Short Story Contest #3 - Poll

[Traxamillion]

I am sorry Trax, but this is a clear insult to any form of creative writing. This contest is supposed to be about showing and comparing literary quality, not getting a pretty icon just because the system is flawed and you managed to create a story that was the quickest to read.

How dare you, If you considered yourself a writer than you would know that a piece is not based on quantity but quality, I'm sorry that I made my story relative and intrigueing.

How can you possibly say that you've won a writing contest if you are actively working to make sure that literary analysts will have the least amount of say concerning your project.

In your words no one here is qualified enough to judge or vote, but guess what? The same voting system has been used for all contests, and the minute things turn sour for you, you dig up excuses to put yourself back in the running.

If you believe that you should win, why will increasing the judges' voting power harm your chances? If you are the winner, then they will choose you to win. All that will change is you will now be winning due to writing capability instead of a flawed system.

If this system is as flawed as you say then all contests the hive has ever produced have been shams.

Do you really just want to screw us all just because we couldn't see this coming ahead of time

Are you kidding? Of course you won't know what will happen in future time, no one can. That is the most pathetic excuse yet. You're putting to gether a defense based on things "you didn't know" well you can't go through life analyzing future outcomes. If you're up for a promotion and you lose the promotion because "you didn't know" something, you think your boss is going to give a shit? No, you can't go and change the rules up in the middle because things turn out poorly.

At what cost to your writing community as well as to your reputation as a writer are you willing to secure your place in this competition?

Last time I checked this is a WC3 modding community, and I could care less of what you think of me as a person or writer, I'm not going to lie to myself and the community to give into a half ass consent that defy's the rules this very competition.

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

I am sorry Trax, but this is a clear insult to any form of creative writing. This contest is supposed to be about showing and comparing literary quality, not getting a pretty icon just because the system is flawed and you managed to create a story that was the quickest to read. How can you possibly say that you've won a writing contest if you are actively working to make sure that literary analysts will have the least amount of say concerning your project.

This was a creative writing contest, a competition. hate to be a jerk but its not a 10 yr old kid soccer match where everyone is a "winner" and it is about getting pretty icons. thats why it says it so there.

and that thing with a word account, quality of a story does not come from writing long stories. if you unnecessarily put useless detail to buff up your stories, it just pisses off the reader. in fact, if you were smart, you all should have actively worked towards writing less rather than trying to exhaust the 5000 word cap.

LESS IS MORE

I know that the rest of us messed up by letting the 40% thing pass until now but... hey, we're your fellow writers. Can't you help us recover from our mistakes before its too late and the stories that we have all written are made useless. Do you really just want to screw us all just because we couldn't see this coming ahead of time (to our defense, this is the first Short Story competition which has gained official arena status). At what cost to your writing community as well as to your reputation as a writer are you willing to secure your place in this competition?

this has gone past the points where the winner, whoever he maybe, will retain his reputation. honestly speaking, whoever came up with the 25% idea should have shut up if he knew what was good for the rest of the competitors. now the contest has gone all sour.

 

[Ghoulrush]

How dare you, If you considered yourself a writer than you would know that a piece is not based on quantity but quality, I'm sorry that I made my story relative and intrigueing.

You said it yourself in chat that any writer who wrote over a certain amount of words had condemned themselves because the voters wouldn't want to read that much. It is not the fact that your story is short which bothers me, it is the fact that you believe you should win because people will be more willing to read it due to its short length. Such a belief is contradictory to the competition's fairness, for all stories submitted are below the maximum length and should thus be treated as fair game.

In your words no one here is qualified enough to judge or vote, but guess what? The same voting system has been used for all contests, and the minute things turn sour for you, you dig up excuses to put yourself back in the running.

All other contents except the mapping competition are all based on submissions which can be viewed and sufficiently analyzed by the public within less than a minute each. The mapping competition however shares a similar problem with the short story competition (most voters will not devote the necessary time to analyzing before voting).

Pyritie's defense? The poll doesn't count for that much, the same solution I am trying to achieve now.

If this system is as flawed as you say then all contests the hive has ever produced have been shams.

