For the next contest we need ideas on what you would like it to be about, initial thoughts are revolving around the "Your favourite ..." theme but other ideas ae welcome.

Please note this will be an Open Designs contest and not externally sponsered.

In the spirit of open source... "Your Local Community Website"

Industrial design has always been challenging for me, I think it would be fun to try something along those lines.

OR...

A better version of your local government website. Most small local government websites suck.

By the way, the title of the discussion is misleading. I came in looking for Lorem Ipsum comments!

Desk layouts (the template is based on a desk). Those are always sexii, and I haven't done something like that for a while.. (I'm getting rusty).

gallery or e-commerce themes

I really like the idea of doing a contest for charity.

Posted By: gnome.. or designs which look like newspapers, with extra emphasis on typography and readability.

All posted ideas sound great but I especially like this idea .. newspaperlook.

Did this thread die?

Almost died and got revived somehow, I check the forum almost daily and missed this one.

I think the OD garden idea is fantastic...

Maybe before we come up with a theme we should sort out the rules and how to make the contest work...lets get a commitment first that it is going ahead and that it will work.

Pete

Should they only be like those amounts or should they be the actual amounts?

just taking the p*** Kirby ;)

The OD Garden idea sounds good

When this thread started, I was holding my breath for a contest but then I turned blue, fell unconscious and vowed never to do it again... ok. maybe just one more time... here we go!... GULP!

Posted By: gregi'll keep the respirator close by, i think you'll be needing it

yeah, discouraging, to say the least.

I've had a hidden forum active now for several years. There aren't very many members registered there, but these are people I used to know from a couple of MLM bix-opps we were all involved with years ago. We all remained friends and I let that forum continue for them. I make an effort to communicate with them at least once a week...despite how busy I may be, or whatever personal stuff is going on in my life.

Perhaps, it's time to remind admin, that it is the members that make a community great, and if admin chooses to neglect the members, then the members will move on to other things, and will not be as loyal as they could be. I'm sorry if that statement sounds rather harsh, but that is how I feel. Mods, please do not spank me for this!

i agree as well karen but i'm tired of asking to be honest...thats why i dont bother coming around here much anymore. i find the lack of communication frustrating and i dont want to beat the admins up verbally about it so i stay away. i used to come here a few times a day but now i might visit once a week.

the OR contest was a disaster and it still hasn't been made 'right' even though i think the majority of the members here want the money given back in a contest.

i mean why the hell are we mods anyways? to correct spelling mistakes in the forums? i personally did it because i wanted to keep an eye on the site so the same thing didn't happen all over again that happened at OSWD and then openwebdesign...well, it doesn't look good and we have zero control here. i'm not accusing anyone of hijacking the site yet but as i have said many times there needs to be changes in the power structure (not necessarily who's in charge).

as far as i know the screenshots of income still haven't been made available to the mods and i've asked several times. there's an old thread around here about that but i'm not looking for it.

yes, i'm in a bad mood and just happened to drop by

We've all said it before... there's only one thing worse than no promises... and that's a broken promise. To Sean and all the other admins, PLEASE don't make a promise/suggestion/offer without being able to do it, or if you can't at least have the courtesy to pop by and explain why you can't do it.

In any case I think it is time for OD to give a big hearty thankyou to those who made this site, put their names on the front page in their honour and move on by holding an election for a new panel of admins, and maybe with a constitution of sorts. I think it's time for the admins to recognize when it's time to let go and for the good of the community leave it to others who can keep it growing.

Should this be a new thread?

Pete

Sean, your post needs some answering...

When I said "If needed, I can use the Kontera money for some sort of a mini contest prize... it's not a lot but better then nothing", that is something I do have control over and can do.

I didn't think I mentioned anything about prize money?

I am not the sort of person/admin to make promises and not follow through.

Maybe that one is best left between me and you and you know what.

I do what I can, when I can but with this site, there are other admins involved and other members as well. It's not so simple cut and dry like you suggest.

You didn't address my "... at least have the courtesy to pop by and explain why you can't do it" part. I just think it's out of line for Chris to have started this thread and then leave it unanswered. Surely you agree it would have been better off not even started rather than build up hopes. To me that's pretty simple.

The other example was many of us asking for extra features (most popular template/voting etc.) to be implemented and nothing happens until there's a mini uprising in this forum. Members were falling over themselves to help and they were more or less totally ignored.

As well we still aren't getting regular transparent reports on our ad revenue s. Like we all want!

Your statement "I think it's time for the admins to recognize when it's time to let go and for the good of the community leave it to others who can keep it growing" sort of rubbed me the wrong way, especially after my history and contributions to the open source community since early 2000.

Of course it rubbed you the wrong way Sean. I think you see this site as your site rather than the community's. We can only blow the wind up you so much and say thanks for your help, but it doesn't take away from the fact that this site would do well with new blood with new ideas and new motivation.

That in no way undermines what you have done... And if you think it does then i'm afraid that's one for you to sort out in your own mind. If you're going to rationalize the reason why you should stay as to the past rather than the future then you'll always justify not allowing new admins.

