Serious Debate About the Competitions

[lovecraft68]

One more point and one that will be sure to make many rejoice. This is my last post. I don't mean on the topic, I mean period. I've wavered on this for months, but now is the time.

Saturday night I was in Haverhill Mass, with five other horror authors speaking in front of people, reading an excerpt from my horror novel and answering questions. Then signing and selling some of my books.

The prize is no longer H's and top lists and a W and a few dollars. Now I'm trying for the next level as many here before me have done.

People may not believe it, but I appreciate what lit did for me. I learned a lot here and it was a platform to get me to practice,improve, make friends and even build a a fan base that a few of whom are now handing me money.

When I have it, I'll bump my radio thread and post the interview and you'll hear me plug lit and all it did for me.

But I've maxed here and the biggest thing is time which is now very limited. Too limited to write free sex stories and spend my time arguing here.

I made my point, whether people want to admit that or not, that's fine.

I believe in never say never so won't say I'll never pop back in at some point down the road, but the days of stalling here and getting myself into stupid debates are over.

Have fun trashing me, I'm anxiously awaiting the bombs and crap anon comments that people deny come from here.

 

[Arngrim]

Says the alt.

You want to make moral judgements. Come out and play under your real name.

Once again putting more importance and who's speaking rather than what's being said. Use your ears more and your eye less. As I said before, you wouldn't know me anyway.

 

[Arngrim]

One more point and one that will be sure to make many rejoice. This is my last post. I don't mean on the topic, I mean period. I've wavered on this for months, but now is the time.

Not the first time you've said this.

I wish you luck in the paid market, and I mean that with utmost sincerity. Regardless of your politics, I do think you're a talented author. Spending more time doing what you're better at may pay off.

 

[RejectReality]

My "version" of it is the truth, as evidenced by my link. Your refusal to acknowledge that is disingenuous.

Had I not revealed that I'd chosen not to accept a win, nobody would have been the wiser, because the story was in all ways a part of the contest beyond my refusal to accept the win, which was entirely up to the readers, because the voting was turned on for the entire contest.

Considering one of my stories in the very same contest didn't receive the most significant of those benefits ( posting at the top of the new story list ) it's pretty much a wash anyway.

Not what I remembered, but even your version of it would be a story that was not being included in the contest but was enjoying the perks of being in the contest.

 

[NicoleZ]

To further the constructive aspect, try answering three things:

What do we want the contests to be? (I think there is common ground here.)
If the contests aren't already what we want them to be, then why not? (This is tougher.)
If there are specific problems, then what are the practical solutions? (Difficult.)

If we can answer those question in order, then we can give Laurel a proposal. Writing a proposal is the only action that would make this thread constructive. Otherwise I don't know that this discussion has a value beyond what has been argued over ad nauseum before.

Hear, hear! Well said, that man!

 

[sr71plt]

Further my comment on winning story lengths this year, I found 15 out of 15 winning stories in themed contests were novellas/novels (over four Lit pages), with an average length of 9 Lit. pages. Short stories need no longer apply.

 

[MindsMirror]

Further my comment on winning story lengths this year, I found 15 out of 15 winning stories in themed contests were novellas/novels (over four Lit pages), with an average length of 9 Lit. pages. Short stories need no longer apply.

We didn't know there was a winning formula other than writing something people liked. The rules preclude chapters, so we wrote lengthier stories for the contests. Finally, it felt like more work / refinement should be put into these complete stories. Presenting something we thought was good was part of the draw along with potentially getting more views.

 

[RejectReality]

Further my comment on winning story lengths this year, I found 15 out of 15 winning stories in themed contests were novellas/novels (over four Lit pages), with an average length of 9 Lit. pages. Short stories need no longer apply.

There's something you can demonstrate in a proposal for a change. It's also a change that requires no programming or infrastructure to implement. Doing the restriction by Lit page count rather than word count makes it easy to check, and thus doesn't overly burden Laurel during the approval process.