Please note the vast difference between a writing contest and a modelling, terrain, or concept art competition. As I have said above, the latter all can be sufficiently analyzed within less than a minute for each submission, thus the poll is much more likely to be fair.

Are you kidding? Of course you won't know what will happen in future time, no one can. That is the most pathetic excuse yet. You're putting to gether a defense based on things "you didn't know" well you can't go through life analyzing future outcomes. If you're up for a promotion and you lose the promotion because "you didn't know" something, you think your boss is going to give a shit? No, you can't go and change the rules up in the middle because things turn out poorly.

You keep insisting that we should have known ahead of time that the 40% would bite us in the butt and that we should have changed it back then before the contest was started, and now you say that its impossible to know what will happen in the future? I agree that it would be hard for us to find out, but that doesn't mean that you should win just by circumstance and not by actual quality. Again, why are you afraid of letting the judges have more power if you think that your story is the best one?

Last time I checked this is a WC3 modding community, and I could care less of what you think of me as a person or writer, I'm not going to lie to myself and the community to give into a half ass consent that defy's the rules this very competition.

Emphasis on the word "community".

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

btw, as suicidal as it may seem, i am willing to spend the rest of the day reading each of entries thoroughly, twice.

and i can also judge. i dont really mind. i aint working on my tank anyways.

hopefully, that will get a more even judgement.

 

[anarchianbedlam]

It is now that i would like to point out that every single person who votes on a public poll is voted on after only a quick "scan" by the voter... writing is no different.

Do public voters check to see that every aspect of a model works ingame? hardly ever
Do public voters check to see if a chunk of a skin is CnP? very unlikely
Do public voters read each and every 4 page essay submitted in this contest, cross referencing a dictionary and their english-grammar teachers.....? no

:/ this is how public voting works with every contest. it has never been what you would consider "fair"..... ever,

contrary to popular belief... this is not an ideal world.... not everyone will be 100% objective, it is humanly impossible

 

[Ghoulrush]

It is now that i would like to point out that every single person who votes on a public poll is voted on after only a quick "scan" by the voter... writing is no different.

Do public voters check to see that every aspect of a model works ingame? hardly ever
Do public voters check to see if a chunk of a skin is CnP? very unlikely
Do public voters read each and every 4 page essay submitted in this contest, cross referencing a dictionary and their english-grammar teachers.....? no

If someone simply glances at a model or a skin, they are looking at the culmination of all the minor details and efforts used by the creator to form the final product. Whether they notice these minor aspects and details individually or not, they are still looking at the final product as the author intended just by scanning the image.

If someone simply glances at a written story, all they will see is text. All of the minor details must be individually comprehended if they are to piece together this story in the way the author intended, which is much more intensive than looking at a skin or model.

:/ this is how public voting works with every contest. it has never been what you would consider "fair"..... ever,

Then lower its weight on the final score. If judging is more fair than voting, then let the judges have more say.

 

[Traxamillion]

I'm going to rest my case with a rhetorical question..

What gives YOU the right to change the rules?

 

[Ghoulrush]

I'm going to rest my case with a rhetorical question..

What gives YOU the right to change the rules?

Pyritie mainly. But I wasn't going to ask for the change to be made until all of the competitors had given their consent, and come to think of it I wasn't going to ask for any of their consents until you had given yours. I didn't want this to be about us competitors trying to cheat you out of anything, it was supposed to be about all of us working together towards a better Short Story contest. So I suppose I will remove my consent, for this all was pretty much resting on your decision.

I am certainly dissapointed though, and hope that you may still change your mind before the end.

 

[whatever]

Just be cool...

