On the September of 2014, HypnoHub's first monthly theme was started by a bunch of fun-loving members of our community. It was adopted officially within the week, and thus the official HypnoHub monthly themes had begun.

Since then, there's been an array of wonderful themes, and it's been a ton of fun managing them, deciding them by taking in suggestions by the community, talking about them, seeing the submissions, and just generally having innocent fun with the themes as the rallying point.

However, as of 2016, participation in themes has died down. Suggestions in the Official HypnoHub Monthly Themes thread have become sparse, contribution to the themes has decreased dramatically on average, and, all in all, the excitement and conversations revolved around the themes have died down, as they're hardly spoken of except during the next month's selection process.

The themes have brought a lot of the community closer together. In that way, they've served well. However, I've begun to feel that it might be time for the Official HypnoHub Monthly Themes to discontinue. It would be fitting to have next month of 2016, September, the very month that spawned the monthly themes to begin with, be the last monthly theme.

...However, this is not yet set in stone. I'm still deliberating on this (and I still need to talk to Henry about it :P). So, for now, I just wanted to let you all know what might be happening. And, of course, I wanted to know where you all stand on this topic.

Do you think the themes are past their prime?

You know, I wasn't around when themes first started. In fact I've only been a Hub member for about a year now and still BARELY participate beyond looking at art and the occasional forum reply or comment. However, I personally have turned the Themes into something of a game in which I try to see just how many people actually post images of said theme every month and, as you've said here, they aren't exactly sparking every artist to go out and make art that fits that theme.

So to answer your thread, do I think you should remove it on the basis that it doesn't produce a lot of content? Yeah.
But do I think you should due to the fact that I personally like it, no. I'd like them to stay. However should you decide it's time to retire them, I would understand as I'm sure others would too,

Not at all Mr. Dril, I believe the problem here is that every month the same people continue to add to the theme using their fantastic abilities. And they always do a spectacular job. However, like you said, the goal of the themes were to connect the community by getting everyone involved. What I believe the problem is, is a lack a stimulation from everyone viewing this site. We became conditioned to rely on certain people to bring use our daily dose of our special type of stimulant, thus a lack of onlooker involvement. Now that this site has taken off and has gained a very diversely set of fetish types revolving around MC, it's time to take the next step, and further the process of running a community like this.

BUT HOW WILL I GET MY UNREASONABLE REQUEST OF SKULLGIRLS SEPTEMBER?

We don't do franchise themes tho as far as I know... .____.

keyword being unreasonable

Yet I'd still approve cause it's SG... :P

It"s a shame that this is being discussed< because i love the monthly themes so much. It would totally suck if the monthly themes ended right before my birth month (October) so I'm gonna make a few things for this month to see if I can get the ball rolling. I'd love to see the themes stay.

If it takes a significant amount of effort and resources to have the themes, then sure, let them go.

Otherwise, I see no disadvantage to keeping them around.

It'd be a shame to see themes go, but if they do, maybe we could replace them with something?

Personally so long as at least a few people submit for them I think they're doing their job.

All things considered though I'd say that we either need to have a way to get people more involved in them or drop them.

I legitimately don't know. How much effort goes into setting up the themes?

From what I can tell, it's one strawpoll, a pool and an always-active forum thread. Doesn't strike me as unreasonable to keep it around for those that want it.

That said, I do have a few ideas that might improve on it.

1. A contest format. If a theme is announced, you have one week to enter yourself, and then until the end of the month to make an artwork. The winner, as decided by popular vote, gets an artwork from a volunteer artist, or has their work promoted in the forums.

2. Instead of just having a random theme each month, let's say we split it up into the traditional holidays with the 12 days of Hypnomas, an Easter-based theme, then something to celebrate summer/end-of-school, and a Halloween theme. These are things that are likely to gain traction anyway around that time.

Both of these ideas do mean there will probably be fewer themes.

I do agree that there seem to be less and less involvement in the monthly themes... That being said, I don't think stopping the monthly themes would be a good idea.

NamesAreForTheWeak came up with interesting propositions which I believe would be great. A bit less themes mean people would have more time to participate in them.

Also, is there with the hub to bring the month's poll more to the front - for example, displaying them on the welcome page ? It might attract people's attention - we don't always notice, when looking in the main page, that some pictures are dedicated to the monthly themes.

While it's a shame that the themes haven't gotten as much attention as the older ones, I still like them and think they should stay. If the amount of posts is really a problem, might I suggest turning them from monthly pools into general "public" pools? Having a number of polls each season, or using one or both of NamesAreForTheWeak's suggestions, could allow them to be around for longer, and gain more attention.

I agree. I've seen lots of sites with monthly themes that have worked well for long periods of times. To me it does seem like places with good monthly themes find ways to motivate the community and draw attention to the themes.