The Earth Day 2011 Contest Support Thread

towing the party line

Somebody remind me again why I'm pulling around this rope covered in balloons and streamers?

Oh -- sorry, that's just somebody demonstrating his much self-lauded mastery of the English language again. :D

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The views do behave oddly sometimes. I've even noticed the totals going down on previous tracks. Not since I started using the new listing at the bottom of the story pages, though. Getting them from the toplists was producing those odd variations.

Not sure what was causing it. The following day after a drop would always show a higher than usual increase, leading me to believe it was just some sort of hiccup in the back-end of Lit where older totals were somehow getting into the toplist data display.
 
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Somebody remind me again why I'm pulling around this rope covered in balloons and streamers?

Oh -- sorry, that's just somebody demonstrating his much self-lauded mastery of the English language again. :D

==========

The views do behave oddly sometimes. I've even noticed the totals going down on previous tracks. Not since I started using the new listing at the bottom of the story pages, though. Getting them from the toplists was producing those odd variations.

Not sure what was causing it. The following day after a drop would always show a higher than usual increase, leading me to believe it was just some sort of hiccup in the back-end of Lit where older totals were somehow getting into the toplist data display.

What is even funnier is my Earth Day story isn't even listed on any of his lists. I just love it. It shows just how much he hates me. If I can't even be on the real list as far as he's concerned, how will i ever win a fake AIRHEAD Award. :D
 
And here comes the last track before winner announcement day ( if not necessarily the last track before the winners are announced )

The story is much the same as yesterday, with the last of the previous day's sweeps showing up in the vote column today. Score changes lead me to believe that I'll see more swept votes the next time I track, even if I do manage to pull one off before the final sweep of the contest ( unlikely )

Just as an example ( extreme edge, as mine was a late entry, which skews this the most ) I've observed 23 swept votes when looking at my private author numbers. All I've been able to record when using the top lists is 12 so far. Stories that entered earlier ( I'd say any time before the last 4 days of submission ) will have more accurate numbers, as they probably aren't picking up votes as fast as they're swept.

The average score is now 4.28 and the median 4.33

9,380 votes remain after the sweeps, for an average of 128 and a median of 52.

I've observed 1,801 swept votes, for an average of 25 and a median of 11.

Contest stories have been viewed 978,772 times for an average of 13,408 and a median of 7,058

The stories in the contest have accumulated 146 Favorites and 592 comments.

EDIT: Bwah! Got ahead of myself. It was already after midnight, and I just glanced down at the date, thinking it was still before midnight as usual. Still one more track before the announcement, for sure.
 
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Authors' Hangout Last Place (tm) Contest

If you are disappointed with your rating when the winners are announced, don't forget to record your score for possible assessment for the Last Place Contest.

Og
 
I see that those also work in Windows Notepad, which is what I use for the final submission version.

Google is wonderful: here's a table full of Alt-insertables:

Owl, thanks. I was using Penn State but Washington is better.

The numeric keypad thing is annoying - even worse on a laptop if you forget to turn it off! If you use an Alt symbol a lot, a trick is to use word's 'find and replace' where you code an Alt with somenthing like'qq' then just replace all the dashes or whatever in one go.

Are you saying you need to have spaces around the em dash and en dash to be able to obtain them off the numeric pads? I ask, because there are to be no spaces on either side of these symbols in publishing.

Sorry, got it wrong. Word will automatically change a hyphen to an en-dash if you leave spaces, the Alts work fine.

Keyboard dash: Word-word Keyboard dash with spaces: word – word (en-dash)

Alt+1051/1050; word—word, word–word
 
the results are in!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[size=+2]the ASSOCIATION of INDEPENDENT READERS (A.I.R.)[/size]


[size=+2]
A.I.R. 2011 Earth Day Story Contest


[/size]​

worldpussy.jpg


A.I.R. EARTH DAY CONTEST 2011

On behalf of my boss and all of us associated with the ASSOCIATION of INDEPENDENT READERS I'd like to offer congrats to the OFFICIAL LITEROTICA winners (except for the cheaters).

