Impact of contest placing

[crookedletter]

Makes you wonder if it might not be wise to freeze voting on winning stories for a week after the announcement.

Some of that might be sour grapes from other writers, and that's of course pretty lame. But some of it is probably readers coming to a story because it's a contest winner, having high expectations on that account, and being legitimately disappointed. They should be free to rate accordingly, right?

 

[Bamagan]

I don't think it would be worth the trouble. Once you've got the W, the score doesn't matter all that much.

I immediately imagined someone who has just had a messy orgasm in a hotel room and decided they're done for the night.
"I got my O!" (Or W, I suppose.)
What happens next or to everyone else is not my problem!

I doubt that's what you meant, but it made me laugh anyway.

 

[Actingup]

Some of that might be sour grapes from other writers, and that's of course pretty lame. But some of it is probably readers coming to a story because it's a contest winner, having high expectations on that account, and being legitimately disappointed. They should be free to rate accordingly, right?

Yes, totally. Not all non-5 ratings are bombs!

 

[iwatchus]

Well, I guess if you were just playing the numbers, you'd have chosen April Fools' Day.

But I was less than a month into writing when that closed. I didn't even know about contests yet.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

That's entirely reasonable - apologies, I was going for a tone of mock outrage, but I got the tag wrong.

Here are the numbers of entries for the last 12 months. "Winter Holidays" and Halloween are indeed the biggest. More interest in the competition, and of course less chance of winning for the largest ones (ie the chance of getting a place in April Fools is more than double that of getting a place at Halloween). Swings and roundabouts.

View attachment 2556568

Wow. The Halloween numbers are pretty staggering. I would’ve never guessed. I would’ve thought it’d be something like:

1. Winter Holidays - pretty universal
2. Summer - broad; heat = heat
3. Nude - fairly broad too
4. Valentines - love + sex, obvious
5. Halloween
6. April Fools

 

[Actingup]

Wow. The Halloween numbers are pretty staggering. I would’ve never guessed. I would’ve thought it’d be something like:

1. Winter Holidays - pretty universal
2. Summer - broad; heat = heat
3. Nude - fairly broad too
4. Valentines - love + sex, obvious
5. Halloween
6. April Fools

Perspectives may vary. Without looking at the numbers, I would have thought:

1. Winter holidays are mostly a Northern Hemisphere thing
2. Summer is should happen around Christmas
3. Nude Day - agree that's broad, although 'National Nude Day' seems to be more a US thing?
4. Valentine's Day - yes but there's the stink of commercialism
5. Halloween - mainly in America
6. April Fools is arguably one of the more universal themes!

But who am I to know!

 

[TheLobster]

Here are the numbers of entries for the last 12 months. "Winter Holidays" and Halloween are indeed the biggest. More interest in the competition, and of course less chance of winning for the largest ones (ie the chance of getting a place in April Fools is more than double that of getting a place at Halloween). Swings and roundabouts.

View attachment 2556568

So, if I read this chart correctly -- and that's a tall order, because someone made a pie chart where it should've been a bar one, and the legend is tiny ;P -- there are four distinct tiers of contests by popularity among authors:

1. Halloween
2. Winter Holidays
3. Summer and Valentines
4. Nude Day and April Fools

I definitely feel more justified now in largely ignoring the bottom one, and even advocating for its removal and replacement with some of the unofficial challenges like On the Job.

 

[Erozetta]

That's entirely reasonable - apologies, I was going for a tone of mock outrage, but I got the tag wrong.

Here are the numbers of entries for the last 12 months. "Winter Holidays" and Halloween are indeed the biggest. More interest in the competition, and of course less chance of winning for the largest ones (ie the chance of getting a place in April Fools is more than double that of getting a place at Halloween). Swings and roundabouts.

View attachment 2556568

Seeing this laid out makes me feel like I should apologize to the other 217 entrants of Halloween last year. I don't know how I placed where I did. It wasn't the best story (not by a longshot) and I feel like it was some major fluke/accident that I placed at all.

