Monthly contests questions

[LettersFromTatyana]

I just swung by the Awards & Contests thread to look at the Halloween winners (somehow missed that when it happened... congrats to the winners), and opened up the January 2011 monthly winners thread, here:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=782663

Could someone explain to me how this works? I thought the winners were chosen from the nominees, found here:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=782660

But the third place winner isn't on the nominations list, and in fact, both the first and third place winners are in the same category. (Please note: I haven't read either the first or third place stories, so this isn't meant to be a disparaging comment or thread towards either of the authors or stories or the category.)

Can someone fill me in? Are the nominations totally different from the award? Are stories above and beyond the nominations considered for the award?

Apologies if I've missed something massively obvious.

 

[PennLady]

Hmmm. I suppose it's possible that the 2nd place in NonHuman (as happened here) could be more than first place in another category. I never saw any rule that said monthly winners all had to be from different categories. The one that baffles me is second place, from Pepperpace. I mean, if she won second, then why wasn't she top in Interracial for that month? And why didn't the top story win, if it qualified. Weird.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Hmmm. I suppose it's possible that the 2nd place in NonHuman (as happened here) could be more than first place in another category. I never saw any rule that said monthly winners all had to be from different categories.

Yeah... I guess I just thought that was the point of the nominations. As in, you can't win unless you were nominated, and since there's only one nomination per category, the three winners must be from different categories.

The one that baffles me is second place, from Pepperpace. I mean, if she won second, then why wasn't she top in Interracial for that month? And why didn't the top story win, if it qualified. Weird.

I think that story was originally in IL, but when she went through and edited it, she put it in Novels and Novellas. She had the N&N nomination.

 

[PennLady]

I think that story was originally in IL, but when she went through and edited it, she put it in Novels and Novellas. She had the N&N nomination.

Ah, I see. I hadn't noticed the change.

 

[lovecraft68]

I just swung by the Awards & Contests thread to look at the Halloween winners (somehow missed that when it happened... congrats to the winners), and opened up the January 2011 monthly winners thread, here:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=782663

Could someone explain to me how this works? I thought the winners were chosen from the nominees, found here:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=782660

But the third place winner isn't on the nominations list, and in fact, both the first and third place winners are in the same category. (Please note: I haven't read either the first or third place stories, so this isn't meant to be a disparaging comment or thread towards either of the authors or stories or the category.)

Can someone fill me in? Are the nominations totally different from the award? Are stories above and beyond the nominations considered for the award?

Apologies if I've missed something massively obvious.

At first I was going to avoid sounding like an ass, but what the hell it is in my nature.

Being that this is not a pay site, many are fond of saying the readers owe us nothing, and they are correct.

To take it further the owners owe us nothing as well.

The people who run this site are human, and being human they have their favorites. Love it of hate it NON human is obviously the apple of their eye and they give it the nod whenever they can. This was the perfect example.

I think a couple of months back one of the other monthly contests featured 2 GM stories placing in the top 3.

Personally I think the 3 should be from 3 different categories, but that's just my opinion.

Another old gripe amongst authors this brings up is that chapter series should not be allowed, because by high chapters you are down to core audience and the votes are skewed. Both non human stories were high chapters 28/20 respectively.

This is not bitching or supposition this is fact. I just wrapped up my SWB series with a 5 part finale that averaged a score of about 4.8 where as my first few chapters were more along the 4.6 range.

At the end of the day keep questioning, but there won;t be any real answers. Just arguments, because no matter what they change there will always be people unhappy.

 

[PennLady]

Well, aren't the monthly contests just based on that month? I mean, I won a couple of years ago for Ch 2 of a 3-part story. I don't see why chapter stories should be disqualified. If that chapter meets the requirements, then fine. I'd agree that it just makes sense that if they're listing the nominees as the top story in each category, then the winners should be from that list.

As for what the owners/editors favor -- I notice a lot of E's given for Gay Male and not much else. Not sure I've seen one recently for Nonhuman, although perhaps they save that favoritism for the contests.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't see why chapter stories should be disqualified.

Because chapters aren't stories. They won't be stories until the last chapter is posted. That's when it should qualify as a story--it isn't a completed story until then.

