The 10,000-Map Challenge

[origami_alligator]

I present this 10,000-Map Challenge. A couple years ago on NUMA we were experiencing about 80-150 maps PER DAY. 10,000 maps could easily be done in 100 days. At the rate we're going it will take us more than 3 years. Fortunately for us, we have a little over 100 days to complete this before the year is over.

If this contest takes off, which I hope it will, every so often I will post a few different themes on the front page of NUMA which you can use to help craft your maps.

You might be wondering what's in it for you. I will tell you right now.
For every 100 maps, the person who submitted the 100th map will receive a custom title. If you already have a custom title, I'll give you ad-free browsing, and if you already have both I'll give you something free over your email. For every 1,000 maps, the person who submitted the 1,000th map will receive the option to write their own Review in addition to the 100-map checkpoint prizes. If you are already a Reviewer, you have the option of having one of your maps Reviewed in lieu of the prizes for the 100-map checkpoint.
In addition, for anyone who submits a map whose number is divisible by 1,000 (e.g., if you submit map 218,000) then you get all of the prizes listed above, regardless of whether it is the 100th or 1000th map.
The person who submits the 10,000th map will receive 3 Featured maps, a custom title, ad-free browsing and 3 free somethings over their email.

Start posting. The map number which starts the contest is 216980. That means in 20 maps, someone will already be winning a prize.

RULES: If you post a double map, or delist a map, you are not eligible for any prizes for the next checkpoint and it will go to the person who submitted before you. The "2 maps per page" rule is no longer in effect until December 31st, however, if you spam the map page with more than 5 maps at a time I will ban you until December 31st.

Updated 17 September, 2011

[origami_alligator]

the themes topic, if you'd like to contribute possible themes, is here: http://forum.droni.es/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8951

the site this is taking place at is here: http://www.nmaps.net

you can download N at: http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n_downloads.html
...or you can download Nreality at: http://us1.infunity.com/downloads/NReality6d4.zip

For any discussion or questions please post below. Thank you.

[amomentlikethis]

Just realised how negative I sounded in that query on IRC, so I figured I'd post here that I think this is an awesome idea!

[Pheidippides]

You're bribing people with Featured Maps? My goodness. Seems to diminish their significance, don't you think? You used to have to win NUMACON or, y'know, make a good map to get one of those. Now even if the worst mapper on NUMA posts on any one of those twenty freebies, you've gotta give him a Feature?

If mapping's supposedly lost its luster, mapping for the sake of mapping is not going to make it fun again. Stage a really big contest, or something. Bring back the Sunday N. Get a few people to jumpstart the Map Rating and Commenting Threads. Do something new and creative.

I'm sorry, pawz. I see the intention, but I just don't think this is the way to do what you're trying to do.

[Apakenua]

You're bribing people with Featured Maps? My goodness. Seems to diminish their significance, don't you think? You used to have to win NUMACON or, y'know, make a good map to get one of those. Now even if the worst mapper on NUMA posts on any one of those twenty freebies, you've gotta give him a Feature?

If mapping's supposedly lost its luster, mapping for the sake of mapping is not going to make it fun again. Stage a really big contest, or something. Bring back the Sunday N. Get a few people to jumpstart the Map Rating and Commenting Threads. Do something new and creative.

I'm sorry, pawz. I see the intention, but I just don't think this is the way to do what you're trying to do.

QFE

I totally understand what Pheidippides is saying here. In the few years that I've been part of this community and map-making, I /still/ haven't gotten a feature. I do believe that I have some worthy maps, but, then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If all my work, my hours of creating, testing, and polishing maps was in vain,- I don't know what to think. I could easily get a feature just by submitting another map. So, in fact, I will not be submitting a map on the hundredth/thousandth number JUST SO I will still have the true honor and feelings of accomplishment of creating a map that is worthy to be featured.

[aids]

Not every person should get a feature, but every person should be able to feature. So I think that the person who gets ever 1000th map should get to write a feature of their choice.

[origami_alligator]

I see and understand all of your points and I concede. Aidiera's idea is a much better one, but what about those who are already Reviewers? If this is the case, I suggest we'll just flip-flop it. If you're not a Reviewer you get to write a review, if you are a Reviewer I'll write a review of one of your maps. I'll update the rules here shortly.

