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Old 05-27-2004, 03:44 PM   #21
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Well said, Thresh.
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Old 05-28-2004, 01:17 AM   #22
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Ilu,

Which contest do you have the submissions from? Since MudWorld put all of theirs up, I assume either MP 2002 or MP 2003? I am still willing to translate and put up submissions somewhere.
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Old 05-28-2004, 04:15 AM   #23
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I think Threshold summed it all up very nicely, and I wholeheartedly agree with all he said.

When you start a contest like this, you also are under obligation to treat the contestants in a decent way. Publishing the winning stories is definitely expected, and by giving us lame excuses for why you won't do that you managed to tick off not only me, but obviously all the winners.

Orion, I suggest you take Ntanel up on his offer, so we can close this business, which has irritated me for around two years now.
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Old 05-28-2004, 05:10 PM   #24
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Posting takes five minutes. Maybe less. Converting stories into HTML takes a good bit longer, to make them fit on the site properly. *shrug*

And it's only been a year and a half since I ran the first contest, by the way. Furthermore, if you read the details page, nowhere on there does it say that I will post them. It says that I reserve the right to, if I so wish. But that's as far as it goes.

So, if you want to bitch about my responsibilities... in truth, I have none. Now, I said I'll post them... and I will. When I get the time to do so.

As for Ntanel's offer, I have contacted him. So long as the stories fit the way they should, I don't really care how they get that way.

I believe I already have a bio for Noximist, Molly, and maybe a couple of the others. I am only posting the top three stories, so I'll have to look and make sure I have bios for those people. If I don't, then it would likely be a good idea if you contacted me, otherwise it will be rather bare.

They may have been lost in my hard drive crash a while back. In any case, we'll see how things go. As for the graphics, I'm still looking for those. I'm fairly sure I deleted them after the last contest, but I'll keep looking. I might get lucky and find them.
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Old 05-29-2004, 01:02 AM   #25
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Old 05-30-2004, 12:27 AM   #26
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All done.

Sent to Orion, hopefully I did them right and he will have them up soon.
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Old 05-31-2004, 02:36 PM   #27
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Some have been linked in to the stories page, but the server was having lag/connection problems during the time I set aside to work on it (and from what Samson has told me, it has been for a week or so now). So, some are in and some are not. I'll get them all linked when I can and the server will allow me to stay connected long enough.

Also, thanks go to Ntanel for his efforts. But in the end, I was forced to reformat them to use the layout I was planning for after the MUD Planet redesign. This was something I wanted to avoid, but... it would have taken longer to 'tidy up' the files Ntanel sent back than it would to just shove the documents into Word and save them into HTML. I'd put aside the time to work on them already, and didn't want to waste that time without getting anything to show for it.

Oh, and Molly, I tried to respond to your last PM, but:

Anyway, that's all for now.

---[ Added ]---
Ok, got a few minutes and managed to get into the server. The links have been added for all of the stories. If you're one of the people who wrote one of the stories, please send a bio (there is a contact form on MUD Planet) for posting. Otherwise it will remain more or less blank.
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Old 05-31-2004, 05:36 PM   #28
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Those documents were all translated and cleaned up in Word 2k Pro by me before submitting to Ntanel. I sent them to him as .doc files. If you're using .php, I suspect there was/is little to modify considering I've used the same process to post articles to Mudworld. I'm certainly not familiar with management of web sites nor your particular application. I post this note to say whatever condition you received them in, they were in .doc first using the standard .doc formatting. If anyone wants, I can convert to html and send but I've been told microsoft word injects too much unneeded data and makes the files too big (which is why I didn't convert the first time).
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Old 06-01-2004, 01:23 AM   #29
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I switched them to HTML myself assuming they would be placed in PHP, not everyone will or can open a doc file available over the Internet.
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Old 06-01-2004, 10:09 AM   #30
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Old 06-01-2004, 11:51 PM   #31
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Molly has asked questions, now to answer them.

> What are the ´planned rules?

Well, you and Neranz did a good job with the 2001 rules, I would like to base the ImmU event on them.



> Things that come to mind are:
>- Do the stories need to be based on an actual zone?

No.

>- Any restrictions as to length? and subject?

Less than 10 pages at arial font 10 double-spaced. Just a guess, looking for opinions.

>- Will the stories be judged under different subjects or all together?

I like the different topics idea, seems to work.