 

[lovecraft68]

Well, aren't the monthly contests just based on that month? I mean, I won a couple of years ago for Ch 2 of a 3-part story. I don't see why chapter stories should be disqualified. If that chapter meets the requirements, then fine. I'd agree that it just makes sense that if they're listing the nominees as the top story in each category, then the winners should be from that list.

As for what the owners/editors favor -- I notice a lot of E's given for Gay Male and not much else. Not sure I've seen one recently for Nonhuman, although perhaps they save that favoritism for the contests.

Oh my dear, I could kiss you for that last remark! And considering who posted beneath you right on time, I would even use tongue! Speaking of favoritism! Yes GM gets a lot of green E's because again it is something the owners of the site seem to like. In fact if I recall awhile ago there was a feedback thread started by an author whose first story received a green E in GM of course., it's opinion, but they hold the pen so to speak.

As someone who has written a long chapter series, I honestly don;t think they should be allowed in the monthly's because of how the score is skewed. High chapters get less low votes because by a few chapters it's only the people who like it who read it so it is an advantage.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

As for what the owners/editors favor -- I notice a lot of E's given for Gay Male and not much else. Not sure I've seen one recently for Nonhuman . . . .

Assuming I used the search function correctly, the numbers are something like thirty for GM and thirty for NH. Which, given that there are something like 8,500 GM stories and 5,500 NH stories, seems weighted towards NH.

Though yes, most of the NH E's are old. But that means that almost all of the first Es went to NH, when you look at the two groups together. So GM has some catching up to do.

ETA: Although when I run the search multiple times, the results change, though not by much. Not sure what to make of that.


As for favoritism . . . it isn't the site's fault that NH (and romance, for that matter) readers are quick with the fives. Since I've thus far only written in romance, I can't complain. I just really want to know why stories that aren't nominated win.

 

[sr71plt]

What evidence do you have, Lovecraft, that GM gets more than its share of green Es (or that the website owners favor GM, for that matter)? I think you're full of it and that it's just your jealousy talking again. Show evidence. The data should be here. Perhaps Dark can weigh in on that issue. The website obviously isn't favoring GM if it has over 30 categories for straight and only one for GM (and one for Lesbian and none for bi). Ratiionalize that away.

It's just common sense (as well as self-definition) to know that a chaptered story isn't a complete story until all of the chapters are done. Duh. To be technically correct, the website shouldn't log up chapters in the author's story list until the story is complete. (Not that I care whether they do or don't.) But it's really pretty specious to claim a chapter is a complete story. If you think so, set it up that way--you have defined it as incomplete as a story when you chose to submit it as a chapter of a fuller work.

I can wait until you come back with more than personal prejudice as premise.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

What evidence do you have, Lovecraft, that GM gets more than its share of green Es (or that the website owners favor GM, for that matter)? I think you're full of it and that it's just your jealousy talking again. Show evidence. The data should be here. Perhaps Dark can weigh in on that issue. The website obviously isn't favoring GM if it has over 30 categories for straight and only one for GM (and one for Lesbian and none for bi). Ratiionalize that away.

See above. I think you can just go to the story search, select a category, select "editor's choice," and get your results back. The evidence is there for all to see.

It's just common sense (as well as self-definition) to know that a chaptered story isn't a complete story until all of the chapters are done. Duh.

Agree.

 

[sr71plt]

See above. I think you can just go to the story search, select a category, select "editor's choice," and get your results back. The evidence is there for all to see.



Agree.

Thanks. We'll see if Lovecraft bothers to do that--every other time I've challenged him on one of his assertions, he's just ignored it. Unsupported innuendo is so much easier (and often falaciously effective) than fairness. The Swiftboaters taught us that lesson.

I don't think there's any comparison to be made between categories on green Es anyway. Isn't the point of awarding the green E based on just the story itself? If any inference is to be made that the stories in one category get more green Es than those in other categories, isn't it that the web edtior who sees them all just thinks that the stories in one category are better written (or, yes, more appealing to the web editor) than those being written in other categories--and the same if one author gets several green Es and another gets none or appreciably fewer?

What about the other categories? How do the green Es in GM stack up to those in, for instance, Romance? Or "How to" or "Erotic Coupling." In proportion to the stories I have posted under the sr71plt name, I have more green E coverage in all three of these categories--and Lesbian, Loving Wives, and Erotic Coupling as well--as I have in GM.

 

[PennLady]

Though yes, most of the NH E's are old. But that means that almost all of the first Es went to NH, when you look at the two groups together. So GM has some catching up to do.