This isn't about bringing back the glory of mapping. I'm just trying to bring back the people. If 100 people come back and 10 of them are making good maps then great. At least there are 90 people also making maps. It keeps the place alive. If I ran a contest do you know what would happen? Nobody would participate. If I try to bring back the Sunday N, either by myself or with others, (a) I wouldn't have the time to continue that for long and (b) nobody else would stick with it long enough to make it worthwhile. The Map Comment/Rate threads die quickly. We've already been down these avenues plenty of times. And the way I see it, this is very new and very creative.

Again, I want to re-emphasize:
This isn't about making good maps. This is about bringing the map submission rate up and bringing people back to NUMA. If a lot of great mappers are participating then the quality of maps being made for the next 3 months will be high. But if you all decide to say, "FUCK IT THIS IS HORRIBLE WHAT ARE YOU DOING RUINING NUMA MORE?" then we will end up with nothing more than a shit ton of shitty maps and great authors standing around blaming the one guy who gave them a great opportunity to improve the quality of maps on NUMA. Did you see the "2 maps" rule is not in effect for the duration of the rest of the year? Submit a bunch of awesome maps! Comment/rate on other maps! Bring back a community aspect and actually participate!

I'm updating the prize rules on NUMA shortly. Thank you for your input.
If you see anything else you would change please post here and I will discuss it with you.

[lsudny]

i have to agree with pheidi, but let's see how it will turn out anyways.

[Sunset]

Since I'm first with almost everything recent on this site, I'm going to try to put some input.


The basic idea of this is good, and it will stir up some traffic with what I'm seeing lately. But, not the kind of traffic the site needs. The hot maps page will most likely be riddled with spam maps near the 100's and 1000's gets, so that will really deteriorate the quality of the map. If I could change one thing with this, it'd probably be the rewards. Don't make them something like that. I'm not exactly sure what you /should/ make the reward, but don't make it something so silly as featuring maps for getting a number. If you did that, there'd be so many faulty reviews and unhappy users, that the site would probably fall apart after the fourth week of this. That's just my input though.

[origami_alligator]

Since I'm first with almost everything recent on this site, I'm going to try to put some input.


The basic idea of this is good, and it will stir up some traffic with what I'm seeing lately. But, not the kind of traffic the site needs. The hot maps page will most likely be riddled with spam maps near the 100's and 1000's gets, so that will really deteriorate the quality of the map. If I could change one thing with this, it'd probably be the rewards. Don't make them something like that. I'm not exactly sure what you /should/ make the reward, but don't make it something so silly as featuring maps for getting a number. If you did that, there'd be so many faulty reviews and unhappy users, that the site would probably fall apart after the fourth week of this. That's just my input though.

Plenty of people can attest to what I am going to say here:
Back in the day, when map numbers were important for some reason, people used to spam maps around large headstone numbers all the time. That's why you'll find that around a lot of big even map numbers (the most notable from my time being map 180000) maps don't exist or they have been delisted some 10 maps above and below the big numbers. This isn't encouraging anything that hasn't already happened on the site. It encourages competition, it encourages people to put a really awesome map at the big numbers, and if they catch it right away, they can replace a shitty spam map with an amazing not-spam map by editing it within the 5 votes available. (Or forever if ratings are disabled on the map.)

Additionally, in case you did not see, I updated the rules. Reviewers have the option of a Featured Map /or/ one of the various other prizes, and non-Reviewers have the option of writing a guaranteed-to-be-posted Creature Feature.

[otters~1]

Heh. Man. 180000. Not sure I ever apologized to Pheidi for that one.

EDIT: no wait the Pheidi one was the one that got on the homepage. 180000 was PALEMOON's.

[njitsu]

Look, if you want to get people to start mapping again, ADVERTIZE NUMA.

If you advertize the game as well as the mapping aspect of it, people will come.

Have you ever thought of trying to get a review/feature of N on a popular gaming platform like Steam? People love F2P games, especially when they're good.

So maybe this wouldn't be up to the NUMA admins, but it's really the only way to get more people interested.

[Radium]

we need to find some sort of defibrillator for this community. NUMA has been having heart palpitations since late 2010

[Broghan]

I admire the hopefulness of this endeavor, and I can only hope that a lot of positives come out of it.

[a happy song]

A well meant but probably futile gesture. The quality of maps or interactions are not going to increase because people are spamming outside of their inspired creative output.

What needs to happen is a revamp. Numa needs fixing/updating. We need features that'll attract new users to join the numa community and to have the site running smoothly. I'd have thought we'd have enough people among us who knew how to code to be able to get this going, but every time it's hinted at it seems to fall apart before it even gets anywhere.

