The Official Authors' Hangout Summer Lovin' Contest 2017 Support Thread

ChloeTzang said:

Well I saw some sort of sweep seems to have hit a few stories. One of my voting #s dropped and the score went up and the other one got bombed in the early hours. Didn't know my stories were that scary that they needed bombing lol. Down to the final hours woooo wooooo. May the best bomber .... I mean story .... I mean whatever .... this ones been fun to watch.

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In recent days I saw one sweep take my submission down 0.02 and then the next one gave me back the 0.02. I can't decide if I find that frustrating, or if I wish it did that more often so that I finally learn to just stop checking.

SolarRay said:

In recent days I saw one sweep take my submission down 0.02 and then the next one gave me back the 0.02. I can't decide if I find that frustrating, or if I wish it did that more often so that I finally learn to just stop checking.

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Many of us can become obsessive about checking the ratings of our current contest entries. Checking won't change the result and the final sweep can be drastic.

oggbashan said:

Many of us can become obsessive about checking the ratings of our current contest entries. Checking won't change the result and the final sweep can be drastic.

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I thought Laurel had switched to quantum voting for the contests. So our observations checking the votes does influence the scores now.

A small sweep went through a little earlier. I think 3 votes on one story and 10 on the other. Not nearly what i expected.

TxRad said:

A small sweep went through a little earlier. I think 3 votes on one story and 10 on the other. Not nearly what i expected.

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Yes, I lost 5 and 3 and given how I got slammed repeatedly I'd expect to lose a lot more

ChloeTzang said:

Yes, I lost 5 and 3 and given how I got slammed repeatedly I'd expect to lose a lot more

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Maybe it is not over. There is still hope for all.

ChloeTzang said:

Yes, I lost 5 and 3 and given how I got slammed repeatedly I'd expect to lose a lot more

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Yup. I lost 4, jumped .07.

I'm betting at least another 5 disappear.

TxRad said:

Maybe it is not over. There is still hope for all.

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Lol. Lost 5 and up .08 points. We shall see.

Kethandra said:

Yup. I lost 4, jumped .07.

I'm betting at least another 5 disappear.

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The sweep is hitting stories other than contest entries. Thanks to removal of one vote I may now be the proud owner of the biggest bombing target on Lit: a score of 4.93 on 15 votes. I repeat. Not a contest entry.

NotWise said:

The sweep is hitting stories other than contest entries. Thanks to removal of one vote I may now be the proud owner of the biggest bombing target on Lit: a score of 4.93 on 15 votes. I repeat. Not a contest entry.

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That's cool. Congrats!

And the winners are

First Place ($150 Cash Prize Winner):
Aerobatron (1985) by masterandmargarita

Second Place ($100 Cash Prize Winner):
More Common Than You Think by KindofHere

Third Place ($75 Cash Prize Winner):
Heatstroked by PuckIt

Congrats to one and all

Congratulations to the winners!

Also to everyone else who got good ratings, great comments, many views or who is simply happy with the accomplishment (or anything else). In the end, only the number of views was a disappointment for me so I'm one of the happy ones.

Halin24

TxRad said:

First Place ($150 Cash Prize Winner):
Aerobatron (1985) by masterandmargarita

Second Place ($100 Cash Prize Winner):
More Common Than You Think by KindofHere

Third Place ($75 Cash Prize Winner):
Heatstroked by PuckIt

Congrats to one and all

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Yes, congrats to all three of you, and to everyone who entered. Great job!

TxRad said:

First Place ($150 Cash Prize Winner):
Aerobatron (1985) by masterandmargarita

Second Place ($100 Cash Prize Winner):
More Common Than You Think by KindofHere

Third Place ($75 Cash Prize Winner):
Heatstroked by PuckIt

Congrats to one and all

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Yes, congratulations to you all.

Congratulations to the winners.

And congratulations to all who entered the Summer Lovin' Contest.

ChloeTzang said:

Yes, I lost 5 and 3 and given how I got slammed repeatedly I'd expect to lose a lot more

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Before my first (and only contest sweep) I was at a 4.63 and after the sweep and 29 votes removed, I jumped to a 4.88 (I lost about every 1 vote I was given) and then I was hit with a 2 on the final day (my only vote after the sweep) and finished at 4.87 which is not where I saw myself ending this contest. I thought I was out.

It's not even about the score. I'm more upset about the views possibly lost after I came off the New Story list than getting hit with the ridiculous (I say ridiculous, but it was my story) amount of 1 votes I was hit with. If my score doesn't jump like that, then I don't make the Recently Popular list.

This competition stuff is brutal. For you guys who do it regularly and for years, you've got some thick skin and a whole lot of respect from me. At least now I know what to expect in the future (minus getting fortunate enough to place).

Thanks for letting me play, it was a frustrating pleasure and congratulations to everyone.

TxRad said:

First Place ($150 Cash Prize Winner):
Aerobatron (1985) by masterandmargarita

Second Place ($100 Cash Prize Winner):
More Common Than You Think by KindofHere

Third Place ($75 Cash Prize Winner):
Heatstroked by PuckIt

Congrats to one and all

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Congrats to all who entered and especially to our winners. As near as I can tell from my tabulation, Chloe should qualify for a consolation prize for Sammi Woo. To the hundredths she was tied with PuckIt.

Congrats masterandmargarita and KindofHere!

And thank you for the congratulations.

PuckIt said:

Congrats masterandmargarita and KindofHere!

And thank you for the congratulations.

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Hey, good for you. It's a wonderful feeling so enjoy - you deserve it! Congratulations to all of you

Congrats all!

PuckIt said:

Congrats masterandmargarita and KindofHere!

And thank you for the congratulations.

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Congrats to you! Thanks to everyone else for sharing your fantasies! I am not worthy. But $150 = 2 Marilyn Manson tickets \m/

Congratulations to the winners. Well deserved.

Congrats, well done and thanks for the great stories.

HeyAll said:

[This is the contest support thread. It is not the place to question the administration of contests, and slights directed at participants and winners will not be tolerated. - AH Mod]

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25 is the minimum and it's been that way forever. We could complain about all sorts of things like the one star bombing that went on this go round. All the winning stories got targeted, and a few more besides. It's pretty obvious. I'm really bugged about that coz I was at 4.98 with 50 votes at the end of Sammi Woo's first day. And guess what, next morning it was 4.69 on half a dozen more votes one after the other. Climbed back to 4.78 next day, bombed down again. Every day. I wasn't the only one it happened to. Two of the winning stories were trolled just as badly and I'll be blunt and say it was fairly obvious what was going on anyhow and which stories were not being targeted at the top.

Now if the competitions are to mean anything something that blatant and obvious really needs to have something done about it day by day. Kindofhere's views were hit by his poor rating, my story was tanked at the end of day one, others were hit equally badly and the sweep at the end was, sorry to say it, a farce based on what went on with the targeted bombing. The 25 vote cutoff is, imho, small cheese - you still have to get a good score to win. I don't think, personally, that 25 is a big deal. It's the cheating with the votes that annoys me. That and a few trolls went and downvoted all my stories across the board. Not just my competition entry.

Makes me agree with some others that really, the competitions aren't worth entering coz the attention you get can be very negative. For me, that's starting to outweigh the positives. I have to say, overall, this competition was a fairly negative experience for me.

And I really thought about posting this, coz I don't like being negative about these things. I'd rather be all yaaay go girl go, but I'm seeing the validity of many of those criticisms of LIT management after this one.