I have heard a few people say that extra time would be useful to them on the theme contest ("Under the Sea"), and I would also appreciate some.  Rather than rush the maps for an artificial deadline, if there are no objections, I am going to push the deadline.

In fact I suggest we extend the time frame for the themed contests.  Although a year seems like a lot of time, the last two contests have both benefited from extra time & wargear encourages more advanced map making, but those sort of maps take longer to playtest also.  We still have the regular unthemed contests every 6 months, so I suggest we permanently change the themed contest to an 18 month development cycle.

A related question - Would more voting time encourage more voting?  If it was 9 or 12 month instead of 6 months would you be more likely to have played enough maps to vote? 

I would suggest we hold to the 12mo schedule with an extra time extension on a case by case basis.