Infinite Writing Tournament = IWT ?

[severenz]

Do the majority of the folks around the forums participate and agree with how the IWTs are conducted/results, etc?

Looks like there have been five?

Can someone send me the results, dates, any other info for all past IWT results? I could have a page on the website devoted to it.

If there is a generally, accepted rule-set -- I can post that as well. (Directions on how to participate, how winners are determined)

Down the road, if someone can suggest a process that I could automate Tournaments on the website it would be greatly appreciated.

Again, if you guys think this isn't worth it, please let me know.

Thanks

[Vesnic]

I think you should pull Poop out of the shadows to get most of this information. The contest was initially his baby and he could probably shine a lot of light on the subject.

My first post on the IWT5 Ratings thread gives some basic information about the judging criteria/scoring system.

I think it's a great idea to dedicate a page to the contest. There had been some talk before about including the contest winners as a separate list within the "Best of IS" category, which would be a selection of stories chosen by the community members that we really want to make a prominent feature for people to discover when first visiting our site.

[End Master]

We were going to discuss some possible changes in the rules after this latest contest, but so far here are the current ones.

RULES
The basic scoring is from 1 to 10 in the three categories

Plot/Originality
Entertainment/enjoyment
Grammar/Spelling

One of these categories is also weighted by the scorer so it counts for double the amount of points.

The total is then tallied up and a winner is determined by whoever has the highest score.

There has only been one "real rule" and that's that the story has to be at least 20 pages long. We're actually going to discuss whether or not to change that or not though. I'm semi-flexible on the matter in that you can submit something less than 20 pages, but you're getting points knocked off for it which will make it harder for you to win.

The winner of the contest gets to choose the theme for the next one.

The due dates for these contests have changed a bit, but traditionally they were on Halloween. They're usually pushed back depending on how slothful everyone is that year. (We were practically plant life for IWT5!)



So far the past ones were:

IWT 1: 2005 Halloween

Movie monster theme

Cat 2000: Search
donteatpoop: Reunion (WINNER)
EndMaster: Alpha Wolf

IWT 2: 2006 Valentine's Day (Or around that time)

Amusement Park/Carnival theme

donteatpoop: Ducky Park
EndMaster: Geek (WINNER)
jeffisthebest: Shemaru

IWT 3: 2006 Halloween

Children's story theme

apotheosis: The Mold
donteatpoop: Ultimate Battle (He's taken the story down though)
EndMaster: Imagination
KatieWroteIt: Lost in a Good Book- A Child's Tale
KatieWroteIt: The Pattern (WINNER)
jeffisthebest: Paul's Kingdom

IWT 4: 2007 Halloween

"From Hell" story theme

apotheosis: Infernal Gate
donteatpoop: Youngstown Demon
EndMaster: Death Song
KatieWroteIt: Odalisque Paradise
Usoki: Hellstone
Vesnicie: The Country from Hell (WINNER)

IWT 5: 2008 New Year's Eve (Ok so a day or two before it)

Porn story theme or allegorical story theme...or a combo of the two: PORNAGORY!

EndMaster: Exploitation Theater
Usoki: The Sneeze
Vesnicie: Todestrieb (WINNER)
xnull: Serial Rapist

[Vesnic]

Thanks for the summation, End. I'd like to add a couple things.

Another rule for the contest, though perhaps an unwritten one, is that the stories in consideration should remain faithful to the theme for that year. This seems like it should go without saying, but for some reason this particular question keeps coming up.

The deadline for the current contest was December 29, 2008. This was chosen as a date because it did not fall on any major holiday and was late enough in the year to give people the extra time they needed.

It's true that the winner of each contest gets to choose the next theme. It's worth mentioning that this is sometimes determined independently (as I did with the invention of the allegoriporn) and sometimes through voting on the forums (for example, the creation of the "From Hell" theme).

One of these categories is also weighted by the scorer so it counts for double the amount of points.

Meaning it's given double weight in the average. For instance, if I rated a story simply with 8, 8, 9, the average would be determined (8+8+9)/3. If I starred a rating, for instance, 8, 8, 9*, the average would be determined (8+8+9+9)/4.


