Re: Splash screen contest

[Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>]

On Tue, 2005-02-22 at 20:15 +0100, David Neary wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thomas Wood wrote:
> > Since it seems unlikely we'll be able to use the CGI scripts, I've 
> > created a stub on the wiki for a contest.
> >
> > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt_2fSplashScreenContest
> >
> > If people could add anything that I've missed off, then I can announce 
> > it on art.gnome.org when it's ready.
>
> Ah, well, the folly of youth.

Well, it seemed to be either the wiki or nothing - someone needed to be
proactive here. 

> The wiki is not appropriate for this kind of competition if you
> ask people to attach their art-work. If you ask them to link to
> their art-work, it could work, but if it gets slashdotted, you're
> still in for huge concurrency issues - the wiki is not intended
> for 100 people or more editing the same page at the same time.

Not an ideal solution I agree, but it was the only viable one suggested.

> I know Jeff's not particularly worried about that, but I have no
> capital invested either way. If you're happy using the wiki with
> external links, and the wiki sysadmins are happy too, then fine.
>
> The CGI scripts are really simple. For submissions, all that you 
> do is upload, save, write a row in a table in the database. I 
> think there's a thumbnail generation in there too...
>
> The gallery is really straightforward - you read the table in the
> database, and dump HTML based on it. All images are served
> statically. The only server side work is the database.
>
> They have also withstood at least 2 slashdottings until now,
> which is a testament to their robustness.
>
> I can understand the gnome.org sysadmins wanting to security
> audit things - particularly after last March - so perhaps it
> would be best top run this on another web server.

Perhaps this is the only other option, but I don't know anyone who could
host the scripts. Could we host the splash contest at gimp.org?

> The alternative that someone mentioned recently is to manually
> manage the entries via a mailing list. For GUADEC abstracts, this
> can work fine. For the logo competition, which had a relatively
> small number of entries (around 100), it made the mailing list
> unusable for a month, and took one person 2 full days to collate
> the lot into one page afterwards. I really don't think this would
> be a workable solution for a competition with potential mass
> appeal.
>
> As I said to Toady though when he asked, competitions like this
> usually get done because someone announces a sub-optimal 
> solution, and then in the crisis it's all hands on deck. That's 
> what happened for the GIMP splash contest. I hope it's avoidable, 
> though :)


I could handle the submisions by e-mail, but I'm sure everyone would
prefer a more automated and open system. You're right though, nothing
gets done unless someone has a go - and that was simply what I was
trying to do :-)

-Thomas