Wow, wow, wow, world of vvarcraft... I can see this competition is going from "friendly" to "war zone", I believe it is now a good time to ask who are we writing the stories for (yeah, I say "we" even though I didn't submit mine ) basing my opinion on my humongously-vast-unending-mega-super-uber sized knowledge of literature (read: "I don't know jack shit about that stuff ) I'd say that either a dude can write a story for the general public
- Which may have bad structure, poor plot development, lame characters, etc. but everybody (using the word loosely, as in 70%-90% of the readers) likes it, it doesn't mean a half chewed-by-orc dime penny what literature critics think of the work, writer's mission: ACCOMPLISHED! (just look at "Avatar"... the movie )
- OR he/she/it can write it because he/she/it is an uber-pawaful writer and writes it for himself, because he would feel satisfied if he creates a story, which is well structured, has great character development and so on, even if the general public logs off after reading the first two lines, for one reason or another, but the guyz who know this stuff (namely literature guys) approve the work that would generally mean the writer, in this case, has MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

... yeah, I might have gotten a little bit carried away there, so to sum it up:
Who did we write a story for - the judges or ... them other guyz... (kidding )
And - t'yeah I don't think many people would read all the stories, I certainly am feeling lazy at the moment and dismissed the thought of voting for myself just because I don't wanna read all the stories, so I guess a lodda people would be like that, and would vote biased, but guess what? - Them be just humanz. And guess what humanz do?
... It was a rhetorical question .

So on this one I'd say:

"Me, as a bad-ass competitor in the Short Story Competition #3, consent to them master-dudes changing the poll's weight on the final score from 40% to 25%."

'cuz them judges HAVE to read them all (Muhahahahah suffer! )

P.S.
Oh - What the heck is my work doing on that poll that was just my fist draft, it's absolutely unfinished, has misplaced commas, bad structure, lame descriptions and so on, and on. Yeah, I know I didn't post anything else and was very pleasantly-humorous surprised when I saw it on its way to judging, but thought I would be dropped-out . Anyway, if it's no bother would you mind just leaving it there - I would like to see if it will get ANY votes

P.P.S.
I would totally understand if, after this post, you don't consider my consent in the matter.

 

[idodik]

I, as a competitor in the Short Story Competition #3, consent to changing the poll's weight on the final score from 40% to 25%.

I understand the problem in this, obviously changing the rules halfway through a competition is very annoying to some people, and in fact if this does not happen it will not be the end of the world for me. Still, I support this change.

Also, please dear friends, I support continuing this discussion between users in visitor messages or in private messages, or even in the off-topic forum, at least while it's still a discussion. I haven't looked at the correspondance here through, but I've seen some use of language that I'm not proud of.
It's legitimate to argue but please hold your tone and don't let it get to unneeded areas.

 

[Pyritie]

Might i suggest that this poll be remade or edited so as not to SHOW THE RESULTS until the end... so no one will see how many votes someone has and as such... wont be tempted to vote for the person with the most votes.

Not possible with vBulletin polls. If Ralle was around and willing then I'd ask him for it, as I think it's a good idea.

I've seen other forums that do this and they also give a "look at results" option but if you use it it voids your vote. So it's more of an "abstain" option.

Allow me to show you Pyritie's exact response to me when asked for permission on the matter before any of this was posted:

That was permission to ask other people what they think, not that it was gonna happen... I think

 

[Ghoulrush]

That was permission to ask other people what they think, not that it was gonna happen... I think

Here is what you were giving your permission to:

So, here is my question for you: If Trax. and I were able to receive approval from all of the other competitors in the contest to lower the weight of the poll to 25% of the score, would the change be accepted?

Of course, now that Trax has changed his mind I too have now withdrawn my consent. If he ever decides to give his consent again then I will happily return mine as well. It just simply wasn't my original intention to do any of this without Trax's support.

 

[Solecompanysole]

Wait so no changes
well i want it to change but well :S

 

[Crazy Cow]

Look, there is no way that we can change this now without kicking up a lot of fuss, and if Pyritie is thinking about bringing in Ralle I think we should all just shut up. It isn't worth it to have the entire poll completely overhauled just for us special people. Yes, the poll is probably biased, but think about it. Would you be holding a grudge against the current results if it was you that had eighteen votes? I sure wouldn't. The solution is to wait for the next contest, and immediately stress that you don't want the public poll to count for much.

 

[I-am-murloc]

I wonder how many voters that actually read them all XD

 

[Solecompanysole]

5% maybe less XD

 

[Crazy Cow]

I wonder how many voters that actually read them all XD

Welcome to the current conversation.

