Introducing the New AOTD Format

On September 14th, @lesliec will post the “Answer of the Day Contest for September 15th” – The contest proceeds as it always has, with contest participants finding the best answer previously written on Mahalo. The nomination that receives the most “helpful votes” in 24hrs wins the contest prize + team tips. Same thing compared to the old version except the contest is posted and closed a little later in the day.

The most beneficial change users will notice is that the total prize money has been increased from M$10 to M$14. We’ve included a prize for the authors of the “Answer of the Day” in this new version. In previous versions we rewarded only the nominators, it was always meant as token for their participation (you had to play to win.)

In the new version we’ve adjusted the prize money for nominators and slightly make their role in the contest easier. We are removing the emphasis of the nominator to “explain” their reasoning behind choosing their nomination. This could have led to the voters voting for explanations instead of the actual nominated answer. This is no longer a concern, nominators need now only introduce their answer in a paragraph or less, no images, no video. We want the nominated answers to speak for themselves.

In the latest version Mahalo Staff will also be able to participate, in the past we have had no rule about staff. Since we started the contest participants have actively nominated staff answers for AOTD, including answers from myself, editorial director Lon, and even CEO Jason Calacanis have all had an “answer of the day” before. Which I think is fine, because sometimes even us staff can write up great answers, in fact in the latest version staff can also nominate, because we find some pretty good answers too.

Thanks our good friend Rob Brown, we now have tiki awards that will be used throughout the community for the contest. Users now have to place the nomination tiki within the comments of the answer they are nominating, this way Mahaloians know if an answer has been nominated already. I’m a big fan of the Tiki’s I think they will add much needed visual personality throughout the site.

We hope all Mahaloians are as excited about these changes as we are, we look forward to your participation in future Answer of the Day contests. If you are a fan of the contest we’d appreciate you showing your support by clicking the “interesting button” this helps fund the winning nominators prize total, and the nominators help make this contest happen.

For more information visit the Answer of the Day Mahalo page.