2007 News & Views: Discussion and Announcements for the Survivorphile

[Lauren Hynde]

If I were competing, I would feel that it would be 'unwise' to have a moderator as a contestant. I don't think that it's fair to the other competitors as the moderator has the ear of the owner of the site.

I also thought that the moderators were supposed to change each year. So Lauren and Svenska should be out this year and two new mods should be nominated in their places.

I've already won this contest and I just think that it's unfair. Why would you want to moderate a contest that you are also trying to win? Seems that things would go very "smoothly" this year considering that the moderator is already racking up the points ...

Yes, and almost all of the points I've racked up this year have been a direct result of me being a moderator with the ear of the owner of the site. Damn, you've seen right through my strategy.

There has only been one edition of Survivor where the moderator (who was a participant) made some decisions that were contrary to the spirit of the contest and directly influenced the final results. You participated in that edition, so I understand you're in a unique position to express your concerns. In all editions before that one, the moderator was also a participant and there was never a problem. In all editions after that one, there have been two moderators and the rules were adjusted to eliminate any influence from them. Rest assured, decisions like those made in 2004 are no longer possible.

 

[starrkers]

If I were competing, I would feel that it would be 'unwise' to have a moderator as a contestant. I don't think that it's fair to the other competitors as the moderator has the ear of the owner of the site.

I also thought that the moderators were supposed to change each year. So Lauren and Svenska should be out this year and two new mods should be nominated in their places.

I've already won this contest and I just think that it's unfair. Why would you want to moderate a contest that you are also trying to win? Seems that things would go very "smoothly" this year considering that the moderator is already racking up the points ...

Valid points. I guess it's just gonna come down to trust.
We have to trust Lauren to do the right thing and not curry favour.
She has to trust that we will accept that she's honest, regardless of the final outcome of the contest.
I'm new here, but personally I think she's very brave putting herself in this position.

 

[minsue]

If I were competing, I would feel that it would be 'unwise' to have a moderator as a contestant. I don't think that it's fair to the other competitors as the moderator has the ear of the owner of the site.

I also thought that the moderators were supposed to change each year. So Lauren and Svenska should be out this year and two new mods should be nominated in their places.

I've already won this contest and I just think that it's unfair. Why would you want to moderate a contest that you are also trying to win? Seems that things would go very "smoothly" this year considering that the moderator is already racking up the points ...

You do realize you've now not only maligned Lauren's character, but Laurel's as well? To what end? Lauren has "racked up the points" as you put it, but not in any nefarious way. Check her entries - she wrote, she submitted, she gained points. What's the problem?

I understand the issues of the past, but there have been no such issues since Lauren was a moderator. Why throw out "what if"s with no basis in reality? What is the reasoning here?

 

[cloudy]

Valid points. I guess it's just gonna come down to trust.
We have to trust Lauren to do the right thing and not curry favour.
She has to trust that we will accept that she's honest, regardless of the final outcome of the contest.
I'm new here, but personally I think she's very brave putting herself in this position.

She is honest, as is Laurel from what I've seen.

I'm not going to go into great detail as to what's gone on in earlier years, but let's just say that some people cheat, and would like to make others look as bad as they do.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Valid points. I guess it's just gonna come down to trust.

Hi, Starrkers!

There really is no way for anyone to take advantage of being a moderator, the way the contest is structured. This is the 7th edition of Survivor, and during all this time, the only person to have taken direct benefit from questionable moderator decisions - decisions made halfway through the year that were contrary to the spirit of the contest and against the prevailing opinion of the contestants of that edition - was velvet pie, which is why I said - sarcastically, but not really - that I understand her unique position to express this sort of concern. The moderator of that edition, incidentally, was also a contestant and took over the job on any interim capacity - she was the only one to volunteer - because the real moderator chosen and trusted by Laurel had had real life issues and mostly MIA. The following year, because of those incidents, all the rules were tightened, clarified, and anything that implied judgement calls and/or decisions made by moderators (who have since been two, and not only one) was eliminated or reduced to the minimum and within well-defined parameters.

