Congratulations to perennial winner Jackrabbit Slim!
Participation & excitement waned throughout this season, so I’d like to open up a dialogue below to find out what can (or should) be done to remedy this going forward. Thanks to everyone who played!
To find out the rules of the game, go to the main thread for AGEBOC 09.
Final Rankings:
Jackrabbit Slim – 52.5
James – 44.5
Rob – 40
Joe – 25
Marco – 21.5
Juan – 16.5
Nick – 6.5
Gone Elsewhere 
I think the only reason I won because I was the only one who played every week. I don’t know how to address that, since you guys know why you didn’t–too busy, forgot, etc. Should there be a reminder on Thursdays?
One idea I have: when you win a week you have to be the first to post a guess for the following week.
How about if you put in a guess within 24 hours of the post going live you score .5 point or something?
Or we just move the submission side of the contest over to Facebook. The person running the contest sends out a DM to all the players, who have to respond with their guesses via messenger. That would 1) ensure there’s a reminder for everyone to participate 2) make the contest more interesting since we wouldn’t be privy to other’s guesses.
I’m not on Facebook, so if it moves there I won’t be able to play.
But if it stays on-site:
I do like the idea of players not knowing what others have picked, so maybe make it standard every week that the guesses are emailed to Joe? (Or whomever is running it.) That prevents sniping and should also offer a wider range of guesses. When the initial post goes up that should be tied to an email sent to the players which in turn acts as a reminder for us to reply with our guesses.
It’s also possible we need some kind of handicap in case one player jumps out to a ridiculous lead — they shouldn’t be punished, obviously, but I can see that discouraging others from feeling like they even have a chance.
How about change the point totals for each week? So there’s a better chance for someone to catch up? Maybe offer bonus guesses for everyone except the leader? Enough so that if we get the bonus questions we can get back into the game? Maybe even a ‘loser’s week’? To kep the game competititve, where the top three can guess, but they’re not eligible for points?
Interesting ideas here. James is about 6 weeks from HAGEBOC and we should try out some new suggestions then.
I’m usually the one most in need of a reminder, so I’m not sure I can be relied upon to remind everyone else during the summer. Everyone could just set a calendar reminder on their phones next year. Maybe I’ll leave that in the text every week next to the deadline. Also, tying the post to an e-mail would be cool, but I have no idea how to do that. Right now it creates a tweet linking back & that’s about it.
Punishing the successful does not jibe with my conservative values (haha) but giving an additional opportunity to those that are points poor (such as bonus points being worth more if you’re in the lower tier) does seem like a way to fight waning interest. There would need to be a time that’s set as to when this would go active. All of August?
I like Marco’s suggestion in theory but Slim was usually the first person to post regardless of his standing, and clearly that was not a handicap. Also, if we go to private guesses this would be moot.
Hidden guesses are good and I would prefer e-mail over Facebook. (I don’t want to drive traffic away from the site!) Maybe start the first few weeks in the normal fashion to get a baseline of points and then move to e-mailed guesses.
Anyway…food for thought and all that.