Hello Jim and Matt,
I like to start my proposed campaigns at least 6 months to 1 year in advance. That will give me and others interested in such campaign a long lead time to discuss the rules, parameters and give everyone enough time to get what they want. I then submit the campaign with regards to when other campaigns' starting/ending times during my proposed dates with a lead time of at least 6-8 months before it starts.
I have been studying campaigns and on Armorama , you can start a campaign with in a month and let it run for 6 months with a completion rate of 30% to 40% of the modelers that signed up. With a longer lead time I think that the rate could go up to 75% to 80%.
On MSW with a lead time of 1-3 months the rate goes down to 10%-15%. If you give them 4+ months lead time the rate goes up to 25% to 40% completion rate. If you give them 10 to 12 months the rate only increases by another 15%.
On Aeroscale the rate holds steady at 50% for a 1-6 month lead time, But if you give them 9-12 months the rate goes up 75% completion.
Please remember that an armored vehicle can be done fairly quick, a plane ltakes onger and a ship the longest. Now I am not saying that someone who puts in hundreds of hours super detailing a tank is different that some one who builds a plane/ship OOB. What I am saying that a ship usually takes more time to build then a tank.
Now I am not an expert or mathematician, but it seems with a longer lead time before the campaign starts and with encouragement of the campaign leader you will get more interest in a campaign. The modelers cannot wait to start and others who might not want to do such a campaign couldbecome interested in it so you have a higher completion rate of models done and on time. No more extensions on campaigns would help the campaign administrators, also.
To me the more people interested in this site and the more excitement it produces means more members, a larger site and maybe makes the site more self-sustaining while giving Big Jim a little less work to do.
On my master board at home, I have a 10 year plan of campaigns I would like to run, models I would like to do and where I want my modeling skills to be.
I am sorry if I offended anyone, I just like to plan way ahead.
I proposed the Flying Boat/Seaplane campaign last November and it started this November. There has been a lot of excitement during the months leading up to the campaign. I have modelers from MSW, Armorama, and other sites that have never built a plane who are now building a plane. I think that we will have an 85% to 90% completion rate from the way everything is going. That is very good for a campaign.
The longer lead times for campaigns require that the campaign leader commits to a long period of promoting and creating a continued interest in the campaign. I am prepared to do this for as long as it takes to create more and more successful campaigns, and to help promote the site.
Cheers,
Bruce