Of everything that's ever been brought up, this is the most demonstrable and easily fixable issue with the contests.

Four Lit pages isn't an unreasonable limit. It may be hard for some at times ( I have quite a few that hit the 6 or 7 page mark ) but it's somewhere in the range of 14k words. Hardly flash fiction.

 

[NicoleZ]

Four Lit pages isn't an unreasonable limit.

At ~3½ thousand words per page that is a mere 14,000 words. While it is possible to write a story using only 1,500 or so words, 14 k words really is too limited to build a story properly. That said, it would pose a challenge which is something I think a competition should do! It should force you out of you comfort zone to write to a set theme, not just add a few trappings like a bad Freddy Kruger suit and a pumpkin.

To spice it up even more, the contests could be limited to one, two or three categories on a random but rotating basis (one straight, one gay/fetish, one non-porn?) but would that be good for the readers and for Lit?

 

[TxRad]

Limiting the word count and/or limiting the categories will drop the story count even more. Some people can't or won't write short and some people only post stories in certain categories.

 

[Arngrim]

On to more constructive things...

I've seen many voice their opinion that anonymous voting should be disabled for contests. I've yet to see someone defend them. Does anyone have a reason why they shouldn't be disabled? The only problem I could see is that the minimum votes to be eligible would have to be tweaked and/or we would have to simply accept that lesser read categories aren't going to be eligible/practical.

Anonymous comments I don't see as a factor. The power already rests with the author.

I do not think that disabling anonymous voting would fix everything. As many others brought up, you can simply make alts and no one who visits Literotica would attach any self identifying information such as a credit card in order to use the website, much less vote on contest stories. The website claims they can pick up on the use of alts for bombing/cheering purposes, but how accurate that may be is anyone's guess.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, I would propose the following to make things a bit more balanced and fair:

- Disable anonymous voting. Members can log in to an account as they currently exist.

- Accounts made one month or less prior to the contest entry date are not eligible to vote.

- Remove author names from the main contest story page and from the story itself until the contest is over.

- Make the scores of contest entries invisible to everyone except for the author's own work.

- Make the time period to submit a story shorter. Example: make the time you have to submit a story span 3 days opposed to 2 weeks. This is to ensure all stories post around the same time. Keep the contest judging period the same (3 weeks).

- Place a story length limit on each contest. Either have contest A be short stories and contest B be novellas, or make a happy medium for all contests. I'd prefer the former, but this could be discussed.

- Have only one cash payout per person per year. This is to encourage new people but discourage those hoping to try to rig things for the sake of money.

 

[RejectReality]

Probably, but there's a wealth of long term data demonstrating that long stories have a distinct advantage. The longer, the stronger the advantage.

How many short story authors don't even bother when they see 15 of the last 15 wins more than 4 pages long?

Just like your suggestion to eliminate anonymous voting, there's no way to know for sure without trying it. The difference is, this is easily implemented and just as easily rescinded if it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Restricting categories I can't get behind unless it's a contest specifically for a single category, rotating, and once or maybe twice a year at most.

Limiting the word count and/or limiting the categories will drop the story count even more. Some people can't or won't write short and some people only post stories in certain categories.

 

[TxRad]

On to more constructive things...

I've seen many voice their opinion that anonymous voting should be disabled for contests. I've yet to see someone defend them. Does anyone have a reason why they shouldn't be disabled? The only problem I could see is that the minimum votes to be eligible would have to be tweaked and/or we would have to simply accept that lesser read categories aren't going to be eligible/practical.

Anonymous comments I don't see as a factor. The power already rests with the author.

I do not think that disabling anonymous voting would fix everything. As many others brought up, you can simply make alts and no one who visits Literotica would attach any self identifying information such as a credit card in order to use the website, much less vote on contest stories. The website claims they can pick up on the use of alts for bombing/cheering purposes, but how accurate that may be is anyone's guess.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, I would propose the following to make things a bit more balanced and fair:

- Disable anonymous voting. Members can log in to an account as they currently exist.

