An Act of Revenge Story Challenge 2017

You, sir, can do whatever you'd like.

Interesting how you refer to my last point as a straw man argument and then go on to say that you are eliminating the challenges because people made unwanted suggestions.......which was pretty much my point. No straw there.

You have often mentioned how much work the administrators do. As a person who runs both a blog and website....though much smaller I admit, I am aware of the work involved. In my case I even create my content. And i still try to listen to the opinions of my visitors.....even if I don't agree with them. But you are not creating the content. THAT comes from authors who submit work. It is a symbiotic relationship. We get exposure. You get content. And it takes work to write and work to administrate. Take either away and there is no LSF.

Oh boy, do I feel like a total killjoy right now, feeling as if I'm the cause of all this and having been very active in this thread as well. I'm fairly new to the community, having entered late in 2015. I had no idea that this discussion had been so severe long before that. We had some words during the past year in the challenge threads, but that's all I knew and I think the same goes for several other of the people contributing to this thread. I hadn't even read the challenge threads before I entered the challenge myself not so long ago in 2016. During my time the discussion hasn't been particularly intense or repetitive for us without a history here. It's been new people with, for them and me, new arguments that they wanted to discuss. Maybe some veterans as well, I don't know. In that case maybe they just like to discuss. I realized after your reference to the old thread that you've suffered through this before, but all comments given here I think were in good, interested faith, not meant to be whining. We can't really expect everyone to be fully aware of what has been discussed in threads dead since years and it didn't cross at least my mind to even go look for such threads beforehand. I thought it reviving for people to be able to ventilate their ideas and thoughts in this thread, some good ideas, some not so good, but still everybody was keen on discussing possible alternatives. Or just talk. I saw the discussion mainly between the participants in the thread, a pretty harmless way to pass time in a comfortable environment. I like to discuss things here, but sometimes it's hard to come up with a suitable subject that can give some response. To me this was just a stimulating discussion, nothing more, meant for people interested in talking about possible alternative ways to realise a challenge. I didn't understand that a challenge shutdown was in the scales. I sincerely hope you'll find it possible to reconsider your decision at some point later on, because it would mean a lot to many of us.

I have sent in a dozen or so entries to the challenges over the last couple of years and not got within a whisker of an honourable mention let alone a podium position yet I have enjoyed every minute of every challenge - from Flopsy's announcement of the topic, thro' inventing the plot and putting it into words, the pleasure of reading the entries (mixed with embarrassment at the realisation that so many of these put mine into the shade) and then the thrill (and disappointment) of the announcement of the results. After this there has been the pleasure of reading the comments which are usually generous and where critical, constructively so.

I couldn't give a toss about the voting system and I am sad that the quibbling and navel gazing on this subject has persuaded Flopsy & Februs to discontinue this enjoyable feature of the Library. The decision is theirs to make and I would like to thank them for all their efforts and hard work on our behalf.

Finally, can I just state the obvious - if Flopsy and Februs don't turn up for work then we don't have a Library - if KDPierre doesn't show then we have missed out on one story in the last 12 months.

I am sorry that people whose work has provided opportunities for so many to write for a world wide audience should have been so offended. We should abandon or at least suspend this discussion for a time.

I'm a little surprised by the thread so far...wow, I didn't realize this was such serious business. My thought would be, the winner should be the person that wins the most votes - simple enough! If you want more votes, write a story that more readers will like. If you want to know what that is, read Gloup.

Or, just enjoy the creative process, if you can. That's where the fun is - creating characters, living in their minds for a few days - the author enjoys the story more than anyone else possibly can.

Sorry to see them go. The two things I liked best about challenges were the prompts, which could get writers moving in new directions (they did for me a couple of times) and the comments, as the challenge itself generated WAY more feedback than a normal story by its very structure. Couldn't give a stuff about scores (although was happy to be a runner up at one point), and am disappointed that there was so much hostility about how volunteers run a free and for-fun activity.

It's a bit like the runners who complain about slow people not being far enough back at the starting line at a charity 5k Turkey Trot. If your goal is to win a medal for being Officially Very Fast, look elsewhere. If you want to go for a run, with some people who are much better than others, but all think running is a grand way to spend a morning, you're in the right place.

That's it in a nutshell for me, I enjoy the challenge of creating characters and scenes that fit the scenario requested in the challenge, and then reading what everyone else has created. would I like to win, certainly, but that's not the point.

As for discussions of how to make it better, that will always happen, someone always thinks they know a better way, I'm guilty of that at times, even if I don't express what I might do. The joy is in creating a story, putting it out there, in this case in a safe environment where others won't think I'm weird, at least I'm guessing you guys to don't me weird. Then sitting back and seeing that others think of it, and seeing if anyone sees the same things in the characters or the stories that I do, or suggests a direction I may take with a new story.

I'm amazed at how much seems to have been stirred up by an anonymous voting challenge. It's going to be a shame not to see any further challenges, since I personally liked the fact they tended to have themes which resulted in deserved spankings. That being said, all the stories which would have been submitted as challenge entries can still be submitted anyway, so nothing is actually going to be lost as a result of this change.

Hmmm.....I can't help thinking that the thread played right into the administrators' hands.

Never mind.....onwards and upwards.

The administrators? For goodness sakes. This is Flopsy & Februs we are talking about here not some anonymous quasi-authority with hidden agendas. Keep on like this and they may withdraw more than the Challenges.