Hello Everyone!

One of my personal joys of being a member of DD is the community. We have supported each other as dollers and watched each other grown through contests and followings. So, I hope we can show that community spirit by helping maintain our Contest Pages.

Our Contest Pages are in trouble as we are loosing the number of contest pages rapidly. When I started I believe we had 10 pages or more now we went down to 6 last week and 5 pages as off today. As a community there are a few thing we can do to prevent further loss of contest pages and help maintain a more functional contest board.

1) Please don't start a new contest if you are already hosting 2 or more. Wait until one of them ends.

2)Please don't start a contest of a theme if that is already an active contest hosted in the same theme. Eg. If there is a Spring Contest please don't start another immediately. Look to see the end date and begin your contest once it ends or close to when it ends if it is a super long contest.

3)Please don't start a new DDNTM contest at the moment. Let all the current contest finish up. It would be of great help if you would wait a little while until we can clean up the contest pages before beginning your own DDNTM. Also, when you do a DDNTM it would be curtious to not make on in a maker already in use.

4)Delete old bumps! We all appreciate the need for bumps however they add unnecessary comments that eat up space. So for instance. If I bumped a thread today and I come back again tomorrow and bump a second time. I will then delete my first(previous) bump. Also If I come back tomorrow to find that someone has already bumped my contest to the front page then I will not bump a second time.

5)We can detete completed contests! Once a contest is over, winners announced and prizes are distributed we can wait a period of time and then delete the contest instead of just letting it fall off.  Deleting will save space.

6) For each Contest we can create a Q/A Doll and tag it to the contest. This doll will have the contest details and rules. This is where everyone can ask questions and get answers. This will help limit the number of comments on the actual contest page.

7)For elaborate and lengthy contests similiar to DDNTMs which will take time, mass participation and take up contest space please create a story with details and as well as a Q/A doll for discussion. Update your rules in the story once your questions and answers are done.

8) I'm quoting suggestions made my Rose to condense large contests and DDNTMs:

"Here are some ideas of how to 'condense' DDNTM:
a) Put a limit on the number of participants. The standard is about 15.
b) Once sign-ups are over, delete the page from the contests. Another tip would be, once a model has been chosen, untag it from the sign-up page. Not only will this reduce space because the number of tagged dolls is less, but it will also reduce the amount of comments from people asking which models are taken.
c) Instead of announcing the themes on a contest, put them in your stories instead. That way everyone can still see it, and it saves comment space in the contests.
d) Post the page for the new week on the date when the new dolls are due. A lot of people have been posting the page for the latest theme a week before the actual dolls are due. It's a big waste of space.
e) Once a week is over, delete the page for that week from the contests. You can leave it up for a few days so everyone can see the results, but after that, delete it."

And a link to Queeny's story for further ideas and information:http://www.dolldivine.com/stories/QueenGrania-24624

and Finally, @bluesmooth127 is our Contest Page Moderator. Please differ to her requests and recommendations. She is trying to cleap up things and could use our cooperation. If we all spread the word through dolls and stories and set an example in our own contests then hopefully others will follow our lead.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I'll answer questions and concerns in my doll: http://www.dolldivine.com/Disney/Falak-3008733