Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!rutgers!njin!princeton!udel!mmdf
From: mlandis@nmsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: BADGE contest suggestions
Message-ID: <5299@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 10 Nov 88 15:45:50 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 51

After posting yesterday about my experiences with the
BADGE Killer Demo Contest and Randy Spencer, I received
an almost immediate private reply from Tom Rokicki concerning
my message.  I want to thank Tom very much for that reply.  His
response and another night's sleep has lowered my anger level
considerably.  Now that I got things off my chest, I feel it
is only right to offer some possible suggestions instead of flames.
I was going to email this only to Tom, but my mail bounced (our
outside connections here at NMSU are limited) and I thought
maybe the suggestions could benefit others.

The BADGE contest carries quite a bit of prestige in the Amiga
community, and rightly so.  The animations that were entered last
year thrilled us throughout the year, and I'm sure the entries
this year are all excellent (I haven't seen any other entries
yet :-(. The contest was advertised in AmigaWorld, which gets the
largest distribution of any Amiga specific magazine.  My suggestion
is that for such a visible event, more than one person needs to
be in charge of administering it.  I'm sure Randy had many other
things and animators on his mind than just me, and that just emphasizes
the need for other people to be deeply involved in the preparations.

Tom mentioned in his reply that BADGE was just a small group of
hackers and developers without dues or a newsletter.  I know BADGE
has helped produce many terrific things for the Amiga, but possibly
running an international contest without help should not be one of them.
The exposure this contest receives is vast and worthwhile for the
Amiga and I would hate to see it disappear.  Tom mentioned that
BADGE might not sponsor the contest next year, but instead of giving
up the idea all together maybe BADGE could seek a lttle assistance.
Are there any User's Groups in the area that could help, possibly
even User's Groups in the LA area?  I would have felt much better
knowing my entry was being duplicated, archived, and tested by 2 or
more other Amiga groups. The other group(s) might be ones that have a
fairly large distribution for their newsletter, and can aid in
promoting and publicizing the names of the companies donating
prizes to the contest.  But whatever the solution, the contest must
be taken seriously next year and done by an organization(s) that will
dedicate an appropriate amount of time to making sure it runs
smoothly (or not do it at all).

I hope my suggestions have been stated clearly and will be considered
in any future discussions concerning the contest.  My flames of the
previous message were not intended to result in any type of compensation
from BADGE, nor did I want to imply that my animation was not
eventually judged fairly by the 8 people who participated in the post-
judging.  My main concern is that the mistake is not repeated.

Marvin Landis
mcsmal@nmsuvm1.bitnet
mlandis@nmsu.edu