I’d also like to post the EARTH DAY CONTEST winners as picked by the ASSOCIATION of INDEPENDENT READERS. These selections are not official LITEROTICA winners. Instead they were designed and financed with help from ScouriesWorld to reward stories that were the #1 choices of our readers.

Not surprisingly in a contest that is decided by the votes of our readers, the A.I.R. winners list for the EARTH DAY contest is dominated by some of LITEROTICA’S all-time greats.

We at A.I.R. would also like to send out our prayers to the lovely [size=+2]sarahhh[/size]. Get well hon!


A.I.R. 2011 EARTH DAY STORY CONTEST AWARD WINNERS


A.I.R. 2011 Earth Day Story Contest
BEST STORY IN THE CONTEST


The Platform by alwayswantedto


A.I.R. 2011 Earth Day Story Contest
MOST VIEWS RECEIVED WINNER


Burn Baby Burn by dezurtdawg


A.I.R. 2011 Earth Day Story Contest
MOST COMMENTS RECEIVED WINNER


The Damp, Gray Gone by Rehnquist


A.I.R. 2011 Earth Day Story Contest
MOST VOTES RECEIVED WINNER


Daddy’s Little Earth Day Darlings by scouries


A.I.R. 2011 Earth Day Story Contest
HIGHEST RATED STORY WINNER


Cider Webs by firebrain


The authors ralphie, Gnaeus, voluntarymonkey and the dumb texan, all of whom continue to believe these special contests are SURVIVOR contests and so flood the contest with stories, were disqualified from consideration. Stories by other authors were disqualified for category problems, failure to follow the theme, or other major infractions.

All Non-Erotic stories were disqualified as well as the eleven stories identified by our association computers as ALT stories.

All Sci-Fi and Non-Human stories were also disqualified. If our planet has to wait for aliens to clean up the problems we humans have created we’re really fucked.

Congratulations to our winners – well done!​

[size=+2]Gabrielle L.[/size]
President, A.I.R.
Secretery of the MOST COMMENTED on
and the MOST VOTED on story clubs
Miami Beach, Florida


Under the ASSOCIATIONS rules a story/author can only win one prize in any contest.
 
... figures were accumulated by myself and others in the ScouriesWorld staff at 10 a.m. this morning. little ralphies and retardo boys figures were not collected as we had no interest in them. The scores of the 57 LITEROTICA earth day stories were extracted from the final A.I.R. figures.

MOST VOTES - there was very little change here although the boss did lose another 20 or so (he's now lost about 100 in total). alwayswantedto continues to lead by a mile...


The Platform 964
Dad's Two Little Earth Day Darlings 740
Honey Dippers 580
Best Earth Day Ever 455
Roadway 446
Cider Webs 387
An Earth Day to Remember 313
Lost in the Woods 274
Hard Pounding Raine 245
My Brother - My Hero 238
Don't Fuck the Flowers 231
Long Haul 221
Chrysander's Mate 204
The Pareto Efficient Relationship 195
A Fall From Grace 160
The Show Must Cum On 104
Chelsea's Garden 92
Going Green 90
The Tree 90
Gone Fishing 89
The Four Seasons 78
Rhea 70
All Natural 70
Heart of the Wood 68
How Naked Are You Willing to Get? 66
Naked in the Outdoors 66
Desert Goddess 59
Bound to the Forest God 57
Dirty Girl 56
Sunlight 54
Treetop Lovers 50
A Secret Amid The Trees 49
An Earth Day Celebration Worth Remembering 48
Kiss of the Spider Woman 46
It's Like Our Old Swamp 44
Juliet's Fall 44
The Convenient Truth 40
The Places Eddie Goes 39
Last Forest in America 37
To Plant The Seeds of Love 35
A Walk I Will Never Forget 35
Fast Car, Fur Coat 34
The Green Man 34
The Perfect Aphrodisiac 33
Ceremony of Rebirth 31
Life Springs Eternal 30
Old Major 30
The Spirit of the Glen 29
Shark Cage 25
Donna & Kevin Go to the Zoo 25
Legend's Victim 24
Rites of Spring 24
HeartWood 21
Earth Day Hunt 20
Our Personal Earth Day 18
Natural and Supernatural 11
Contest 9

