Looking for a Topic

airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
edited August 2006 in Internet & Media
Well, as quite a few of you know, we are working on a site for the thinkquest competition.

Our original theme/topic was digital media and tutorials over all sorts progs.

I was looking at the winners of past years, and it seems that most of the winners have had their sight topics deal with some sort of issue, be it DRM, the Digital Divide, or others. Im just wondering if we should change topics to impress the judges more.

We arent very far into the page itself (though vash may kill me if he has to make one more layout)

here is a link to the winners of last year, we will be in the 19 and under category.

so you think that it would be wise to pick a topic with more meat, or stick with digital media. I'm kind of at a crossroads right now, I'm trying to see what kinds of sites the judges favored in the past, to get an idea of their tastes.

I've been talking to vash, and he said to post a thread here, and get a consensus of what you all think, and if you think we should change, do you have any recommendations of an issue or topic we could do our site over?

Comments

  • V-PV-P State College, PA Member
    edited August 2006
    Well, andy covered pretty much all of it, but we were originally planning to do it on space oddities, such as black holes, white holes, theories about then, etc etc. We decided to go with tech since the graphics, and layouts and such were really hard to make trying to match them with the topic. So we want to stick with some kind of tech topic, but something that may have some more strength. Once again, thanks guys.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2006
    Net neutrality. Talk about how webpages like yours would be affected if AT&T got their way.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2006
    I actually like that, I have been talkign to a lot of people about it, and telling them to write letters to our senators and congressman

    vash, I think that we should go with a white bg, and then blue&gray accents them, I think it will look a lot more professional. even if we went with like a grey and red,

    The black theme looks nice, but it looses a notch or two of professionalism. Especially is our site is going to be presenting a political issue.
  • V-PV-P State College, PA Member
    edited August 2006
    airbornflght wrote:
    I actually like that, I have been talkign to a lot of people about it, and telling them to write letters to our senators and congressman

    vash, I think that we should go with a white bg, and then blue&gray accents them, I think it will look a lot more professional. even if we went with like a grey and red,

    The black theme looks nice, but it looses a notch or two of professionalism. Especially is our site is going to be presenting a political issue.
    Yea, ummm. I know where you live. When are you free? Let me know so I can come and stab you in your sleep. I don't want to go with white, expecially for the whole layout because it hurts peoples eyes when it's perfect white (FFFFFF). Maybe a grayish color. But you realize if we change the layout now, we have to change the flas, psds, all the buttons, and everything... :mouldy:
  • Park_7677Park_7677 Missouri Member
    edited August 2006
    I was going to suggest net neutrality also but be very careful, its very definition is argued on. No one seems to be on the same page so you'll be responsible for laying out word for word your definition (and it ought to be good). Once the readers know what exactly you mean, you can then lead them through your content.

    I wrote a final essay on it for a college class. No one in the class knew what it was before (including the teacher) so she made sure I defined it in layman's terms. The best arguments are point out Google was built by college students with no large funding as well as Hotmail (bought later by MS) and AOL Instant Messenger (later bought by AOL). None of them would exist today if had to pay (for bandwidth/open ports/etc) to compete with large companies and their services.

    However, DO NOT link http://www.wearetheweb.org/ AT ALL :eek3:;D
  • V-PV-P State College, PA Member
    edited August 2006
    Any more ideas. We like this idea, but want to look at some more so that we don't end up changing topics for a third time.
  • V-PV-P State College, PA Member
    edited August 2006
    No other suggestions?
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2006
    Well, through my brainstorming, I have thought of none better, and unless anybody feels they have a sugestion, it seems that this is what we are going to do.

    Does anybody else have a topic that would be presentable, with enough concrete details and facts in order to educate someone about it?
  • ParanoidIronManParanoidIronMan Moon Twp, Pennsylvania (Go Steelers!)
    edited August 2006
    Ok guys, are you sure there aren't anymore suggestions out there?
  • V-PV-P State College, PA Member
    edited August 2006
    Andy, I think we can stick with our topic. There's been a few previous winners, that did similar topics. The winners you looked at were just last year's winners, which is why you didn't see it. Here's a link to a few:
    http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110054/
    http://library.thinkquest.org/C0116405/main.php (WTF!, why is this main.php?)**
    http://library.thinkquest.org/C006960F/

    **Almost all their pages end with PHP. I don't know what to make of this, but I'd think they used PHP... :honoes:
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2006
    I don't mean to be a stickler about this, but why do something atleast three other people have already done? Because none of you have to thoroughly research it?

    Net Neutrality is a new, hot topic, that nobody in your competition has had the chance to do before. More than that, it directly impacts the future of anyone who might make a career out of webdesigning; it could potentially impact the ThinkQuest organization's ability to market and recruit via the web. The entire landscape of the internet could change..

    Isn't that worth talking about?
  • Park_7677Park_7677 Missouri Member
    edited August 2006
    I agree with Thrax. It's a much better topic. It effects ThinkQuest (as Thrax said) as well as Oracle directly. It's not something where you're the victim and must portray the importance to others. You, your judges, and almost everyone in the competition are already on your side of the fence. Now just format your thoughts in a well manner and they certainly won't argue that a non-neutral network is better. That just leaves the presentation/coding to win them over on.

    Watch these:
    http://www.politicstv.com/blog/?p=261
    http://www.youare.tv/watch.php?id=545

    They are credible sources for information.

    Note: PHP may have been allowed in past years and they decided against it this year. Isn't there someone you can talk to who would know?
  • V-PV-P State College, PA Member
    edited August 2006
    Park_7677 wrote:
    Note: PHP may have been allowed in past years and they decided against it this year. Isn't there someone you can talk to who would know?
    Could be, but shouldn't they be allowing more and more technology, as they start to introduce it in schools, and more and more people become familiar with it. I'm going to talk to andy tonight, and then I'll e-mail ThinkQuest, and see whats up.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2006
    Yeh, im all for Net Neutrality. Just trying to convince vash of that, the main reasons I want to do it are:
    1. It is very important
    2. It hasnt been done before
    3. Everyone could stand to learn more about it
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