"From Hell" story theme

apotheosis: (Something about mudkips, he took it down)

I believe it was called Infernal Gate

Usoki: (He submitted something, but again...took it down!)

Story was called Hellstone

I also anticipate that there will be some discussion once the results are posted of the "official" rules of the contest.

[apotheosis]

Infernal Gate is still up. I just rated it as MA.

[severenz]

Not as many entries as I would have expected. Do you think having them run over the course of 3-month period would be sufficient? This seems reasonable, since you are only requiring 20 rooms. Maybe this would encourage more entries.

[Vesnic]

Hahahahaha!

3 months? Are you serious?

[thoric]

I could put something together in 3 months. 20 blank pages.

[End Master]

There's no way anyone would be motivated enough to do it within 3 months. We'd actually have less people participating than we do now.

Hell, it usually takes us 3 months just to decide on what sort of theme we're going to settle on and then another 3 months to get motivated to type the first page! Not to mention the people that do participate usually like to take their time to submit something of quality.

Since the people who actually participate in the contests are also posting on the forums there aren't many to begin with. There are usually more people who claim they're going to participate and as deadline gets closer they silently disappear (newbies, or the chronic procrastinators around here), but the "yearly contest" turn out seems to be working out as well as it can be given the low traffic around here. (Or rather medium traffic, but with a lot of faceless silent lurkers/writers) Some years are just slower than others.

[Usoki]

Actually, I didn't submit anything for the third contest. I wasn't motivated, and I didn't want to throw something subpar together. Though that ended up happening for the Halloween one, but... Uggh, I hate the story, but I'll put up Hellstone for the sake of history.

[apotheosis]

Truth be told, if I was going to write something, I would not spend more than a month on it.

[End Master]

Yeah and that's probably how much time most of us take for the contest stories. It's just that that 1 month's time (30 days) is extended over the course of most of a year. (A couple of writing days in April, a week in June, a half hour in August, etc.)

[Locke]

It would be nice if the contest could stake itself some minor IS main-page turf in some way when the new site design rolls around; that might draw a few more participants. I know for me the forums link didn't even show up until I rolled over it in IE6 originally, so it took me awhile to find out there were forums or a contest to enter.

[xnull]

I would definitely like to see more participation. I enjoyed reading the contest entries and I enjoyed writing my own entry. The whole experience was nothing but pleasant.

There are other De Facto rules that weren't mentioned but should perhaps be clarified in light of this contest's debates.
1.) Entries have to be original work.
2.) There should be one sole author to any entered story.
3.) Writing is expected to be primarily in English.

I feel like with the small amount of free time I can lay my hands on in 3 months would exclude me from continuing 2023 and from continuing Serial Rapist. If anything I think the contests would die out if we pushed them too much.

I know I would want to participate if we had 4 competitions a year, but I don't know that I could. The end of the year is heavily laden with free time through holidays and snow-ins; I was only capable of writing my terribly incomplete entry this year through the utilization of said free time. (*cough* the only reason I even have the free time to write this is because one of my professors let me out 30 minutes early).

[donteatpoop]

6 months I think would work...

One time you linked to it on the front page, I don't know how much interest that garnered but it was a nice touch.

Also, I like Locke's suggestion that there should be some sort of prize. WE have bragging rights only at present. On Chooseyourstory.com (which I still check on every now and then) they give some cash and a printed copy of the story. I'm not suggesting cash, or even the copy, but something would be cool. Not sure what. Locke mentioned turf, maybe a big IWT5 WINNER: INSERT STORY HERE banner/link would be cool, as well as a link to a non-forum article on it.... Don't know where you'd find a decent writer for the article though, good luck.

[Vesnic]

maybe a big IWT5 WINNER: INSERT STORY HERE banner/link would be cool, as well as a link to a non-forum article on it.... Don't know where you'd find a decent writer for the article though, good luck.

These are excellent ideas.

My adoring fans will have to fight over the article privileges.

