Friday Q&A

Questionable Exertion

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to another superb edition of the Friday Q&A. Each week, I examine issues facing Fark's Photoshop community. This blog should be considered a paragon of journalistic integrity, seeing as I rarely make things up. This week, I'll be delivering another alarmist rant on the subject of theme contests. In other words, possibly the only thing I bitch about more than TSZ.
He's still an ass, by the way.
Q: Why don't we have more theme contests?

A: It's a question I've been asking myself for a while now. Fark's contest queue has traditionally contained a mix of themes along with the standard "Photoshop this picture" contests. However, recently the themes started to become more and more infrequent. Where we used to have three or more a week, now we're lucky if we get one at all.

Q: What sparked this decline?

A: There are a few contributing factors. First off, Fark has been around for a while now. Many of the good ideas for themes have already been done. It gets harder and harder for theme submitters to think of something fresh. Even if someone does come up with a usable idea, they still have to get it past the Admins. Sometimes it seems as though the powers that be have switched from the role of gatekeeper to goalie. Entire batches of carefully-considered themes will get shot down without much apparent consideration.

Q: What can we do to get more themes in the queue?

A: First of all, people have to actually submit them. Admins can't approve what hasn't been submitted. Complaining in the PSAEF sometimes gets results, though you may have to first distract the group from ranting about the Beer Looter cliche. Also, sending a Farkback will at least give the powers that be something to openly mock and read aloud in a whiny, falsetto-toned voice.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope there's room at Fark 3.0 for my favorite kind of contest. Perhaps if we work together as we did in the past, we can get more themes in the queue. Otherwise, I'm afraid the whole concept of a theme contest may fall into disuse.

Stay tuned for more alarmist rants from the Doctor!