Question for the author community

[lovecraft68]

Nightmare before Christmas porn parody?

No, it was an actual Christmas themed story with nothing to do with Halloween in anyway, and the author even admitted that on the forum,

 

[Kelliezgirl]

No, it was an actual Christmas themed story with nothing to do with Halloween in anyway, and the author even admitted that on the forum,

I was just making a joke.

 

[lovecraft68]

I was just making a joke.

These contests are no joking matter, dammit.

Well, no, that's really not true, they're pretty funny, just not always intentionally.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

These contests are no joking matter, dammit.

Well, no, that's really not true, they're pretty funny, just not always intentionally.

Sometimes unintentional humor is the best kind.

 

[Voboy]

My impression is that Laurel is doing zero vetting of story entries on following the rules. Has anyone ever had one of your entries to a themed contest here rejected as not being within the rules?

To be fair, there aren't that many rules. "Must be standalone" is one of them, but she flat-out says she doesn't really care if the story is only tangentially related to the theme... but the readers might punish you.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I raised this issue with Laurel. Her reply is as follows:

We place Special Contest entries at the top of the New list to help them reach the required 25 votes in the shorter contest timeframe. The prohibition against chaptered stories was made to prevent authors from breaking up a complete story into extremely short fragments and submit them daily to keep a presence at the top of the New list.

If your original entry is a complete story in itself that can be read without any other part, then you are welcome to continue the story with other chapters (so long as those other chapters are not entered into this contest). It is fine to enter stories into the contest that are continuations of prior works or share characters or universes with works you've published in the past - and many authors have done this before (even some winners).

The question thus resolved, I would like to thank everybody who took the time to comment on this, whatever their position was. Free, open and polite discussion is immensely important not only on this site, but also in society in general. Again, thank you for your opinions.

tarnishedpenny

 

[ElectricBlue]

The question thus resolved, I would like to thank everybody who took the time to comment on this, whatever their position was. Free, open and polite discussion is immensely important not only on this site, but also in society in general. Again, thank you for your opinions.

It's a shame that the guidance now provided is not in every Contest support thread - for ten years I thought "stand-alone" meant "stands all by itself."

This means I can drop an Adam or a Ruby or an Emma and Bobbie story in every contest - something I thought I couldn't do .

As we say in Australia, "Shit, eh?"

 

[SimonDoom]

I raised this issue with Laurel. Her reply is as follows:


The question thus resolved, I would like to thank everybody who took the time to comment on this, whatever their position was. Free, open and polite discussion is immensely important not only on this site, but also in society in general. Again, thank you for your opinions.

tarnishedpenny

It's not the answer I expected, but it's an answer. We, myself conspicuously included, have been gassing on about this issue for years and the answer was something completely different from what I thought.

 

[TheLobster]

It's not the answer I expected, but it's an answer. We, myself conspicuously included, have been gassing on about this issue for years and the answer was something completely different from what I thought.

It is in line with the wording of the rule but seems to be contradictory to the spirit of a contest. It gives an apparent advantage to authors with established universes. They can tap into not just the setting and the characters but also readers who are already familiar with their earlier work.

The silver lining is that we don't know if such spin-off stories benefit from the same halo effect that later chapters in a series do. If the reception of various spin-offs of mainstream fiction is any indication, it can be a double-edged sword: for every Rogue One and Better Call Saul, there's always a few works that fail develop the side stories in a universe in a way that fans found appealing.

 

[Bamagan]

There's a possibility that the wider exposure caused by being in a contest could potentially negate some of the score-boosting that established series get, where only the people who really enjoyed it even bother reading in the first place. But I personally would expect that the tendency for most readers to look at a story and decide to give chapter 97 a miss would hold even in a contest entry.
In the same vein, though, I can't help but wonder how much of the same flavor of 'unfair' advantage authors with large followings get. With such a low threshold for qualifying votes, it wouldn't necessarily take a huge number of devoted fans to put a heavy thumb on the scales (which may be why winners of one contest are ineligible for the next one). I suppose the site would have to anonymize the entries to try to avoid that, which would likely cause other problems.

