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Playing devil's advocate for a moment, should campaigns be 7 months long as a rule, or will we still get people wanting the extension, regardless of how long the campaign is to start with. I noticed a few days ago on the Big Bad Bombers campaign (due to end 30 Nov, now has 1 month extension), that one individual only started their model one week before the campaign was due to end anyway, which tells me that people are taking the extension for granted.

Any thoughts?

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I always though that the month long extension was a bit strange, especially if a campaign had been over six months long. I think if you made a campaign seven months long people would still want an extension.

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Playing devil's advocate for a moment, should campaigns be 7 months long as a rule, or will we still get people wanting the extension, regardless of how long the campaign is to start with. I noticed a few days ago on the Big Bad Bombers campaign (due to end 30 Nov, now has 1 month extension), that one individual only started their model one week before the campaign was due to end anyway, which tells me that people are taking the extension for granted.

Any thoughts?

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I always though that the month long extension was a bit strange, especially if a campaign had been over six months long. I think if you made a campaign seven months long people would still want an extension.

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Agreed

IMHO, The only way to be as fair as possible to as many people as possible is no extensions, no exceptions; However, since this is intended to be a fun way to encourage people to share in the avocation, I suspect most people would consider that too harsh, which argument I readily accept.

As it is, I too , am losing the stash war. Bought 4 more kits than I finished in the last 2 months.

If I spent half as much time modeling as I do browsing Kitmaker and commenting on other peoples builds, I would be able to complete a build in every Campaign available!

I think if you made a campaign seven months long people would still want an extension.

If I spent half as much time modeling as I do browsing Kitmaker and commenting on other peoples builds, I would be able to complete a build in every Campaign available!

Non-campaign members rarely look at the going ons of a campaign. ...

If we want to see finished models maybe we should relax the rule about requiring un-started kits and allow some models that have been previously started.

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If we want to see finished models maybe we should relax the rule about requiring un-started kits and allow some models that have been previously started.

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I agree with good ideas.

What about increasing the needed number of enlistees from 10 to 25? That would really cut down on the number of future and current campaigns. Opening starting slots while the campaign is a hot topic.

Joel

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If we want to see finished models maybe we should relax the rule about requiring un-started kits and allow some models that have been previously started.

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I agree with good ideas.

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This would motivate me to enlist in campaigns.

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What about increasing the needed number of enlistees from 10 to 25? That would really cut down on the number of future and current campaigns. Opening starting slots while the campaign is a hot topic.

Joel

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Personally, I think jumping from 10 to 25 is a huge leap (maybe 15 would be a good start) - you would lose a lot of the more interesting campaign ideas (to me anyway), and we would just be left with fairly generic campaign titles like WWI, Battle of Britain etc. I would question also whether such a move would have any impact on the number of people completing the campaign - look at your own Grumman campaign as an example - does huge initial enthusiasm for a campaign proposal translate into large numbers completing the campaign?

In the 2-3 years I have been participating, the most enthusiastically supported campaigns have been (off the top of my head) Anything Goes, The Lottery Campaign, and The Russell Anderson Campaign - perhaps these "lowest common denominator" campaigns should have separate requirements (maybe a minimum of 25 sign ups) and leave the more specific campaigns as they are - just a thought.

There have been a lot of interesting suggestions in this thread and I'm glad to hear from you all. Joel, I'm sorry to hear that you're as jaded by campaigns as you say. I'd like to be able to satisfy everyone's wants but over the years I've learned that this is impossible. Certainly forcing modelers to finish a build is not in the cards and I think we can all agree not only that it won't work but that it will chase some people away altogether.

I've been doing this job for about a year now and trying to stick to the script as I found it while I got more used to the way things are run. Now that I feel more settled in, I'm certainly willing to try some experimentation to see how people like it. Two of the suggestions in this thread echo things I also have thought about changing:

1. More than one new campaign per month. I agree that the fact that new campaigns are often backed up for a year or more is discouraging. I like the variety but people do lose interest. Would you all like to see us try 2 per month for awhile and see how that goes? I could write to all the leaders of campaigns currently in "future" list to see if they want to see theirs moved up. I also have to balance my own real life pursuits with trying to keep an eye on all this.

2. The unwritten "only unstarted kits" rule. I don't think that one's actually stated anywhere but it appears to have become a normal addition to people's rules. I fully agree with the comments above that it's more important to see finished models than unstarted ones and will start to encourage campaign leaders to allow kits no more than (say) one-third finished. This might allow people to pull out some started kits that meet the campaign theme and get them done.

Do these ideas sound like they might help to meet some of everyone's concerns here? I think they would encourage more participation and finishing rates while retaining the underlying philosophy of the campaigns: to build to a theme, share information, and have fun with our online friends!

Michael

I really like your published thoughts, Michael.
I agree with you, so my vote is to allow 2 campaigns per month along with started kits allowed. The object of the forum is to see finished models and learn the sometimes intricate process to finish them; so what does it matter if a model is +/-90% complete. The point is to show how to create.

The ribbons are not a medal; they are a collection of pixels proving you completed a build. That's the only purpose for them; it's the model and the education that is important.