Story Contest History {NEW}

[DarkCloud]

Feel free to annotate the history.
Part II will be up soon. It will focus on clearing up this part of Part I

Later, in 2002, civman2000 ressurected the Stories Contest, running it monthly.
In this time, unfinished stories could be nominated. Jack_www was the first to complain about this.

Metaliturtle drew up some rules for a writers guild and had them adopted by civman2000 for the stories contest as a welcome to the forum.

and how civman came into control of the stories contest; it passing from steelehc to him...


then it will discuss the implications of johnmcleod's running of the Best of the Best contests- the long tenure of civman... the importance of metaliturtle and his guild, as well as Crazed Greek Wanderings, the substitutions of cbraund and DarkCloud, then civman's disappearance to the Demogames forums...

Part III will focus on johnmcleod's and DC's first abortive attempts to restart the contest... then finally on DC's successful restarting and current history, such as the new rules, and vovansim taking over johnmcleod and metaliturtel's former positions.

[vovan]

OK, several answers, and some questions at the same time.

First, yes, I am using stealth mode, so that some buggy people wouldn't know whether I am here or not. Then again, the people I don't mind knowing, can easily know if I am here or not by the time of my posts.

Secondly, thanks for more of the links that I missed. It seems that the search function is broken and does not search further back than a couple of months. So, I had to just arrange all of the threads from the very beginning in alphabetical order, and look trhrough them. Of course, I looked only on letter S, as in "Story contest." So, I missed the few that start with a different letter. You must have gone through all threads by hand, I suppose, or had the links somewhere. Either way, good job, and thanks.

Thirdly, would you like me to put the history you compiled in the post just below the list of top stories? (After all, that's why I made that post in the first place - thinking that there might be something we might want to add. ) I think it would be a good idea, since we wouldn't have to start a new thread for your compilation (good job on that, too, BTW ), and it is not bured in the middle of this one. I would do that if you want, but it's your call, of course.

[DarkCloud]

Yes, please, put it in the post under- it will read better there:

Oh, and I reread my suggestion to add under the first thing and reedited it to make it read better:

"Please visit the Stories Section of Apolyton Directory.
It is maintained by DarkCloud, current stories contest editor, and contains all the winning entries, as well as some others that are definitely worth the reader's while.
Be sure to check out the editors picks while you're there!"

-
I also just finished editing the part I of the history. Please feel free to add it under your first post.
-
As for searching- it does work, but you ahve to select "SEARHC BEFORE THIS DATE" and I searched for all posts by Anatolia (although you could probably find the same info in the Stories section of the Civ III page on apolyton, IIRC)


yes... we wouldn't want to bury the history

[vovan]

Well, I was kind of busy lately, and still am quite frankly. But I will post the update to the history either tonight or tomorrow - the original contests that I missed + DC's "real history."

Also, DC, AFAIK, the contest 14 runoff is over, and so is best of the best, as well as contest 15 semifinals. Maybe it's time to announce the winners, and post the finals poll?

[vovan]

Errr, DC? We have a problem.

I have added the missing contests to the list, but after that it became waaaay over the limit. I had to remove some of the links, and the templates I made for the contests currently in progress... Clearly, *one* post after the first one would not be enough to accomodate the continuation of the list, and your compilation of the contest history. Now, we have a choice, then:

1) Ditch the links to the story contest threads, and only leave the links to the stories and authors' profiles. That would give us some space, but the problem would be that three-four contests later we will run into the limit again, and will have to get rid of the links to the authors' profiles, and then three-four more contests, and we will be stuck. Sooo, there is choice

2) I could start another thread for story contest history, and make, say five posts at the top consequtively. Three four the three parts of your history, and two for my list. That way, we will have much more characters to work with, and will be able to continue adding to the list for longer...

So, what do you think?

