I'd planned to have a non-DLP poll for this, but honestly I haven't seen many that are that much more robust than simply starting another thread with a new poll.

Authors can vote - but they are not allowed to vote for themselves. @Halt assures me that this is fair from a gaming perspective, and I believe him. That said, this means that I'd prefer if all the authors did actually go vote.

I will set it so that you can't see the results until after voting. You will not be able to change your votes.

Just an FYI there.

 

If we agree on a standard that’s going to make it harder for people. I checked three different places for some of these, edited out line breaks, etc. All just to find ONE that set them down to 1200.

But sure - next time I’ll say MS Word or -website- just for clarity.

The only story that was too long though would have been caught by any counter online.

 

Tentatively I'm going to split Q2 (April-May-June) into smaller comps again.

 

Thoughts on removing the 200-word requirement for reviews on our non-Flash entries?

I still feel strongly about it, personally, but it may have put some people off reviewing in the past. And it's clear from the current competition that most reviewers will write that much or more.

Still require a review from everyone who votes for every story, just no word count limit on it so it can be a single sentence as per the April Rules for Flash.

 

Seconding what soczab suggested of leaving a director leeway to disqualify a review for abusing the trust we give them, if we're scrapping review word limits. Its obviously going to be context sensitive when you make your call, but it's perfectly in line with DLPs common sense moderation approach.

 

On another note - when my 'winner's prompt award' comes up in a poll it will be "Master and Apprentice" just so you know. I've been very good about not putting it in as a 'staff prompt' (/pats self on back) no matter how badly I wanted to force it.

Next competition in Q3 will probably be a mix of available prompts that either came in second for longer comps or won for shorter competitions, in case anyone wanted to have another chance.

 

Not a very good turn-out for Heist in terms of number of submissions, despite having over 2 months to write for it.

I think that soft-confirms that we don't really need many more comps than we were already having. We'll still have some shorter/flash comps in Q4 because of holidays, but can probably stick more to the standard format for the rest of the time.

Still planning on one HP and one Dresden comp next Q as advertised, but both will run the entire time period.

 

@Halt ?

I recall discussing this with Halt in the past and I forget what his thoughts were.

I prefer authors being required to review/vote personally, because we get a lot more reviews when that happens, but you're right that it's flawed.

AT present ... I thought the rules we were using were that authors were encouraged to review but couldn't vote for themselves, which has led to some reviewing but then 'forgetting' to actually vote.

PM me if this is being abused somehow. But happy to discuss going forward.

Would authors be willing to always review/read or would that prevent you from writing?

 

Blorcyn is correct. Either all of them are required to vote, or none of them are allowed to vote. Optional votes by authors is easily abusable. If they are required to vote, they cannot be allowed to vote for themselves (as we assume everyone will, so reduce the complexity by disallowing it).

 

The current rules state that authors can vote but not for themselves, which is your third scenario above.

I'm torn on 'authors must vote' vs 'authors can't vote' - I personally lean towards the latter with a strong request that they review regardless and just not vote.

Ideas on how to resolve this? Apart from Shouldabeenadog, how do other authors feel about it?

Edit: Also incoming Flash HP again, at least one small comp during the holiday season to go with the ongoing Dresden comp.