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.