[gooberboob]

I'd say bug MarkG for some server space for a stories page that one of you could update

[vovan]

Originally posted by gooberboob
I'd say bug MarkG for some server space for a stories page that one of you could update

That could be a good idea, but I think that that would actually decrease the number of people potentially visiting the stories in the history. After all, if it is in the forums, the new people come in, and they can immediately see the topped thread with history and go to the stories right away, whereas having the list somewhere else would essentially result in people having to go through more links. And since users are lazy and impatient (I know I am ), they wouldn't bother going to that page so often.

[DarkCloud]

1st- vovansim, why do you post with a black background?

One post after teh first should be enough.

But the easist solution would be for you to create an new thread and post all the information there... the way that you suggested.

That way, all the most important information will easily fit and we will have room for expansion.

[vovan]

RE: Black backgound:

EDIT: No longer applies...

Secondly, OK, I will post a new thread. And yes, I agree that two posts should be enough for the list and some for the history that you will compile. But I suppose I will wait till you are done with the rest two chapters, so that I could post everything at the same time. Sound like a plan?

[DarkCloud]

Yes, that sounds good- but just to be sure, you should probably put a 3rd post from the top...

FYI it will probably take me another week or two to find the free time to do the rest of the history- but I know where to look, so once I start, it shouldn't take too long-but I have a lot on my hands right now... I am considering writing a poem completely in iambic pentameter for civ/working on the apolyton 100, etc.

But i'll get around to it as soon as possible
(Luckily, I remember much of the recent history since I was part of most of it )

[vovan]

Updated... Added the contests I missed originally. But, I had to remove the links to the contest threads due to the character limit.

Also, the results of the latest contests have been included. Congratulations to the current winners: ChrisiusMaximus and his Mike's Story, which is now officially the best story of the latest five contests, and to Chingis Khan and his Culture Flip, which has won the closest contest in history so far.

As a little snippet of curious information for today: did you know, that there were only two runoff votes in the history of story contest finals, and that in both cases the finals proved inconclusive by giving each story exactly six votes?

[DarkCloud]

Couldn't you just have moved the stuff into a lower post? Or were the links too long even to fit in the below-post?

Once again, thank you for your work

did you know, that there were only two runoff votes in the history of story contest finals,

Of course I know that- my story was the first runnoff Contest #9

I didn't know about the six vote thing, however

[vovan]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Couldn't you just have moved the stuff into a lower post? Or were the links too long even to fit in the below-post?

Well, after I removed the links, I had hoped that everything would fit into one post... But I was wrong. And after that, I was too lazy to go back to the other file, and copy the stuff with the links, since I would then have to divide everything again. But I will do that in the near future to see how much of the second post would be taken up after I put the links back, so that I could decide whether a third post is needed solely for the list ot if the two will suffice.

Originally posted by DarkCloud Of course I know that- my story was the first runnoff Contest #9

I didn't know about the six vote thing, however

I never doubted that you knew. The piece of info was for everybody to marvel at.

[DarkCloud]

If you do this in word, you can highlight the words and go to TOOLS- WORD COUNT to find how many characters your post will contain.

I think the limit is 20K or 40K

[DarkCloud]

Wow! I just found the "Lost Contest!"
by steelehc!

March 11th- The Lost Contest- only recently discovered on February 4, 2003... over 50 votes in the poll: http://apolyton.net/forums/poll.php?...ts&pollid=1750
with World at War, The Iroqious Threat, by Grundel winning with 9 votes, Generations I by WTE_OzWolf running in second with 8 and Ich Bin Ein Berliner by cbraund taking third with 6 votes!
This contest, run by steelehc, has been much neglected until now- and presumbably was dis****ed at the time; as OzWolf's Generations series later ran in the historic restarting by civman2000- and in this hiatus, steelehc had yet to receive confirmation as runner of the contest by MarkG.
Nevertheless, hist starting of the contest was important becuase it gave the impetus for the Story Contest to continue!

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=44427 (THE LOST CONTEST!)