I'm with Savage here, more contests does not seem to equal more participants. Over the last few years there have been a number of (primarily) Traveller ship design contests and they all seem to suffer the same slow loss of interest before they die and spawn a new one somewhere else populated by the same diehard gearheads.
I sense the same mortality creeping into the JTAS contest and applauded the posting of notices here to help widen the audience and perhaps attact new interest. Yes you have to subscibe to JTAS to enter but it does have more to offer than just that and the boards.
As for creating a CotI version I've pondered it for a while and even thought of just posting a parallel side contest of the JTAS. But given the overwhelming interest, well why bother.
No offense to those who are interested but I've not seen much evidence of it. A little but not much. Next to no feedback outside of the designers for most of the designs posted here, or on JTAS for that matter, or in general any contest anywhere.
And even with the 5,000 plus possible souls asked to look at the entries here and vote on their favorite we had a paltry 6 votes and 1 abstentia (myself, I presume) for 7 participants. Coincidence that the numbers are equal?
As a participant in many of these over the years the most important part for me is feedback to fine-tune the design, and the process. It also helps generate new ideas.
That's why one aspect of the JTAS contes bugs me, the anonymity. The designer can't reply to questions or fix errors without an intermediary (a thankless task for which I owe Savage much thanks). My own interest often wans before the voting is tallyed and my questions for the other designers are forgotten by then. It would be better if it were more open but I seem in the minority (or silent majority) in this on JTAS.
So, a CotI Contest? Nice idea that seems bound to fall flat given the actual responses. Will I be there? Probably, though I'm getting a little burned out design wise. I've posted a few designs here, others have posted more, and the feedback seems limited, again usually to the same few, or maybe its just my perspective. Its a pity too given that this forum is so well suited to running a contest of this type.
If I'm wrong (here's hoping) and a CotI contest is desired I've a couple ideas to help set it up. Maybe step one should be a poll to gauge interest? Shall I go ahead and do that? Questions off the top of my head would be:
How many would submit designs?
How many would use the designs?
How many would participate by posting feedback for the designers?
How many would participate by voting for their favorite?
I like short polls myself and that should cover the basics. Any other critical questions?