As a moderator of Survivor, every day I go through the New Stories and New Poetry lists and take note on an Excel spreadsheet of any submissions made by contestants. This way, I always know the correct tally of points of every contestant even before they do. Every day, I go through all the scorecards and see if they were updated, and if they were, I compare them to my listing to confirm if they were updated properly. Then, I update the scoreboard. You'll notice the scoreboard includes not only the points each participant has in his/her scorecard at any given time, but also links to each contestant's scorecard, submissions' page, and PM form, and that it is always kept sorted by number of points. You can try to quote the post of that scoreboard to see the complexity of the code involved. I wouldn't necessarily need to do this, and I'd be doing all a moderator has volunteered to do if I simply ignored the scorecards altogether and came back on 4.Jan.2008 to tally the points, but I think this way it is more fun for everyone. I believe that's also part of a forum or contest (or in this case, both) moderator's job. These things take me, every day, an average of half hour. In addition to them, I also create the scorecard for each new contestant within hours of him/her registering, as well as adding his/her data to the scoreboard and retroactively to the spreadsheet I mentioned above. Every Wednesday night I check the British National Lottery for the immunity numbers, post them, cross-check them with the roll-over list, announce the winners and contact each of them via PM to make sure they come by the thread and see it, because they only have one week to claim the immunity. As a moderator, I am not expected to do that - the rules say, even, that "You are responsible for your own immunities. You will not be notified that you have won." - but I choose to do so, again, because this way it is more fun for everyone. As a contestant, it would be in my best interest to be quiet and not tell anyone about them having won immunities, in the hope they would miss it and not claim it. That's not the way I operate, though. Every once in a while - two months, or so - I also revisit every contestant's submissions' page, just to make sure my spreadsheet is updated and doesn't contain any errors. Occasionally, especially as the end of the year approaches, I have been known to contact every contestant via PM to remind them to update their scorecards properly before the end of the deadline, and inclusively tell them what is the tally of points I currently have for each of them. I often contact contestants privately when I notice they forgot to add one submission or another to their scorecards the last time they updated them. I also try to make sure the Chain Stories directory is always updated and includes links to all threads where chain stories are being discussed, as well as the posting dates of the last chapter of each active or inactive but still open-ended chain. Also, there are the announcement threads related to Survivor that you can find not only in the Author's Hangout, but also translated in each Non-English Language forum. To all this, add another hour or two per week responding to PMs from various contestants, some of which are about things that are not related to Survivor but to Literotica itself, but to which I gladly respond when I know the answer, or forward to Laurel when I don't or can't do anything about it.

So, on one hand, being a moderator the way I think a moderator should be and not doing just the bare minimum, means I lose a lot of time that I could be using to write.

On the other hand, the advantages I have for being a moderator are that I do these things gladly. I'm a bit of a control freak, and I enjoy the order I bring to the scoreboard and even visually to the thread index. A happy contestant is a more productive contestant (or so I hope; really haven't had much time to write anything other than poetry so far since I became one). I imagine that seeing my name in a PM might elicit a quicker response from Laurel than if that PM came from another random Literotica author, but Laurel is known for responding fairly quickly to any PM with a valid question or cry for help from anyone here. But even if I weren't a moderator of Survivor, that would still happen, because I am also a moderator of two other forums at Literotica (Poetry Feedback & Discussion and Portuguese), so you can also nix having "the ear of the owner of the site" as an advantage resulting from being a Survivor moderator - I have it anyway, and it's not much of an advantage. The submissions I have posted so far took the same time to have been approved as they usually do for all contestants, and the Illustrated Poetry ones I still have pending have been pending for a week, as have the ones from all other contestants, I'm sure. I don't know, maybe there is an advantage I may have as a contestant being a moderator, but I can't think of anything else right now. If any of you are aware of any way in which I can make this work in my favour - and I'm talking about racking up as many points as I possibly can, damn it - please let me know!

 

[CharleyH]

Hi, Starrkers!

There really is no way for anyone to take advantage of being a moderator, the way the contest is structured. This is the 7th edition of Survivor, and during all this time, the only person to have taken direct benefit from questionable moderator decisions - decisions made halfway through the year that were contrary to the spirit of the contest and against the prevailing opinion of the contestants of that edition - was velvet pie, which is why I said - sarcastically, but not really - that I understand her unique position to express this sort of concern. The moderator of that edition, incidentally, was also a contestant and took over the job on any interim capacity - she was the only one to volunteer - because the real moderator chosen and trusted by Laurel had had real life issues and mostly MIA. The following year, because of those incidents, all the rules were tightened, clarified, and anything that implied judgement calls and/or decisions made by moderators (who have since been two, and not only one) was eliminated or reduced to the minimum and within well-defined parameters.

Not to get all Donald and Rosie on us, love.

As a moderator of Survivor, every day I go through the New Stories and New Poetry lists and take note on an Excel spreadsheet of any submissions made by contestants. This way, I always know the correct tally of points of every contestant even before they do. Every day, I go through all the scorecards and see if they were updated, and if they were, I compare them to my listing to confirm if they were updated properly.... ETC

I think Velvet Pie raises an issue, but I know Lauren (GAWD ) and have asked why she so diligently goes through every new story when I personally feel it is not necessary and ... we could be doing OTHER things. However, I do know she has done a hell of a job, more than most in the past when "I" wanted to participate, but chose not (edit to add: chose not because the rules were so confusing and no one really wanted to explain them to me).

