Starting on Monday October 4, we will start running three graffiti contests per week. They will "go live" on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 am. Those contests will be open for voting and submitting for
three days. This is just to help move things along a little, but without becoming overbearing - which it was at times when there was a new contest every day.
Here is a rundown of the weekly schedule starting on October 4 with
this kegger of a contest. All times are 8:00 AM CST:
Monday - Contest A goes live
Monday - Contest C ends
Wednesday - Contest B goes live
Thursday - Contest A ends
Friday - Contest C goes live
Saturday - Contest B ends
EDIT: No ETA on slags yet, because I have a lot to do in scrapping the Juror system and writing a new voting algorithm in which everyone has their own voting power. When slags do go live, probably before the end of the year, they will occur once a week on Tuesday evening, and be open for voting over a 2 or 3 day period.
As far as contest previewing goes:
I will hold off reintroducing Mecha+ in some form for as long as I can, but as I have said before, it will eventually be necessary to keep the site running. For now, every site member still has the ability to view and submit entries in all upcoming contests, access to the suggested contest queue, and everything else that used to be M+ only (aside from Stash, of which I am unsure we have the resources to bring back). I'm trying to hold out on enabling M+ restrictions because those features need a lot of love and activity right now, and I don't want to limit them any more than necessary. I will give ample warning before contest previewing becomes an issue; I just want the contests to be able to breathe and maintain good activity for now.
On that note, I'll be sending out a mass email to all site members in a week or two, inviting them back to the site to check out the changes. If you have any buddies you think might like the site, send them over! Perhaps we can get some feedback from true first-time visitors on what they think of MP.