Survivor

[sweetnpetite]

Time to start working on Survivor 2004!

 

[wishfulthinking]

No rest for the wicked!

Good luck

 

[snooper]

Time to start working on Survivor 2004!

Since Mr.V is going off-line for a day or two (he says, maybe you could even be in the lead (for a little while).

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I have 6 stories ready, waiting to be clean-written and submitted.

 

[Icingsugar]

Can someone please enlighten me what this Survivor stuff is all about?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Can someone please enlighten me what this Survivor stuff is all about?

Check out the sticky threads in the Awards & Contests forum. Basically it's a competition where the goal is to have, within a year, as many submissions in as many different categories as possible.

 

[Icingsugar]

Check out the sticky threads in the Awards & Contests forum. Basically it's a competition where the goal is to have, within a year, as many submissions in as many different categories as possible.

Read, understood (kind of - lots of points and runes). So, will there be a 04 race? I just might join the mayhem.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Det kommer, det kommer, ta det lugnt! Låt 2003's vinnare bli officiellt utsedda och vederbörligen överösta med lovord och hedersbetygelser och fjäsk, innan vi börjar med 2004.

 

[Quasimodem]

Suggestion about Scoring for "Survivor 2004"

The Survivors Contest seems to be about how many different categories one can write in?

It would seem to measure versatility, definitely prolificacy, but not to measure the author's writing ability. Instead, in some cases, it might be seen to gauge that particular author's chutzpah!

Instead, I believe some measure of quality should affect the final score.

For example:

Each category is worth a possible five (5) points, and receives the equivalent of the vote as their highest mark in that category.

The highest rated story in any category, with more than one entry, would automatically be chosen.

A second story in the same category would receive a potential additional score of one (1) or one fifth of that story's vote.

If an author submits a story which does poorly, he/she can try more than two stories in that same category. In that case, the story with the lowest score (vote) would be ignored.

In this way, some measure of quality, along with versatility, and prolificacy would be measured.

I have no plans to enter, so this is all merely academic, but I think Literotica has enough stories to start taking quality – as gauged by reader satisfaction – into the calculation when running a promotional contest.

 

[Master_Vassago]

The only problem with that Quasi is stories can be bombed easily by a one vote right in the beginning. I happen to know this is the case from stories past. An easy example is a story that had been sumitted and posted on only my author page, as it had not been posted to the main story listings yet, received a one vote within a few minutes of being accepted. No feedback, no denouncing nothing of the sort.

Also as numerous stories of mine have posted lately they have for the most part received one votes early on. I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of the writing but someone with a dislike for my stories.

That said if the survivor contest weighed on scores a line would have to be drawn at the number of votes it takes to score as well as the fact that each of us would have to check back on the stories extensively to catch the score as it hit that vote requirement.

The system that's in place is good I think with a few exceptions. But I'm not going to say anything negative because I think the exceptions are just areas that could use a little improvement.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Personally, I think it would be a good idea to have some sort of bonus points for quality, but that's not really what this contest is about. I do agree with Quasi, but I would say Literotica has enough stories to start taking quality as a prerequisite for a story to even be approved, but that would be to put an unfair amount of work and responsibility on Laurel.

Some of you may have seen my post in the Survivor discussion thread about a story I found in the non-English section, apparently in Portuguese. I reported it and now it's unaccessible, waiting a moderator's approval. I am sorry I didn't save it first, because no words can convey the magnitude of that linguistic disaster. From what I could understand (not much), it was a sloppily written story in English, ran by freetranslation.com. Not only was the sentence structure completely torn to pieces, the original English had a number of typos and contractions that obviously weren't recognised by the shitty program. The result was completely unreadable.

The author's "explanation" for this was something along the lines of at least I did it, in the best way I knew and if I didn't do it right, so what.

"So what." No apology, no remorse, no respect for the readers.

"If no one can understand that certain people are not blessed by knowing another language besides English, ah well."

This is what some will do to win. What sort of a challenge is this to them? How can it be fun? Granted that the Survivor contest, unlike all the others, is about the writers, not the readers, but some things go a bit too far.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

But if you run a story through such a translation program, and translate that version back into English, it MIGHT fit into Humour & Satire..?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Now that could be fun

 

[Quasimodem]

. . . The system that's in place is good I think with a few exceptions. But I'm not going to say anything negative because I think the exceptions are just areas that could use a little improvement.

Master_Vassago,


My comment was not directed toward the contestants.

Rather, it was directed toward those who might consider revising the regulations, not for the relief of the competitors, but for the improvement of the stories for the readers.

Laurel does not require MORE stories; rather, she requires more QUALITY stories. She already does yeoman work insuring that few fraudulent votes remain on any author's story – especially those competing in a contest.

I believe it is time that the readers are the recipients of some consideration, as well.

One way to avoid scurrilous voting practises would be to enter the stories under a coded identity.

For example: "John's Brother Is His Wife's Girlfriend" by 04 Survivor 4512. When the year ends and the contest is over, the identities are revealed, and the stories are posted to each writer's profile.

Not only would this invalidate strategic voting, but also eliminate the possibility of voting up friends' stories while voting down strangers', even competitors' works.

In this way, neither liking, nor disliking an author would matter. Even the Author's previous track record would have no bearing on the vote. The only thing available to be judged would be the stories entered.

A notice could be posted in the competing Authors' Profiles that the Author was presently competing in the Survivor's Contest, and all that year's stories could be found in the Survivor's Contest Stories List, with a pseudonymous attribution.

