If you build it they will come, but to keep them it must change. IFC S2R20

Another season is in the books for the Information Finding Championship and while there hasn't been the same level of involvement as last year this season has been just as fun and informative.

Back in March of 2018 my Steemit account was finally approved and I was excited to jump on board and start creating content. I met a few people online and joined several communities and contests. The IFC quickly became my favorite and before long became the only contest I consistently posted for. Even though I came in late I managed to make my mark (a skid mark, but a mark none-the-less).

The contests' creator @apolymask runs the contest and community with a passion that is nothing short of amazing. He is also a kind, compassionate and intelligent individual and just an all around good dude.

Ok, so enough of the sappy crap let's get to the reason for this post. This post is my entry into the final round of season 2 in the Information Finding Championship... Ideas For Season 3!

First and foremost it needs to be said that there are some challenges to overcome to reignite the amount of engagement and participation as season 1 and then scale beyond that. There are TWO obstacles as I see them; participation and time.

So what has caused the lack of participation in this season?

1. The value of Steemit has decreased significantly over the past 18 months. With the all time high trade value of Steem against the U.S. dollar in January 2018 at $8.57 to its current price of $0.23 USD.
   Source.

2. The number of active users per month on Steemit in January of 2018 was around 196,000 and in January of 2019 less than half of that at just below 70,000.
   Source.

Naturally the number of active users decreased based on the decrease in the value of the Steem coin. Many users simply lost interest and others just found themselves too busy to stay as active as they once were especially with the tremendous decrease in coin value.

What the phuque do you mean TIME is an obstacle?

Disclaimer #1: When reading my posts you should expect a smattering of expletives. It's how I talk in real life, so let's keep it real.
Disclaimer #2: Phuque is a word I coined about 18 years ago. Feel free to use it but do so sparingly.

Phuque:
Pronounced [fuk] or [fuh-queue}
noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb

1. To explete <--- made that one up too!

Anyhow, now that you've learned something new, let's move on.

What I mean to say is that the IFC needs assistance with time and time management. Back in the first season I believe there were a total of 5 judges (including @apolymask) and all of them were fairly consistent and active on the platform. Season 2 finds us down to 3 judges. Even though the workload is not as heavy there's still a large time gap between final judging of the rounds.

Great job Joe, you've identified 2 major obstacles... Now what?

Here are a few ideas that I would like to propose for Season 3:

• Forget the newbies. Say what? In an earlier round this season regarding bringing in more players I scoured through a handful of "Introduce Yourself" posts to find people who were knew to Steemit. I upvoted, commented and invited 3 or 4 people to check out the IFC. I did not receive a single response from any of these folks. So for Season 3 I think we should focus on bringing in new players who are already active on Steemit.

• Peer to peer judging. Let's say there are a total of 20 rounds in Season 3. Each participant would be responsible for judging 10 rounds. Judges could be chosen on a round robin basis. Obviously a participant would NOT be able to judge for their own post. I believe this could allow for maintaining a quicker turn around time for judging and give all of the contestants some valuable curation as well.

• Team play. If we could get an even number of players and put together teams each participant could take one round off every other round. Post one round, judge the next (team-mate voting prohibited). Although, participants would have the option of still entering every round if they chose to do so.

• Round creation. To help with ideas on round topics a room could be created in Discord allowing anyone who is part of the channel to throw out some ideas. The winner of each round would be allowed to choose the topic of the next round, either from scratch or by picking one from the IFC Discord room created for just this purpose.

• Guest participation. Let's say there's a round on travel and I don't feel I can write something enticing about the subject or just find myself pressed for time. I could reach out to another Steemian, someone such as Season 1 All Star @krytocek and ask him to post on my behalf. I mean seriously though, how awesome would it be to see @krytocek do a guest post?

Final Thoughts!

The ideas presented here are mostly just a minor brain dump. I believe the primary goals for the IFC should be to increase participation, speed up to movement between rounds and, most importantly free up time for the IFC creator @apolymask. With some fine tuning and the ability to set some things on auto-pilot the IFC would be free to scale to new heights.

I want to personally thank the judges for the current season:

@leonis
@xomegax
@apolymask

I think you've all done a wonderful job!