 

[TheLobster]

There's a possibility that the wider exposure caused by being in a contest could potentially negate some of the score-boosting that established series get, where only the people who really enjoyed it even bother reading in the first place. But I personally would expect that the tendency for most readers to look at a story and decide to give chapter 97 a miss would hold even in a contest entry.
In the same vein, though, I can't help but wonder how much of the same flavor of 'unfair' advantage authors with large followings get. With such a low threshold for qualifying votes, it wouldn't necessarily take a huge number of devoted fans to put a heavy thumb on the scales (which may be why winners of one contest are ineligible for the next one). I suppose the site would have to anonymize the entries to try to avoid that, which would likely cause other problems.

Large follower base doesn't necessarily mean a large fanbase. Following is just a way of getting the author's story to appear in your feed. We don't know if highly followed authors are more likely to appear in recommendations -- and recommendations aren't primary means of discovering new stories anyway -- so getting followers is mostly a feel-good thing for the authors.

This is partly speculation, of course. But if it's true, then a large number of followers would actually serve to drive the ratings of your contest story back to "real" mean, i.e. close to what the general population of readers would rate it if you were a completely new author. In the light of this, it would seem that authors with small but very loyal fanbase are at much bigger advantage, particularly if they also post their stories in a niche category which doesn't receive a lot of drive-by traffic. Such niche entries, coupled with some underhanded voting tactics (i.e. giving 3* to a story that you'd normally give 4* but 4* to one that's maybe 3* at best (and skip voting on clear 5*'s altogether)) would be what I'd guess the "optimal" strategy for winning contests.

 

[alohadave]

In the same vein, though, I can't help but wonder how much of the same flavor of 'unfair' advantage authors with large followings get.

I thought the same.

There is no real level playing field since author names are known and the advantages that come with that are obvious.

 

[SimonDoom]

There's a possibility that the wider exposure caused by being in a contest could potentially negate some of the score-boosting that established series get, where only the people who really enjoyed it even bother reading in the first place. But I personally would expect that the tendency for most readers to look at a story and decide to give chapter 97 a miss would hold even in a contest entry.
In the same vein, though, I can't help but wonder how much of the same flavor of 'unfair' advantage authors with large followings get. With such a low threshold for qualifying votes, it wouldn't necessarily take a huge number of devoted fans to put a heavy thumb on the scales (which may be why winners of one contest are ineligible for the next one). I suppose the site would have to anonymize the entries to try to avoid that, which would likely cause other problems.

I'm not sure if the stats bear this out. I don't see a significant correlation between having many followers and winning contests. I DO see a correlation between authors whose stories generally score well and authors who win contests.

I think having followers helps win the annual contests, which are based not on score but on how many people vote for the nominated stories. But the themed contests are based on highest score.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'll just go ahead and say it.
These contests aren't designed to be fair. They are designed to promote and that is why these shouldn't be contests but events instead. It's never gonna be a level playing field for all participants; it's as simple as that. That's also why I never considered entering one of these. I am the kind of person who gets triggered easily by perceiving something unfair, no matter if the unfairness is intentional or not.

A better way to do it would be to have two or three contests per year only, but with a council of judges instead of public voting, which is so easily manipulated and vulnerable to becoming popularity contests as we have seen in the past. Probably a rotating council of judges.
Sure, there would be concerns about some judges voting for their friends etc, but I believe that could be prevented by the selection process. For example, based on the forum interaction in the past two years, I would be cool with, say, Simon, Wanda, and LC as judges for one contest. The judges could be selected on the day the contest starts, from the pool of non-participating authors with some work behind them. It wouldn't be perfect, but it sure as hell would be more fair than the joke these contests are at the moment, no offense to those who participated or won such contests.

 

[Voboy]

I'll just go ahead and say it.
These contests aren't designed to be fair. They are designed to promote and that is why these shouldn't be contests but events instead. It's never gonna be a level playing field for all participants; it's as simple as that. That's also why I never considered entering one of these. I am the kind of person who gets triggered easily by perceiving something unfair, no matter if the unfairness is intentional or not.

