Fan Fic Contest - Are you the best writer?

[TGRF]

@Dysole @TheAverageFan @Tornado @Bro-man @Elven Lord @BiggaBullfrog @Crixus33 @SheapCreaper

We are on board, as I've mentioned here. Xotli has agreed to post on the front page for us for advertising/announcement purposes, and we can now offer titles as prizes to the winners. All that's left now is to decide a few things:

• How often should a prompt be given out? I personally feel a month is good. It provides plenty of time, but isn't quite long enough to forget about anything, as long as you were serious about entering in the first place.
• How often should we award titles? It's dawned on me that if every winner gets a title, that's going to be a lot of people with the same title...
• Should we have multiple titles? I like this idea for things like 'three-in-a-row winner' or things like that.
• Should we put something on the front page for every prompt? I've assumed this is the way things will happen, but others might have different opinions.

For what the titles and front page announcement should be, I think we should wait on those until we've answered the above questions.
Thoughts?

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

My

• How often? Like I said above, a month sounds good to me. We should at least allow plenty of time for people to come in and think up a good story.
• When to award titles? Awarding a title for every win might be a bit much (I don't know, it kind of depends on the turnout we get). I can definitely see us doing 'Best writer of 2015,' or '3 time in a row champion.' Stuff like that.
• Multiple titles? Yes, I like this idea.
• Announcement for every prompt? I'd imagine 12 front page excursions a year shouldn't be too much.

~TGRF.

[TheAverageFan]

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

We are on board, as I've mentioned here. Xotli has agreed to post on the front page for us for advertising/announcement purposes, and we can now offer titles as prizes to the winners. All that's left now is to decide a few things:

• How often should a prompt be given out? I personally feel a month is good. It provides plenty of time, but isn't quite long enough to forget about anything, as long as you were serious about entering in the first place.

I say once every two months, so even if you've got a busy work month or a lot of school work you'll still have time eventually to work it out. This also allows more time to edit and perfect your entry, IMO.

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

• How often should we award titles? It's dawned on me that if every winner gets a title, that's going to be a lot of people with the same title...
• Should we have multiple titles? I like this idea for things like 'three-in-a-row winner' or things like that.

Three in a row is good. For just plain winning, getting a title for winning once seems all-too-easy, so how about if you've won 3 or more or something. And how about a title if your win/loss ratio is above a certain number, if you're still doing that sort of thing.

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

• Should we put something on the front page for every prompt? I've assumed this is the way things will happen, but others might have different opinions.

Eh, only if there's not a prompt very often, like I said. There's not something on the front page too often, and we wouldn't want to clutter it.

~TAF

[Elven Lord]

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

@Dysole @TheAverageFan @Tornado @Bro-man @Elven Lord @BiggaBullfrog @Crixus33 @SheapCreaper

We are on board, as I've mentioned here. Xotli has agreed to post on the front page for us for advertising/announcement purposes, and we can now offer titles as prizes to the winners. All that's left now is to decide a few things:

• How often should a prompt be given out? I personally feel a month is good. It provides plenty of time, but isn't quite long enough to forget about anything, as long as you were serious about entering in the first place.
• How often should we award titles? It's dawned on me that if every winner gets a title, that's going to be a lot of people with the same title...
• Should we have multiple titles? I like this idea for things like 'three-in-a-row winner' or things like that.
• Should we put something on the front page for every prompt? I've assumed this is the way things will happen, but others might have different opinions.

For what the titles and front page announcement should be, I think we should wait on those until we've answered the above questions.
Thoughts?

~TGRF.

Personally, I think that first and foremost we need a leader. For titles to be given there has to be someone awarding them. I motion for TGRF to be unanimously announced Grand Arbiter (you can look up "arbiter" and you may find it is appropriate, or simply click this link) with all rights and privileges established herein:

1) to award titles, including special titles, and to revoke them for unsportsmanlike behavior (such as lying about score)
2) to regulate the goings on of the contests
3) to track score
4) to, at any time, insert a side prompt (up to 3 points or a special title) which players may respond to in a space of time determined by the Grand Arbiter. The responses would be pmed to the Grand Arbiter (for the sake of space and autonomy during the regular contest), and re-posted by said Grand Arbiter at the conclusion of the special contest.

Each rank should be spaced out by 3 points each, each regular victory should be worth 2 points for first place and 1 point for second place. Rank suggestions:

Rank 1
Rank 2
Rank 3
Chevalier
Hospitaler
BaleFire
Arbiter
Grand Arbiter (Chosen by the previous Grand Arbiter from among the Arbiters)

Special titles have little to do with rank in that even if you're a Hospitaler with the title "puppy luver" you're still lower ranking than BaleFire.

2 months is way to long. 1 month is acceptable, 3 weeks is reasonable I think. Think about it even 3 weeks is longer than we needed to turn out some amazing stuff. I'm writing my fanfic AND trying to graduate. Doing pretty well too. There's a guy in my Christian Anthropology class who is an ex-Marine and has 5 full time jobs. He's a police-men 60 hours a week, he takes 4 college level classes and he has a wife and 2 kids, and he still has time to hang out with me once in a while. You can't possibly convince me that the people here are busier than that.

Well, I've said my piece.

