Re: [Linux-aus] Grant Request: Thousand Parsec AI Competition Prizes...

[Tim Ansell <mithro@mithis.com>]

On Wed, 2007-02-07 at 13:14 +1100, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> Tim,
> 
> how about using it to organise a code-fest event - possibly with
> flying interested people together from other AU states?

Since LCA was only recently the two core developers (Lee and I) where
able to catch up and get a lot of things sorted. Because of this a
code-fest event would not be optimal at the moment. 

About the time it becomes needed again LCA 2008 will be ready and we'll
most probably all catch up there.

> I'd feel more comfortable with such a networking and community-focused
> event. A competition doesn't bring people to gether or motivate them
> to become a member of your community for the future.

I guess it depends on the competition. 

So far, we have had one person who now hanging out on the IRC channel
and actively participating in non-AI related parts of the project. I'm
also actively working on getting the competitors into the project rather
then just sticking around for the competition. 

It has also increases exposure of the project. I've found the number of
unique visitors to our website is directly proportional to the number of
people we have active in our community. The competition has increased
our traffic quite a bit and it's not even to the last minute rush stage.

It also has focused our promotion efforts. Previously it's been hard to
figure out how to promote the project. I think even after the
competition we'll have better goals and information about promoting the
project.

The aim of the competition is to specifically fill two goals.
 - Create a much needed part of Thousand Parsec
 - Increase Thousand Parsec's exposure

So far it is succeeding with both.

After the competition ends I hope to write a "postmortem" about how it
went. This should be useful for people who want to do the same type of
thing.

> Just a thought.
> 
> Cheers,
> Silvia.

Thanks for your input, it is very helpful to find out what other people
think.

Tim Ansell