 

[Ghoulrush]

Yes, the poll is probably biased, but think about it. Would you be holding a grudge against the current results if it was you that had eighteen votes? I sure wouldn't.

Trax initially said that he believed the poll should be lowered to make it more fair. I thought it was very honorable of him, but clearly he has changed his attitude towards the issue. If I had eighteen votes then I would still lower the poll. Winning a contest due to a flawed system would be meaningless to me, I would only want to win based on my actual literary quality. If I believed my story would win then I would have no problem with the judges having more power, if I believed that I would not win based on the judging then it would be unfair for me to be declared the winner anyhow.

The solution is to wait for the next contest, and immediately stress that you don't want the public poll to count for much.

All of us have worked hard on these stories, and now instead of having a sophisticated and legitimate contest to exhibit our capabilities we must sit back and give up due to Trax wanting to win without the posssibility of losing due to the fair process of judging? I agree that you have made a point there, if there is another Short Story Competition then we must make sure the weight of the poll is lowered before it is too late. The thing that frustrates me is that it currently is not too late to lower the poll and make the competition fair, and if Trax gives his consent then Pyritie will surely make the change.

My consent still remains witheld unless Trax decides to give his again. None of this arguing was intended, for I would not have started this petition if Trax had not originally agreed to be among the first to sign. However, after my solution for this issue had been halted by Trax changing his mind, I still felt the need to voice my dissapproval for both the competition's flaws and Trax's decision to go against his original support for lowering the poll.

 

[Traxamillion]

Trax initially said that he believed the poll should be lowered to make it more fair. I thought it was very honorable of him, but clearly he has changed his attitude towards the issue.

If your going to quote me get your facts straight. I said..

"I don't have much of a choice, if i agree then i sabotage my chances, if i disagree then i'm an asshole."

then i said;

"fine.."

 

[Solecompanysole]

If your going to quote me get your facts straight. I said..

"I don't have much of a choice, if i agree then i sabotage my chances, if i disagree then i'm an asshole."

then i said;

"fine.."

Yea when i got the message it was trax agreed even though i think its not fair since there arent so much people reading all the stories it is also not fair for Trax. or any other contestant that is in the poll.
But we learn from our misstakes dont we?
Well I agree we all gave our best in this contest and well we should be proud of it no mather that there are a lot of sheep¹ users around hive.

1- Sheep users if someone posts
"He is the best" the sheep user will post the same
As sheep follow their peasant so the sheep user/sheep member will follow the first one who posts.

 

[Crazy Cow]

Yes, we put effort into this competition. However, if I were to go support lowering the poll's weight, I would be doing so at least partially because I'm pissed off that Trax got a third of the votes, even if those votes were suspect. I cannot, in good conscience, support you, and so I will just let it slide. In another month, when the next contest starts, I will be sure to let it be known that I want the poll to have very little weight.
It also seems that you are putting unfair pressure on Trax, because as he said:

I don't have much of a choice, if i agree then i sabotage my chances, if i disagree then i'm an asshole.

 

[Solecompanysole]

yea lol he has a good story though...... But can anyone tell me whats about the Tree story of World is Flat i dont get the point of it related to any theme of the contest( just explain it to me pls so i can move on and read the rest of the stories left)

 

[Pyritie]

i think its not fair since there arent so much people reading all the stories it is also not fair for Trax. or any other contestant that is in the poll.

That's kinda inevitable for a writing contest

 

[Ghoulrush]

If your going to quote me get your facts straight. I said..

"I don't have much of a choice, if i agree then i sabotage my chances, if i disagree then i'm an asshole."

then i said;

"fine.."

You made those statements after I made the petition ready for all of the competitors and you.

