Past & Future Story Challenge 2014

With only a week to go, I'm less than halfway through reading the stories (I find that reading more than two or three at a time reduces my enjoyment, and therfore my ability to judge). I doubt I'll finish them all in the time, which leaves me with a dilemma. Unless there's some clever allowance in the scoring system, those stories that remain unread are presumably going to score zero. I've thought of alternative ways of dealing with this: I could take back the marks I've already given and not vote at all, I could give all the unread stories a score of 5, or I could give them all the average of the stories I've given scores to. How do others handle this? I'm not sure any option is completely fair...
I've noticed a tendency in myself to read the shorter stories first, which must penalise the longer ones. I'm also unsure whether it's allowed to vote for my own entry - I assume not.

What sort of criteria do people judge on - is it purely how much enjoyment the story brings, or do some of you have set standards? I find myself marking down stories where the past/future setting has hardly any effect on the plot - the author mentions that their tale takes place on an alien planet, or back in the 1800's but then tells a story that could just as well have taken place here and now. How do the rest of you vote?

That's what I would do when I had voted on some but couldn't finish them all. I figured that was the fairest way of handling "the rest" without taking votes from stories I had already read and scored well. I thought it most unfair to give every story I hadn't read, however good it might prove to be if I were to read it, fewer points than the least accomplished of the stories I had read.


I ALWAYS read in the order shortest to longest (not prescribing it for anyone else). That way, if I didn't finish, when I'd give an "average" score to those long stories the extra effort the authors;put in didn't give them less than "average," while at the same time, I rewarded brevity in the best stories. When there are so many stories to read and score, I count brevity as a virtue.


There are no rules, or even official suggestions on this, to my knowledge. I always voted on my own story, giving it what I thought to be a fair mark (Ok, so I like my own writing, meaning that what I considered a fair mark was usually pretty good).

This time, alas, I haven't had time to read (and therefore vote upon) any of the stories.

I have a simple solution for you Njrick. Find my stories, give them 10's and then find a few more and give them 7's. Take the average a give it to the rest of the stories....LOL. This seems very fair to me. To help you out here my stories are in the first 61 stories submitted.


What ever criteria you use is entirely up to you. Go on enjoyment if you wish or any other thing your heart desires. Of course you can give your story a mark. Usually I mark mine fairly high just like Njrick does his, but like him I may be slightly prejudice in marking my own stories.

On the point of unread stories such is again entirely up to you. I myself have never had the problem so cannot say what I would do, but it seems giving a average score is a good idea.

I believe Njrick gave good advice here but remember it is only advice and the choices are entirely up to you.

CS

My own personal rating system for all the challenges is as follows:
How close was the story to the theme + how good of a story was it?
If it was a great story and embraced the theme, then it's a 10.
If it was a okay story and was written around the theme then it's a 1.

Yes, I was planning to say "if it was a terrible story and was written around the theme", but none of the stories are terrible ones. They never are.

Of course that's not a hard and fast rule. If I read a story and think "Damn, why can't write like that?" then it doesn't matter if it didn't embrace the theme. Sometimes I think I'm being too stingy, but when I'm thinking that it's usually too late to go back and re-rate all the stories.

Oh - and I also try to start reading in the middle. There are so many people who start at either the top or the bottom I feel it's only right to make sure that I read, vote on, and comment on the middle stories.

Like NJRick I would suggest giving an average mark to any unread stories, although ideally I try to read them all. I am down to my last half dozen now, so I should make it, although it seems to be taking me longer this time. Are the stories longer than usual, or am I just slowing down?

Also, like NJRick, I vote for myself, but give myself what I think is a fair mark. In past challenges I have always given the winning entries a higher mark than I did myself, so although probably biased I seem to be able to retain at least some objectivity.

I use the 'random' option to determine reading order. Each time I click the 'random' link and then read the first story on the list that I have not already read. I find I need to do this to avoid leaving the long stories until last, which in turn would possibly deter me from finishing.

I also usually read stories from shortest to longest, that way if I'm pressed for time or maxed out on stories I've read as many as possible. Any I've not got to by the last day I give an average mark, usually 6.

This approach would tend to reward those who wrote shorter stories, by giving them a fair reading, while those that are longer would not receive such thoughtful treatment. That, I believe, is why the randomized approach is recommended, so that no one's (or no-one's; but certainly not noone's) story is penalized by being further down the list than anyone else's.

I set out to make an overall average of 5 as the goal, with the few that I think will be the actual winner scored at 10, and those that are really bad as 1. Of course it didn't quite work that way. I did award a couple of 10's but there were no 1's in this contest.

I try to grade based on originality, appeal, skill with the language, and with points taken off for those stories that are not really tied to the future or the past in some way.

After two courses in speed reading, I've learned to do it on paragraphs of 'descriptive data.' In other words, I have a good idea what's being said and going on as far as gender, age, locations, and names. At the point of punishments or other reasons for a spanking, I slow down. This is because many LSF authors are so good at describing them. I'm not taking a chance on missing anything.

I'm in the same boat. After reading a good story, I like to put some thought into a meaningful comment, which takes time and slows me down. In order to finish, I may have to stop commenting and just read & score; then go back later and make comments as appropriate.
But I know I'm fooling myself if I say I'm really going to get around to going back and leaving a proper comment on every deserving story.

We're always open to extending the deadline for voting BUT in all the previous challenges it's been apparent that there was hardly anyone still reading the challenge entries in the final few days. If enough people genuinely feel they'd benefit from an extension on this particular challenge then we can move the closing date back by a week.