She personally replies to emails, questions and concerns, helps others link to their own stories - does everything to assure the "fairness" of the competition. Also knowing Lauren, I know she is a writer who is meticulous and I cannot see her writing 20 stories in the year, let alone 200 - but she has a personal goal and I know that there is nothing to fudge, nothing to cheat as the contest is now.

I think Minsue said it best, and I might add that with all the checks and balances that she and Jim originally enhanced? One could trust Lauren more than their own government.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Not to get all Donald and Rosie on us, love.

Don't underestimate Donald and Rosie's entertainment value, babe. And it's also the moderator's job to keep the participants entertained.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I dunno what happened in 2004, but I have to say that questioning Lauren's integrity isn't just crazy, it's insulting. The woman (as she posted in great detail, for all of us to see, for pete's sake, taking up even more of her valuable time) goes above and beyond the call of duty to this contest, and if there is one person in the world I would say would never even attempt to cheat--at anything--it would be Lauren.

She and Svenska did a fantastic job last year and they will do another great job this year, I'm sure.

Besides, remember, the scoreboard doesn't always reflect who's ahead. Decayed Angel didn't update his scorecard until the last second, and tons of people thought I was going to win. (I, however, knew he was way ahead of me!) Lauren may be ahead on the scoreboard right now... but the numbers may not reflect reality.

And really, the scores are a moot point. Lauren wouldn't cheat. Period. Just isn't gonna happen. Monkeys are more likely to fly out of my butt! So relax and have fun and go WRITE, instead of wasting your time worrying about someone else's job!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Thank you for the kind words.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Here is something that I had only mentioned in passing on the first post of this thread and was again brought to my attention today, and instead of enforcing a hard rule, I would prefer to first make an appeal to every contestant's sense of fairplay.

Each individual story you submit should go into the category it actually corresponds to. Each individual story should be able to stand on its own in that category, even if it part of a multi-chapter series. That is the key element. Multi-chapter stories should always be series of stories capable of standing alone. They should not be a larger story simply split into small parts without autonomy. If that is the case, then all those parts should go into the Novels & Novellas category only.

For example, if you are writing a very long story with a lesbian theme, you have three courses of action that would be fair to everyone, not only you and the other contestants, but also to the readers:

1) Post the entire story, as a whole and in one single submission, in the Lesbian Sex category.

2) Post the entire story, split into smaller manageable parts, in the Novels & Novellas section. (Each part will need to have 7500 words to be eligible for points in Survivor)

3) Post the story, split into smaller parts, but making sure that each part can stand on its own in the category it is posted under. If a part doesn't make sense on its own, without reading the rest of the series, it shouldn't be posted on its own. Join it with other parts until the block has enough internal coherence. If a part, even being able to stand on its own, does not include lesbian sex, it shouldn't be posted under the Lesbian Sex category, but under Non-Erotic or whatever other category best corresponds to that specific part's content.​

Please keep these things in mind when writing and submitting multi-part series, for the sake of a fair game for everyone involved.

 

[DarkBee]

... It's a personal challenge, and my goal is just one submission (non-poetry) every two weeks. Which means I have 5 days to write one before I'm already behind schedule.

Luckily I'm just a lazy student with a extremely horny mind, so I have plenty of time thinking of and writing new stories (if I'm allowed to join, don't think that's a problem).
My goal will be to try and churn out a new story every 2 days or so, maybe every day a new story or a new chapter.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

What else must I do? Will they PM me once I post this?

You will be notified via Private Message (PM) once your scoring thread has been created, and you may begin tracking your scores immediately after.

Yes.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

I'm overwhelmed

Okay, I received the official PM but now do not have a clue what to do next.

You sent me a link to a scorecard format, what do I do with that? I thought Literotica kept score of my points automatically. Do I keep my own score? And how do I do that?

This is a bit overwhelming.

I just thought that all I needed to do was to write stories (lol).

Thanks for your help

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Okay, I received the official PM but now do not have a clue what to do next.

You sent me a link to a scorecard format, what do I do with that? I thought Literotica kept score of my points automatically. Do I keep my own score? And how do I do that?

This is a bit overwhelming.

I just thought that all I needed to do was to write stories (lol).

Thanks for your help

You have to keep your own score. There's nothing done automatically, because Survivor is a contest organised entirely by the authors; Literotica only sponsors it.