I would also like one of those flying blimp banners in addition to my blinking neon front page advertisement.

Thanks.

[Dragavan]

As I stated in the other thread, I think there should be a room minimum rule but not a word count rule.

I also happen to think that a story must have at least two branches that are at least three rooms long each (and hopefully more than this) to fit into the concept of the site being a Branching story site. I think it should be made a rule even though voting will most likely weed out those that don't anyway, just to keep things clear. This will also help weed out people who would simply have a linear story with fake choice that only lead to "continue story" or "you fail, try again" choices.

Stories should be STARTED and FINISHED within the time allowed for the contest. Any dates found on the story outside this range during the voting period should disqualify it. Again this should go without saying, but it's best to make sure all these things are posted so there is no arguments. After the contest is over you can go in and make corrections, additions, or whatever you want, but not until then.

I think 3 months is too short, unless activity really picks up. So 6 month sounds reasonable, although I would break this down into phases. Something like: Day 1 is the announcement of the theme. 4-5 Months until deadline and then 2-4 weeks for reading and voting (these should depend on number of expected participants, as more participants would require more time to read them all and vote). Then about 2 weeks before the next contest starts for the new theme to be determined and prepared.

Having the winner's story spotlighted on the front page in some kind of award section or banner or something would be great. Perhaps even leave it up there until it it is replaced by the next contests winner. It should also get some kind of badge or special marking on the lists (perhaps making the title a different color and/or putting a symbol next to it that you can click on to get information about what the honor means). Perhaps even a special page that lists all the winners and has a small bit of details about it.

I also think the whole thing we've had going here of the winner getting to choose the topic for the next contest is a good one. But if this is going to be a more organized and official thing there should be some rules to regulate this too. The winner should have to submit their new subject to the contest organizer (most likely Severenz since it's his site) by a certain date (like at least 2 days before the new contest starts or something) or the Organizer gets to use one of their own choosing. I also think they Organizer should be able to reject some topics if they repeat or are too close to a previous one, but give the winner time to submit a new one if the deadline hasn't been reached yet.

I would also have some rules in here about how topics can't be too specific or tied to copyrighted material, characters, or settings. So this would mean you can't make the topic "Pokemon" or "Middle Earth", or overly specific things like "a civil war story about the battle of Bentonville". Again I think it's better to err on the side of being clear about the rules, rather than run into possible problems later.

Plus all the obvious things already mentioned by xnull:
Must be a completely original story.
Must be completely written by one author.
Must be primarily in English.

Once a set of rules are agreed upon and "ratified" they should be clearly posted on some permanent Contest Rules page on the site that is linked to upon the announcement of each new contest. Such as if we have a contest page and in forum threads that announce official contest information, like when they start or when the new theme is announced.


but feel free to ignore any of this since I have yet to actually enter one of these contests.

[Locke]

I actually meant there should just be a link or blurb announcing the contest on the main page, whether the mechanics of the contest itself are taken care of on the main site or the forums. "Your name in lights" for six months or so is a nice little bonus, though.

[Vesnic]

I also happen to think that a story must have at least two branches that are at least three rooms long each (and hopefully more than this) to fit into the concept of the site being a Branching story site.

This is good in theory, but I'm afraid the technicality of it might scare some people away. Don't we already mark down for stories that are too linear?

Stories should be STARTED and FINISHED within the time allowed for the contest. Any dates found on the story outside this range during the voting period should disqualify it.

This is still no guarantee that the story wasn't already worked on before the contest started. This year, both End and I made use of old stories that we had deleted. Although the text was completely new, we would both have been disqualified under this rule. Since there is no real way to tell, I think this should remain an honor system, but certainly stated in the rules that the work should be a new one.

[End Master]

I agree with Ves on these two points.

There were several CYOA type books that were rather linear in nature in that there was only "one correct" path. (One continued the story, the other choice lead to death/imprisionment/etc) As I remember the Zork series of books were like that.

I'm alright with the author at least making the attempt at giving two choices even if one always leads to death/imprisionment/etc.

