At 11/13/12 10:18 PM, CosmicDeath wrote:
At 11/13/12 08:17 PM, Deathcon7 wrote:
That's a depressing take on things. This undermines fairness in competition and will only make these contests less popular in future if we give prizes to those who run and judge it. Why would anyone come back if the contests are open to manipulation? It doesn't matter whether this particular contest was manipulated or not, it opens the door to it and puts people off a contest that has already fallen out of favour.
Oh man. Just because it's depressing doesn't mean it's a lie. I'm not sure who you are, or why you chose to donate money to a Writing Forum contest orchestrated by frequenters, but those who are intimate with the Writing Forum will tell you that this place suffers from a lack of quality and contribution. I don't remember who judged the last official 3 NG Writing Contest but I remember that the results were pretty skewed--meaning that the judges were not reading like writers. Anyway, this has been the first real attempt at a big writing contest, and, if you remove 4, starwars, and myself from the contest, you have 10 entries (half of which are below 1k words) and with only 3 real contenders. The Halloween Writing Contest has always been the biggest one, and this one went with a whimper. Aside from the inadequate judging I mentioned earlier (I voiced this opinion, to no avail), there were no grievances with the contests; so, the decline in popularity is a result of an external factor/s not because judges can win. Also, I remember Fro won in a Halloween contest 2 years ago even though he was a judges (and his story wasn't that good, either. No offense if you read this, although I highly doubt it).
Like I said, I'm still willing to donate the money I promised. But I am not going to give it to one of the judges or host of the competition, that is just ridiculous. I'm genuinely distressed by the outcome of this contest and what it means for future contests.
Dude. If giving money to a good story stresses you out, how about giving money to people with stories that should've been disqualified (because of the general lack in quality). We've been stressing out about the future of the Writing Forum forever, so we can sympathize with you--but! your distress will only fall on our ears. 4, starwars, Deathcon, Ekublai, mhzinksi, and myself are the only people who give a damn around this place anyway.
As for suggesting I stick to participating, I believe contributing to donations is a form of participating in order to encourage more members to get involved. There were over a dozen entries and three of the five prize placing spots were given to people either judging or running the contest. Please do not give me some excuse about there not being enough entries that "deserve it" so the prizes have to be given out to judges, that is insulting to the members who posted their work but never placed (for whatever reason).
They did not place because their stories were weak. It happens. I remember one contest was full of fantastic stories, with a lot of development, great imagery, and dense, expert language. I have never seen anything close to that in any of the other contests.
I personally did not enter under this (or any alt) account because I felt it would be unfair to donate and enter. I would pose this suggestion to you - don't judge if you'd like to win.
We tried to put together a contest last time (sponsored by only 4 and myself; the prize pool was $100 store credit and $10 cash). If you take out all the judges who entered, guess how many people entered? 1. 1 person, and although his story was genuinely emotional, it was poorly constructed and difficult to follow (and lacked general literary merit).
So far, I think the best course of action would be to withhold all prizes until next time. Rapemuffin has also declined a prize. Rapemuffin was the sole contender if you take out the judges' entries.
*SIGH*......................................................
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If anyone has any questions or concerns you can post them here and we'll address them. This is how the judging process went:
We read all the stories and gave them a score from 1 to 10 (judges weren't allowed to score their own work). Stories were graded on general literary merit, structure, development, language, and varied narrative elements. Halloween and Horror were thematic ideas (not "themes"), so stories were not graded on how "scary" they were. Results were given to 4 (who was not a judge) and the scores were averaged. The top 5 were selected and--well, here we are.
Also, I would like to give back the supporter badge and have Deathcon reimbursed (so he can give the badge to whoever wins it next time). I'm sure if I contact NG they will understand.
*SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*