Preamble
Well it's the 20th and final round of the regular season of the Information Finding Championship. In this round we were tasked with coming up with ideas for the next season - season 3.
I've given it some thought and rather then offering topic suggestions for individual rounds I have decided to focus on the overall concept of the contest itself. But before I begin I want to mention that this post is not meant to criticize the IFC in any way or the direction that it has taken so far. I had a lot of fun in the contest and I think that the creator (
Observations
Throughout the contest I've noticed that there are two (seemingly) separate and distinct parts to the IFC:
The first part is just as the name suggests, an information finding activity. It tasks the author with creating a post about a given topic of the week. These topics cover a wide variety of subjects that appear to be mostly random and they allow the author an endless amount of freedom to interpret the topic in a manner that they see fit.
The second part of the contest is a little more obscure but can be seen in the IFC branding imagery and through periodic discussion. It is the backstory of the IFC community, which I understand to be - a group of individuals are traveling through space on their starship in search of information.
I've noticed that this aspect of the competition is rarely discussed in depth and only pops up during the odd challenge. The effect of this is that it sometimes comes across as a bit of an after thought. Similarly, for new community members like myself, the overall point of the backstory can be a bit confusing and at times makes me wonder - what is the purpose of the story, what is it trying to accomplish and what direction do the moderators plan to take it? For instance, the introduction post of the contest discussed the IFC community battling a group of aliens and taking over their ship in order to travel the universe, but then the contest never actually mentioned that storyline again which for me is slightly confusing.
My confusion regarding the matter could be because I did not take part in season one of the IFC, which may have explained this discrepancy and/or discussed and developed the story in more depth. However, for new members like myself the storyline remains slightly obscure.
Suggestion
Again, I hope that this is not coming across like I am criticizing the IFC or the backstory of Cryptopia. To the contrary I actually think that the Cryptopia story is awesome and that it is what makes the IFC contest unique and interesting. It is what sets it apart from other contests on the Steemit platform.
So with that in mind, instead of the story of Cryptopia remaining obscurely in the background I am suggesting that it should be pushed to the forefront of the competition and play a much larger role in the contest itself.
I have not discussed this with
Topic Ideas
Ideas for topics are endless but some could include things like:
Worldly concepts related to the home planet of Cryptopia (i.e. geography, plant and animal specie concepts and native inhabitants...etc).
Creating a language, culture, religion or even government structure.
City planning (i.e. developing a city layout and technological innovations within it such as food production, transportation, energy production...etc).
Concepts related to branding such as logos, theme songs....etc.
Short stories about the world and community members.
Basically, each weeks challenge would require individuals to think outside the box and creatively and innovatively come up with ideas to build a sci-fi utopian universe. This would be similar to what 
Judges could pick post ideas that best fit the objective of building a utopian world which could then be compiled into some sort of catalogue of ideas that build the mythos of Cryptopia, sort of like the universe of J.R.R Tolkiens "Lord of the Rings" or George R. R. Martin's "Game of Thrones universe."
Furthermore, since some of the short word puzzle challenges, random topics and marketplace ideas are also a lot of fun as well, I was thinking that they could be saved for the bonus rounds in the new season. Winners of these rounds could recieve artifacts, bonus points, advantages or special prizes.
Challenges and Considerations
What I am suggesting is no small feat and would not be without its challenges and criticisims. After all, I am effectively suggesting a new direction for the IFC, as "Information Finding" would solely focus on the sci-fi fantasy genre.
As such, some community members may not like this direction (which is completely fair) and may prefer things to stay as they are. The new direction would certainly require a lot of creative and innovative thought in a genre (sci-fi fantasy) that people may not be particularly interested in. With that in mind, though the new direction may attract new members who are interested in science fiction, technology, innovative thinking or utopian ideologies, it could also result in losing some existing members who prefer to write personalized post. As such, a poll of the community may be beneficial before actually implementing any changes.
Conclusion
Overall, I want to reiterate that I had a lot of fun in season 2 of the IFC and will be happy with whatever direction it decides to go in the future. However, I do believe that the collaborative exercise of creating a new and better utopian world would be really cool for our community. I also think that it would give the contest some direction and set it apart as a truly unique community contest.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and criticisims to this idea. Thanks for reading.
All images from Pixabay unless otherwise noted