"Best Wiki Contributor" & "Best Garden Design": competition & call for sponsors

"Best Wiki Contributor" & "Best Garden Design": competition & call for sponsors

[Mojca Miklavec]

Dear ConTeXt-ers,

I've been thinking for a long time (even before the first ConTeXt user
meeting) to organize a little competition to:
- promote more wiki/texshow contributions
- renew the complete garden design

I'm ready to provide the first prize:
- free participation at the ConTeXt conference (Bohinj, sLOVEnija,
20.-25. August 2008)
- and perhaps TeX user groups could offer one-year membership for some?

But now I need:
- your ideas and opinions about other prizes and rules
- any sponsors / companies who are willing to donate other prizes

*** CALL FOR SPONSORS ***

If you're working in a company which works with ConTeXt, and you would
be ready to help sponsoring that competition by providing prizes for
best contributors/designers or for Patrick's work on the garden,
please let me know.

We could put logo of your company on the garden page(s) and announce
that you have helped us. The details could/should be negotiated later,
but please let me just know about it if anyone is interested in it ...

(If anyone is interested in looking for sponsors, you're welcome as well.)

*** BEST GARDEN DESIGN ***

We have:

wiki:
- http://wiki.contextgarden.net
source browser:
- http://source.contextgarden.net
texshow:
- http://texshow.contextgarden.net
mail archive (not really to be considered for redesign):
- http://archive.contextgarden.net
context live:
- http://live.contextgarden.net
modules and articles:
- http://modules.contextgarden.net & http://articles.contextgarden.net
download area (not so critical for redesigning):
- http://dl.contextgarden.ne
meeting page (unfinished and not-yet-announced):
- http://meeting.contextgarden.net
google custom search:
- try to put some search string in the second box on the left on wiki

Patrick did a great job provide all the functionality on the garden,
but we would like to provide some nice and consistent design for all
of these modules. Patrick could probably apply the design by himself
(or someone could help him), so the most important thing would be:
find color & image combinations which would look nice on all modules
and promote ConTeXt.

My first idea was to offer a free context conference to the "best wiki
contributor". Hans suggests the same prize for best garden design.
However:
- to have one or to have two such prizes doesn't make sooo big
difference that this would be unaffordable, but I still cannot afford
to provide unlimited free conference fees before I know if I will be
able to get enough local sponsors to cover all the costs
- the designer could be just anyone, not necessary interested in
ConTeXt, and not necessary interested in comming to the ConTeXt
conference at all

To determine the winner, we could post all the submissions to the
mailing list and ask for general opinions + have a jury (Hans, Taco,
Patrick + some other volunteers/professional designers).

I would also suggest that someone would make a poster asking for
contributors, which could theoretically be hung up even on public
places (I can imagine hanging one at our facult for design for
example).

My questions:
- what do you think the most appropriate prize should be?
- how long should we wait?
- what to do if we don't find a suitable design?
- etc. etc.

*** BEST WIKI CONTRIBUTOR ***

I'm looking for your ideas here.

We certainly need:
- more, better and better organized contents on the garden
- basically the whole texshow in empty
- new test files

The problem is that:
- texshow has problems (problems parsing the strings, no
authentification, no nice overview of modifications, etc.)
- texshow needs better support for common attributes (think of
style=bold|slanted|italic|... which has the same arguments on more
places)
- there should be an easier way to submit and test testcases than the
current contexttest project on supelec

We should support continuos work. For example by announcing best
monthly contributor, and also to make the job of the jury easier
(whoever the jury would be).

Other questions:
- what if there will be noone to deserve the prize?
- what if there will be three people with approximately the same big
efforts? (I don't fear that, but we should write some basic rules to
avoid problems later)
- what if that person won't be able to attend the meeting?

The wiki competition will probably close in June. I don't know about
the other one.

++++++++++++++++++++

I'm simply looking for ideas at the moment, I will announce the
competition when I will have a more clear idea what exactly to
announce. Anyone who would like to help "organizing" the cometition:
you're welcome to help!

Mojca
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If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
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