My original belief that you were being honorable and wanted to change the poll came from an earlier day in chat when I was asking Pyritie about the issue with the Solo Mapping Competition. You joined in and asked me if I thought the same problem was occurring with our Short Story competition. We discussed it some more and you definitely said something along the lines of:

I do think the poll should count for less though

Before that moment, I did not have it in my mind to start a petition. After you said that, however, I thought that it would be a great opportunity for us to improve our competition considering the person with the most votes was okay with putting the quality of the competition before himself. At the time I thought you were very dignified, and I wrote the petitions with this belief in mind. However, the day I actually put the solution into motion you seemed to be getting cold feet about the issue, although you still accepted. I decided to keep the wording in the petitions the same way as originally written, figuring I may as well still make you look like a great person if you were doing this favor for all of us.

 

[Traxamillion]

You made those statements after I made the petition ready for all of the competitors and you.

You dirty liar, I did not get a PM until after we spoke, containg the petition statement.

My original belief that you were being honorable and wanted to change the poll came from an earlier day in chat when I was asking Pyritie about the issue with the Solo Mapping Competition. You joined in and asked me if I thought the same problem was occurring with our Short Story competition. We discussed it some more and you definitely said something along the lines of "I do think the poll should count for less though"

Oh my god are you serious, your lies are impecable, I joined you started talking to me I didn't know you even talked to Py until you told me you did. I did NOT initiate any conversation about the short story comp or the solo mapping comp. Stop spewing your lies, its getting rediculous and its pissing me off, knock that shit off.

 

[ap0calypse]

Yeah, a lot of people do not read all stories, but what can you do about it?
I think everything should stay as it is right now and everyone should stop whining.

Trax' story is by far the easiest story to read... did you ever see his layout? (the main reason why I still didn't read his story yet).
So either people are going along with the stream and vote for Trax because others do, or they actually read it and thought it was nice (but I wouldn't read Trax' story as the first one tbh).

Anyway, changing a poll when the contest is already over is lame...
If you can't win because of the user voting, hope that the judges will do a good job (and I'm pretty sure they will).
The judges still count for 60% (20% more than the user poll).

 

[Ghoulrush]

You dirty liar, I did not get a PM until after we spoke, containg the petition statement.

The PM was made the day before, I had it ready to send but you were AFK in chat and I chose to wait until the next day.

I did NOT initiate any conversation about the short story comp or the solo mapping comp. Stop spewing your lies, its getting rediculous and its pissing me off, knock that shit off.

You certainly did. You asked me "Do you think that everyone is reading all of the stories in our competition?" and I responded "Probably not".

We then entered a discussion between me, you, and vengeancekael where you ultimately stated that you believed the poll should count for less. This was the first time I had ever received your opinion on the matter, and I assumed that you were interested in doing as you said. I then contacted Pyritie that same day about my solution and gained permission. I then made the petitions assuming you would be happy to sign as indicated by your previous statment, asking for your signature in chat the next day.

If Vengeancekael has a good memory then he should be able to confirm our conversation which you are currently denying.

Yeah, a lot of people do not read all stories, but what can you do about it?

Lower the weight of the poll and increase the weight of the judges?

hope that the judges will do a good job (and I'm pretty sure they will)

If they are the best and most reliable source of critique then give them more say, give them 75% instead of 60%.

 

[Traxamillion]

You certainly did. You asked me "Do you think that everyone is reading all of the stories in our competition?" and I responded "Probably not".

You fucking liar, I NEVER INITIATED THE CONVERSATION. I came in chat you said hi to me i said hello then you whispered me about the poll. Shut the fuck up you dirty ass liar, your really fucking pissing me off now.

 

[Ghoulrush]

You fucking liar, I NEVER INITIATED THE CONVERSATION. I came in chat you said hi to me i said hello then you whispered me about the poll. Shut the fuck up you dirty ass liar, your really fucking pissing me off now.

Simply not true. You must have forgotten about our earlier conversation, although I am sure Vengeancekael has not considering he was moved to create a post in this very thread due to the discussion:

Alright guys, don't count my vote for Trax.
I've had a discussion with Ghoulrush in the chat and instead i will give the one who deserves it (in my opinion) 6 rep, after reading all the stories.
I apologize for the meaningless vote.

