Having an OLDC every 2 months or so is a lot harder on people who want to become regular submitters. I know that I, personally, would have submitted some maps if I felt I had time between contests. Yes, I know, I could have waited and blah blah blah. But this could ensure that people who want to actually design maps get adequate time to actually work on the maps.
You have as much time as you want. You can submit it whenever it's ready, regardless of when the next contest is. And as for regular submitters, why is it important how frequently you enter the contest?
Guys, there is a bigger issue here than lack of time. It's a lack of desire. How will a delay fix that?
It won't. The idea is to acknowledge the lack of desire and reduce the frequency of the contests so that each individual contest isn't as empty. You can't get people to contribute more with any kind of external motivation (you said this yourself, albeit in a different context: "you can't FORCE people to do anything"), so what we have to do is acknowledge that and adjust the OLDC accordingly. Personally, I support the "when it's ready" idea because it's flexible and eliminates the incentive for making rush jobs to fill up the contest. Just have a contest whenever there are at least three (or four, or five, or however many you want, the number is of secondary importance) maps for each of the three gametypes.
Can we have those conversations as a community? Not just aesthetics vs gameplay, but what makes up aesthetics? And what makes up gameplay? I don't really mind if the OLDC dies if we start talking theory a lot more commonly. I'd get excited about that.
As much as I would love that, these kinds of conversations usually sound much better in theory than they actually are. If we go beyond the basic dos and don'ts that are covered in Level Design 101 (surely we don't want to talk about that), things start to get fairly abstract and it's hard to put abstract things into words. In the words of Frank Zappa, "talking about music is like dancing about architecture". I think the same applies to mapping to a certain degree. There are a few basic rules, but beyond that, things become a matter of individual taste and style. But hey, you can always prove me wrong and start such a discussion. I'd be happy to participate.
Sorry that the rest of us aren't as depressed as you are.
You're assuming that you're speaking for "the rest of us" and that "the rest of us" disagrees with Mystic. Is that really the case? I haven't seen a lot of enthusiasm for your ideas.
If you don't care enough to put forth the effort and energy to make the contest worth anybody's time, then you should not be the one running it.
Again, you assume that the contest is stale and needs something more than maps to play and judge. I really don't think that's the case. The only thing stale about it is the lack of maps. The only reason why it's not worth our time is the lack of maps. It might seem at first glance that a spectacular gimmick makes the contest a more exciting event, but as is the nature of these kinds of gimmicks, that's really not the case. Only the novelty wears off, it's the same old routine. And I don't have a problem with routine, I have a problem with the lack of content. A gimmick doesn't substitute for that.
I believe this response is justified given how you shot down my ideas like its nobodies business.
What's wrong with shooting down an idea as long as you have a good reason? If you want to interest people in your ideas, give us a counterargument instead of criticizing Mystic's way of running the contest. One of the most common fallacies of rhetorics is that by discrediting your opponent, you strengthen your own viewpoint. That's not the case. Just because Mystic's way of running the contest is bad (actually, I don't think it is, but let's assume it were), that doesn't automatically mean that your alternative solutions are any good. Different isn't necessarily better.