@Dynamic Excellent start; now the hard part which is to make it difficult to game the contest. :-) One of the keys will be being able to actually measure the changes, which I'll admit I am lacking in know-how.

Old: probably ought to include tag clean-up. Some thoughts for us to kick around: getting rid of singleton tags (tags with <5 questions) with retagging. Identifying synonyms. tag description & wiki edits

New: ought to ID a few tags (haskell, FP, ... ?) for "best" questions and answers. Similar to last years contest. Testing, architecture, etc... could fall into this category too.

Borrowed: migrations is a start, but essentially that's poaching from other sites. In some cases it would be welcome, but in others it definitely won't. As currently phrased, this is one area that will annoy our peers w/i the SE community. While there's some I could care less about annoying, it's not the culture SE is promoting. Summary: this needs some work still.

Blue: let's lean on the "true blue" participation and borrow some of the aspects mentioned in the "borrowed" category. Rep min is a good idea. Meta contributions (review, ... ? ) are good starters here. I love our mods, but there's only 4 of 'em. And having any aspect of a contest limited to just the mods will incite such vitriol that I don't even want to ponder the thought.

So awesome start, and thank you for collecting the various brain-storming thoughts. We'll need to keep tweaking the categories and their definitions. Initial thought is the # of categories may be too broad at this point but I have a simple mind.

I like Closers, Rookies, Bloggers, and Crap Cleaners (needs a new name)

Changers & Meta Monster need tweaks so they can be measured and not gamed