Take a look at Administer -> Site configuration -> Competition Settings. The first section, "Competition state", allows you to change the site's state by moving to the next phase in the competition. You can only move forward one state at a time. For example, you can move from the Submission phase to the Voting phase.
The next section allows you to select the default number of voting days for created competitions. You don't have to change this as there should already be a default setting of two (2) weeks. This can also be set for each competition on the Competition node create/edit form, overriding the setting here.
Below that section there is a checkbox entitled "Keep standings links private". If checked, the competition standings will only be shown to Competition administrators. Otherwise, any users can view the standings pages.
The Node Relativity module needs to be configured in a very specific way in order for it to work with Competition. This has to be set up manually as (at the time of this writing) there is no API for Node Relativity. Settings cannot be easily configured programmatically. A step-by-step process for this is forthcoming, but for now it suffices to say that it needs to be configured like so:
To create a new competition, go to Create content -> Competition. Fill in all of the competition information on the form (except for the winners; this is to be done after you have winners to report), and then preview and/or submit it. Users should now be able to create entries and attach content to them. Competitions can be created at any time and for any future round.
To view existing competitions, click on "Competitions" in your navigation bar. This will take you to a tabbed page with Latest Competitions and All Competitions. Latest Competitions shows recent competition teasers in reverse chronological order while All Competitions shows a table with information for all existing competitions.
When viewing a Competition node, there will be a "Create new Competition Entry" link if the competition is open (i.e. currently accepting submissions according to the dates associated with it). Users can click on this link to create an entry for the competition. Once a user has an entry, he or she can attach allowed nodes to it as entry data. This entry data, or rather the nodes that act as such, is what will be voted on later in the round.
On the Competition Entry node edit form, when a user is creating/editing it, there is a "Competition" pull-down menu with all currently open competitions as options. This allows the user to submit this entry to any open competition. As the available open competitions will change over time, these menu options will change over time. A user can always keep this entry node around and enter it into a future competition. But, if a competition is selected here, and that competition closes, the entry will be submitted to that particular competition. After this happens, no changes can be made by the user. If the user does not select anything from the pull-down menu, then the entry will never be submitted to any competition.
Once all of the current round's competitions have closed, a Competition administrator should go to Administer -> Site configuration -> Competition Settings and shift the site into the next phase, the voting phase. Users will not be able to vote until this state is changed. Once that change is made, users will be able to vote on each other's content for any competition in the current round. The number of days allowed for voting will vary by competition as they may have been set up with different numbers of voting days.
Voting can be initiated from competition nodes and also from Voting Options -> Cast Votes in the navigation bar. Voting is handled by the Versus module. Take a look at it for further information on voting.
To move the site out of the voting phase, go to Administer -> Site configuration -> Competition Settings and shift the site into the post-voting phase. Once this is done, you can select winners for each competition and post them to each competition node. Winner information can be gathered from the standings links on each competition node or from Voting Options -> View Standings. In either case, you will see a view of entries sorted by votes.
To move the site out of the post-voting phase and into the next round, shift the site's phase again. This will move the site one round forward and will reset the phase to submission, the initial phase. You can then begin the process all over again by creating new competitions and allowing users to enter them, etc..
Note: You cannot uninstall the module and then immediately re-enable it safely. Uninstalling removes all data associated with the module; this includes node information for competitions and competition entries. If you try it, you'll find that node information from these node types is missing. You'll need to delete all Competition and Competition Entry nodes before re-enabling.
To uninstall the module, do the following:You don't have to complete the last step unless you plan on re-enabling Competition at some point in the future.
This module was originally written by Colan Schwartz of Openject Consulting.