. . .

As for favoritism . . . it isn't the site's fault that NH (and romance, for that matter) readers are quick with the fives. Since I've thus far only written in romance, I can't complain. I just really want to know why stories that aren't nominated win.

I should have been clearer -- my statement on Es was totally empirical. When I notice Es, they seem to be in Gay Male, and occasionally Non-erotic. Perhaps the E-pendulum swings from time to time. I don't think the Es are related to scores, right?

It's just common sense (as well as self-definition) to know that a chaptered story isn't a complete story until all of the chapters are done. Duh. To be technically correct, the website shouldn't log up chapters in the author's story list until the story is complete. (Not that I care whether they do or don't.) But it's really pretty specious to claim a chapter is a complete story. If you think so, set it up that way--you have defined it as incomplete as a story when you chose to submit it as a chapter of a fuller work.

I can wait until you come back with more than personal prejudice as premise.

I know that was for LC, but I never claimed that a chapter is a complete story. I just don't see why a chapter of a story should be disqualified from the monthly readers' choice stuff if that's what the readers chose to read that month.

Not to mention, if they did, it'd cut down the qualifiers a lot, don't you think? It seems like more chapters go up than stand-alone stories, but that might be an interesting stat to try to pin down.

Also, I don't know what you mean that you think the website shouldn't log up the chapters until the story is complete. Do you think they shouldn't display at all until all chapters are submitted? Or that they shouldn't appear on the author's page that way? I don't understand.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't think the Es are related to scores, right?

Only in that a green E is prone to attract "oh, yean?" zap voters.

I know that was for LC, but I never claimed that a chapter is a complete story. I just don't see why a chapter of a story should be disqualified from the monthly readers' choice stuff if that's what the readers chose to read that month.

First, it's not disqualified from a monthly reader's choice award, is it? Aren't all of the winners of the last-announced awards (January) chapters? Unless I'm missing something, aren't you beefing about something that doesn't exist?

But, second, as one of those who thinks chapters should be excluded, I can only repeat that it's a story contest and chapters aren't a story yet. So, if the site chooses someday to disqualify them from the monthly contest (because they don't really help a reader to choose complete stories to read) as they have done for its other contests, that would be fine with me.

Also, I don't know what you mean that you think the website shouldn't log up the chapters until the story is complete. Do you think they shouldn't display at all until all chapters are submitted? Or that they shouldn't appear on the author's page that way? I don't understand.

I think that they should display, of course. But, to stay true to the meaning of what a story is, technically chapters shouldn't be included in the total "story" count the site keeps and lists on authors until it has become a completed story. Thus, although the site credits me with over 500 stories, the true story count is probably in the lower 400s because a lot of what they have counted as a story isn't a story, it's a chapter in a story. Thus, someone who has three standalone stories and one continuining fifty-nine-chapter story really has only three stories posted to Lit.--and will have four if they ever draw that long, rambling mess to a conclusion.

The truth is that chapters dominate the monthly list, don't they? So, I don't know what you're beefing about. I don't think they should, but I'm not going to open a thread advocating that either--just give my opinion when the opportunity is there and then not obsess over what exists. It just means I don't bother to look at the monthly lists. They don't really tell me much about stories--I'm not going to suddenly show interest in starting to read a story whose chapter thirty-four has won a monthly contest. So, from a commercial standpoint, I think the website shoots itself in the foot for permitting them in that contest. They should qualify--with an average vote over the chapters--in the month in which they are completed.

I think that when the story is done all of the chapter scores should be rolled into one for the story too, but that's neither here nor there in this discussion.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Just to be clear, I compared non-human to gay male, not non-erotic to gay male.

Not to mention, if they did, it'd cut down the qualifiers a lot, don't you think? It seems like more chapters go up than stand-alone stories, but that might be an interesting stat to try to pin down.

Also, I don't know what you mean that you think the website shouldn't log up the chapters until the story is complete. Do you think they shouldn't display at all until all chapters are submitted? Or that they shouldn't appear on the author's page that way? I don't understand.

You can look at this site ( http://www.literotica.com/series/ ) for the number of series (what lit apparently calls chaptered stories), and compare it to the total entries for each category here ( http://www.literotica.com/stories/index.php ). It varies from category (check out anal and novels and novellas, for example).