A better way to do it would be to have two or three contests per year only, but with a council of judges instead of public voting, which is so easily manipulated and vulnerable to becoming popularity contests as we have seen in the past. Probably a rotating council of judges.
Sure, there would be concerns about some judges voting for their friends etc, but I believe that could be prevented by the selection process. For example, based on the forum interaction in the past two years, I would be cool with, say, Simon, Wanda, and LC as judges for one contest. The judges could be selected on the day the contest starts, from the pool of non-participating authors with some work behind them. It wouldn't be perfect, but it sure as hell would be more fair than the joke these contests are at the moment, no offense to those who participated or won such contests.

Ick.

You think there are complaints about the winners NOW? Just wait until we bring in "judges..."

Nah. I'd never consent to act as a judge of other writers' work, and I'd think less of any AH denizen who would. It's anathema to why I write, and to what I believe about writing.

There are known problems with the contest scores, but in general I do believe the winners deserve to win. I've read (and submitted) winning entries that I genuinely believe are a cut above. So I'm not sure there's much that's "wrong with" the status quo, especially in the context of the way the site likes to operate. There is, put simply, NO "completely fair" way to run a story contest on a free internet site. Every solution will be a compromise.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Ick.

You think there are complaints about the winners NOW? Just wait until we bring in "judges..."

Nah. I'd never consent to act as a judge of other writers' work, and I'd think less of any AH denizen who would. It's anathema to why I write, and to what I believe about writing.

There are known problems with the contest scores, but in general I do believe the winners deserve to win. I've read (and submitted) winning entries that I genuinely believe are a cut above. So I'm not sure there's much that's "wrong with" the status quo, especially in the context of the way the site likes to operate. There is, put simply, NO "completely fair" way to run a story contest on a free internet site. Every solution will be a compromise.

All right, we can agree to disagree. Honestly, I would rather have you "judge" my story in comparison to other stories in the contest than random readers who read with their left hand only, or fans and followers eager to skew the votes so their beloved author could win.
Even if you judge my story not to be the winner I would still only see it as your opinion, not as something necessarily true or false. The fact that judges rotate should be enough to make it work as we would all get to be a judge, eventually. It's not perfect, of course, I just think it's far better than what we have now. Also, it would presumably be more fun as it would even allow authors to get more "artistic" in their submissions since they wouldn't need to worry about pleasing the average reader/voter.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'll just go ahead and say it.
These contests aren't designed to be fair. They are designed to promote and that is why these shouldn't be contests but events instead. It's never gonna be a level playing field for all participants; it's as simple as that. That's also why I never considered entering one of these. I am the kind of person who gets triggered easily by perceiving something unfair, no matter if the unfairness is intentional or not.

A better way to do it would be to have two or three contests per year only, but with a council of judges instead of public voting, which is so easily manipulated and vulnerable to becoming popularity contests as we have seen in the past. Probably a rotating council of judges.
Sure, there would be concerns about some judges voting for their friends etc, but I believe that could be prevented by the selection process. For example, based on the forum interaction in the past two years, I would be cool with, say, Simon, Wanda, and LC as judges for one contest. The judges could be selected on the day the contest starts, from the pool of non-participating authors with some work behind them. It wouldn't be perfect, but it sure as hell would be more fair than the joke these contests are at the moment, no offense to those who participated or won such contests.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my judgment, but I think this would be a bad idea. It would be just as subjective and prone to error and claims of unfairness as having readers vote. It would be based on far fewer votes. And, it would violate my general principle that reader participation should be maximized, at the expense of almost everything else. Nothing should be done to reduce reader interaction.

The Site's sweep process seems to be quite active near the ends of the contest periods, so I think it does a decent job of eliminating "invalid" votes, whatever they are. I've participated in a number of contests and I'm satisfied that they are fair, whatever that means.