"One choice rooms" should be avoided unless you're writing A LOT for a room (Like 4 pages worth of stuff. You should sort of break it up at that point) or in the rare cases of wanting to make an important change to the story flow and doing it in the middle of a room just doesn't feel right.

It'll be obvious though if someone isn't putting the effort into making a CYOA and they're just making a linear story, so I think the voting will take care of it. No need for a rule.

As for the start/stop date. We haven't really had a problem with either of those yet, mainly because it takes near the deadline for people to finally get motivated to begin and then when they finish they post it and don't work on it anymore.

I used a deleted story, but I also deleted all the rooms in that story since I'm obsessive like that, so all the dates "within" the story do match the contest timeframe, but some people might not be as obsessive about such things, and just delete the text of an old discarded story and the dates wouldn't be within the timeframe. Even if you delete all the rooms, the story still shows the old date of when it was first "created" so it still doesn't match when you look at it at first glance.

[Usoki]

Any sort of date regulation would have to be solely based on honor system- it's way too easy to mess with time stamps. I mean, all of End's stories are created in less than an hour because of how he pastes them from Word.

And I agree with Locke in that there should be a link from the site to the forums- IWT is, to me anyway, one of the perks of actually bothering to check out the forums. Half the fun is seeing what the people you know are capable of when they're forced to write outside their normal realms. I never would've written anything like my IWT pieces if they didn't have to follow the contest theme.

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

I like the banner recognition on the main site idea. That would be very cool.

I also think however that we need to discuss the rating system for next year. Apoth ran some numbers the other day, and our system is definitely broken. We don't have enough people reading and rating. The judges have to read every story submitted, and every branch available. As we get more notice we may get more participation, but the judges are going to be overwhelmed.

Perhaps we could instead of requiring 20 rooms, require that two branches be completed from beginning to end. Additional choices could be made available, however the primary story lines could be signified with little *s. This would make things easier for judges and might even encourage more people to weigh in.

I don't see any need for there to be word limits.

Another nice touch might be for names to be removed from works until after the stories have been judged. That would cut down on any favoritism as individuals who are not forum junkies come out to play. Plus, it would add a little touch of mystery.

I LOVE the idea of doing the contest twice a year. I feel like a total bum for not participating this year.

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

Any sort of date regulation would have to be solely based on honor system- it's way too easy to mess with time stamps. I mean, all of End's stories are created in less than an hour because of how he pastes them from Word.

End is sitting on the floor performing an operation on our vacuum cleaner. He contradicts your last statement and maintains that he is really just a very fast writer.

But yes, we do have to rely on honesty for the date rule.

Also, perhaps there should be an official rule against plagiarism.

[Vesnic]

I also think however that we need to discuss the rating system for next year. Apoth ran some numbers the other day, and our system is definitely broken. We don't have enough people reading and rating. The judges have to read every story submitted, and every branch available. As we get more notice we may get more participation, but the judges are going to be overwhelmed.

I think this is a little premature. There has never been an "overwhelming" number of stories, and even with the increase in participation that we are aiming for, I think the quantity of reading would still be more than manageable. If necessary, we can always extend the amount of time allowed for the rating/commentary process. Starring things with asterisks will lead to unnecessary work for the authors and it creates an odd situation of valuing certain branches of a story over others. Aren't they all supposed to be essential?

I'd also like to know what you mean when you say that "Apoth ran some numbers the other day, and our system is definitely broken."

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

Basically, from a statistical standpoint, we do not have enough people voting to really determine which story is actually the best. Also, because we don't have enough people voting, the competitors are casting votes. While they do not vote for their own stories, some people vote differently than others.

Suppose for example I submit a story along with five other people. I tend to be generous with my scores because I see the good in various submissions. I rate every story 9 or 10, excluding my own. Joe Schmo also has a story, and he has a different rating scale, he comes along and rates the stories including mine with 6's and 7's. Then all the stories I rated get a boost, and my own story which got a low rating gets knocked down a bit. Which is fine if my story sucks, but what if my story doesn't suck, the person just didn't want to give high scores, or sees the rating scale differently than me? The point is in an official experiment, the ratings would not stand up to testing. I can't really explain how Apoth came to the verdict with numbers. However, I can say that in my statistics class having 6 people weigh in on anything would not float as being fair and balanced. The results just come out skewed. People are always going to have their own scales for rating things, but if you get enough people it all tends to come out balanced.

