And it never occured to anyone besides Orion to act like an adult?
So your story didn't get published. Orion told you why it was not done yet. Believe it or not, the man doesn't exist to meet your every need.
It is now time to move on.

I seem to have opened up a can of worms with what I thought was a rather modest request, that the stories from both competitions get published on the Website. Below is a small selection of quotes from the different reactions:

This all leaves me with a rather bad taste in the mouth.

To start with Sereina, whose reasons for posting these rather offensive comments are not very clear to me:
Do you have any secret knowledge, as the foundation for your cocksure statements about Orion being the only ‘adult’ person around? Because it doesn’t really seem to be founded on the content of the thread.

As Darkenvai so aptly put it; most competitions tend to alienate the LOSERS. Here the people that are complaining are all the WINNERS. Shouldn’t that at least have made you THINK a bit, before posting those sweeping insults, concerning matters you really don’t seem to know much about?

About patience:
Sure, patience is a virtue. I am usually pretty patient. I waited patiently and silently about a YEAR, for the stories from the first contest to be posted. Then a second competition is launched, and still no sign of any stories. And judging from Orion’s statements it seems rather dubious if they’ll ever be posted. So how long do you think we should be patient, before at least raising the question? Isn’t a year a rather long time to wait?

About the competition:
Isn’t it reasonable to assume, that when you enter a Storytelling contest, the winning stories get published somewhere?
I think I can safely say that most of the contestants had two reason for entering.
1. We like to write stories,     and
2. We expected some positive exposure for our Muds.
And I am not talking about a 1 month’s ‘blurb’ on a not very frequently visited Website, and even less about some graphic to put up on our own Website. I am talking about the publicity you would get from people actually READING your story, and possibly liking it enough to take a look at the Mud where it emanated from.
I think this is the reason why we all are feeling a bit disappointed now – (I won’t use the stronger word cheated)?

About Orion:
We all have a real life to deal with. We all have to make priorities. My own priority, outside RL, is the Mud I am managing. That’s why I don’t run any public competitions, or put up any Websites with the ambition to be of public interest for the Mud Community. I think that if you do, you also make a commitment to the Public to finish what you started. If you don’t have the time to follow through a competition you arranged yourself, then I don’t think you should have started it in the first place. And the same goes for maintaining a Website, actually.

I don’t claim to have a right to anybody’s time. Except of course when they START something, on their own initiative, that makes me invest my own time, and then not follow it through, making me feel that my time and effort was wasted.

Maybe you should also consider that posting those stories might actually bring some more visitors to your Website. Is it really that much work to format a few stories? And isn’t that the main reason for running a Website – to attract visitors?

A little off topic here, but I'm wondering about first north american serial rights and the possibilities of selling these stories later. When the stories are posted does this count as published? Is it possible at this point to opt not to have one's story posted in hopes of attracting a print credit with said story later?

You authored the story Fifi and a copy of it would indeed be 'published' if Orion posted it. It's your copyright though and you can do what you please with it.

I can see both ends of the spectrum here. Molly makes a good point in saying that if someone commits to a public contenst, stating what the winners will get and it isn't what they thought it would be, could get expasperating. And I also see Orion's side of it, in that he doesn't have the time to post it. I want to stop and question why he bothers to use his time to respond to everything here then. If it was me and I was that constrained I wouldn't post at all, I would focus on getting it done, while at the same time looking for my job.

-Delerak

People, calm down.

Heaven knows what's going on but I sense a clash of egos here instigating a battle not worth fighting.

Besides, ****ing of Orion is my job! (joke, don't get mad about this one señor Orion)