The 2018-2019 “Where Will Your Karma Take You” Contest on Splunk Answers Has Launched!

It’s hard to believe that .conf18 was just 2 weeks ago, where I was surrounded by so many curious, passionate members of the Splunk community from countries all over the world. The lively energy at the conference was infectious—there was so much knowledge shared and so many relationships built throughout the week, whether it be in the keynotes, technical sessions, source=*Pavilion, or during the many parties and happy hours in the evenings.

There were a lot of sad attendees when .conf18 came to an end, as everyone had to say their goodbyes to colleagues and friends they only get to see once a year—especially our newly-inducted SplunkTrust community MVPs. However, the anticipation for .conf19 at the Venetian in Las Vegas October 21–24, 2019, has already begun! A #conf19 channel in the Splunk Community Chat group on Slack has already been created, and the topic for the channel is a countdown to next year’s conference (...naturally).

Until everyone reunites again in Las Vegas, users will continue to stay in touch and support one another through our various community programs, especially on Splunk Answers as we’ve seen throughout the years. It's been such an honor to observe the incredibly outgoing and genuine users in our Q&A forum help others solve such a wide range of Splunk questions and learn from their experiences. I had the pleasure of recognizing and awarding our top contributors on Answers each month this past year with a free pass to .conf18 through the “Where Will Your Karma Take You” contest that started on October 1, 2017, and ended July 31, 2018.  

I’d like to give one last round of applause and a bow of thanks to our winners from the 2017-2018 contest season. If you’ve ever asked a question on Answers, you have most likely gotten help from one of these awesome folks at some point, or from one of our SplunkTrust members who are always up there in the karma leaderboard rankings. :)

And with that, I’m very happy to announce the 2018-2019 season for the “Where Will Your Karma Take You” contest has officially launched as of August 1, 2018, for .conf19! We didn’t want to steal any thunder away from .conf18 before it happened, so we delayed this news a bit, but that didn’t stop members of the Answers community from continuing to help their peers in the months leading up to the conference.

Congratulations to the winners of the August and September 2018 competition periods, sudosplunk and harishalipaka! They are the first two users to win a free pass to .conf19 in Las Vegas next year, leaving 10 passes left up for grabs. I’d like to also give a shout out to the runners-up who have helped fellow Splunk users on Answers. In descending order for each month:

The bread and butter of our community, the SplunkTrust, deserve much appreciation for their constant support on Splunk Answers. I can’t imagine where we would be today without their efforts spreading knowledge about Splunk and its capabilities far and wide. Major thanks to our top MVP contributors!

For those of you hearing about the karma contest for the first time or anyone who forgot how it works, here’s a quick refresher:

How do I win?
Users must participate in Splunk Answers and earn the most karma points in a month to win a free pass to .conf19. Karma points can be earned or lost as follows:

• Gain 20 points if one of your answers is accepted by the asker or a community moderator.
• Gain 15 points for each up vote by another user on a question, answer, or comment you posted.
• Gain 2 points if you accept an answer someone posted to your question.
• Lose 5 points for each down vote by another user on a question, answer, or comment you posted.
• Lose 1 point if you down vote someone’s question, answer, or comment.

It’s not about being the fastest to answer a question; providing well thought out solutions that solve users’ issues and educate the greater community on how and why it works is the way to go. Include links to Splunk documentation and other relevant resources to provide context for further learning. Contributions of high quality result in more accepted answers and up votes.

How can I possibly compete against the all-star contributors?
Don’t fret! The top 5 users that have earned the most karma points each month will be recorded. If the winner for the month is already receiving a free pass to .conf19 through other means, the pass will be awarded to the next runner-up. Splunk employees are exempt, and some of our top contributors on the forum are members of the SplunkTrust which already comes with the perk of a free pass to the conference, so there’s hope for everyone!

How will I know that I’ve won?
The winner and 4 runners-up will be contacted by Patrick Pablo (aka ppablo), and announced on the Splunk Blogs after each monthly competition period is complete.

For more information about the contest, you can check out all details in the official rules here. Good luck Splunk community with the 2018-2019 contest season!