I love these Skritter challenges, because they really motivate me, and I need that sometimes.

For this month's challenge, the Skritter guys are giving away prizes to everyone who completes the challenge, which is very generous ! Thanks Skritter guys !!

In the future, though, I think it would be better if we weren't allowed to skip days, because as soon as I found out we can skip days for this month's challenge, I began doing so. I went 12 days without skipping, and then when I found out I could skip, that's what I did. Now I'm going to have to do about 2 hours a day for the next 5 days, because I have to complete challenge.

Thanks again, Skritter ! Can't wait to try out that writing tablet !!

The issue is that those with schedules that force them to miss days (which happened with me recently, for example) couldn't really participate.

James

I totally go with James point here. I am on the road 50% of the time for this challenge so for me this would be impossible if we could not make up for it another day. Still I see Bohans point since I am an strike runner (run at least 1 mile per day). The difference is that I can run at airports etc. but I can't skritter on all the places i am forced to go to. For the Skritter team I am however concerned how high the toll on your result will be with this challenge. Most people will probably go for the tablet and that will be expensive. Mix emotions what to do there.

@Mandarinboy I assume they wouldn't have offered it if they couldn't afford it.

@jww1066 In the last newsletter they actually said more people were keeping up with the challenge than they anticipated (about 50) and said that, as always, they reserved the right to decide that the challenge was a mistake (I don't remember their exact words).

Seems to me that if 50 people complete the challenge and all want wacoms it probably will place a significant strain on the company (hard to tell without knowing how many subscribers there are and what skritter's running costs are, but based on their words in the newsletter that is how I'm reading it).

I would normally agree that allowing people to skip days is good to let more people participate, but in the event that you can't afford to give 50 people the prize of their choice, maybe not allowing skipping days would be better since it would probably cut the winners in half.

I would imagine most people that manage to complete the challenge already own Wacoms? It would then strike me as extremely cynical to choose the Wacom just because it's the most valuable.

@葛修远 Well, for me personally I have the largest sized tablet which I use at home with my desktop, however it isn't convenient to travel with. Therefore I'd really like to get the smaller size for when I'm traveling with my laptop. Sitting on an airplane with wifi is the perfect opportunity to Skritter. I'd imagine others have different reasons that would make choosing the Wacom not very cynical. Most people around here (at least those who post on the forum) don't seem to be the type that would make a move like that.

Yeah, of course those are valid reasons. I meant choosing it purely because it's the most valuable would be cynical, so I don't expect many people would do that.

@joshwhitson13 They said "50 people are averaging an hour a day. Holy cow, that's a lot of people! As with previous challenges, we might be forced to conclude that we made a mistake when we challenged the community to keep up, even at such an extreme level of performance!"

I didn't read that as "we might decide not to award prizes", I read it as "we might regret this challenge". But maybe the Skritter gods will clarify things...

James

50 people? That's concerning :s.

50 people and let say that the price they buy bamboo maybe is 50% of what they sell for = 25 US$. I so much like skritter to survive since i plan to be a member for years to come (you never end learning Chinese):-) Better compensate with an extension of my subscription:-)

@James You're probably reading it right, I should have gone back and looked at the text.

Ha, I was concerned about the challenge being unhealthy for the system too, especially when I saw the 50 people thing in the newsletter. I'm thinking they could stand to stick to lottery-based challenges in the future.

On Bohan's point, though, I agree with others that the daily thing doesn't work out that well - I missed out on at least one of the earlier consecutive days challenges because of unavoidable absences from the internet. With this one, if I had to miss a day, I've already built up about 45 minutes of buffer zone so that I can take it.

i know its hard to do consecutive days with travel and other commitments, i'm the same, although luckily this month, i think i've managed every day :-). But maybe they could have done something like if you do consecutive you get a better prize than if you didn't?

I know thats harsh on those how travel and have other commitments (including myself), but then its more extreme if you have to do it daily. but if you can't do it daily and still get the hours in then you still get a prize, just not as good?

just a thought??

i don't have a tablet yet, so if I do complete the challenge, then thats what i'd go for.

50 people is a lot but they have at least 450 users (basing that on looking how many votes on past polls) so i'm not sure is 10% (or a bit more) a large amount? imagine if everyone did it lol.

@joshwhitson13 or maybe they figured that they wouldn't have to award the prizes anyway, seeing as the Rapture is tomorrow.

James

Or today if you live in China :)

Don't worry, we can afford to back up our mistake and send prizes to everyone. We don't get that big a discount on Wacoms, but we do have a few extra lying around in reserve.

The idea to allow skipping was definitely to allow for those with chaotic schedules to not stress out about it. I've done enough random 30-day challenges where I'd have to do crazy things just to stick to my rules to know that it's a pain at best and impossible at worst. (Once I had to go to sleep "on time" at 10:30 while everyone else was partying, just to wake up at midnight for the rest of the Christmas celebrations.)