Challenges

Hi everybody, I notice there hasn't been any of the short story challenges in a couple of years. Does anyone know if there are any plans for another? The Christmas season has me thinking of all sorts of reasons someone might be "reintroduced" to spanking after some time away from family. Or from a certain old fashioned family member visiting! It's probably too late for a holiday one but it drew me to the idea of several stories on a general theme.

I think there was a great deal of unpleasantness a while back over the last contest (grownups apparently deciding to behave poorly over a free contest run by volunteers for which the prize is a little electronic award symbol, no less) and they were suspended.

I loved them - great way to get feedback with no preconceptions based on the author, and a chance to stretch as a writer - and would love a return, but can't blame our kindly hosts if the sour taste left by the nastiness of a few (mostly departed) has permanently put them off having another contest.

Howabout: In the holiday spirit, assume challenges to be akin to Jacob Marley.

Challenges are also one of the most divisive issues ever debated on this forum so their passing. while on one hand regrettable, is also very much in line with W.C. Fields' famous toast on "the good old days".

I regret that I may be responsible for losing the challenges for everyone. I had suggested a rule change for future challenges; somehow, I hit a nerve with management. That was the end.

I really miss the challenges as they were a way of getting round writer's block. Having a idea for a story presented on this forum often got me thinking. The results also seemed to attract more comments than usual which was encouraging.

Don't be too hard on yourself. There had been a number of previous discussions of the same kind with the same threats of discontinuing the challenges, only this time it actually happened. I don't think you are more to blame than a lot of others - including myself. Still, like many others, I really miss them; they turned a bunch of individual authors into a community.

Very valid comments, it was a group effort to finally result in the entire concept being disbanded as not worth the aggravation it was causing. I came in late, only participating in the final 3, but certainly enjoyed the challenge of trying to write something to meet certain parameters.

I was among those who offered commentary when the scoring system came up for discussion for the final time, but was unaware until after things detonated that there was an existing Forum posting where the site owners explained their logic behind why they set things up the way they did. I think the vast majority of the comments were well-intended, but as JessicaK noted, there were a few people that got pretty snarky in their remarks and dialed things up to the point where they finally decided that they'd had enough.

I'd love to take on another Challenge, but they're incredibly time consuming to set up and manage; time is something that has been in short supply for both Februs and Flopsy lately so I doubt the return on investment will ever make it worthwhile for them to reconsider. So I think it is safe to presume that Challenges on this site have gone the way of the Dodo.

That's not to say we can't come up with our own informal challenges, like how the US smoking age increasing to 21 could spawn some new plots, but that won't quite have the same cachet (and I doubt the average member would be thrilled if one of their 30 story uploads consisted of nothing but variations on the above theme).

Thanks all for your input, it's good to know the context, it's a shame to lose something like this over a controversy but of course these things can get out of hand. As someone who just started writing themself, I do like the idea of informally agreeing to write stories on a certain topic, without the pressure of voting, I imagine it wouldn't lead to too much of a problem of all the latest loaded being in the same topic and could be enjoyable for all involved.