>- Any restriction to the amount of stories the same person can submit?

It does bring in a question on fairness. You could stomp most anyone easily. If we limited to one, then people would have a fair chance.

>- Who will the judges be?

No volunteers as of yet, but I do not want Iluvatar or Keolah to be judges.

>- Are the judges allowed take part, if they don't judge their own stories?

We would not have a judge work on a category they submitted in.

>- Should the entries be 'anonymous', or do we post under our usual 'board signatures? (Personally I think anonymous).

I do not want real names. The only exceptions I have ever made where for Brody and Neranz. If you mean in display and judging, I could make them anonymous to prevent favoritism, but I would have to exclude myself from participating to keep track of submissions and aliases.

>- And above all: what will be the deadline for submitting?

Do not have the volunteers needed yet to set a date, have not inquired formally.
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Old 06-02-2004, 02:02 PM   #32
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Hey, it took the four 2001 judges considerable time to hash out those rules along with you, Ntanel. It wasn’t just Molly and Neranz. I personally think they came out pretty good too and were even applied to the MudCons with few changes.

I’ve always considered the topical or theme concept to be the best as well and it worked well for all the contests I’ve seen. Regardless of the genre, how a story is written is always pretty much the same when it’s to be used as a base theme for a zone that might be written to support its concepts of a theme. With a good base, other short stories can be created to expand on the base and totally flesh out the resultant zone.

I’m not sure you’re going to find sufficient judges to exclude them from judging in categories either they or people they work with submit in. What worked is when a judge felt there was a conflict of interest, like the submitter worked with them, they recused themselves from judging that story and it defaulted to the contest manager to judge. I and I expect Keolah would like to submit stories this time and any judging would be a perceived conflict in my opinion which is why I volunteered to be used as a judge only as a last resort.

After the numerous stories Sir Vorpal Tribble submitted at once, I recommend only one submission per contest too. The actual size you accept really depends on how much space you want to dedicate to publishing on your website but what you stated sounds pretty good if you’ll specify the format. In a .doc or .txt file I think it works out to somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-3.5k words. There is a consideration needed for the number of submissions though and the max I’ve seen so far is 11. With the forethought in this contest, there might be considerably more. That means it might be really harsh to actually put all the stories submitted up on the site because of space but I would recommend putting judge critiques up per story. We did those critiques as constructive criticism with both praise and suggestions for improvement for the next short story.

Hmm, rather than a banner of the durations mentioned, perhaps we can weasel an icon from Synozeer on the TMS homepage with a link to a bio and the actual stories. There’s some decent space for it on the left of the page. We might even be able to put the stories submitted into a post in one of the forums here too. Any other ideas?

One last thing about names…Regardless of the name submitted as author of a story it really doesn’t matter to a competent judge who wrote the story. A large part of this is both personal satisfaction as well as advertisement of the quality of the zones you build and the Mu* you work for so I would recommend using your most commonly known nom-de-plume.
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Old 06-02-2004, 10:57 PM   #33
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This is what I have put together so far. Once we all can agree on something and modifications are made, I will make things official and send out press releases.

If there is another resource out there who wishes to partake, let me know before these things become official.

I also need three more judges, Sywin of Itheria has already signed-up.
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Old 06-03-2004, 02:14 AM   #34
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I reviewed the rules and applaud your efforts. Good Job!
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Old 06-03-2004, 03:38 AM   #35
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Old 06-04-2004, 02:08 AM   #36
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Word length suggestions anyone?
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Old 06-04-2004, 09:17 AM   #37
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I'd suggest about 3.5K words max. It corresponds (in my Times new Roman 12 pt) to about 5-6 pages. I think that's reasonable for a short story, and should be enough to judge the creative writing skills of the contestant.

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Old 06-04-2004, 02:03 PM   #38
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From my experience with Orion, setting a specific word length presents a few problems. What if the story is 3510 words or perhaps 3558 words and where do you draw the line.

I think sticking to number of pages in a specified format is much more appropriate and easier to manage in the long run. If I choose the word 'obfuscate' and others of that ilk and my page length is too long, I can always change that to 'lie' and do the same with other long words which would affect the length of the story but not the number count.
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Old 06-06-2004, 01:00 AM   #39
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So then, stick with what I have?
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Old 06-06-2004, 11:53 AM   #40
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In my opinion, yes.
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