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

I say once every two months, so even if you've got a busy work month or a lot of school work you'll still have time eventually to work it out. This also allows more time to edit and perfect your entry, IMO.

My only worry here is that two months might be too long. This happened in the Codex. The deadline for getting articles in was two months. It was so long that everyone figured they had plenty of time, and then only remembered their assignments in the last week.
Then again, more time to perfect it would be good... though I would imagine a month should be plenty of time. That's my schedule though.

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

Three in a row is good. For just plain winning, getting a title for winning once seems all-too-easy, so how about if you've won 3 or more or something. And how about a title if your win/loss ratio is above a certain number, if you're still doing that sort of thing.

Win/loss might not work out, because then we'd likely be giving titles to people who aren't here anymore (but still have the ratio from past entries), and wouldn't know why/possibly not appreciate their title changing.
I like the idea of 3 or more though. If we're doing a prompt every two months, we might want to cut that down to 2 or more... otherwise they'll figure out they have to wait at least six months before getting a title.

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

Eh, only if there's not a prompt very often, like I said. There's not something on the front page too often, and we wouldn't want to clutter it.

~TAF

I concur with that. I think if we could somehow get a deadline between one and two months, it would work. I'm not sure what that would be though...
~TGRF.

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by Elven Lord

Personally, I think that first and foremost we need a leader. For titles to be given there has to be someone awarding them. I motion for TGRF to be unanimously announced Grand Arbiter (you can look up "arbiter" and you may find it is appropriate, or simply click this link) with all rights and privileges established herein:

1) to award titles, including special titles, and to revoke them for unsportsmanlike behavior (such as lying about score)
2) to regulate the goings on of the contests
3) to track score
4) to, at any time, insert a side prompt (up to 3 points or a special title) which players may respond to in a space of time determined by the Grand Arbiter. The responses would be pmed to the Grand Arbiter (for the sake of space and autonomy during the regular contest), and re-posted by said Grand Arbiter at the conclusion of the special contest.

Each rank should be spaced out by 3 points each, each regular victory should be worth 2 points for first place and 1 point for second place. Rank suggestions:

Rank 1
Rank 2
Rank 3
Chevalier
Hospitaler
BaleFire
Arbiter
Grand Arbiter (Chosen by the previous Grand Arbiter from among the Arbiters)

Special titles have little to do with rank in that even if you're a Hospitaler with the title "puppy luver" you're still lower ranking than BaleFire.

2 months is way to long. 1 month is acceptable, 3 weeks is reasonable I think. Think about it even 3 weeks is longer than we needed to turn out some amazing stuff. I'm writing my fanfic AND trying to graduate. Doing pretty well too. There's a guy in my Christian Anthropology class who is an ex-Marine and has 5 full time jobs. He's a police-men 60 hours a week, he takes 4 college level classes and he has a wife and 2 kids, and he still has time to hang out with me once in a while. You can't possibly convince me that the people here are busier than that.

Well, I've said my piece.

I don't know that we need a ranking system, EL. That seems to just be adding details that aren't entirely necessary. (As it so happens, I have ranked everybody, purely because I was bored one day and felt like doing it. You can see the ranks in the Index, I believe.)
As for me being in charge... as far as I know, I am in charge. I will be the one messaging Xotli with front page requests and title updates. (I cannot change titles or post to the front page. Xotli is doing that for us.) I also insert new rules as needed. I do everything with a majority vote, however, if applicable.

~TGRF.

[Elven Lord]

yeah I know, I just felt like blowing some steam by nerding hard and hoping I hit on something.

[TheAverageFan]

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

I concur with that. I think if we could somehow get a deadline between one and two months, it would work. I'm not sure what that would be though...
~TGRF.

You could do 10 Prompts a year, allowing two-month deadlines when needed for some but ultimately striving for one-month deadlines for the others. Not too strict or set-in-stone, but it might work.

~TAF, thoughtfully*

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

You could do 10 Prompts a year, allowing two-month deadlines when needed for some but ultimately striving for one-month deadlines for the others. Not too strict or set-in-stone, but it might work.

~TAF, thoughtfully*

I... suppose the judge could determine if the limit is one or two months. That's kind of their job anyway. One thing to keep in mind: two months will inspire longer entries.

As for the front page, we could just run something up when we feel like attendance is dropping, and not go over one per two months. Maybe an additional one per year, just to keep things regular.

~TGRF.

[Elven Lord]

Here's the thing. 1 week is way too short because that gives leeway for, "I don't have time to think about that this week, I'll do next week". Repeat until they forget. 2 months is too long because people will similarly keep putting it off until they once again forget. 1 month still seems a little much but its workable. That way if there's a week when people are just too booked they still have 3 weeks to ruminate/write.

[TGRF]

Originally Posted by Elven Lord

Here's the thing. 1 week is way too short because that gives leeway for, "I don't have time to think about that this week, I'll do next week". Repeat until they forget. 2 months is too long because people will similarly keep putting it off until they once again forget. 1 month still seems a little much but its workable. That way if there's a week when people are just too booked they still have 3 weeks to ruminate/write.

That's kind of my thinking as well, but we should see where the others lie.

~TGRF.

[Tornado]

Monthly sounds like a great starting point.