- Accounts made one month or less prior to the contest entry date are not eligible to vote.

- Remove author names from the main contest story page and from the story itself until the contest is over.

- Make the scores of contest entries invisible to everyone except for the author's own work.

- Make the time period to submit a story shorter. Example: make the time you have to submit a story span 3 days opposed to 2 weeks. This is to ensure all stories post around the same time. Keep the contest judging period the same (3 weeks).

- Place a story length limit on each contest. Either have contest A be short stories and contest B be novellas, or make a happy medium for all contests. I'd prefer the former, but this could be discussed.

- Have only one cash payout per person per year. This is to encourage new people but discourage those hoping to try to rig things for the sake of money.

Some of that is good CF but a few comments.

Yeah the author can delete bad comments but if you're not watching the damage can be done quickly. Reads come by way of the comment portal and bad comments can and will stop them.

The middle part I agree with but that part about story length,see my post above.

Do away with the money altogether. Solves that problem completely even though the money isn't the main incentive in some cases.

 

[RejectReality]

- Disable anonymous voting. Members can log in to an account as they currently exist.

- Accounts made one month or less prior to the contest entry date are not eligible to vote.

- Remove author names from the main contest story page and from the story itself until the contest is over.

- Make the scores of contest entries invisible to everyone except for the author's own work.

Lots and lots of programming.

- Make the time period to submit a story shorter. Example: make the time you have to submit a story span 3 days opposed to 2 weeks. This is to ensure all stories post around the same time. Keep the contest judging period the same (3 weeks).

Problematic for Laurel to approve such a large swath of stories in such a short period of time. Pushes a huge number of regular stories off the first page of the new story lists, or possibly off the lists entirely on the category hubs. Most of the reads come from those locations, and overloading them is going to cause a lot of stories to lose readership they might have otherwise attracted with a slower roll-out.

- Place a story length limit on each contest. Either have contest A be short stories and contest B be novellas, or make a happy medium for all contests. I'd prefer the former, but this could be discussed.

Or have a length restriction every other year. Valentine's - Restricted. April Fool's - Not. Nude Day - Restricted. The next year, Valentine's doesn't have a restriction, but April Fool's does.

- Have only one cash payout per person per year. This is to encourage new people but discourage those hoping to try to rig things for the sake of money.

Don't think this would amount to much. You already can only win every other contest. ( Which I need to remind Laurel to update in her cut-n-paste contest announcement threads, because it still has the confusing and defunct 6-month wording ) and not many people win more than once a year anyway.

 

[Arngrim]

Some of that is good CF but a few comments.

Yeah the author can delete bad comments but if you're not watching the damage can be done quickly. Reads come by way of the comment portal and bad comments can and will stop them.

The middle part I agree with but that part about story length,see my post above.

Do away with the money altogether. Solves that problem completely even though the money isn't the main incentive in some cases.

What is good "CF"?

True, but again that rests with the writer. If you can't/won't monitor the comments, you do have the ability to disable them. While anon comments do show up in the portal, they do not show up in the "recent comments" of any given category.

It's not the main incentive, surely. But as already discussed in another thread, most newcomers don't know/realize what those benefits are. They see cash prizes and think it's legit.

 

[Arngrim]

Lots and lots of programming.



Problematic for Laurel to approve such a large swath of stories in such a short period of time. Pushes a huge number of regular stories off the first page of the new story lists, or possibly off the lists entirely on the category hubs. Most of the reads come from those locations, and overloading them is going to cause a lot of stories to lose readership they might have otherwise attracted with a slower roll-out.



Or have a length restriction every other year. Valentine's - Restricted. April Fool's - Not. Nude Day - Restricted. The next year, Valentine's doesn't have a restriction, but April Fool's does.