I don't think there are more chapters, and there certainly aren't more chaptered stories (or series, I guess, as lit seems to call them). But I think that when you go to the category hubs (like romance or nonhuman) and look at the "recently popular" lists you get a skewed vision of recent entries, since the chaptered stories dominate.

ETA: I should add that I'm not exactly up in arms about this. I just wish there were separate top lists for chaptered vs. non-chaptered stories, since it would make looking for something good to read a lot easier.

 

[sr71plt]

Just to be clear, I compared non-human to gay male, not non-erotic to gay male.

I understand that (now). I misread the category and zipped off on an irrelevant post. But when it hit me that PL used Nonhuman, not Nonerotic, I went back and redid my posting. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

I understand that (now). I misread the category and zipped off on an irrelevant post. But when it hit me that PL used Nonhuman, not Nonerotic, I went back and redid my posting. Sorry for the confusion.

No problem.

 

[lovecraft68]

What evidence do you have, Lovecraft, that GM gets more than its share of green Es (or that the website owners favor GM, for that matter)? I think you're full of it and that it's just your jealousy talking again. Show evidence. The data should be here. Perhaps Dark can weigh in on that issue. The website obviously isn't favoring GM if it has over 30 categories for straight and only one for GM (and one for Lesbian and none for bi). Ratiionalize that away.

It's just common sense (as well as self-definition) to know that a chaptered story isn't a complete story until all of the chapters are done. Duh. To be technically correct, the website shouldn't log up chapters in the author's story list until the story is complete. (Not that I care whether they do or don't.) But it's really pretty specious to claim a chapter is a complete story. If you think so, set it up that way--you have defined it as incomplete as a story when you chose to submit it as a chapter of a fuller work.

I can wait until you come back with more than personal prejudice as premise.

Again, if you are going to come out on me, quote me you spineless bitch. I think someone was bitch slapped recently. Because I love this stunt of not quoting the person you're picking fights with.

The reason you don;t want to think GM is favored is because it would take away the meaning of your shitty little green E's that aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

Every time some one brings up GM, you cry and whine and bitch that there are more "straight" categories. Use the brain that you allegedly have, Gay is a fetish and sexual choice. All categories here are fetish based. There are more options among the straights. Or maybe if that is not true if it is gay it is gay. Like incest they don;t want people falling into things they don;t want to know about.

You cry GM does not get votes, that it is low voted and the crowd is tough. As I established in another thread that is not true. GM votes plenty and with some fairly high scores. You just don't get them because apparently the readers here think you suck.

Bet your one of those people making noise about another color "H" for the 4-4.5 to try to make you look better than you are.

When was the last time you even sniffed the top ten in your chosen genre poser? Provide those facts. I already did. BTW I have 3 of the top ten in incest now, document that. Of course it is a chapter series. But tell you what, I will be submitting a new one early next week. I'll revisit this thread when it hits top ten just for you okay?

I think PL is a fairly credible source to speak of green E's awarded. of course she herself has none. But she does have 2 W's something you don;t have in that library of garbage you've posted. E's are the approval of one person. W's come from hundreds of votes and readers.

You just don't want to admit your little E's mean jack and shit. GM is quite popular. know how I know there sweetie? Well your own self serving bullshit

You're always saying how well your published work does so that means a market no? Well how can there be a market if it is so maligned as you would like us to think it is? Can't have your cake and eat it too.

Stop crying and just admit your work here sucks. Course they might be better stories if you knew what you were writing about as we all know your Bi sexual just like your a pilot/agent and whatever other stories you tell people.

And yes I'm sure Dark can conjure up something. Fine if he does. The fact you have to go running to people continues to prove what a small little man you are.

 

[lovecraft68]

Assuming I used the search function correctly, the numbers are something like thirty for GM and thirty for NH. Which, given that there are something like 8,500 GM stories and 5,500 NH stories, seems weighted towards NH.

Though yes, most of the NH E's are old. But that means that almost all of the first Es went to NH, when you look at the two groups together. So GM has some catching up to do.

ETA: Although when I run the search multiple times, the results change, though not by much. Not sure what to make of that.


As for favoritism . . . it isn't the site's fault that NH (and romance, for that matter) readers are quick with the fives. Since I've thus far only written in romance, I can't complain. I just really want to know why stories that aren't nominated win.

