Quick Question - Where's the Monthly Contest?

[Duleigh]

What ever happened to the contest? I remember it being here, I step away for a few months and it's gone! Did somebody leave it tied up outside and it slipped the leash?

Actually, I'm just wondering out of curiosity, now that I'm writing more regularly it would be cool to brand a story with a W but without the Monthly there's only 6 chances to do that.

 

[RejectReality]

They get behind sometimes, and this is one of those times. They'll eventually get caught up in order to set up for the annual contest.

You get a notification on your timeline if you win one, so no worries about missing it ( unless your timeline is going absolutely bonkers or you don't check in forever )

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The last one with results announced was March. I noticed because in April I had a story get the required 50 votes for almost the first time ever, and it had a very good score, but that's how behind the contest is.

Any idea whether the scores used are the ones from the date given in the description of the contests, or when the awards are actually given, months later? (Said story's score has slid downwards, since)

 

[lovecraft68]

The last one with results announced was March. I noticed because in April I had a story get the required 50 votes for almost the first time ever, and it had a very good score, but that's how behind the contest is.

Any idea whether the scores used are the ones from the date given in the description of the contests, or when the awards are actually given, months later? (Said story's score has slid downwards, since)

I believe its what the score was on the last day of the month of the contest.
A few years ago, I had submitted a story near the end of June, but while it was pending I realized there was an error in it, so I pulled it, resubmitted and it went live a couple days into July, it then ended up winning the July monthly in Romance. In that case it paid to make a mistake.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Uh...where's the 2017 annual awards?

 

[Voboy]

I believe its what the score was on the last day of the month of the contest.

Aren't the scores taken mid-month, not at the end of the month? I think they are...

 

[lovecraft68]

Aren't the scores taken mid-month, not at the end of the month? I think they are...

Maybe you're right, but either way its for that month not at the time they get around to announcing the winners.

 

[lovecraft68]

Uh...where's the 2017 annual awards?

Never announced.
Don't hold me to this-because time gets jumbled together as it goes by-but that might have been the year a lot of regulars here were expressing their discontent with another year of the site allowing chapter stories to be entered as well as influential author featuring another nominee being a person with one long running never ending series which all followed another year of her saying "Yes, we're going to fix this"

The solution became if anyone brings it up in the official threads it gets deleted. That's how things are dealt with here, in the most mature way possible

But I think that drama may have pissed or put her off enough to say screw it that year.

Or I'm not recalling the year correctly and the site just said screw it anyway.

 

[RejectReality]

The votes that matter for the monthly contests are the votes that were cast during the month of publication. Not 30 days, but during the month it was published, whether that's the whole month or 1 day.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Never announced.
Don't hold me to this-because time gets jumbled together as it goes by-but that might have been the year a lot of regulars here were expressing their discontent with another year of the site allowing chapter stories to be entered as well as influential author featuring another nominee being a person with one long running never ending series which all followed another year of her saying "Yes, we're going to fix this"

The solution became if anyone brings it up in the official threads it gets deleted. That's how things are dealt with here, in the most mature way possible

But I think that drama may have pissed or put her off enough to say screw it that year.

Or I'm not recalling the year correctly and the site just said screw it anyway.

All I know is that my name was mentioned several times in the nomination threads for 2017, and no nominations were ever announced.

 

[RejectReality]

The monthly awards for 17 didn't get processed until 19. Things were so far behind that the annual awards got scrapped that year, and resumed once everything got caught up.

 

[lovecraft68]

The votes that matter for the monthly contests are the votes that were cast during the month of publication. Not 30 days, but during the month it was published, whether that's the whole month or 1 day.

So in theory if a story came out on the last day of the month and was a 4.90 on 50 votes it wins over a story that was live for 28 days got 600 votes and had a 4.88(much more impressive)?

If true then...I'd honestly expect no less.

 

[lovecraft68]

All I know is that my name was mentioned several times in the nomination threads for 2017, and no nominations were ever announced.

a couple years prior there was a two year stretch I told the site to not count my nominations because the things are such a farce I don't want to be bothered. Interesting that after that I never saw a nomination. The readers didn't know I said that, and I had big enough stories to qualify for some of the awards.

Falls under things that make you go hmmm....

End of the day these things are meaningless and a sham. Same people for the same major awards every year.

They're not worth chasing or caring about.

 

[RejectReality]

So in theory if a story came out on the last day of the month and was a 4.90 on 50 votes it wins over a story that was live for 28 days got 600 votes and had a 4.88(much more impressive)?

If true then...I'd honestly expect no less.

Yes, it's highest score above the minimum vote threshold, like every other contest.

Depends on what category they're in. If the 50 votes in one day is in Letters & Transcripts, that's a decent showing. If the 600 votes in 28 days is in Incest, not so much. If both are in Anal, that's a different ball-o-wax. How is weighing things by the number of votes any less of a popularity contest than the way things are done now though? It's certainly not going to lead to a diversity of winning categories.

Last time I went through the winners ( admittedly years ago now ) there had been a paradigm shift in which categories were taking slots, and that shift was toward a diversity of categories.

Just blinked through the twenty or so most recent lists of winners and damn... Lesbian Sex has become a powerhouse for wins. Back in the old days, that was a once a year thing. GM still has regular wins. Romance still does well. Sci-Fi&Fantasy and NonHuman ( the most complained about categories in the old days along with Romance ) are reasonably rare now. N&N, EC, Incest, E&V, all making appearances. It's not as diverse as it was the last time I checked due to LS surging, but it's not as if it's all low vote categories taking wins.

Even if you put a panel of judges in place, people still call bullshit in large numbers. ( Lush does it that way, and there's always bellyaching ) So it's almost irrelevant. No matter what system is put in place, people rage.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The votes that matter for the monthly contests are the votes that were cast during the month of publication. Not 30 days, but during the month it was published, whether that's the whole month or 1 day.

I can tell you from personal experience that that is not correct.

I had a story end the month with enough votes to qualify, and a score over 4.90, the highest score of the month by a significant margin. When the awards were announced, near the end of the next month, I did not win; another story, published very late in the month, had a slightly higher score.

I wrote to Laurel and asked for an explanation. She told me that the cut off is not at the end of the month, but the middle of the following month, in order to create an even field for stories published at any time.