 

[Voboy]

All right, we can agree to disagree. Honestly, I would rather have you "judge" my story in comparison to other stories in the contest than random readers who read with their left hand only, or fans and followers eager to skew the votes so their beloved author could win.
Even if you judge my story not to be the winner I would still only see it as your opinion, not as something necessarily true or false. The fact that judges rotate should be enough to make it work as we would all get to be a judge, eventually. It's not perfect, of course, I just think it's far better than what we have now. Also, it would presumably be more fun as it would even allow authors to get more "artistic" in their submissions since they wouldn't need to worry about pleasing the average reader/voter.

I appreciate that, but I don't wanna. Lol.

What I do think, respectfully, you might've missed was this: So I'm not sure there's much that's "wrong with" the status quo, especially in the context of the way the site likes to operate. That last bit matters, so I might have been burying the lede, but what I mean is that Lit is exactly what Laurel and Manu want it to be. The problems you and I and others identify here in the AH are not problems: they are how Laurel and Manu want the site to operate, for whatever opaque reasons they have.

So that leads me to the conclusion that the contests reflect that overall attitude. Whatever it is the contests accomplish, they serve the purpose the site wants them to serve. In that sense? The contest judging is not broken, and does not need fixing.

 

[StillStunned]

they are how Laurel and Manu want the site to operate, for whatever opaque reasons they have

It's probably ineffable.

 

[Bamagan]

It's probably ineffable.

Very ineffable.

 

[SimonDoom]

Also, it would presumably be more fun as it would even allow authors to get more "artistic" in their submissions since they wouldn't need to worry about pleasing the average reader/voter.

Is there evidence that supports the idea that to win contests authors must please the "average" reader/voter?

I don't know, but I don't see that, and my perception is to the contrary.

My perception, from the contest winners and entries that I've read, is that the stories that place in the top three tend to be better than the other stories, by whatever artistic criteria I like to apply. I don't perceive that they particularly "pander" to the lowest common denominator. You may feel otherwise, but I'll bet a lot of others agree with me, so we're back to square one, where you want the site to change how it does things to suit your subjective preferences. Your opinions are no less valid than mine or anyone else's, but you can't make a serious case for change just based on the fact that you don't personally like something.

 

[Voboy]

It's probably ineffable.

So much ineffability.

 

[Voboy]

Is there evidence that supports the idea that to win contests authors must please the "average" reader/voter?

I don't know, but I don't see that, and my perception is to the contrary.

My perception, from the contest winners and entries that I've read, is that the stories that place in the top three tend to be better than the other stories, by whatever artistic criteria I like to apply. I don't perceive that they particularly "pander" to the lowest common denominator. You may feel otherwise, but I'll bet a lot of others agree with me, so we're back to square one, where you want the site to change how it does things to suit your subjective preferences. Your opinions are no less valid than mine or anyone else's, but you can't make a serious case for change just based on the fact that you don't personally like something.

This.

I've written some pretty weird shit and taken some fairly odd chances, especially in my Halloween entries, and I feel the readers have always given those stories a fair shake. I'd feel less confident with a small panel; in fact, I'd probably write to please them if I was trying to win. I don't want to write that way.

 

[SimonDoom]

I appreciate that, but I don't wanna. Lol.

What I do think, respectfully, you might've missed was this: So I'm not sure there's much that's "wrong with" the status quo, especially in the context of the way the site likes to operate. That last bit matters, so I might have been burying the lede, but what I mean is that Lit is exactly what Laurel and Manu want it to be. The problems you and I and others identify here in the AH are not problems: they are how Laurel and Manu want the site to operate, for whatever opaque reasons they have.

So that leads me to the conclusion that the contests reflect that overall attitude. Whatever it is the contests accomplish, they serve the purpose the site wants them to serve. In that sense? The contest judging is not broken, and does not need fixing.

This is a very good point. Before attempting to fix the "bugs" in the system, you have to determine that they are bugs, not features, and I suspect many of the things that some consider bugs are, in fact, features.

Having a contest system where readers vote serves the purpose of giving readers the best possible scoring/winning system to enable them to choose stories. Readers, as a whole, don't want to choose stories based on what I think; they want to choose stories based on what the broadest pool of other readers think.

 

[TheLobster]

Yes, most threads here can be ended with "nothing will change, you are shouting into the void " But we still do it because it's fun