LSF short story challenge

Sometimes in the regular list I may be attracted to read a story first because of the title, but in the Challenge I barely even take notice of the title. I read, comment and score based the story, and sorry to say for those of you who thought your title would earn more points from me ... nope, not a single point.

I am finished the list so no pressure, but then I likely spend more time here then many others so no big surprise there. I too have a story in the Challenge and hope for 1,000,000 reads along with 10,000 comments, but will settle for a lot less as long as someone out there enjoys my stories. OK seriously, I am hoping for at least 1 read and 1 comment.

I have my own views if one should score or not score, read or not read, etc etc, but as BH pointed out so well this is all for fun and so do as each of you wish. I feel I won just by having the nerve to enter the Challenge.

CS

It's lucky everyone here understands that it's the taking part which is important and not the winning. Otherwise people might be tempted to give their entry an appealing title in order to attract more views. Worse still, including a name in the title would give a strong hint as to the story's orientation. No one here would stoop that low, obviously. I'm just mentioning it as a theoretical possibility.

The order of the list changes every time you access it. So unless people are doing all their voting in one go - which seems improbable - that shouldn't be a factor.

Yeah, no it doesn't. It CAN change if one has the "random" box checked, but if one has the "as loaded" box checked as one's default setting - which I suspect many of us do - the order stays the same. Since I always intend to read all the stories anyway, I find it a tad less confusing to keep the stories in the same order every time I access the challenge page. I definitely do not read them in order though. I skip around, but I usually get to read and vote on all of them.

Me too, or even shorter, out of courtesy to the readers/voters trying to make their way through a long list.


I agree. IF I don't think I have enough time to read all or most, I just won't participate in teh voting. Once I endeavor to read and vote, I'll try to get through them all. If I don't make it, then I'll give a median score to the ones I miss, so they won't be penalized too much for my failure. I'll save the longest stories for last - sorry, but if the the author hasn't been courteous of my time be remaining brief, then perhaps they'll miss out on the opportunity for a top score.

Me too. I like to have some good stories left over to look forward to.

I agree with njrick, if i can't read all the stories of the challenge i don't vote.
But i finished reading and voting and left a comment where i could.

I found it quite a task but i enjoyed it.

I try to read all of the stories in order to give every author a change for my vote. The last two challenges I did not participate since I knew that I would not be able to complete the reading in time.

Like mati, I find the longer stories are generally the best.

Good luck indeed. The clue is in the word "Challenge", for it is a challenge not to get your hopes up too high and then face disappointment if your story doesn't make the podium.

Yes, it is a competition, and the playing field (of variable view numbers) isn't entirely fair, hence the reminders from old hands on this, and many similar threads previously, that it's really just for fun.

Yet, although there is an element of lottery in it, you'll find that the winners are always highly deserving, and I say that as someone who's never won despite my entries clearly being vastly superior to all others on all occasions.