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Might as well bring this up now.

There’s been some discussion lately between some CYSers and ISers about doing a grand contest thing. I know there hasn’t been a contest here for awhile so you might be interested.

Right now we’re still trying to decide on what theme to pick, I’ll keep you updated on what’s decided so if you like it then you can feel free to join.

As for the rules, we don’t have too many.  As it currently stands the only real one, we have a 20 page minimum. (Though this is under review, again I’ll keep you updated) and to stick more or less to the theme.

After we decide on what theme, we’ll decide on what the deadline will be, most likely Halloween since that’s traditionally been the deadline in the past, but again it’s been subject to change at times, depending on how slothful everyone is that year.

Now on to scoring.

Scoring is easy, you have 3 categories, that you rate from 1 to 10.

Plot/Originality

Enjoyment

Writing Quality

Also the scorer weights one of those categories which they found the most important. This weighted score counts as double the points. So if you rated Enjoyment a 9 and then weighted score for example, it would actually count as 18.

Rating is primarily done by everyone that participated in the contest, but even if you didn’t, you can still vote. Naturally you can't rate your own story.

We have a guy that’s obsessed with stats and numbers, so we just send him all the ratings where he totals them up and gives us the results. Whoever has the highest overall score wins. Of course we never had any official structured contests over at IS, we just started making these up ourselves, so we gain no money or even a virtual trophy over there, the winner just gets the bragging rights of beating their opponents into a bloody paste and then gets to decide on next year’s theme.

Anyway that’s the information on the IS Contest. So again after everything’s hammered out with theme, and all that, if anyone’s interested here, they can join. Me or maybe someone else that’s been discussing this will try to keep you updated.

Not sure if you want to post your story here or there, I suppose that’s another thing that would be hammered out. In the scheme of things it probably wouldn’t matter if they were in two different locations since the voting and scoring is sent all to the one guy who tallies all of them up. (Though maybe he might need to make an account here so you could send him your votes/scores)

Feel free to ask any further questions about it.

Yeah I forgot about all the extra editor options over here, one day I'll get around to using them! I just answered JJJ in a PM about this so I';ll mention it here too.

Anyway, I'd say no to the advanced editor stuff since we don't have all that stuff at IS, plus I know for the contests here you just use the basic one, so might as well keep that tradition alive. It can be as long as you want though.

Just as an update, the two themes that are in the top running are "Myth" and "Infinite Story" (Though Looping Story would probably be more approps if both sites are participating!)

Myth is fairly straight forward, but the Looping one is to do a story that doesn't properly end, it just continuously loops. Of course the challenge would be to make it loop continuiously in such a way that it makes sense.

Dreams, Average Day, Time Travel, Memories were all mentioned as examples as ways to do it, and all of them have their challenges. In fact time travel was sort of frowned upon since it seems too easy to make it loop endlessly, but I pointed out not as easy as one might think for a few reasons.

I really hope everyone will consider participating. It will be so much fun to have extra variety this year.

well, while i was the one who actually PMed End about a possible contest over here at CYS, there are some facts that you ISers need to know. Many times, if at all, we usually only have a hand ful of competitors. Typically Alex and March accept ANY story submitted after the date announced. with this set up though, you will be looking for a theme, that has been tried here and wasnt exactly successful. so as long as you keep that in mind, all will be well.

nate

It's alright, we usually only have a handful of competitors at IS contests as well. It's been as low as 3 and as high as 6, so if anyone from CYS gets interested it will at least provide a few extra people.

So far I know JJJ and Rommel both said they might be interested, but they're still deciding.

It looks like the theme will most likely be "Myth" though we'll get a confirmation within a day or so. These themes are very broad and general; as long as you can provide a decent justification for how your piece fits the theme, you're covered.

Hmmm... You say the deadline is Halloween...yeah, I suppose I could finish Cold Blood by then.

So let it be known! I am entering this contest with Cold Blood as my entry story!

I'll go in with Monster Of the Wastes

I suppose we'll have to put The Crusades on the back burner then. Once the contest is over, though, I'll return to working on it with you, Hoplite.

Because you care too much.

And since the contest happens to be Myth-only (so I skim, burn me at the stake if you must), I suppose Cold Blood can't enter. Since I don't have a story nor idea for a myth game, soz, but I'm out.

Eh, there's actually a problem with signing onto the IS forums (Not the main writing site) right now from what Fleshy told me. He signed up a few days ago and still needs confirmation from Sev. (Our Admin) who's probably been wading through the 3 million spambots when he took the sign up process off of lock down.

He's also been tinkering with the site again and has a tendency to disappear as quickly as he reappears (I'm sure you're all familar with disappearing Admins) so if you want to vote or really want to post on the IS forums, you might have to contact him directly about it. As it stands I'm pretty sure Myth is going to win though.

Urm, Why would there be a CYS-IS contest when those sites are enemies?

we arent enemies

nate

lol reminds me of the time Alex mentioned to MAG that people over at CYS were copying us. and some people actually fell for it. hahahaha

nate

Right now we’re trying to hammer out if CYS tools can or can’t be used, and if they can to what degree. One guy suggested that you guys should post your stories on IS. (He might’ve just been being argumentative though)

So (sigh) ANOTHER poll has been created. (by me)

Hopefully we’ll get this settled soon, since it looks like Myth is pretty much a done deal as far as theme goes and we already settled on the 20 page/room minimum rule.

Well there's been an "interesting debate" going on and the contest collaboration has basically been cancelled due to drama. (Current "winning" consensus is if you want to participate in the IS Contest you should join the site and submit something.)

It seemed at first like some people were recieptive to the idea, but I guess their were still some not quite hot on the idea. Oh well that happens.

Of course like any good "drama" this may or may not be the end of it. If anything changes as usual I'll keep you posted.

This apparently isn't happening; I apologize for the way this was handled. I've wanted to do a joint IS/CYS contest for some time now, and it is occasionally talked about, but it doesn't look like it will ever occur. A number of IS members seem to feel the only elegible entry should be one submitted to IS, that it should not be a true joint contest but an IS contest in which others can participate only by joining the community. In the midst of the discussion, the contest was abruptly called off entirely and the theme changed, apparently apropos of nothing. It seems short-sighted to me to hold ineligible any entry submitted on this site by those we legitimately invited to compete; to hold a contest spanning two sites is not terribly complicated, but there is the decision. As you were.

DEP, I thought we were friends!

After weeks of trying, I was finally able to register on the IS forum after its forum register ban was lifted over a week ago. However, I was still unable to post in any threads due to the administrator not having activated my user account for moderation. Now today the forum site doesn't even recognize my username or email address anymore and I had to register again. All talk of entering the contest on IS must be tempered by the impossibility of actually joining the IS forum community.

urnam0