Should make an open-source event: redesign/fix numa. Not a huddled secret channel on IRC, but the entire community giving it a go. Maybe that would achieve something...

I do realise I'm probably one of the cranky old people the post made light of, I just hate to see a once vibrant and excitingly creative community struggling so much.

[Apakenua]

Should make an open-source event: redesign/fix numa. Not a huddled secret channel on IRC, but the entire community giving it a go. Maybe that would achieve something...

How would you propose this idea to the community? I think it's worth a shot.
I can design graphics pretty well, actually. Many website banners, images, ect. (yay photoshop!)
So, I suppose if you need me, I'm here. (pretty much useless, I can only code HTML a little bit. :/) The only people I know who can code (I'm not sure if it's the type we need) are incluye, (doesn't help), BFG10K/ByonicCryonic (or something like that) and xwd (only on IRC).
We do seem to have a lack of abilities here. But, perhaps, that is only because we haven't asked. People on NUMA may be able to code, you never know, they just don't realize that we need a coder.
But, for any type of image or website layout, hit me up. But I do agree, this is what we need. Not more maps just being pumped out to raise the counter. That takes away any fun that would be involved in submitting a map. If you post a map, you're pretty much working towards the 1000/100 map marker, not showing off a map of yours that you worked a long time on. Just my thoughts.

[aids]

he only people I know who can code (I'm not sure if it's the type we need) are incluye, (doesn't help), BFG10K/ByonicCryonic (or something like that) and xwd (only on IRC).
We do seem to have a lack of abilities here. But, perhaps, that is only because we haven't asked. People on NUMA may be able to code, you never know, they just don't realize that we need a coder.

Shows how much you know. incluye is single-handedly redesigning NUMA from scratch. He's been at it for months now, since the people he was working with gave up. Also, we don't "seem to have a lack in abilities here." Anytime you're on IRC, at least half of the people on know a programming language, and some know several. In fact, there's a thread right here which lists the various languages people in our community know. And obviously people know we need them to redesign NUMA. The fact is it's a lot of work, and very few people have time to dedicate to something they won't get paid for.

EDIT: In response to atob, that is a wholly bad idea. Facebook updated their layout sometime within the past 12 hours. They know that you can't ask people what they want, because Facebook users have no goddamned idea. The only option Facebook has is to go with the best interest their site has, i.e. to make sure people don't switch to Google+. Now NUMA isn't exactly like that. I don't see angry users leaving the site in droves, since there's honestly nowhere else to go. But any changes made to NUMA can't be open to the public, otherwise there will be bashing in of heads and the formations of enemies who are split between whether NUMA needs a feature or not. Besides, we already did this ages ago. I'm not against asking for people's opinions, I just know that it's not worth it.

[Apakenua]

Shows how much you know. incluye is single-handedly redesigning NUMA from scratch. He's been at it for months now, since the people he was working with gave up. Also, we don't "seem to have a lack in abilities here." Anytime you're on IRC, at least half of the people on know a programming language, and some know several. In fact, there's a thread right here which lists the various languages people in our community know. And obviously people know we need them to redesign NUMA. The fact is it's a lot of work, and very few people have time to dedicate to something they won't get paid for.

EDIT: In response to atob, that is a wholly bad idea. Facebook updated their layout sometime within the past 12 hours. They know that you can't ask people what they want, because Facebook users have no goddamned idea. The only option Facebook has is to go with the best interest their site has, i.e. to make sure people don't switch to Google+. Now NUMA isn't exactly like that. I don't see angry users leaving the site in droves, since there's honestly nowhere else to go. But any changes made to NUMA can't be open to the public, otherwise there will be bashing in of heads and the formations of enemies who are split between whether NUMA needs a feature or not. Besides, we already did this ages ago. I'm not against asking for people's opinions, I just know that it's not worth it.[/quote]

I know incluye is doing NARC. I was talking NUMA here. :P
But, to your Facebook point, Facebook didn't have any bugs. NUMA does. Even though people aren't leaving 'in droves', fixing a few bugs and just making it run better can bring people in. And that's really all we need.