Help is on the way via PM.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

Looking for strategy advice

Please forgive me for asking this dumb question but I am new here.

Is there a strategy to this contest?

My strategy, thus far, is that I just like to write and do not know what particular catagory I am writing until I am nearly finished with the piece. Then, I find that, sure, enough, I've written another incest piece or exhibitionism or humor.

I don't set out to write a particular category piece.

I was hoping that someone who has been on this board longer than the 2 months that I have been writing here will give me some helpful advice. It is a bit overwhelming to navigate some of these things. I just now only figured out what the Hell a PM and a CP was, I think.

Oh, yeah, and I just discovered how to reply on a PM (lol). Geez, next I'll be an editor or a (gulp) moderator (lol).

Thanks

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Please forgive me for asking this dumb question but I am new here.

Is there a strategy to this contest?

My strategy, thus far, is that I just like to write and do not know what particular catagory I am writing until I am nearly finished with the piece. Then, I find that, sure, enough, I've written another incest piece or exhibitionism or humor.

I don't set out to write a particular category piece.

The main goal of the contest is to write in as many different categories as possible. The first submission you have in each category will be worth 3 points, whereas submissions in categories where you have already written will only be worth 1. That means that if you write 5 stories and they all end up being incest, you'll get 7 points for them; if you instead write 5 stories in 5 different categories, they'll be worth 15 points. On top of that, you get bonus points if you manage to write in 10 different categories, an even bigger bonus if you write in 20, an even bigger bonus if you write in 30, and an even bigger one if you write in all possible categories.

 

[DireLilith]

sorry for looking at this thread late. lauren could you explain the 8 pts to me? for five stories in one category, we get 8? i counted 7 - am i missing one point? is it the point for having the five stories in one category or such? please advise. i'm almost close to being able to achieve these kinds of points *snickers softly* and im STILL not in the top ten....

 

[Lauren Hynde]

You're right. It's 7, not 8. 3+1+1+1+1.

 

[DireLilith]

darn, i should have kept my fingers to myself thanks for clearing that up, lauren =)

 

[DireLilith]

about scoreboards

i noticed some entries are listed as "hot" threads - they have the red envelope next to them. i also noticed it looks like we aren't able to post new replies on our own scoreboard thread. i did that and it was erased. so how are some authors staying at the top of the list above newer entries? is that decided by the board's code, by it placing the most recently edited scoreboards above others? or is it decided by views, placing the most viewed at the top?

i edit my scoreboard but my listing doesn't get any higher - compared to other scoreboards. i'm not referring to my place on the actual Survivor Scoreboard thread just trying to see how best to do "things" here. i'm not a good forum poster ((**doesn't play well with others**)) so this contest is a chance for me to be seen, which i like! but i'm confused on why my thread stays still. let me know when you have time

 

[Lauren Hynde]

The threads that are listed as "Hot" are the ones that have more than 25 replies (which would be the immunity threads and the general rules/discussion/f.a.q. threads) and those that have had more than 250 views. So, as far as personal scorecard threads are concerned, it doesn't mean anything, other than that a particular contestant updates or checks his/her scorecard often. I guess that if you really want for your thread to be "Hot" for some reason, you can just spend a couple of hours opening and closing it to up that number of views. lol.

As for the threads moving up on the list, the ones on top are those that had posts made more recently. For most people, that means that you post your scorecard once and that is it. From then on, you edit that post and your thread will slowly slip down the list as new contestants sign up. Again, this means nothing, because the scorecard's only purpose is for the moderators to be able to control the entries. You can always access your scorecard easily from the scoreboard - your name there links directly to your scorecard thread.

Some people, instead of simply editing their scorecards, add new posts each time and their threads are bumped to the top again, but that is a pain in the ass for me and I wish they would stop doing it.

 

[DireLilith]

really? but i thought we couldn't add posts. i added one and someone deleted it, i thought it was you because well for obvious reasons it's an inconvenience to the kind lady who updates the scoreboard that's why i didn't say anything. i really had the feeling after that that we simply couldn't use Reply - ? i posted a reply to mine and it was deleted/removed.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I deleted it manually. It was a message to me and I had read it, so I just thought I'd better clean up the thread again.

 

[DireLilith]

okies, makes sense! i wasn't sure what happened *blush* thought i made a boo boo!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I hadn't noticed it before, but JPMMURPHY was the 100th author to sign up for this year's edition of Survivor. In 2006, we had to wait until the end of August to reach that number of participants, and now we got to it before the middle of April. Congratulations.

(105 and counting)