RATING - there were only a few strange jumps here. the QUEEN continued to massage darkboys figures upward. It now looks like we'll have a cut-and-paste chaptered Sci-Fi story with 3000 views, an Erotic Horror story and either a Romance or Gay slate of winners. Our readers choices - yeah right!


Heart of the Wood 4.81
Don't Fuck the Flowers 4.74
Cider Webs 4.73
Lost in the Woods 4.73
Chrysander's Mate 4.73
Going Green 4.72
The Pareto Efficient Relationship 4.71
Dad's Two Little Earth Day Darlings 4.70
Earth Day Hunt 4.70
Hard Pounding Raine 4.64
The Show Must Cum On 4.64
The Four Seasons 4.64
The Platform 4.63
Honey Dippers 4.62
The Places Eddie Goes 4.62
Long Haul 4.57
All Natural 4.49
The Tree 4.48
The Perfect Aphrodisiac 4.45
An Earth Day to Remember 4.44
It's Like Our Old Swamp 4.41
Chelsea's Garden 4.40
Gone Fishing 4.40
Rhea 4.37
Roadway 4.34
The Convenient Truth 4.33
My Brother - My Hero 4.32
Dirty Girl 4.32
How Naked Are You Willing to Get? 4.30
Treetop Lovers 4.30
A Fall From Grace 4.29
The Spirit of the Glen 4.28
Donna & Kevin Go to the Zoo 4.28
Natural and Supernatural 4.27
Desert Goddess 4.25
HeartWood 4.24
Juliet's Fall 4.23
Best Earth Day Ever 4.21
Bound to the Forest God 4.21
Kiss of the Spider Woman 4.17
Old Major 4.17
Ceremony of Rebirth 4.16
An Earth Day Celebration Worth Remembering 4.15
A Secret Amid The Trees 4.10
Life Springs Eternal 4.10
To Plant The Seeds of Love 4.09
Sunlight 4.00
Last Forest in America 4.00
Shark Cage 3.96
Our Personal Earth Day 3.94
A Walk I Will Never Forget 3.89
Rites of Spring 3.88
Naked in the Outdoors 3.80
Legend's Victim 3.79
Fast Car, Fur Coat 3.76
The Green Man 3.68
Contest 2.67
Brandy QUIT

gabby
 
Am I allowed to give my Scouries award back?

I'm not sure I have space in the bathroom.
 
*chuckles*

I was really hoping to get to read more of the stories. I'm feeling quite awful. My throat is on fire, my body is aching and my eyes hurt. If anyone wants me to READ their story before TIME'S UP and VOTE, let me know. Maybe, later this evening I will be fit for more reading.

Goodluck everyone! I know I had a blast, yet again! :cattail:
 
I've been crap...I haven't read any.

Serves me right for agreeing to beta some awful, aimless shite about a guy teaching in the middle East.
 
I’m glad I’m not the QUEEN :cattail: today! My guess is that it won’t be a very pleasant day for her. I’ll bet she’ll be asking herself how something that she created with the best of intentions has got to where it is now.

For those of you who don’t know her she’s not a bad old broad. She’s a pretty honest woman. Who believes in a lot of the right things… like free speech … and democracy and fair elections … and rules applied fairly and evenly across the board … and facing the environmental disaster we’ve created and doing something to fix it (which explains why this themed contest will never go away no matter how many tree stories we have to suffer).

So how did she end up where she is now she must continually ask herself.

She believes in, and has fought for, free, transparent, democratic elections around the world but she runs her voting processes like a banana republic dictator. Ballot boxes that disappear while others are stuffed.

