I hope if you do future skin contests, that you will take into consideration other countries special occassions too.
For example, an Autumn/Harvest/Thanksgiving one could be used for both Canadian and American Thanksgivings, but because ours takes place prior to Halloween in early Oct, the contest would have to be held earlier. The skins could then be utilized again for the American holiday which is very late in Nov.
Does Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan and all the other places that members are from have some of the same holidays as we do here in North America? Albeit a few are at different times, like the Thanksgiving one, but we do celebrate a lot of them at the same time of year.
Amercia has Memorial Day, we have Victoria Day and they are usually 2 different consecutive weekends. Maybe we could compile a listing of the holidays celebrated in the various countries?
If anyone is caught cheating they should be disqualified. Also, contestants and the members from their group should refrain upon posting tragic/personal stories attempting to sway voters as to why we should vote for a particular group/skin as we all have a story to share and they do not belong on the vote threads. Another thing that would be nice would be to lock the vote thread so people can easily find the post needed to vote and make another string for all the I voteds etc....
We don't have Thanksgiving in Australia, or Halloween although a very few dress up, mainly children, only because they've seen it on TV, it's not real big here. No one comes trick or treating.
British day in the UK is held on July 12th each year......erm.....oh......er......oh apparantly that is my birthday, not a national holiday...well it should be IMO. >>>>>>>legs it>>>>>>>
But you do have some Anzac Day or something Babs, not sure if I spelled it right, but it's in rememberance of the Aussies, New Zealanders, someone else and Newfoundlanders that fought the battle at Tripoli. I remember doing a page up for one of my New Zealand members, she asked me to make it for her New Zealand group. So there are different holidays we could do for other countries and yes Karrier, one for your birthday too! LMAO
ANZAC Day – 25 April – is probably Australia's most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day. More here.
Based on what occured in the 4th of July skin contest, I have 3 suggestions for future contests...
1) Aimoo needs to do a better job of monitoring and weeding out votes coming from the people voting multiple times under different Aimoo usernames in order to pad the votes for their forum's entry. Since Aimoo has demonstrated that they have the abilty to do this after this voting practice was pointed out to them, it shouldn't be that difficult for Aimoo to do a better job of this in the next contest.
2) When multiple voting is discovered, and if those votes are coming from forum members who have an entry in a contest, then Aimoo should immediately disqualify that entry. The entry in question should not be "rewarded" for this voting tactic by allowing their entry to continue in the contest and to receive "Distinguished Designer" awards or free Diamond service as a prize. This is an insult to those who have entered and competed fairly in the contest and it will certainly discourage people from entering future contests.
3) Aimoo needs to address voter bias. Entries from small forums cannot compete fairly with larger forums due to the higher number of forum members that can be mobilized to vote for their forum's entry. Aimoo should consider making any member of a forum that has an entry ineligible to vote in the contest. This will help remove the biased voting and level the playing field so that each entry can stand and be fairly judged on theme/artistic merit alone.