But also, holy shit, I didn't realize there were that many entrants and now there's this tiny blip of pride mixed with the same panic/sick I felt when the rankings were announced. I'm not used to that. And I'm deeply uncomfortable.

 

[Actingup]

So, if I read this chart correctly -- and that's a tall order, because someone made a pie chart where it should've been a bar one, and the legend is tiny ;P -- there are four distinct tiers of contests by popularity among authors:

1. Halloween
2. Winter Holidays
3. Summer and Valentines
4. Nude Day and April Fools

I definitely feel more justified now in largely ignoring the bottom one, and even advocating for its removal and replacement with some of the unofficial challenges like On the Job.

Best bar chart I could do in the time available sorry.

 

[Bamagan]

View attachment 2556619
Best bar chart I could do in the time available sorry.

Now do a bra chart.

 

[Actingup]

Seeing this laid out makes me feel like I should apologize to the other 217 entrants of Halloween last year. I don't know how I placed where I did. It wasn't the best story (not by a longshot) and I feel like it was some major fluke/accident that I placed at all.

But also, holy shit, I didn't realize there were that many entrants and now there's this tiny blip of pride mixed with the same panic/sick I felt when the rankings were announced. I'm not used to that. And I'm deeply uncomfortable.

Erozetta, I know that this isn't fake modesty - I know you feel uncomfortable with it. Please excuse me embarrasing you further:
1) In the context of all the discussion above about post-win bombing, your story is sitting happily at 4.8
2) It's a 19K word story, and tens of thousands of people have read it (the 'view' count is 77K). It's been 'favorited' 126 times.
3) The comments are extremely positive. I certainly gave it a 5 along with nearly everybody else who voted for it.

Please have no doubt: you fucking earned that prize.

 

[Erozetta]

Erozetta, I know that this isn't fake modesty - I know you feel uncomfortable with it. Please excuse me embarrasing you further:
1) In the context of all the discussion above about post-win bombing, your story is sitting happily at 4.8
2) It's a 19K word story, and tens of thousands of people have read it (the 'view' count is 77K). It's been 'favorited' 126 times.
3) The comments are extremely positive. I certainly gave it a 5 along with nearly everybody else who voted for it.

Please have no doubt: you fucking earned that prize.

Err... That was actually me being proud of my story and where it currently sits, not a dig at it or a play at modesty, faux or otherwise. But a "Damn, I did the thing I didn't think I could do and I did it against worse odds than I realized." It wasn't the best written, it wasn't a deep story, but it was light and fun with a romantic undercurrent that hit the right strokes for people, which certainly played to my favor.

I can be happy about my story's stats/win and also acknowledge that there were objectively far better written stories than mine in the contest. Those are not mutually exclusive things. And they aren't humility or modesty, just honesty. I *know* my win wasn't because it was the best story of the bunch, and I'm fine with that. It just happened to have a higher score at the pivotal moment in time where the score mattered. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[iwatchus]

3. Nude Day - agree that's broad, although 'National Nude Day' seems to be more a US thing?

I have never run into anyone here (in the US) who has heard of Nude Day.

It is originally a southern hemisphere thing (kiwi) accord to this.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Seeing this laid out makes me feel like I should apologize to the other 217 entrants of Halloween last year.

if I recall correctly, Halloween 2023 had like 260.

 

[Erozetta]

if I recall correctly, Halloween 2023 had like 260.

That's the year Alt won. I actually watched the score for that one because I thought his story was one of the best I read that year. (And I still think that.)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

That's the year Alt won. I actually watched the score for that one because I thought his story was one of the best I read that year. (And I still think that.)

Altissimus is a pretty darn good writer. I don't always care for his choice of subject matter but his craftmanship is high level.

He would have been good in our Bathory chain.

 

[Erozetta]

Altissimus is a pretty darn good writer. I don't always care for his choice of subject matter but his craftmanship is high level.

He would have been good in our Bathory chain.

Absolutely. He would've been a strong player in it. Sadly, the subsequent bombing of his other works after his contest win helped push him off of the site. (Look at me getting this thread back onto the actual subject accidentally.)