Thanks for all your feedback to Dana. It's been very informative. I really appreciate Mark's (
@Mark) thoughts here:
As for your poll, I don't have any strong feelings for any particular option. My basic feeling is that it should be done the way the person who is generously volunteering to manage this challenge wants to do it.
I was somewhat clueless about the Winter Challenge before, since I was not involved in it. Running the BRS day-to-day seven years in a row (come November 1) has taken quite a bit of my time and taken me away from my family and other obligations at times, so I dread taking on another project, especially when we have other resources being implemented on the site, I hope soon, stay tuned. If I had nothing but time, I would definitely handle this challenge too, but I just can't. I'm truly sorry, and I hope you all understand.
I can add the snowflake(s) to the server in a directory that will allow anyone to see it logged in or not, and I started to propose this to Dana in email the other day, but I had second thoughts and deleted it, and here's why: If I add the new snowflake to the server in a directory somewhere, it should show in your signatures for as long as the directory structure does not change, fine, but what about snowflakes past? Do I add all of them to the server, and leave a message/post/thread to anyone who happens to be reading it that if they took part in past challenges, they need to use the new directory path(s) to the snowflake(s) on the server? How do we guarantee that everyone actually switches over to the new path(s)? I don't mind adding them up there, but it would be nice if we could be consistent.
Something has to change though because we can't rely on a Photobucket account to always exist. Someone, please provide me with the link to Yvonne's new snowflake storage location.
I thought the snowflakes in the past were distributed individually, and each of the participants added them to their signature. If they had been, then that would guarantee that the snowflake would not disappear on a mass level from a broken link/path (or being logged off), although they would have had to use their own, individual, off-site storage location and the Image app in their posting/signature box, (but if they deleted the location/account that stored it, only their snowflake would be affected).
Here's the final suggestion, but it's going to require work, and Dana may or may not be up to it (Dana?). Once it's in place, going forward, whomever steps up to coordinate the Winter Challenge will be responsible for adding the snowflakes to each person's account on the site, but it shouldn't take very long. (I will set the system up initially.) Here's how: We can use the same system we use to add the Donor Footprints each year. The coordinator simply adds each participant's member name to an app on the back-end of the site, and the snowflake appears in their general signature location.
I think Dana's idea of having different snowflake designs each year is really cute, since snowflakes are supposed to be unique after all.
