IWT8: Science Fiction

[zac6251]

Can't wait to read everybody's stories.

[BatCountry]

Got a question guys! I see that zac is entering his star wars story which was started in 2010. My Pierce Darkblade story was also started in 2010 but I believe EndMaster said i could not enter it into the contest because it was from 2010. I am working on another story for this contest, but I just think it would be unfair if zac can enter his 2010 story but I cannot enter mine as well.

Two stories from one author are better than one, no? Let me know if I'm misinformed or if there is some loophole I missed. Thanks!

[End Master]

Yeah there was some discussion about this a few pages back. (Page 6)

Anyway long story short, we established that this year basically any page that was created before the contest was announced couldn't count towards the mandatory 20 page count.

Zac had 18 pages pre-contest announcement and over 200 new rooms written after the contest was announced and I think DEP was re-using 1 old page of his story as well so if you want to submit Darkblade go ahead, since I see that you've created a lot more than 20 rooms after February 14th. (With 11 pages written pre-contest announcement)

And if you still want to you can go ahead and submit more than one story.

[Locke]

Ideally, the story is composed specifically for the tournament. If it's an old story that's been "recycled" (i.e. all of the content is new) or if a substantial majority of the rooms have been written during the contest period, it's okay. Zac started his story in 2010, but if this thread is accurate, better than 90% of it is new material.

I don't think there was ever a concrete rule as to how much old stuff is permissible, but most of the story should be clearly (plausibly) written after IWT8 was announced, with the contest topic in mind. Enough for everyone else to grudgingly waive any pre-written text.

[Vesnic]

How exactly are we supposed to "waive" any pre-existing text? Do we just not read those rooms? Especially in a larger story, I think it would be very difficult to just sort of "turn off" the memory of certain pages and mentally exclude them from our sense of the whole.

It was always my impression that this was one of the more solid contest rules: all content must be original and created within the time-frame of the contest. It helped to have unusual contest topics so that people weren't likely to already be at work on something similar enough to be incorporated into the contest. The only time people used stories with prior dates was when they used an old deleted or private story, removing all prior content before starting over after the announcement of the year's topic.

EDIT: May I suggest that all content predating the announcement of the contest theme be temporarily removed. This is not too very different from having a loose end; it's just a gap that occurs at the beginning or middle of the story rather than at the end. I suggest that a single sentence be written to inform the reader of what happened in that room, along with the appropriate choices. That way, there will not be any content taken under consideration which predates the contest, but the story will still hold together. I think BatCountry has a point here and that we should be consistent in the implementation of the rules. I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to just sort of "forget" what they've already read. The original content can of course be replaced once the judging period is over.

[End Master]

The rules to these things have always been at the mercy of the person in charge really.

Seriously the 20 room rule foundation was already broken when Xnull's 11 page story was allowed in that one year. (or however many pages it was) And it was already on shaky ground before that when DEP hastily submitted a "20 room" room story for the Children's contest but he just added some filler rooms to make up the difference.

If I really wanted to be a hardline rule lawyering dick about it, yeah I could just say Zac's story isn't allowable at all, DEP needs to at least re-write his one room so the date is changed to the past the contest announcement and BatCountry can't submit Darkblade.

However I came to this conclusion:

1. All DEP did was recycle one old page so I'm not going to bother putting him through the hassle.

2. Zac wrote over 200 new pages, which I'm assuming aren't going to be all one sentence entries and even if they were he's still done enough work for it to count as a "new story" (probably two) And I seriously doubt Zac's going to win anyway.

3. Bat's situation is a little more tricky. I glanced at his story before he made a bunch of additions to it and it seems to be written well, so it might seem like he's getting a slight advantage. But he's still written about over 50 rooms even if you don't count the pre-contest ones. That's still larger than a lot of the submissions from year to year.

Haven't read his other rooms yet, they could be crap for all I know, so I'm still not seeing a huge advantage for him and fuck it, see as a challenge for the older writers. Beat the new guy up or suffer the SHAME of losing to a newbie. He's also still submitting a second story, so if you guys really don't like his Darkblade submission and want to give it all 1s for not adhering to the rules go ahead.

Which brings me to number 4:

4.As for judging, I'm going to let you guys sort that out. If you want to take the story as a whole go ahead and judge it all.

If you want to take the pre-contest pages out of the equation and judge it based on the new material go ahead and do that.

If you want to do a similar thing I did with Xnull's story and mark it down for not adhering to the guidelines go ahead and do that as well.