They don;t have to award green E's to push for a certain category. The E is for the author not the category.

Literotica is a business. Right now NOn Human is hot, not just here, everywhere. You can say its the Twilight phenomenon or whatever theory you want, but it is big.

There are even hardcore computer generated porn sites popping up featuring monsters fucking (usually raping) women. so it is huge.

They are pushing the category here as a result. If next month something happened that caused "water sports" to become insanely popular trust me they would start pushing the fetish category.

Categories that"support" themselves like incest, loving wives, and the other heavy hitters don't receive too much attention from the site because it doesn't need it.

NH is whats hot right now. Like all smart business owners they will go with the trends and do what they can to promote it.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Literotica is a business. Right now NOn Human is hot, not just here, everywhere.

<snip>

They are pushing the category here as a result. If next month something happened that caused "water sports" to become insanely popular trust me they would start pushing the fetish category.

<snip>

NH is whats hot right now. Like all smart business owners they will go with the trends and do what they can to promote it.

How are they pushing or promoting nonhuman?

Categories that"support" themselves like incest, loving wives, and the other heavy hitters don't receive too much attention from the site because it doesn't need it.

How are incest and loving wives not receiving attention?

 

[scouries]

i'm back!!!!!!

Here's a post i made back in 2007...
plus ca change plus...

[size=+2]ON CONTESTS #1[/size] On Fixing Literotica’s Monthly Contest System

The Problem:

Did you know that, of the 72 monthly contest winners (1st , 2nd, and 3rd places) announced for 2005 and 2006, 35 were ‘Romance’ category stories and 19 were ‘Novels and Novellas’ category stories? In other words 75% of the winners came from two categories that represent only about 9% of the stories submitted. And to a large extent the winners in these categories were a chapter 2 or 3 or some other later chapter in a series and usually the winners have under 100 votes and limited reads. What the hell’s going on?

The seven categories with the most submitted stories in them (Erotic Coupling, Incest, Loving Wives, BDSM, Non-Consent, Group, and Exhibitionism), more than 67% of the stories submitted to Literotica, some 20,000 stories in 2005 and 2006, produced a pitiful total of only 3 winners (4% of winners) over the two years. Shee-it, can’t we spread the wealth around some?

Scouries Suggestion to Bring Fairness, Honesty and Good Will to the Monthly Contests

1 – Each month 4 prizes would be awarded
2 – One prize would go to the highest rated story, one to the most viewed story, one to the story with the most votes, and the final prize would go to the story which received the most comments.
3 – A category can only win once every quarter (in other words if an Incest or Romance story wins in January, no Incest or Romance stories can win in February or March)
4 – An author can only win once a year

The hoped for results of this system:
- A fairer distribution of the prizes over all the Literotica categories;
- A much broader group of writers will have a chance to win a prize;
- A recognition on our part that stories that are popular with our readers might be good choices as winners. Maybe, just maybe, resulting in more attention from our readers to contest winning stories;
- An improvement in the mental health of Literotica’s authors. Not living and dying with every vote almost certainly will reduce the level of paranoia among us;
-Happiness will reign in the kingdom

 

[sr71plt]

Who again is doing the whining, Lovecraft (aka Swiftboater)?

Just more innuendo. I didn't see any evidence of anything in that rant--just more jealous rage.

 

[PennLady]

First, it's not disqualified from a monthly reader's choice award, is it? Aren't all of the winners of the last-announced awards (January) chapters? Unless I'm missing something, aren't you beefing about something that doesn't exist?

No, I wasn't, although I think there may be some crossed wires in here. I got the impression you thought chapters of stories should not be included in the monthly awards (which, yes, are way way behind). I was wondering why not, in the sense that if more readers view/vote on Story A Chapter 1 than on Story B with no chapters, what does it matter? SAC1 garnered more votes, so, it can win.

I do agree that the themed contests should be stand-alone entries. I'm not sure I could give a logical explanation for that, except perhaps that the stories are supposed to be themed. That made no sense; I'll think on that.

But, second, as one of those who thinks chapters should be excluded, I can only repeat that it's a story contest and chapters aren't a story yet. So, if the site chooses someday to disqualify them from the monthly contest (because they don't really help a reader to choose complete stories to read) as they have done for its other contests, that would be fine with me.