She believes that governments should apply their rules fairly and yet her world’s themed contests have become a world of “exceptions for favored friends”. A land of scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. LITEROTICA'S politics have become more corrupt than those in Miami/Dade County. Turn off the voting moonman? Sure. Change a story in the middle of a contest? Why not, you helped me last month. A chaptered story darkboy? Don’t worry, we’ll call it a serial, she laughs back.

She believes in environmental action. She’s a member of the World EARTH DAY committee. So she sponsors this contest (even here on a porn site) to encourage serious discussion of the issue. And what does she get? Tree story after tree story! Usually involving an alien! The essence of the Earth Day movement is that each of us start to acknowledge the problem and how we’re contributing to it. And start to modify our behavior.

But instead of getting any kind of positive environmental propaganda from the contest stories the LITEROTICA reading public is flooded with the concept of “what the hack, the aliens will save us”. It’s like all our authors are members of the TEA PARTY.

I wish the QUEEN :cattail: the best in her moral struggles. It isn’t easy being a principled leader and acting like one. But if she’ll point her feet in the right direction, if she’ll only start the process, I believe she’ll find the vast majority of her world will stand behind her. Principles can coexist with practice.

So for now, while I wait, I’ll just settle for the A.I.R. EARTH DAY Contest! It’s not perfect but at least its results are fair and transparent. We don’t aspire to be anything more than a place where all our readers will be able to vote and to have their vote counted. We’ll accept nothing less than total honesty from our authors and in return each author will know that he’s been treated fairly. There will be no “favored sons” in A.I.R.Contests –
WE’RE JUST NOT GOING TO WORK THAT WAY.

[size=+2]james r scouries esq.[/size]
Multiple A.I.R. AWARD winner, MILLION SELLER,
Author of the MOST COMMENTED on
and the MOST VOTED on story on LITEROTICA
 
scouries;37324773So for now said:
A.I.R. EARTH DAY Contest[/b]! It’s not perfect but at least its results are fair and transparent.

Just for the record, it's ridiculous, of course, for you to call a "contest" fair in which you have arbitrarily tossed out stories that met the contest's rules--which you have done.

I'll agree with you, though, that theme is given short shrift in the assessing of stories in this contest. Which is one reason that I'm bypassing them now.

Perhaps I should check your entry to see how fresh and relevant its theme is.
 
Just for the record, it's ridiculous, of course, for you to call a "contest" fair in which you have arbitrarily tossed out stories that met the contest's rules--which you have done.

I'll agree with you, though, that theme is given short shrift in the assessing of stories in this contest. Which is one reason that I'm bypassing them now.

Perhaps I should check your entry to see how fresh and relevant its theme is.

Not just stories, but entire genres, like Sci-fi and Non-Human.
 
Just for the record, it's ridiculous, of course, for you to call a "contest" fair in which you have arbitrarily tossed out stories that met the contest's rules--which you have done.

I'll agree with you, though, that theme is given short shrift in the assessing of stories in this contest. Which is one reason that I'm bypassing them now.

Perhaps I should check your entry to see how fresh and relevant its theme is.

Don't bother. His story has as much relevance to Earth Day as black has to white. Just a rehash of his usual juvenilia.
 
I do not need a math degree to figure out that with 33 votes my score was 4.62 and now with 47 votes its down to 4.33
Thats a lot of 1 votes very sad

Spinning wheels. Save yourself grief and don't look again until the final sweep is done.
 
I'll agree with you, though, that theme is given short shrift in the assessing of stories in this contest. Which is one reason that I'm bypassing them now.

What, exactly, do you mean by "bypassing them now"? Are you saying that you avoid reading entries just because they are in the contest? Or that you see contests as flawed or somehow biased because they lack a significant content requirement, leading to invalid results? Both? Has this somehow changed over the years?

I'm not criticizing what you said, but I am curious about what you meant.
 
