Gift Certificate
Description: The pattern which is the most useful to business bloggers will win the top prize. This means flexible page design, easy and flexible display of complementary content (flickr photo-streams, rss reeds, blog-rolls, etc), user-friendly, standards support, cross-browser compatible. "Business friendly" does not mean boring.
Want more details on this category?
General Use
Prize: 30 GB iPod
Description: Visually appealing, shows off some of Conversant's unique features, and easy for new users to understand and administer. If your pattern meets that description, you'll have a good shot at this prize.
Most Modern
Prize: One year free Conversant hosting under the "Domains Hosting" plan
Description: This category is for anybody feeling edgy and playful. Go all-CSS. Use AJAX techniques wherever it makes sense. Push the limits as far as you want. Keep it appealing and attractive, stylish and thematic. Do it right and you could win a year of free hosting! (Note: we'll even help you with this stuff, if you run into difficulty. Post your questions on the support site.)
To win one of the prizes, you'll have to follow these rules:
- sponsors, their employees and families may not enter the contest, but everyone else is welcome
- you may enter as many patterns as you wish
- all patterns must include:
- a weblog on the home page (made from a Weblog II page)
- link to the rss feed
- discussion area (at least for weblog comments)
- search engine (via AQP)
- full description in the pattern file
- screen-shot preview image in the pattern file
- look both ways before crossing the road
- you may revise your pattern submissions as often as you like
- decisions of the judges are final
- Macrobyte gets royalty-free, non-expiring permission to use any patterns submitted for the contest in free-conversant or to distribute for others to use on their own sites and/or Conversant servers. (For example, your pattern might be offered to new users when they set up a site.) Macrobyte is not under any obligation to use any patterns submitted by anyone.
- brush your teeth after every meal
- no adult-themed patterns will be accepted
- each pattern will be reviewed for completeness and 'appropriateness' before being made available on the contest site
- the contest will end at 12:01 AM on June 1, 2006, or two weeks after the twelfth pattern is submitted (whichever is later)
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Seth Dillingham
6/4/2006
@ 1:47 PM
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Requirements for Top Prize
Details on the "Business Blog" Prize Category
Overall Goals
These are not required items for the pattern contest. They are the overall design goals, intended to guide you towards creating the best pattern.
See the end of this page for helpful tips on winning the 60 GB iPod and $50 iTunes gift certificate (the top prize in this contest).
- friendly to new admins: keep template and resource names obvious, include the wysywig editor whenever possible, don't assume any web-site-management experience
- business-friendly but not business-boring
- flexible page designs that accommodate additions like flickr photo streams, blogrolls, and other "list-based" renderings in the margins
- standards-compliant when possible, but don't be anal about it
- home page is a Weblog II page
- friendly to optically-challenged users. Users with poor eyesight should have no problem telling links from regular text. Use underlines and colors to keep them clearly identified. Float-effects are fine, but links (especially links in the main text) should be clearly identified before the user points at the link.
- Base discussion area on a fullThread page, but include clean designs for traditional message viewing and editing.
- topics page similar to what is found on the support site
- [optional] "Catalog view" - a way to display short product descriptions, small photos, and links to more info and purchase points
- [optional] Alternative (but related) full-page and Bound URL templates for specific pages and sub-directories of the site.
How to Win!
The winner of the top prize will be the pattern which best meets the above requirements, with an emphasis on:
- overall creativity and flexibility
- appeal and applicability to professional and business users (weblog on home page, easy and flexible display of complementary content)
- user-friendly behavior
- standards support and cross-browser compatibility
- We could include links to some of your pages as references for some of the points in those lists, if you like, but emphasize that we're not looking for clones and the approach that was used may not be the best.
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kishorekumar
24/3/2007
@ 2:41 AM
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RE: About the Conversant Patterns Contest
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