Incorporate "challenges" into ICM
By challenges I mean month-long film-watching contests each dedicated to different cinema niches. Challenge have a set of related lists, and only films from them counts. Usually such contests generate a lot of feedback to related films and lists and motivate participants to explore obscure areas of world cinema. An accent on challenges will be a huge bonus to ICM's reputation as a place for open-minded film viewers.
I took the concept from ICM Board, where this activity is very popular, but some other movie forums also hold challenges. Another model is Karagarga's 'Master of the Month' series.
Implementation: a separate activity stream will be the basis of challenges. All users who signed up for a challenge by clicking a button on its page will have their activity on everything related to that challenge (lists, movies, comments etc.) sent into the challenge stream. In the stream each comment will have a "Quick Reply" link which will post a comment to its respective place and to the stream, so that all participants will be able to follow all discussion in one place. Stats will be counted instantly by the site and displayed near the stream with links to participants' list of movies watched for a challenge (simply a filtered subset of user checks history). Also, it should be possible to leave comment on the challenge itself.
The idea was discussed and criticized on iCM Board (http://s15.zetaboards.com/iCheckMovies/topic/7171199/1/), but that was before the launch of activity streams.
This actually sounds interesting. We’ll think about this.