I’m running a photography forum https://forum.fotografos.online and want to create a photo competition or MULTIPLE do increase volume of submissions and participation on the forum overall.
I took a look at Photo Crowd and that has very promising implementations…
Definitely add a points system and place it at the top section so people can see their points. Rank them based on these points as well. This way, the competition will truly begin!
I ran a photo challenge on my forum last year and used a mix of badges and a spotlight post to feature winners. One cool idea we tried was displaying top submissions on a frame from https://www.nixplay.com/ during a local meetup—people loved seeing their work in a slideshow format. It made the contest feel more real and gave contributors a little moment of fame.
This was my thought as well, but the only downside is OP would have to make a new category every time. I would still try to bucket them under a parent “contest” category though.
OP, just throwing post voting out there if you decide to contain it all in a single topic. (and then you could have a single persistent “contest” category).