You were definitely present during the discussion he speaks of in his post. The day in chat where I whispered you about the poll was certainly not the first time I had spoken to you about the issue. Days before that you, vengeancekael, and I were all involved this discussion about the poll. Although you were not as active in the discussion as Vengeancekael and I, you did in fact state (in response to me) that you believed the poll should count for less.

I am not sure if that was your actual intent or if you were just saying that to be kind, but the petition I made was written with that statement in mind considering I held it to be the truth at the time.

 

[CaoSong]

-_-; you're both still fighting... Trax, Ghoul you two have turned what was supposed to be a friendly writing competition into straight up fight, you're both ruining whatever fun was supposed to have come from this competition.

Ghoul, stop pushing for the poll to be reduced, this poll's weight isnt going to be changed, and the more you argue about it the more it looks like the only reason you're arguing is because you're not winning. Even if that has nothing to do with it, that's what it's looking more and more like is the reason.

Trax, Personal attacks on Ghoul wont get you anywhere, and they certainly wont get you support. I'm confident that if yours and Ghoul's votes were reversed you'd probably agree to the poll's weight being reduced, however since you're winning by 8 votes it's pretty easy to tell that you don't want the poll to mean less cause it would hurt your chances of winning.

Next competition the public poll should be changed to have less effect on the outcome and there should be more then just 2 judges, however this competition should just continue on how it is going now, unchanged.

But no matter what, you both should pull back and stop fighting... if I was in control of this competition I'd probably make a threat here of some kind, something along the lines of "If either of you continue the fight your story will be removed from the competition"... but since I'm not in charge, I cant threaten... but still, you two need to stop fighting over a friendly competition.

 

[idodik]

Clean your language now. This is becoming a flame war.

 

[ike_ike]

Clean your language now. This is becoming a flame war.

Nice sig dude.

 

[anarchianbedlam]

 

[Silly Lil Ant]

Haha, couldn't agree more, anarchianbedlam!

 

[idodik]

Good point. We shouldn't make too much of a big deal over this prize, as there are probably going to be more contests that will provide better opportunities. After all, this is only the third contest, and the more contests the better they are.. They do learn from stupid cases like this one.

 

[The World Is Flat]

Wow, my story wasn't finished. hahaha. it was only about 1/10 of the work i wanted i'm not shure if i want it on the poll, even if i'm second.

 

[Traxamillion]

Wow, my story wasn't finished. hahaha. it was only about 1/10 of the work i wanted i'm not shure if i want it on the poll, even if i'm second.

i thought you indicated that you were done, lol.

 

[The World Is Flat]

sry. i was absent on vacation before i could finish it. but i am suprised that i have 11 votes on what i think is a really crappy story at this point (not long enough, not enough description... etc.)

 

[Solecompanysole]

sry. i was absent on vacation before i could finish it. but i am suprised that i have 11 votes on what i think is a really crappy story at this point (not long enough, not enough description... etc.)

[JOKE] I would be glad if you will remove it
LOL
Just kidding nice story but I cant figure out what it is about lol

 

[The World Is Flat]

well its about a tree a stream and a badger.

 

[idodik]

well its about a tree a stream and a badger.

The best story description in the world, this is. :O

 

[Solecompanysole]

well its about a tree a stream and a badger.

Then you missed the theme of the short story contest or am I wrong ?

 

[The World Is Flat]

the badger inherits the armor from the dead guy. thats the heirloom. though i don't think of it. i did'nt really like all of the limitations on this contest. maybe i'll do another unnofficial one, this time a writing contest.... that would go better than a mapping one...

 

[Solecompanysole]

the badger inherits the armor from the dead guy. thats the heirloom. though i don't think of it. i did'nt really like all of the limitations on this contest. maybe i'll do another unnofficial one, this time a writing contest.... that would go better than a mapping one...

Lol probably it will XD

 

[anarchianbedlam]

Who are the judges for this contest?

 

[Traxamillion]

Pyra and midnighters

 

[Solecompanysole]

I hope they almost finished judgeing

 

[Midnighters]

I told py I had to drop this because I have a family matter to tend to.

 

[Solecompanysole]

Common I want to know who won :S

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

wait....does that mean i am the only judge?