Catwalk

Everyone who is a member of Stardoll has heard of, and probably participated in the Catwalk competition at some point in time. The idea is simple: you save your own or someone else's doll in your album and the outfit should be entered. People have three outfits to choose from, and they choose their favorite. The person who gets the most votes wins.

Pros:

• It's actually pretty fun. I'll go on sometimes and vote for different outfits, even if I've already gotten all of my starcoins for the day.
• The winner gets a lot of fame from it. Not lasting fame, or fame on the covergirl scale, but still, you get lots of suite visits and guestbook comments.
• People could offer constructive criticism about the outfits. I doubt that anyone does, but still, it's a nice idea.

Cons:

• Most of the outfits honestly aren't brilliant...
• I don't think everyone gets entered! How many times have you entered, only to have no one tell you that they've seen you. Not that this isn't understandable. A lot of people enter, even if they don't realize it.
• With the fame comes the spam.

Possible Improvements:

• A comments section would be nice. I like the idea of being able to contact who you voted for from that page and complement the outfit or offer constructive criticism.
• Stardoll needs to show everyone, or at least inform them that they appeared on the Catwalk.

Covergirl

The whole idea behind the Covergirl system is a good one. Everyone is familiar with it: people vote for a user that they think has an amazing medoll, suite, and possibly personality, and the person with the most votes is awarded with loads of attention and a trophy. Maybe this worked a few years back, when there weren't over one hundred million users on Stardoll. But it sure doesn't now.
People do it just for the attention now, putting thousands of stardollars into broadcasting, or buying LE just for a raffle for if they win. The title of Covergirl is something to be bought now, not something to earn.

Pros:

•  You get a day of fame! Honestly, just about everyone would love the spotlight on them, even if its just for a little while.
• Inspiration for your outfit and suite.
• If you feature people on your blog, you can go to the covergirl and go to one of their best friend's page, then one of the best friend's best friend's pages, and go as far back as you'd like or need to find someone that's really talented.

Cons:

•  Famewhores galore...
• It's expensive! Even if you don't do a raffle, all of those little broadcasts can really add up. For example, the top broadcaster today, (December 16, 2011) is a user named Kiiing. He broadcasted 1,519 times yesterday. That adds up to 7,595 stardollars spent on broadcasting. I think it's safe to guess that he was running for Coverboy.
• The fame dies fast.

I asked people earlier what they think of the whole covergirl system, and even though I only got one reply, I think it sums the whole post up pretty well:

"I think the Covergirl was a good idea at first - rewarding an SD member who had put effort in her suite and doll and deserved the votes she got by featuring her on the magazine cover. But, like most things on SD, it changed to fame-whoring pretty quickly - and now most of the Covergirls are only Covergirls because they bribed their way into it. For me, the ideal covergirl would be someone who actually EARNED her votes, not someone who bought them with old LE." -JeweI