Way to reduce this to SAT/ACT scoring. Would you care for some tea whilst you make scoring such a chore that no one wants to do it?

What ^he said.

While I admit I'm a Nazi about spelling and grammar, the fact remains that none of that should factor much into deciding whether a story deserves to be continued or not, assuming that the author is willing to take con-crit about any problems pointed out about the mechanics.

This is, after all, a contest about a story to be continued and refined by others as well as the original author; it's not supposed to be so polished and complete that no edits are needed.

So no, I don't agree with a rigid set of guidelines, especially ones containing

or any kind of rote marking and adding up for a total score. I already don't care for this round-robin business, and I sure don't want to feel like I'm judging something using a checklist.

For example, if this were applied to everyday WBA entries, we'd never ask Ryuugi Shi to continue his addictive "Master of Death story since, frankly, it's filled with spelling and word choice errors. These detract little, in my opinion, since the overarching story is so engaging and makes me glad when I get another piece of it. Put simply, it's just incredibly fun to read, and as long as he corrects the mistakes before posting it to FFN or wherever, that's plenty good enough for me.

 

It was not my impression at all the edits could be performed to the chapter submitted after submission: the chapter that is submitted is the one that becomes the chapter of the story. That's kind of the point.

This is a contest, not WBA. This shit is meant to be polished, not whatever you could pull together half-arsed. Like Jon said, this is meant to be hard. Anything else just celebrates mediocrity.

Quite frankly, I don't think rough drafts that come in snippets like Ryuugi's fic should be the kind of thing these contests venerate (the fact that I don't like his fic is somewhat aside the point).

As for the guidelines: meh. They were just a suggestion. Maybe some people will find them helpful. Regardless, we still need to know the official format. Ratings out of 5 or what.

 

Okay, I can understand where Taure's coming from on this particular issue - namely because I do think there needs to be additional factors considered with this contest.

That being said, GL's still right.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no qualms with heightened standards of objectivity (which seems to be what Taure's going for, at least from my POV), but people have very different standards by which they judge stories, and while certain qualifiers may have some universality (like spelling, grammar, ability for the story to be continued, etc.), most don't. For me, if the prose or dialogue doesn't hook me, I'm going to dock a lot of points regardless of how interesting the initial plot idea might be. On the other hand, I can overlook haphazard characterization or a slapdash plot or even some sloppy grammar if the dialogue and prose is good enough to hook me.

But let's even take it a step further and consider a story sitting in the Recycling Bin right now: Unsung Hero. Is it technically well-written? Well, for the most part. Is it well-plotted? Eh. Is the dialogue/prose interesting enough to keep me hooked? Yeah, for the most part.

Does the entire story fall to pieces in a spectacularly horrendous fashion with ruination of multiple characterizations and a third-trimester abortion of a conclusion? Oh hell yes. Does it damn the story in my eyes and remain one of the cementing factors for my hatred of the Harry/Hermione ship? Yeah, pretty much (yes, I'm bitter). Does that story earn the 1/5 I gave it? Abso-fucking-lutely.

The issue is, under your scale, Taure, I couldn't give Unsung Hero a 1/5, and that annoys me. When judging fiction, there's always a degree of subjectivity. Some people love Joe's epic writing while others find it tedious and silly. Some people love my convoluted mysteries while others think my stories devolve into situations reminiscent of LOST and Heroes. Some people think jbern's stories are captivating, while I tend to find them flat, utterly lifeless, and completely uninteresting.

My point is that these opinions are complex and aren't always best represented by a strict mathematical representation, and while there are additional factors judges should consider with this contest, it's highly limiting to follow a procedure like yours, particularly if a story is evocative and can dredge up any significant emotions. I get where you're coming from, Taure, I really do, but it's not the right choice for this sort of thing.

EDIT: okay, agreed with you about the draft vs. final copy point, and if you want clarification of the ranking scale, it's an 'x/100' scale for the judges to use, but a systematic breakdown isn't needed or required, for reasons above.

 

Preventing stuff like voting 1/5 for Unsung Hero was exactly the intention

I mean, 1/5 is the lowest score we have to give. Unsung Hero therefore receives the same score from you as My Immortal would. That's just ridiculous. It fell to pieces at the end, had awful combat and terrible characterisation, but the mere fact that it was literate means that it has reached a rung on the ladder My Immortal never could.

 

The point is being missed here. If I was judging and not submitting an entry, I wouldn't simply be rewarding entries for being competently written or having good spelling/grammar.

