defcne website, links from main-site, sync of contest/event in forum with main site

[tecknicaltom]

Not that I'm anybody whose opinion matters on this, but that's never stopped me from giving my 2¢. Keep the black badges largely as they are: a prestige bragging right, and a financial reward. Free admission for life if you don't want to wear it around the con. Screw trying to say they're non-transferrable: it'd be impossible to enforce without compromising DC's way of doing things and if you're good enough to earn more than one black badge, then you're good enough to get your friend in for free too. But to that end, black badge contests should be contests that take skill, and skill that's related to hacking. CTF: obviously. Tamper evident: sure. Deviant's awesome locksport contests: yep! Beverage cooling, FPS games, short stories, and the like: sorry, but I don't really think it's deserving.

Other gripes from the POV of someone who attends defcon largely for the contests, but acknowledges that I've never put in any work on organizing them:
* contest organizers should definitely know ahead of time if they're getting black badges for their winners. And they should advertise that fact ahead of time. Black badges aren't just rewards to someone who's put on a good contest but an incentive for contestants to play it. If people don't know there's a badge on the line, they're less likely to play.
* contest listings ahead of time are pretty unorganized (with all due respect to the cat herding volunteers in the contests team). Many of the forum links on the top of the DC21 page went to forums with no posts. The mix of contests and events made it hard for people to figure out ahead of time what they wanted to dedicate their (sober-ish) Defcon time towards. Why are there contests listed in the results page (https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-2...t-results.html) that aren't on the DC21 main page, or in the contests forum?

tl;dr I got off topic; keep black badges as rare prizes worth something.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

...Many of the forum links on the top of the DC21 page went to forums with no posts. The mix of contests and events made it hard for people to figure out ahead of time what they wanted to dedicate their (sober-ish) Defcon time towards. Why are there contests listed in the results page (https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-2...t-results.html) that aren't on the DC21 main page, or in the contests forum?

We try to synchronize forum listings with the list of contests/events that are listed here: http://defcne.net/e/21

Forums follow the decisions of other departments. When I hear about additions, I add new forums.

As for a lack of posts in forums, we make forums but I do not require organizers to use them. When I have URL to online resources that the organizers suggests people use, I add those to the description of the forum for each contest or event. The forum description with URLs I know about are visible from within each forum at the top, when looking at all threads, but not when looking at post from within a thread. In a rare case where an organizer absolutely does not want the forums to be used, I can take the link to their forum and redirect it to an off-site resource where contestants can ask questions. This has only ever happened once or twice in the past 10 years or so.

I'm glad we don't force people to post forum updates; it would not be a very DEF CON thing to do.

Forums allow for volunteers as people running contests or events, or people participating in the same contests or events to share ideas with each other on the forums, or join the forums and tell people to join a mailing list or other online resource.

It does not matter to me if people use forums or other resources -- whatever works is fine with me, just not into forcing people to participate.

[tecknicaltom]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

We try to synchronize forum listings with the list of contests/events that are listed here: http://defcne.net/e/21
...

I'm glad we don't force people to post forum updates; it would not be a very DEF CON thing to do.

I agree that the defcne site helps with many of the problems I have with contests at defcon. It isn't very well promoted though. Maybe the defcon page's listing of contests and events could link to that page instead of the forum? I understand not forcing people to post forum updates, but something like the quick blurbs like on defcne make a big difference in whether a contest seems worthwhile. Similar to the summary of a conference presentation, the summary lets people choose which contest to spend their time on, and the forums often lack this (while defcne has it).

My other request for defcne would be to separate the contests and events.

Sorry to derail the original intent of the thread; it's just that participating in contests is one of the primary reasons I attend Defcon.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

I agree that the defcne site helps with many of the problems I have with contests at defcon. It isn't very well promoted though. Maybe the defcon page's listing of contests and events could link to that page instead of the forum? I understand not forcing people to post forum updates, but something like the quick blurbs like on defcne make a big difference in whether a contest seems worthwhile. Similar to the summary of a conference presentation, the summary lets people choose which contest to spend their time on, and the forums often lack this (while defcne has it).

Maybe it would make sense for me to pre-populate each created from based on defcne with the initial post/information they have, so people can reply to it.

You can't reply or comment on the defcne content on the defcne site unless you are in contests/events under Pyr0, or you submit the contest.

My other request for defcne would be to separate the contests and events.

I don't understand this. Each event/contest is separated in its own block, and clicking on the link for any of them yields a description with details.
Would you elaborate on this?

Sorry to derail the original intent of the thread; it's just that participating in contests is one of the primary reasons I attend Defcon.

Eh. Deviant Ollam tried to derail my "request for contests/evets that are returning" thread with this topic, so I clipped it out, and made a new thread for this. I didn't comment about that (until now) because it is demonstrative of this thing for which you are offering an apology. If this tangent becomes its own topic, I'll do the same thing.

It is natural for discussions to fork, and I've tried to not harass users too much when this happens *naturally*, and instead, just move the tangent to a new thread with related posts included, and a pointer to the new discussion from the old thread. What I usually do is let people know about the fork, in both threads and then step out of the way so both conversations can take place.

What I do harass people about, is trying to start new tangents in existing threads that are not natural. Example: someone posts, "OMG! PONIES!" in a thread about Ball Point Pens. Natural discussion forks happens when new topics come up, or a related topic spawns new questions or thoughts related to it.

If this topic gets another reply, I'll likely fork it to a new thread.

[Chris]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

OMG! PONIES!

[TheCotMan]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

OMG! PONIES!

FORK YOU!

Thread forked. All because of you. All the admins here (except DT) are jerks.
(Also, one of the reasons I stick around.)

[blueAlien]

Re: defcne website, links from main-site, sync of contest/event in forum with main si

Other gripes from the POV of someone who attends defcon largely for the contests, but acknowledges that I've never put in any work on organizing them:
* contest organizers should definitely know ahead of time if they're getting black badges for their winners. And they should advertise that fact ahead of time. Black badges aren't just rewards to someone who's put on a good contest but an incentive for contestants to play it. If people don't know there's a badge on the line, they're less likely to play.
* contest listings ahead of time are pretty unorganized (with all due respect to the cat herding volunteers in the contests team). Many of the forum links on the top of the DC21 page went to forums with no posts. The mix of contests and events made it hard for people to figure out ahead of time what they wanted to dedicate their (sober-ish) Defcon time towards. Why are there contests listed in the results page (https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-2...t-results.html) that aren't on the DC21 main page, or in the contests forum?

It should be very clear ahead of time which contests do get Black Badges, so that those wanting to try to earn one have to chance and aren't wasting their time on a contest they thought got a badge. Maybe a special icon could be created for the hand guide booklet that could go next to the events that have a Black Badge for the prize...