I was just looking at the rules for the monthly contest, and they use stories and submissions interchangeably. I'd consider Story A Chapter 1 a submission as opposed to a story but I'd say that with those rules, they've covered the bases on stand-alone stories vs. parts of larger stories and made chapters eligible.

The truth is that chapters dominate the monthly list, don't they? So, I don't know what you're beefing about. I don't think they should, but I'm not going to open a thread advocating that either--just give my opinion when the opportunity is there and then not obsess over what exists. It just means I don't bother to look at the monthly lists.

They may dominate the monthly list, I don't know. I rarely look at any of the lists here; I just post my stories and read some. I'm not "beefing" about anything, I was just commenting, and as always we've gone far afield from the original post, which was wondering about how the winners got selected given that at least one of the winners of the Jan 2011 month was not in the nominees.

They don't really tell me much about stories--I'm not going to suddenly show interest in starting to read a story whose chapter thirty-four has won a monthly contest. So, from a commercial standpoint, I think the website shoots itself in the foot for permitting them in that contest. They should qualify--with an average vote over the chapters--in the month in which they are completed.

A valid point, but of course it may work differently for someone else. Although I'm with you, if I haven't seen anything until Ch 34, I doubt I'm going back to Ch 1 to start it.

I understand that (now). I misread the category and zipped off on an irrelevant post. But when it hit me that PL used Nonhuman, not Nonerotic, I went back and redid my posting. Sorry for the confusion.

Yes, me too. Sorry. I actually meant to say non-erotic but didn't mean to cause confusion.

They don;t have to award green E's to push for a certain category. The E is for the author not the category.

I would assume that the E is for the story, not necessarily the author. I never said I noticed they went to the same author, just the same category, but that's all empirical observation, no documentation or anything.

Literotica is a business. Right now NOn Human is hot, not just here, everywhere. You can say its the Twilight phenomenon or whatever theory you want, but it is big.
...
NH is whats hot right now. Like all smart business owners they will go with the trends and do what they can to promote it.

NH is big, no doubt, but I've never seen Lit "promote" it at all. And since incest (for example) is the most heavily viewed category, or one of them, I don't see it needs any promoting over anything else.

 

[sr71plt]

No, I wasn't, although I think there may be some crossed wires in here. I got the impression you thought chapters of stories should not be included in the monthly awards (which, yes, are way way behind). I was wondering why not, in the sense that if more readers view/vote on Story.

My position is, yes, that chapters of stories should not be included in the monthly awards--until they have finished as a story, at which time they would be eligible in the month they finish with a rating that is an average across the chapters.

However, I didn't post this until you posted you thought they should be elibible (and they, in fact, are). I hadn't posted to the thread before that, so if you thought you were responding to something I posted, you weren't.

The site is trending toward making them ineligible for the monthly contests, I think. They changed this for both the themed and Survivor's contests.

I would assume that the E is for the story, not necessarily the author. I never said I noticed they went to the same author, just the same category, but that's all empirical observation, no documentation or anything.

Swiftboater's position on this has been that since I have green Es (and by extrapolation, because he doesn't) then, yes, they are given out to authors, not stories and that I'm somehow the web editor's pet (he's flatly stated this before). I'm sure Laurel would be amused if she was following the forum discussions.

 

[PennLady]

My position is, yes, that chapters of stories should not be included in the monthly awards--until they have finished as a story, at which time they would be eligible in the month they finish with a rating that is an average across the chapters.

However, I didn't post this until you posted you thought they should be elibible (and they, in fact, are). I hadn't posted to the thread before that, so if you thought you were responding to something I posted, you weren't.

No I wasn't. What I said was:

Well, aren't the monthly contests just based on that month? I mean, I won a couple of years ago for Ch 2 of a 3-part story. I don't see why chapter stories should be disqualified. ...

So no one had said they weren't at that point, and I didn't mean to imply that. I think I simply disagree. If Chapter 3 of X is voted high enough, then I don't see why it shouldn't win, when "submissions" are acceptable under the current rules. However, if they change it, they change it.

The site is trending toward making them ineligible for the monthly contests, I think. They changed this for both the themed and Survivor's contests.

I've been here for about two and a half years, I think, and the themed contests have always been limited to stand-alones. I've never done the survivor thing, so I can't say about that. Like I said, if they change it, fine, but since this is a readers' choice thing, I guess I don't feel it has to be.