No, I expect that going in. I'm at the point in my reading where if there's shitty grammar and spelling, it only detracts points - simply having it doesn't add any. Particularly when you're thinking that this will be a final draft, and all that spelling/grammar should have been cleaned up already!

So yeah, I stand by my ranking for Unsung Hero as being terrible and deserving of a 1/5, and sheer competency isn't enough to redeem the epic abortion that was the ending of that story. If that puts it on the level of My Immortal, which is horribly, horribly written and would lose all points out of the door because of that, well, so be it.

And in a way, there's objectivity to it. Both are horrible reading experiences (albeit for different reasons), and I want my valuable time back.

 

The story I used for the October contest was unpolished and essentially a rough draft, but it still ended up winning. Since it won, I polished it up before posting it to ffn. Grammar and spelling, while important, doesn't always make or break a story. Obviously, there is a limit to that, but that is up to the judges to decide.

 

/entry submitted.

 

Since we're waiting for clarification on how it'll be scored (poll, comments, star ratings, w/e) I figured I'd ask something. It'll probably be unpopular, but hey, fuck it.

Would the anonymity of submitting authors be feasible until voting's over? As in, the chapters we're voting on are all neutral, no name or avatar to them. One of the principal ideas behind the DLP contests when they were suggested back in 2010 was author anonymity- the idea essentially that more lauded authors wouldn't get more of a look-in because of their reputation. This idea was lost somewhere in translation and we actually ended up somehow with the complete opposite in anonymous judges. Since this is a community-wide revamp, I thought I might make the suggestion.

To any who might think it needless, the competition this month has already seen someone drop out because they felt they might be unable to compete with more heavyweight authors. It might be cool to have the RR grow into a fine collaboration as well as a fine list of collaborators. I'm not saying it couldn't anyway, but The_Santi could drop in a 900 word chapter with some BWL cameos for giggles and it'd go in with 400% of the usual number of votes.

Once again, I'm not suggesting chapters won't be rated on their own merit anyway, but it might provoke more varied response if some authors don't start off already feeling like it's a long shot. Name authors might also feel comfortable enough in anonymity to try something they'd not normally put their name to. I'm also not suggesting partiality or that we won't be able to guess occasionally, but going into it without knowing which your favourite is probably going to be might be nice.

Who knows- I'm sure there's dozens of valid arguments against this, and feel free, but the suggestion's there nonetheless.

 

I have no problem with it. It's up to whoever would have to do the coding, I suppose.

That said, I feel it will probably be pretty obvious to most DLP members who wrote what.

 

In the first month, undoubtedly. It'd depend on how authors took it from thereon in.

Meh. It probably wouldn't work, but heyho.

Edit: Just for fun, what would it involve technically beyond keeping the submissions forum private and ripping the text of its posts into seperate html files or announcements or whatever?

 

Couldn't we just send the story's to World or one of the other Mod's (that aren't competing) and have them post em if you want anonymity? Seems to be the simplest way to me.

 

A bit late for that now, given that everybody who cares has already seen two of the entries and will soon see a third.

 

...you can see the stories in the submissions forum?

 

Uh, yeah. There aren't even any specially selected judges, are there? Now that I think about it, that is a little strange... seems some permissions got fucked up.

 

Lol, that is pretty funny. You can see the story posted there, and the last person to post a reply. I can't actually see the story though because I don't have permission to view it. The whole subforum should be like that though. >_>

 

I can see my fic only, and if I try to click on it I get a message telling me access is restricted.

 

At the moment there's not technically any reason why they should be private, but... yeah. Bit odd.

In response to minhoto, I think one of the things that froze anonymity in its tracks the first time around was the potential work involved. One individual copy-pasting every story has a) a lot of responsibility that it's perfectly done, not accidentally cutting a letter or para off, losing formatting, or otherwise dropping a bullshit advantage, and b) a time-consuming alternative to what could potentially be a single line of code and an hour spent on the aesthetics.

No offense to World or any of the others also, but considering how long it occasionally takes to even find out the next genre, or to marshall the scores, I think automation might kill potential apathy just as much as it would hinder mod bias, etc.

 

I can see both stories, have read both stories, and enjoyed them both immensely. Judging will be difficult.

Why not set up a proxy account named "Contest Submissions" with a known password that people entering can access and use to post like we talked about for the ffn submission.

 

Editing posts could be a problem? people would abuse that account a fuckton.

 

I would hope that everyone competing could be mature enough not to go about sabotaging each other.