I've been a part of this community since 2002, on OSWD, then OWD then being a founding member of OD.

So what? I was a Ambulance Paramedic for many years and saved many lives, I now care for severely disabled people and I volunteer my time for many other causes... but the world owes me nothing nor do I expect or want anything in return. You volunteered and as far as I know you didn't place a condition on it that you decide what happens on this site's future.

Not sure if you remember but 6 months before OD started, I was pretty much the only person keeping OWD alive (being an admin) with updates of designs and trying to communicate with the members about the site status in the forums as well as direct communication with Aaron (original owner of OWD) and Shay the guy who purchased the site.

Sorry Sean but you're losing track of what the members are trying say to you if you keep on falling back to the old "but look what i done". You'll find we'll get sick and tired of saying "thanks so much". Let's move on.

If I was to let something go or wasn't able to keep things going, I wouldn't be there then or here today.

It's not about just keeping things going, it's about moving forward with the members.

I've actually considered stepping down from being an admin here multiple times and for good reason. The majority of people only see the surface stuff and think it's just easy to run a site like this, build things, keep the peace, etc... but it's not. Blood, sweat and tears go into it and it's definitely not something for the faint at heart.

I know you have thought about it, you've actually said it in this forum before.

Believe or not the job of the admin is to take the burden of the other stuff and leave the surface stuff to the members, it's what you volunteered for. But there are others out there also able to do it and as a community we should be able to decide on who we want to do it. Hell, they may be better at it than you Sean?

Yes I know blood, sweat and tears go into it... yadda yadda, and that's it's not for the faint hearted... yadda, yadda. Technically it would beat me hands down, emotionally/mentally it wouldn't compare to resuscitating a young child who's just been hit by a car. my point being you have my thanks(and always will) but you don't have my pity. In other words, if the members think they would like others to run this show, why would you want to stop that from happening... after all it's about the site not you.

Cheers Pete

@Pete: I do understand you and others, along with the frustrations going on with the site.

I know you didn't mention prize money but you did mention admins making promises and not following through for the site, which is why I brought up the Kontera money.

With that, a contest could be held. I know people are upset about the first contest being messed up with the whole host sponsored contest with rules for it being ok for them to pull out.

Why I mentioned the Kontera money is I can make a promise and say we can have a contest and use that money for a prize. That would show come creditability for at least one admin saying something and following through.

As for your comment "I think you see this site as your site rather than the community's" is just crazy.

For one, if it was my site, a lot of these technical issues wouldn't be happening. When I hosted the OD site in the beginning, we could make changes, fix things, including server issues within seconds.

Now, with the donated hosting from OpenReactions, it's up and down. Sometimes we can't log into SFTP or the database, sometimes the site runs slow, trying to move files over when SFTP or a database server isn't playing nice doesn't help and causes more issues with not all files or data moving over.

I do not own this site. I do not own the domain name. Never have and never will.

Most of the issues and feature requests are easy but with the above issues, it is hard to fix.

I know Joe has been looking into this. He has control of the domain name and the hosting for OD. Christopher and I do not. I personally want Joe to chime in on this. I've emailed him. Got one small reply and now waiting for another.

Bottom line without going on and on in this reply. I feel everyone's pain with all of this. Part of why it's frustrating for me being able to fix things but can't with technical issues.

Christopher is an amazing and very helpful admin. Joe is also good when he's around or answers emails.

When all of this gets fixed, I am going to step down as admin no questions asked. The idea of OD was a good one, but there are so many factors which have all been brought up over the life of the site that I personally feel it can't ever truly be run as a community owned site. Someone will always need to have control, at least the way things are built and set up now.

@Pete: just to follow up one more time, my last few comments around the site are exactly what you asked... for an admin to speak up and let people know what's going on.

Hopefully though all the yadda yadda you were able to read between the lines and see that.

Peace, love and bakies to all

@JeremyD: Joe was in talks with a few different hosts, so he will need to get that resolved. He also has control of the domain name, so if/when OD gets a new host, he would need to make the DNS name server changes.

Thank you for your continued support as well.

Kontera ads will be going away. Google ads are generating a lot more, so soon as I can get proper access to the server, I'll zap the Kontera ads.

@Karen: This current issue isn't why I will be stepping down and I'm really not that upset.

I've been through all the ups and downs now with 3 design sites over a 6-7 year period. It takes a lot of of a person and I'm wanting to do other things and put my energies elsewhere...

Don't think because soon I won't be an admin anymore I won't be around the site or helping people, etc... I'll still be around... just maybe taking on a different roll as just a user and member... and let others help with putting out fires and the such.

As of now I am still an admin and I won't step down until we do get a few things sorted... so rest assured I'm still here, active and doing what I can to help with OD and the Open Source community.

Yugnats: email joe about hosting if you want to get involved, and I also think that moderators should have more power (aproving designs, posting news, while admins have more power to do things on their own).
mark all posts read: That pluggin is nearly devoid of comments, making it imposssible to identify the error. Bob posted a link to a new version coded by someone else, which provides the same functionality.
Sean: We'll be sad to see you go.