I don't know how much extra effort this would cause Laurel, but it could be a useful method of protecting contests from scurrilous voting.

To see how this would work in practise, one of the Holiday Contests could be chosen for a trial. This way all – especially Laurel judging her workload – could see how the idea works – for good, or ill.

 

[Icingsugar]

So, basically, if playing by the rules of -03, I could submit a plethora of really poor stories, barely long enough and decent enough written for acceptance, spread them evenly over the categories, and win? Well, that doesn't sound much as a challenge to me. No, I agree with Quasi, the quality of the submissions should have to account for something.

How? And how to avoid said bombing? First of all, skip the money. If you have people competing for cash, you'll always have some people doing what they can to sabotage for the rest. If it instead is all in good fun, and all you could win wasa nifty diploma, then we could all cheer each other on instead instead of competing.

*stares at the rest of y'all with my big, naive, blue ones*

Right?

 

[Lovepotion69]

Well, I won't participate in this year's Survivor contest I'm afraid. It was a great incentive though for starting to submit stories to Lit.

Congrats to the winners of 2003, and good luck to the 2004 contestants.

And yes, quality should be rated more highly in my book. At the same time, from what I have gathered the majority of work from Survivor contestants hold high standards. Isn't it mainly people who go to the AH that enter the contest?

 

[Master_Vassago]

I plead guilty to doing several chapter stories that were still at least a thousand words for the most part but I doubt that was cheating. If I were to put a lot of the stories together they would be three or four lit pages and rarely does anyone bother to take the time to go through those.

Also the reason for short stories and chapter ones is somtimes I want to put a story in different categories even if I wasn't writing for the contest.

I have no idea at this point if I'll compete this year. Probably but not as obsessively.

It was fun, but I'm working on more in depth pieces right now so I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

So, basically, if playing by the rules of -03, I could submit a plethora of really poor stories, barely long enough and decent enough written for acceptance, spread them evenly over the categories, and win? Well, that doesn't sound much as a challenge to me.

*eagerly awaiting your first Gay Male story*

 

[Master_Vassago]

How? And how to avoid said bombing? First of all, skip the money. If you have people competing for cash, you'll always have some people doing what they can to sabotage for the rest. If it instead is all in good fun, and all you could win wasa nifty diploma, then we could all cheer each other on instead instead of competing.

Shouldn't we all be doing this anyway?

 

[jessy19]

I can't wait for the 2004 survior either.
I just entered in november not even knowing about this awesome contest. I think it is a brilliant idea. Hopefully I'll get more categories running this year. The only one's I will have a major hard time with would be

BDSM
Lesbian
Mind Control
Humor and Satire
How to..

All the others should be ok. I better get writting

 

[Icingsugar]

*eagerly awaiting your first Gay Male story*

Just because you said that, I'll write one. Contest or no contest.

It will probably stink, but I'll god damn finish it.

Yes, you can take that as a New Years resolution.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

 

[Boxlicker101]

2004 Contest

I am also looking forward to the 2004 contest. I was not aware that there was a prize being offered; I just entered for the fun of it. What are the prizes anyhow? Flicka said something about $75, for second I supose, but what else is there? Fourth, where I finished unless Chicklet suddenly comes up with a lot of stories entered on the last day, is probably out of the money, anyhow.

I think it might be nice to have a domination/submission category, and BDSM should be bondage and S & M, two categories. Also, I can't help but think that having categories like audio, illustrated, etc. is more a test of a writer's equipment than his ability or versatility.

Some kind of bonus for an "H" rating might be nice also but the possibility of bombing is too great. Personally, I would never do it, but some might. I have had three stories that were, briefly, at the top of their classification but all were hit with a "1" vote to knock them down. They still have an "H" classification, though.

Anyhow, assuming there is a contest this year, I will enter it, but strictly in the spirit of fun. My main goal is to enjoy writing stories and my second goal is to entertain people with those stories. I like to get votes and comments and I am in the process of adding paragraphs to existing stories to suggest that to people. I will also submit stories as I complete them and if you look at my score on Dec. 15, you will know that my final score will be no more or little more.

PS
Jessy, I noticed you had nothing listed under Erotic Coupling. That seemed strange because that is the most common category.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Just because you said that, I'll write one. Contest or no contest.

It will probably stink, but I'll god damn finish it.

Yes, you can take that as a New Years resolution.

This is exactly how I ended up writing "Comforting Paula", the lesbian sex story.


Tell me when you're finished, Ice, I LOVE gay male stories, and I can't wait to read yours!

 

[Dirty Slut]

As I understand it the Survivor Contest winner is the most prolific writer in a one year period of time. Period. Oh I understad that they get extra points if they do every catagory, but basically a person can win just by posting more stories than anyone else. Even if they are all in the same catagory, or for shit's sake a couple of different catagories, the one with the most stories wins. Since there is no eye for quality in this contest, one could consievably write thousands upon thousands of pieces of worthless dribble, and still win, right? And that's not to say that it has happened, but that it could happen.

To my way of thinking it would be a much better contest if it were mandatory for every contestant to have one entry for every real catagory, and an equal number of stories per catagory after that.

Now if you want to enter quality into the equation you can give extra points for the highest scores in each catagory by making those stories the official entries for each contestant, and those stories only judged by members who aren't entered in the contest. Or take the highest average of all of the best scores per catagory grouped together for each contestant. So that conceivably a person writing only one story per catagory could end up winning. But that's only if you want to include quality.

DS