Don't think this would amount to much. You already can only win every other contest. ( Which I need to remind Laurel to update in her cut-n-paste contest announcement threads, because it still has the confusing and defunct 6-month wording ) and not many people win more than once a year anyway.

The work needed to do it isn't substantial. Don't get me wrong, it's not a one hour fix, but it's not complex rewriting of code, especially on a site this basic.

As for submission date, it can be weeks before the contest judging to give Laurel ample time to screen them. As for pushing new stories off their category lists, you may be right for certain themed contests (Erotic Horror for Halloween for example).

 

[NotWise]

In my opinion, for what it's worth, I would propose the following to make things a bit more balanced and fair:

- Disable anonymous voting. Members can log in to an account as they currently exist.

- Accounts made one month or less prior to the contest entry date are not eligible to vote.

In an earlier post I suggested that the first step to a constructive solution would be to decide what we wanted the contests to be. One of the standing ideas on the topic was Ogg's idea that the contests should get as many votes as possible.

In my RL experience (as when working with volunteers), anything you do to restrict voluntary behavior can turn out to be very effective. I think if you do anything to restrict voting then you will probably cut the number of votes pretty severely.

If Ogg's belief is correct, then restricted voting isn't what we need.

- Remove author names from the main contest story page and from the story itself until the contest is over.

- Make the scores of contest entries invisible to everyone except for the author's own work.

The FAWC contests were anonymous and it had an interesting effect on Slyc's memorial contest last winter. I wasn't around for the earlier FAWCs.

I don't know that either of these ideas targets a problem in a way that makes the contest better. On the the other hand, they would required programming changes that don't happen very often around here.

- Make the time period to submit a story shorter. Example: make the time you have to submit a story span 3 days opposed to 2 weeks. This is to ensure all stories post around the same time. Keep the contest judging period the same (3 weeks).

This I suspect isn't really practical.

- Place a story length limit on each contest. Either have contest A be short stories and contest B be novellas, or make a happy medium for all contests. I'd prefer the former, but this could be discussed.

I think pilot had the idea of awarding separate rankings to short stories and novels/novellas. I prefer that to restricting story length.

The OP had the underlying concept that the contests should have increased writer participation. Any restriction you place on the story will reduce participation, so I'm not sure that gets us a better contest.

- Have only one cash payout per person per year. This is to encourage new people but discourage those hoping to try to rig things for the sake of money.

Again going back to pilot's ideas, why have cash prizes at all? Is that something that makes the contest better, or does it encourage shenanigans?

 

[StrangeLife]

- Place a story length limit on each contest. Either have contest A be short stories and contest B be novellas, or make a happy medium for all contests. I'd prefer the former, but this could be discussed.

Like Tx, I have a problem with this one.

I basically don't want any limitations on the story, except for the already present "stand-alone rule" and a requirement to write within the theme of the contest (and the latter should maybe be enforced a little harder. I read some stories this time that weren't very Halloween centric and kinda felt like generic tales hastily "converted").

Other than that, I am fine with every story length, from 700 words to the limit of Lit's server capacity and of course across all categories. We even had an Audio story in second place this time - pretty cool.

If Pilot is correct (and I am still not 100% convinced) and those submitting longer stories indeed do have an advantage in voting, then I will say that it's not unfair that people who work harder get an edge. After all, everybody else are free to do what they do. There is no need for a special category.

Do away with the money altogether. Solves that problem completely even though the money isn't the main incentive in some cases.

Hell, I've tried to do away with that money since 2013, but somebody else always get there first...

 

[RejectReality]

It may be different if the new version of the site is more modular, but the way things are now, hiding the score is a massive undertaking. It's visible on nearly every page, and potentially visible on the same page multiple times. On the category hubs, each of the sections is independent, as evidenced by them updating at different times, thus showing different metrics for the same story.

In addition, you're adding a script to each page ( sometimes in multiple places ) that's only in use for half the year at most. On a site with this much traffic, those bytes add up quickly.

