Collaborative Creative Writing Community

1 . The story has to be a continuation of the winner story ?

2 . Which stories will be voted on by the judges ,ie every single one, chosen ones.

1.--Yes
2.--At this point, the top ten ranked will still be the ones that will be read by the judges. However, keep a look out for a blog post addressing this issue that should be posted within the next few days.

Hmmm, okay...so how does that make voting more fair? I assume then, that the top 10 (community voted) will remain the only chapters that the official judges will read and vote on?

It gives last minute entries the chance to be seen and scored.

I think you should also make sure to plug CVD on the homepage and the sidebar beginning the day before so that a critical mass will come participate. (Similar to how you effectively plugged the storymash radio show when contest 5 ended.)

For example, on November 14, you create a link to the contest page with the heading "YOU BE THE JUDGE. Please come read and vote on our contest entries by 11/15/08."

Great idea!

Thanks, hebe; in my case, as the past has proven...that's a wunnerful thing...lol. Ever the optimist,...I'll buy it!

That's an excellent idea, wolfram!!

Oh, I forgot to add that in this contest I won't have to worry about the deadline because I just posted my submission. A week before the deadline...will wonders never cease? LOL

For those of you who are asking about how this makes it "more fair," it gives the community a full day to vote on last minute entries. Also, this isn't the only rule that we're proposing. Keep on the look out for more proposed rules regarding the contests in the blog.

Great idea - it'll definitely help for people who get in at the last minute!

It's all good.I'm new to the system how do i get started.I'm sorry everything appears eazy but there's no place that tell the new comer to start competing

Simply go to the "Contest" page and read the first chapter of this contest: "The Unknown." Then, to participate in the second round, add on to that chapter with your own second chapter. :) Let me know if you have any further questions.

Sounds like a great plan! I look forward to this.

Katrina, love this new plan. Question: Today is 11/14/08 and this announcement posted today... I thought the community voting day is on the 15th? Mistake? Anyway, I think it's a wonderful idea and will give all the newcomers a fair chance, plus those of us who don't pay much attention... lol

We use the UTC time zone, so that's why it "officially" started on what was the 14th for most of us.

got'cha, thanks doll! Man I thought I was just lucky and all, a fluke! Ha!

I always feel like I'm asking the most rediculous questions, but, to compete in round 4, we must write a continuation of story 1,2 and 3, taking place right after what the winner of round 3 wrote? In the same genre/context as the originals? Where do we submit our work/ find the link to start writing? thank you for helping me out.

Simply go to the "Contest" page and read the first three chapters of this contest. Then, to participate in the fourth round, add on to the third chapter with your own fourth chapter. :) You do this by clicking on "Add next chapter" on the page of the third chapter. The goal of this is to write a continuing chapter that seamlessly continues the previous chapters, so the genre, style and tone should be as similar as possible. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Say your story does not get read at all, and no one votes on it. Would this lower rating, but no votes, hurt your probability of winning? And why does my story that has no ratings have a .6 rating already? Won't this make people just skip over it?

When you publish a chapter, the system automatically has you vote a 5 on your own chapter, and then a 0.6 vote is added to balance out your vote of 5. It looks as though you have deleted your own vote, and that's why you have a 0.6 rating.

Yes, no votes would hurt your probability of ending up in the top ten ranked chapters which are then passed on to the judges. The goal is to have as many people read and vote on your chapter as possible. This is one more reason that we have the one-day community voting rule in place.

I hope this helps!

Ok thanks. Yes, I deleted my vote, because of a little confusion I had. So, I guess I will go vote again for mine.

Agreed - the holidays will surely have interrupted the writing process and an extension of the deadline is not a bad thing.
Disagree - with an eleven day extension! Maybe five, possibly seven.
Just my opinion, of course. I'm sure there are some very good reason's for this much extension. Yup, I'm sure there are!

oh man! thank you for the extension. Only gives me two extra days (that i'll be around) but that should be enough. Hopefully I"m allowed to give a revised version.

First I want to congratulate Crystalfoo for a great entry, and, I'm sure, a very satisfying win.

Secondly, every contestant deserves a pat on the back b/c there were a lot of great chapters.

Which brings me to the one problem I had with the judging. If you consider the five point system on a percentage basis, then obviously a 2.5 is like getting a 50. Now when I was in school, and I think it's still the same, getting a 50 meant total failure. My parents would have said: "Didn't you study? This is terrible." Getting a 60 would not have garnered much better attention. By this rationale every entry, except for the winning one, earned at least one 'F.' To me the final ten contestants in a competition, after a round of elimination, shouldn't be getting 'F's,' but rather varying scores that indicate a better effort than abysmal failure. A 3.5 is like getting a 70 on a paper, which at least indicates a passing grade, but not a good one. I saw a lot of 1's and 2's in the judging, and while of course I'm not a judge; I was thinking to myself that all of the stories at least deserved a passing grade.

So in short, sorry to ramble, I thought the judging was a bit harsh. Maybe they should consider grading on a curve if they feel that negatively about the entries.

Once again, good job everybody. I enjoyed reading them, and look forward to more in the future.

B.

Hi there, and thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.

I'm sorry that you feel as if the judging was unfair. We instituted the judging guidelines at http://storymash.com/blog/2008/07/16/judging-guidelines/. As you can see, a 2 isn't a "failing" vote according to the judging guidelines.

Again, I'm sorry if this round left a bad taste in your mouth but do hope that you'll try your hand in the next contest.

Thanks!

I don't think the judging was unfair. I think it was harsh, as in stringent. I re-checked the scoring system, and a '1' does mean 'awful.' Several people got '1's' from somebody, and there were also plenty of '2's.' The result it produced, for me, was that the scores didn't reflect just how close in quality most of these stories were.
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For the record, I don't care about my own score. By the time these got judged I had pretty well figured out where my story stood in the rankings.
I wasn't even surprised that the judging differed from the popular votes. It just looked to me like each judge chose a winner, and then handed out scores accordingly. I've judged competitions before, and I understand that that's the easiest way to do it. It just comes out looking a little funny when you look at the votes. Judging is not easy, and I don't envy those with the task, and, hey, I'm sure this was done a lot more fairly than a boxing match. Judging is a craft. I'm sure that the disparity between public opinion and judging results has existed since the beginning. That's just one man's opinion, one admittedly flawed man.
B.

Completely understood. After looking at the other judges' votes, it's obvious that you feel as thought I'm the one who voted harshly. Maybe you're right--but I must admit that I did not pick and winner and then hand out votes accordingly. I read through each chapter and assigned a vote as I have done in the past rounds/contests, and the votes just ended up falling the way they did.

I do hope that my judging won't discourage you from trying the next contest.