500 Word & Winter Theme Picture Challenges now open

I wrote a few 500 word stories this weekend, and I wanted to say that I quite like the format. It's difficult to convey a story in so quickly, and the format forces you to choose every word. You have to setup the story, introduce the characters, and manage a (hopefully) clever wrapup in only a few paragraphs.

It's challenging, but a wonderful way of trying out new ideas and forms that might later become much longer tales. Plus, it's a lot of fun!

Thanks, moderators, for the contest, and this wonderful board!

Quite so. I would like it noted here please that Linda has been known to correct an infelicitously (no, sorry, make that WRONGLY) placed apostrophe at a distance of over 7,000 miles (Californian readers please note).
But Linda and I are used to accepting that the thing about punctuative accuracy is that it's its own reward. Nobody loves us.

My. If I weren't a vain and egotistical Dom I would feel just a little intimidated. But moving along. I can testify that Linda's ICBM's (Intercontinental Ballistic CORRECTIVE Missles) have at least a 9K range with a ten meter accuracy at termination. You mix it up with her at your own peril, as I found out one night last spring. But if you must just don't be half a bottle of Merlot into it if you do! Not wise!

But really TEM. We all love both of you and like all loves you find the foibles of your loved ones simply charming. Now as I scamper off to a really deep bunker; Grin!

I would like to offer a suggestion. I am a little hesitant to so as some of the administrators get a little defensive and think that any suggestion is a criticism of the job that they are doing. My suggestion is just that, a suggestion thrown out for the members to discuss, and not a personal attack at anyone.

With that disclaimer here is my suggestion.

I think that it would be a good idea for contest story entries to be loaded as soon as they come in and members could vote on them immediately rather than waiting for a voting period to open. The results, as now, would not be posted until that particular contest is over.

That was impossible with the old voting system since we each had only 10 votes total and we had to wait until we read all the stories entered in order to determine which stories should get those limited number of votes. With the new system of up to 10 votes for each story that is not neccessary. The member could read the story and decide whether it should receive a 6, a 9, a 2 or whatever. Each story would stand on its own merits and not have to be compared with any other stories.

The advantage of this system is that it would give the members a longer time to vote on each story. When there are many stories posted and only a limited time to read them it almost becomes work rather than pleasure. With the new 10 vote system it gives members the freedom to rate each story individually and not have to place them in order of preference. I think that we can use that new freedom to spread out the voting time starting now until the closing date thus allowing members to read the stories at their leisure rather than having to rush through them.

What do other members think?

Why not??? We are voting on the merits of each story and not one story over another story. It would give us more time to read these stories. With a story of 500 words, it still is not so bad, but with a story of thousands of words, the time limit would still be difficult.

I agree with Tiptopper that his approach offers a longer juding period, which is better.

The one disadvantage is that if a writer reads a great story, and is inspired to write his own take on it, then that sort of water downs the first guys entry a bit. So if you have one great story with an Energizer Bunny joke on it on day one, you could have 50 stories with the same joke at the end.

I know there were elements of Tiptopper's incredible CAT'S CURIOSITY that I loved, and which I incorporated into my next story. Building on great ideas is a good thing, of course, and since both of our stories were like 7,000 words plus it was hardly noticable. It might be more notiicable in the confines of a story contest, though.

This isn't THAT big a deal, and I don't mean to make it sound like everyone's ripping each other off (they're not) or we're in some sort of steel-cage deathmatch, because I know this is just for fun. I'm just guessing that this MIGHT have been the moderator's original motive for not showing the cards until the end. This is a VERY narrow and minor point, but a point nonetheless.

I think Tiptopper's stories are awesome, by the way, and if you're reading this right now, stop and go back and read CAT'S CURIOSITY, which is way better than this post!

Now I have to get back to my new story, BUNNY SPANK!

I don't think that's the case at all and numerous people will testify that I personally am always willing to listen to suggestions for improving things, the most recent being the addition of the popup facility on the author pages which I built within a few hours of it being suggested. There are, however, ways of making those suggestions and the right place to make them .. your last suggestion in regards to help text I believe, in my personal opinion at least, fulfilled neither of those criteria. I'd also like to point out that this isn't a commercial site where people are paying $20 a month or whatever and that people are individually and collectively giving up a LOT of their time to provide this facility so it's all very well making demands on a regular basis when you're not the one having to expend the effort.

This ten marks for each story - does that mean marking each story submitted out of ten? I'd assumed it just meant separate marking for the two competitions, but I think I must have been wrong because marks for each story fit the straightforward meaning of the words used better - and make sense of tiptopper's suggestion, which otherwise would load the competition heavily in favour of the early entrants.

I can see the sense of tiptopper's idea now. Holding back on voting when you were doling out a limited number of votes was only fair until you'd read all the stories. My only reservation is not about tiptopper's idea but about the votes for each story system unless people do read all the stories. In the old days if you hadn't read a story, odds were it wouldn't have got a vote from you anyway, whereas now you might read a story and think it wasn't that great, but still give it 3 or 4, whereas a story you hadn't got round to reading would presumably get 0. Allowing early voting could possibly increase this effect.

Yeah, early voting rewards early entries disproportionately. The reason is that the total vote count is directly related to the number of "reads"; thus the longer your story is up, the more people will have a chance to read it and assign a score. Just to do a little math here, a story posted for 20 days that got an average score of five would score the same as a story up for 10 days that got an average score of 10 (assuming a similar number of reads per day). I vote to retain the fixed voting period. I don't want to rush a story into publication just to get it out there.

I agree with Rollin. If there are so many stories that can't be coped with over the period it is better to extend the voting period as happened with the summer competition. Oh and Februs - you all do a great job which is so much appreciated by us all!