Yes, the contest is being held hostage by the whims of a madman this year and we're flying full speed ahead straight into the center of the sun. One of you guys can take back the reins of power and properly re-work the rules after the long nightmare is over.

[Vesnic]

If you want to do a similar thing I did with Xnull's story and mark it down for not adhering to the guidelines go ahead and do that as well.

No, that's okay. I don't feel the need to take out my discontent on the author merely because I don't like a bend in the rules. If the rules are, as you say, at the mercy of the person in charge, then I will respect them in both letter and spirit.

[End Master]

Well it wasn't really a democratic community decision, it was more of my suggestion to you all individually. Basically what I'm saying is everyone can judge the stories how they see fit.

Really if anybody did mark down various stories due to the guidelines not being adhered to, it's not like they wouldn't have a valid point to do so and I certainly wouldn't see it as an act of spite or whatever.

Anyway, I'll update the front page as soon as Bat confirms if he's actually submitting Darkblade or not.

[Locke]

How exactly are we supposed to "waive" any pre-existing text? Do we just not read those rooms? Especially in a larger story, I think it would be very difficult to just sort of "turn off" the memory of certain pages and mentally exclude them from our sense of the whole.

By "waive" I meant led them slide, include them notwithstanding the general rule. I'm kind of on the fence about the Darkblade story, but End makes enough of a point for including it. As to the others, I've always liked the lenient, anything-goes approach to authority on this site, and I think letting them through speaks to that. Of course there should be guidelines so Apoth doesn't turn up and make us read HOID, but if something falls just a little awry of the rules, and it doesn't stand to hurt the contest - like the annual moving back of the deadline - I don't mind, so long as the participating authors are shrugging their figurative shoulders.

That's the only rule I care about: is it acceptable to the confirmed participants who are devoting their time to this?

I guess the flip side is that any entry that accepts lenience this way had better be good, because depending on how people feel about it - even if they are in the minority - it's likely to be judged more closely.

[zac6251]

I don't want my story to be such a pain in this tournament. If I have to do another one fine, but that is going to be tough, I don't have much creativity. I mean, a new story in a month? That is going to be hard, especially if I want it to be good, which I do.

[End Master]

Lol, no I wouldn't let Apoth submit HOID. I'm not granting any more free passes this contest (So Tim2000 you're out of luck if you had something from 2005 lurking about.)

Basically Bats like Zac is sort of getting a pass since he's new and we've been trying to get some new people in these things and he did kind of have the misfortune of writing the beginning of his Darkblade story just before the new contest was announced. I took it under consideration that he had even less work on his story finished than Zac did, so he had a point on that level. He also seems dedicated to actually work on his story and an additional one for the contest.

Locke is also correct though that Zac's Star Wars story and Bat's Darkblade story are probably going to be held up under a closer magnifying glass since they're dancing on the fence of the guidelines a bit. Hence why I stated if people want to judge them harsher/mark them down due to that fact, go right ahead. It's a risk that comes with submitting the stories.

[zac6251]

Mine and Bat's are going to be judged harsher? Sheesh, I got to make my story better. I don't think Bat is going to have much trouble as me. As far as I know his is a original, mine is a fan fiction, a good fan fiction though.

[Vesnic]

Locke is also correct though that Zac's Star Wars story and Bat's Darkblade story are probably going to be held up under a closer magnifying glass since they're dancing on the fence of the guidelines a bit. Hence why I stated if people want to judge them harsher/mark them down due to that fact, go right ahead.

That confuses the judging a bit, though. We already have our accepted criteria, so why add the hint of another category without standardizing it? If the stories are in, then they're in. If they're being accepted as they are without any modifications, then they should be examined with the same critical eye as all the others. I'm not denying that there are biases of all kinds that can potentially affect how stories are judged. However, if a rule is going to be bent in order to allow for a submission to be made in its entirety, then this allowance should cease to be a factor in how people judge the story.

[End Master]

Lol, you worry too much Zac.

I doubt if anyone's actually going to bother doing any of the things I suggested anyway. Your story will most likely just be judged on its own merits regardless of the page dates. Still going back and making your story better is always a good idea.

[End Master]

That confuses the judging a bit, though.

Doesn't confuse anything as far as I'm concerned. Judge how you want, it's that simple. You already said how you're going to judge the stories purely on their own merits and that's how you should do it because that's what you believe in.

Really though, I doubt if anyone's actually going to give Zac or Bat all 1s due to having a few pre-contest pages in their story, but at the same time if someone here REALLY has a grievance with how the rules have been bent/broken, I wouldn't fault the person for marking those stories down because they'd have a point as well.