What, exactly, do you mean by "bypassing them now"? Are you saying that you avoid reading entries just because they are in the contest? Or that you see contests as flawed or somehow biased because they lack a significant content requirement, leading to invalid results? Both? Has this somehow changed over the years?

I'm not criticizing what you said, but I am curious about what you meant.

I don't read stories on Lit.--or rarely do. Beyond wanting to spend my time, instead, on writing and editing, I don't want to inadvertently pick up someone else's hook to use in my stories. If I am using hooks already used, it isn't because I didn't devise them myself.

"Bypassing them now" means I don't enter the contests--or rarely do. I post stories on the theme during the contest but just do it through the routine channel. I don't mount up votes--but then I don't anyway, because I'm a small-niche writer.

The entertainments called contests here aren't contests and never have been. Real contests are set up with blind judging and without favoritism to categories of stories for various reasons as long as they fit into the theme. In a real contest the story is judged on its own merits. All of this popular "call in votes" stuff isn't a quality-based contest; it's a popularity-based entertainment. These are popularity/unpopularity contests based mostly on the writer. The mere fact that gobs and gobs of votes are swept during each contest attest to this being more of a grasping bloodbath than a contest based on story quality.

I only post this because you ask. This is has been the base of "contests" for as long as I've been posting here--and for the discussions on contests as well.
 
I might add that a plaintive post such as PrincessErin's is exacly the payoff the zappers are looking forward to seeing. They now know their 1 is likely to be erased. So they're getting their rocks off on the reactions to the zapping--being assured that it's getting under your skin.
 
I don't read stories on Lit.--or rarely do. Beyond wanting to spend my time, instead, on writing and editing, I don't want to inadvertently pick up someone else's hook to use in my stories. If I am using hooks already used, it isn't because I didn't devise them myself.

"Bypassing them now" means I don't enter the contests--or rarely do. I post stories on the theme during the contest but just do it through the routine channel. I don't mount up votes--but then I don't anyway, because I'm a small-niche writer.

The entertainments called contests here aren't contests and never have been. Real contests are set up with blind judging and without favoritism to categories of stories for various reasons as long as they fit into the theme. In a real contest the story is judged on its own merits. All of this popular "call in votes" stuff isn't a quality-based contest; it's a popularity-based entertainment. These are popularity/unpopularity contests based mostly on the writer. The mere fact that gobs and gobs of votes are swept during each contest attest to this being more of a grasping bloodbath than a contest based on story quality.

I only post this because you ask. This is has been the base of "contests" for as long as I've been posting here--and for the discussions on contests as well.

Thanks for replying. I agree with some of what you've said but not all, but seeing as I entered for the fun of coming up with a story for what I see as a wacky topic, I'm fine with the way it is.
 
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I look upon these contests more as a challenge to inspire me, receive feedback and critiques, and a way to broaden my readership base. I'm not going to lie, little red "H"ot H's are pleasing to the eye. :) I also love the support and repoire that many of us have formed, especially among the AH.
 
It almost makes one want to consider a band-aid fix of keeping votes secret. Maybe that would slow down the trolls and level the playing field a little for the duration of the contest. What purposes are served by posting the votes--given the way the contests are administered--aside from maintaining a sense of transparency? (That's not a rhetorical question; I can't think of a good reason the votes should be displayed.)

I did get the impression that they stopped sweeping early. No matter how you manipulate it, once an account/isp combination has voted, that vote sticks. If it's swept early, though, it looks like you can return and zap it again. If you don't do the sweep until after the deadline is over, you save all of that repeated sweeping.

Also, I think a lot of the false voting would be curtailed by not awarding money in the contests. Erase the greed factor, and a lot of the fun of cheating goes away.

The money isn't fair anyway. Having the contests only on theme, means that certain categories are favorited for winning--based on the reader split. No contests are run only for minor categories, so these writers aren't being given equal access to monetary award. Among other things, the site is heavily balanced toward the straight writer--all of the straight categories and only one gay and one lesbian and no bi categories.
 
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