Don't fret though Ves... I'm not implying that your win was a result of a flawed system. Most likely you still would have won, I don't mean to suggest otherwise.

If we are going to fix this competition to be all that it can be, then we need to take all these different points for improvement into account. I don't mean for this to be premature, or to add in another burden, but it would be almost cruel of me to wait until AFTER everything is settled to point out my concerns.

[xnull]

We could add the median scores that a scorer gives out back to the scorer.

For example, Katie gives a score of 10-10-10 to EndMaster (because he wrote a neat story and gives her the warm and fuzzies) and she gives everyone else something very similar. She should be given back (we are of course pretending she submitted something) the median value of her scores.

Yes, I agree that there is some bias in the scoring system. The person who rates the lowest across the board is given the best advantage.

(The reason I chose median above is that mean values can be manipulated with outliers so that a person voting could give themselves a slight advantage. The median is exactly the 50th percentile. I think this value would work, but its up for some debate.)

Thank you Katie for pointing that out.

[Vesnic]

This is all true enough, however none of this has actually caused any problems.

There have been no instances of unfair or skewed scoring. Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill. Likewise with the number of evaluators not reaching a point of statistical significance. Again, true enough, but a.) does anyone really believe that the outcomes would have been different if more people had voted? and b.) Is it really likely that we would ever get enough people doing ratings to satisfy this question?

[Usoki]

It is true that it's never caused problems, yet, but xnull does provide a good solution, and so it might as well get thrown in. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean we should ignore the possibility of it happening. What's the harm in owning snow boots in a desert?

That, and, the fact that we don't have a high number of evaluators? That's why we are at a point of statistical significance- small changes wreck large amounts of havok in small groups. Look at what one random '1' rating will do to a story's overall rating. Though if one of the stories actually does suck, that median addition won't work nearly as well. In some ways, we just have to accept a certain inherent bias in the ratings, no matter how we work it out.

[Vesnic]

In some ways, we just have to accept a certain inherent bias in the ratings, no matter how we work it out.

Yeah, bingo.

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

I'm ok with xnull's solution unless someone can come up with another suggestion. Thanks for considering solutions for this. Now that I know there is a way to play the system, I would feel extremely uncomfortable judging for future contests. As one of the most lenient judges, my participation would only hurt me if I submitted ratings for others. And I'm not comfortable trying to adjust my rating scale. I tried this year to be tough and brutal... it didn't take.

[apotheosis]

I'll have a dialogue with xnull about this. We can probably fix the nice raters versus mean raters problem completely, but the issue of a small number of raters still exists. And we can't exactly just call in all of our friends as raters because then they would be biased towards us. Ves's score in this contest was significantly higher, by an entire point, which was enough for me, but the other 3 contestants were not that different, and I ran a few Z tests and found that Ves's result was significant with 90% confidence, while the others were significant with much less. A typical pyschology experiment looks for 95% confidence, but then again, this isn't science it is opinion so I don't know...

Maybe we are all thinking about this to hard.

[PabNubAddinna]

We need someone that is willing to create and run our tournaments and game nights for the site. So if you’re interested then please post below.

Tournaments will need to take place on a certain day such as a Sunday, within a certain time frame so that people in Europe and America can take part.

[donteatpoop]

We need someone that is willing to create and run our tournaments and game nights for the site. So if you’re interested then please post below.

Tournaments will need to take place on a certain day such as a Sunday, within a certain time frame so that people in Europe and America can take part.

That was so close to being logical. I believe our spammers have evolved.

[Ryan_DuBois]

That's what I'm saying. They can actually PICK OUT keywords, now. In a couple years, we won't be able to tell the difference at all (at least not from their posts). Weird thing about this spammer is that it doesn't spam; it just puts in its two cents every now and again.