[a happy song]

EDIT: In response to atob, that is a wholly bad idea. Facebook updated their layout sometime within the past 12 hours. They know that you can't ask people what they want, because Facebook users have no goddamned idea. The only option Facebook has is to go with the best interest their site has, i.e. to make sure people don't switch to Google+. Now NUMA isn't exactly like that. I don't see angry users leaving the site in droves, since there's honestly nowhere else to go. But any changes made to NUMA can't be open to the public, otherwise there will be bashing in of heads and the formations of enemies who are split between whether NUMA needs a feature or not. Besides, we already did this ages ago. I'm not against asking for people's opinions, I just know that it's not worth it.

NUMA is far from perfect. Aside from the glitches and bugs plaguing the code, the site itself is functionally backwards. There are plenty of things we could add that would be a boon to the community: PMs, uploading map packs, more customisation to your profile that doesn't require html manipulation, a 'preview' option for posting (especially for the news feed), more hands on abilities for the mods and admin regarding other users, the ability for admin or mods or a combination whoever to access the links sections and keep them edited and updated, and so on...

NUMA has never ever been perfect. And retro/minimalist doesn't mean good when even the very basic of functionality is lacking.

And while you might not like the changes to FB, I can guarantee that before today you hadn't thought about older versions for months. Why's that? Everyone knows what's best and people get too comfy.

Anyway, I'm not going to bicker about this over and over. Fact is, NUMA is broken and lacks functionality that could potentially attract a stronger userbase.

[aids]

The best way to go about this is to build a barebones site with most of the things NUMA has and then open up a uservoice for it. But that will take a pretty long time.

[otters~1]

Should make an open-source event: redesign/fix numa. Not a huddled secret channel on IRC, but the entire community giving it a go. Maybe that would achieve something...

Sorry man, but you're not around. sidke tried that. pawz did too.

I can't actually even begin to understand where you're coming from here, because that "huddled secret channel" that incidentally has a pinned topic here on the forums is the only place that anything is happening in this community at all.

[a happy song]

Should make an open-source event: redesign/fix numa. Not a huddled secret channel on IRC, but the entire community giving it a go. Maybe that would achieve something...

Sorry man, but you're not around. sidke tried that. pawz did too.

I can't actually even begin to understand where you're coming from here, because that "huddled secret channel" that incidentally has a pinned topic here on the forums is the only place that anything is happening in this community at all.

Why are you sorry? I'm well aware of those attempts, and the others that failed too.

So the community has tried this enough times to know we can't manage it? Then how about the current leaders go outside the community and try to recruit some people from various project sites and forums? There must be thousands of people online who'd relish the chance to contribute to something semi-established like this.

I don't have time to get involved in anything right now, and I'm not lecturing anyone, just pointing out that all the contests in the world aren't going to revive the NUMA community in it's current state. They need to come after the site's been revamped.

-

Just a thought, but how many of you guys would be prepared to have a whip around and put together a little cash incentive for a professional to have a go at this? I'd be willing to contribute, I'll even look into finding some people to choose from if we can get enough of us to do it.

[squibbles]

So the community has tried this enough times to know we can't manage it? Then how about the current leaders go outside the community and try to recruit some people from various project sites and forums? There must be thousands of people online who'd relish the chance to contribute to something semi-established like this.

I don't have time to get involved in anything right now, and I'm not lecturing anyone, just pointing out that all the contests in the world aren't going to revive the NUMA community in it's current state. They need to come after the site's been revamped.

-

Just a thought, but how many of you guys would be prepared to have a whip around and put together a little cash incentive for a professional to have a go at this? I'd be willing to contribute, I'll even look into finding some people to choose from if we can get enough of us to do it.

I would absolutely throw money into a pool for that. Can we set up some kind of fund that we can just toss into?

[aids]

I would absolutely throw money into a pool for that. Can we set up some kind of fund that we can just toss into?

I'm pretty sure KA has one. Somebody does.

[origami_alligator]

Can we move conversation like this to a different topic? This is for the 10,000-Map Challenge, not the age-old "NUMA SUCKS WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO DO SOMETHING TO ENERGIZE NUMA WE NEED FEATURES NOT SOME BULLSHIT CONTEST THAT ENDS UP FAILING MAKING YOU LOOK SILLY BECAUSE OF IT MR. I"M-AN-ADMIN, I DO WHAT I WANT."

I think if you want to complain about NUMA you should make a new thread, whereas if you want to complain about this contest specifically, you should make a new post. I'd rather people get on board and enjoy this attempt at reviving a dead community instead of raining on my parade and telling me this isn't the correct way to go about things. I'd like to see someone else be bold enough to do something like this.