We've been on hiatus from the contest business for a few months, but with lots of requests from community members and vendors, we're back.

Announcing our new contest to celebrate 200,000 members!! We've teamed up with Idera to set a new contest in motion with a few twists. Idera has donated a copy of SQLSafe and we've added a few more prizes as well and depending on participation, we might get even more things for you.

We had some complaints the last times about people trying to "game" the system or pad their results with meaningless posts and articles. So we're taking the first place out of the equation. This time we'll randomly draw names from the hat for various prizes, starting with our first one on Monday, March 7th.

However there's still a participation component. We're awarding points for various things, which will equate to entries for the drawings. So as I write this, srisamp leads the way for some article contributions. They're still the best way to get your entries in there and give yourself a good chance to win.

There's no guarentee, but the more participation we see and the vendors see, the more prizes we'll get and be able to sustain this for some time.

So answer some questions, participate in the QOD, or better yet, send in a QOD (articles@sqlservercentral.com). A good article is the best way to build entries quickly as well, so jot down notes on some problem that you've dealt with or on SQL Server 2005. download the writer's guidelines and you're off and on the road to getting published.