Hiding the name is the same thing. It's pointless to hide it on the contest page and the story itself if it appears multiple times on the category hubs, toplists, etc. So, you've got to put a script in there for that everywhere it appears.

You also have to block the "H" from appearing. There's another script.

You can't just stop it from showing the score on the toplists. You have to stop it from appearing at all. Otherwise, it's simple enough to deduce what the score is from the stories above and below it. Virtually every story published ends up on the 30 day toplists for a fairly significant amount of time.

Blocking anonymous voting on only contest stories is yet another "only in use for a fraction of the published stories for half the year at most situation", loading a script that's useless for the majority of page loads, though it at least only has to load in one place as opposed to a dozen like the others.

It's a lot of coding and a lot of overhead, and this is all for a version of the site they're trying to phase out.

The work needed to do it isn't substantial. Don't get me wrong, it's not a one hour fix, but it's not complex rewriting of code, especially on a site this basic.

As for submission date, it can be weeks before the contest judging to give Laurel ample time to screen them. As for pushing new stories off their category lists, you may be right for certain themed contests (Erotic Horror for Halloween for example).

 

[Arngrim]

Hmm. A lot of good points.

I think it ultimately, NotWise is on the right track. First we need to establish what we want from these contests. I was trying more of a middle-ground approach, balancing between "fun" and "integrity". It might be a case of trying to please everyone pleases no one.

So lets start here: Do we want them to be fun exercises in writing, or do we want them to be actual contests of literary merit?

 

[sr71plt]

At ~3½ thousand words per page that is a mere 14,000 words. While it is possible to write a story using only 1,500 or so words, 14 k words really is too limited to build a story properly. That said, it would pose a challenge which is something I think a competition should do! It should force you out of you comfort zone to write to a set theme, not just add a few trappings like a bad Freddy Kruger suit and a pumpkin.

Four Lit. pages is 15,000 words.

Yes, "that's two short" is the Lit. mantra, but in the mainstream publishing world, competition short stories don't go over 3,500 or 5,000 words. So, it's simply not true that these are too limiting for short stories. These ARE the limits for short stories, and good writers can do all that's necessary with a short story within those limits. Lit. is just a verbosity platform--it rewards being verbose. I've posted that short stories and novellas/novels are two different animals. You are just giving up on the art of the short story.

 

[sr71plt]

There's something you can demonstrate in a proposal for a change.

What I've noted I've proposed for years--the spitting of the contest is recent, though, because the discovery by Lit. folks that longer gets better ratings is a recent development. It's a waste of time to propose any change at Literotica, though. I'm not suggesting any changes will actually be entertained.

 

[sr71plt]

On to more constructive things...

I've seen many voice their opinion that anonymous voting should be disabled for contests. I've yet to see someone defend them. Does anyone have a reason why they shouldn't be disabled?

Yes, because it's counter to the Web site interest in maximizing participation. This is sort of an easy one to answer.

 

[sr71plt]

What I've suggested about splitting the contest doesn't limit length at all. It just puts the separate modes of writing in separate compartments. You can still enter a 30 Lit. pager if you want and you can enter one with the minimum allowable wordage for Lit. story too. You just don't have disparate categories competing against each other--and in the current environment default to godawfullong ones for winners all the time.

Since there are so many posting that they are here to develop their writing, they may even stand a chance of learning to write for the real world out there--which is making each word count. You don't get rewarded for verbosity and rambling and having threads waving freely all over the place in the real writing world.

 

[Arngrim]

Yes, because it's counter to the Web site interest in maximizing participation. This is sort of an easy one to answer.

The thing is, most authors, from what I've seen, wish for anon voting to be disabled. Some don't want to participate because of it even. By discouraging authors from participating in the contests (there are many other things that do this besides anon voting) there won't be anything for the readers (the bulk of the website's users) to participate in.

Your point does make sense though. Is there no balance to this?