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Ok guys, I know we have Vote to Promote already but I'm suggesting for an alternative or a replacement since I don't notice much activity there. Stay with me on this.

My idea is for a Member's Mix of the Month or MMotM.

It will be a contest for regular members of the site and mods if they want to, to submit mixes and then each month, a winner will be crowned. The winner's mix will be posted on the front page of the Site and will be stickied on the Requests/Share a mix forum for the next month.

I'm not sure whether letting resident DJs participate in this would be a good idea.

It will work like this:

The site will have a panel of judges assigned by the admins (who they know are experienced/good DJs) or another way to get judges is to start a thread for judges to apply in, list their qualifications etc for judging the contest.

I'm thinking of about 3 - 5 judges.

Let's say the judges are AndyG, John Del Fiero, rogeryong, Luc and Mirinda. They'll judge based on a mark scheme or judging criteria.

Let's say overall the top score you can get is 50 points.

30 points for - Technical mixing

How well the transitions are mixed, proper beatmixing, adding EQ, effects, good flow with BPM, having a lot of tracks in a short period etc.

10 points for - Track Selection

Based on how much the judges like the tracks in the mix. This could be biased but I'm sure the judges can agree on which tracks are in bad taste and which aren't.'

10 points for - Originality

Let's face it. Any mix that contains classics with a tracklist like:

Above and Beyond - Home
John O'Callaghan - Big Sky
Dj Shah feat Adriana Thorpe - Who Will Find Me
Veracocha - Carte Blanche

etc... would get full marks for track selection. So, points in this area should be awarded for how new the tracks are and if the tracks being played aren't the ones that all the radio shows are playing.

So that would equate to 50 points and the ones with the most points wins. Since there will be multiple judges, the points will be calculated on an average of the judges tallies'

so if the 5 judges voted 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 the guy's score would be 30. I'm sure you all know this.

The schedule for the contest would be like this:

1st week of the month - announce contest, members sign up for the contest with probably a maximum of 5 entries? Would this be ok? Judging more would probably be harder so this should be a good number imo. First come first served.

2nd and 3rd week - Members create and submit their mixes

Self Explanatory

4th Week - Judging period where the judges mark the mixes and then the winner will be announced on the last day of the month.

Advantages of this to 'Vote to Promote'

Allows ordinary members like me to submit mixes, not just resident DJs
Promotes making mixes and getting new talent
More organized than Vote to Promote as VtP can be abused by members making new accounts to vote for their mixes.

The only downside I can foresee for this would be that maybe in some months the overall quality of the sets submitted aren't good.

That's all, thanks

Any feedback/comment is appreciated.

I think this might be possible... but the sad part is the participation from members on everything we try is always low...

I have gotten use to it and I think Ian know the feeling now that he had his try at it...

I am up for the idea and would love to put up mixes from members on the front page, that is how MR. Iqy got his start here on URTZ back in 2005 his mix was on the front page and also all the other resident DJ's that came around his time. So yes I wanna see more "UR Future talent" come up, like Iqy and John...

I am open to suggestions and will do my best to try and make this possible... What do you think Toma?

I also can't guarantee that the resident DJ's have time in their schedules to check 5 mixes a month...

But again we can look at this idea closer... seems very similar to our "UR Future Talent" program we had when the site first started...

up for it in principle, but doubt i have the time to run this. I am kept busy with work, getting people in for webcasts and mixing myself. But if someone can organise it could work!

As you say tho Sergio... you need to know you have enough member participation

We run a similar contest on afterhours, you might want to consider limiting the amount of entries or you might find your weekends suddenly disappearing!

I did state this in the first post. Considered the limit for entries to be 5 but asked if people have any other opinion on this.

Say you limit the number of entries to 3, then there'll be a higher chance of receiving 3 poor sets rather than when you limit it to 5, 3 bad mixes, 1 decent one and 1 good entry would have a higher chance of appearing.

In other words, the probability of the overall quality of the mixes that will be submitted for the contest will not be so good...

Anyway, the judges can download a set, add it to one of their mp3 players and listen to it at work/gym or something.

There are lots of members who I foresee joining this, Errtu, dj-jo, delacroix maybe even Peter etc...just look at the member's mixes. Maybe for the first few months, we'll probably see the same entries give or take a few new ones joining and a few leaving, but in time this should gain popularity from the members and more entries will flow in.

Anyway for the organizer/s, my idea would be (Note: these people may or may not be judges): TheFounder, Lara, Peter, Lolo, Luc, bram. Just get in the most active mod/s because we have some variety in the pool and this should be running smoothly.

I mean, the contest spans for a month... It only takes 1-2 minutes to post a new thread to announce the contest each month then you're free for the first week. Second week update the thread saying it's now the 'judging period' and judges have an easy 2 weeks to listen to 5 hours of music. Fourth week the judges mark the mixes then at the last day of the month the organizer will update the thread or create a new thread to announce the winner.

Hard? I don't think so.

EDIT: Also I think we could limit the maximum number of minutes or tracks in a set. Say an hour or 10 tracks?

Another idea would be to add themes to the contest, but we can get to this later.

No time at my side...4 day's recording of the week between 12 - 18 hours + one bi-weekly webcast of 4-5 hours..I'm on my maximum duty.

any more comments/suggestions/feedback on this?