Author Topic: PseudoPod Flash Fiction Contest VI Rules, Schedule, and FAQ  (Read 30018 times)

pchand

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Reply #25 on: September 06, 2019, 04:49:12 AM
Thanks so much for hosting this, looking forward to some excellent work  :D



Bdoomed

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Reply #26 on: September 06, 2019, 10:59:51 AM
Quote
I agree, but as most of our contest entries happen in the first two days of the window and the last two days, we can't save a lot of work for the end of the submission period. A month allows for pulling the stories out of Submittable, making sure they conform to the guidelines, anonymizing them, and then setting up all the brackets invisibly behind a curtain which can be pulled back as the contest proceeds. We also like to mix stories submitted at the beginning of the deadline with stories from the end. It's reminiscent to assembling a collage by hand, and the folks like bDoomed that do this put in a heroic amount of effort to make these contest happen.

Yep, as I said, I figured it was the growing hugeness of the contests that required more prep time. Having worked as an tech writer for many years, and having had to reformat stuff from forums into Word on my own a few times, I'm aware of just how much work reformatting can be, especially when there are no automatic tools to strip out metadata, artifacts from word processing programs, etc. So I salute bDoomed and the rest of the volunteers who do this thankless task! :)

All too true. I'm thinking of putting in a rule for next time that all bold and italicized text have to be formatted _like this_ instead of normal formatting. Most of the work is finding italics in the text and transferring those over, and depending on the typeface that's in the document, it can be pretty difficult to spot all of the italics.

Or maybe I'll look into some kind of scripting to automate it hehe.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Deborah L. Davitt

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Reply #27 on: September 07, 2019, 04:15:29 AM
I know someone who developed a plugin for Word that would do that for you. (And undoes smart quotes to ASCII standard, etc.) I often use that thing for markets that require this kind of formatting. It's not *pretty* by any means and tends to put the lines around _punctuation_, _as it were_, _rather oddly_, but give me automation with minimal cleanup any day over having to find all my italics in a 6k word story . . . let me ping him for you?



tely

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Reply #28 on: September 09, 2019, 12:19:56 AM
Could you post special formatting rules which would make your life easier? I suspect most submitters would be happy to comply.



MonsieurMoustache

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Reply #29 on: September 09, 2019, 08:47:04 AM
Quote
I agree, but as most of our contest entries happen in the first two days of the window and the last two days, we can't save a lot of work for the end of the submission period. A month allows for pulling the stories out of Submittable, making sure they conform to the guidelines, anonymizing them, and then setting up all the brackets invisibly behind a curtain which can be pulled back as the contest proceeds. We also like to mix stories submitted at the beginning of the deadline with stories from the end. It's reminiscent to assembling a collage by hand, and the folks like bDoomed that do this put in a heroic amount of effort to make these contest happen.

Yep, as I said, I figured it was the growing hugeness of the contests that required more prep time. Having worked as an tech writer for many years, and having had to reformat stuff from forums into Word on my own a few times, I'm aware of just how much work reformatting can be, especially when there are no automatic tools to strip out metadata, artifacts from word processing programs, etc. So I salute bDoomed and the rest of the volunteers who do this thankless task! :)

All too true. I'm thinking of putting in a rule for next time that all bold and italicized text have to be formatted _like this_ instead of normal formatting. Most of the work is finding italics in the text and transferring those over, and depending on the typeface that's in the document, it can be pretty difficult to spot all of the italics.

Or maybe I'll look into some kind of scripting to automate it hehe.

I use a GoogleDocs plug-in that does a marvellous job of converting to HTML. It's just the click of a button. Here's a link to  it https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/docs-to-markdown/igffnbdfnodiaphfmfaiiaegmoljbghf

It's worked well for me, but it's for HTML only. Is there CSS involved for this?


NicoleJLeBoeuf

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Reply #30 on: September 09, 2019, 08:32:38 PM
Data point: I would absolutely support a submission guidelines requirement to denote italics using MMD. It's pretty widespread--various discussion fora and blog comment editors utilize it, and Scrivener's MMD compile options seem popular--and it's easy to describe ("Please denote italics with asterisks, *like this,* ok?")

Whatever makes administering this contest easier on its administrators/facilitators, I can get behind that.



Liam

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Reply #31 on: September 16, 2019, 03:12:16 PM
To keep things simple, is there any way to simply "lose" bold and italics? I.e. if someone submits but doesn't follow the "preferred" option, EscapeArtists don't have to do any work, it just comes through without that formatting? I doubt too many stories would suffer overly!



Bdoomed

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Reply #32 on: September 17, 2019, 11:17:04 PM
Some stories have underline, some have bold, some have italics, some have a bunch of nice paragraphs that get all jumbled together when there's not an extra space in between each paragraph. MS Word does a great job of adding spaces before and after each paragraph, but the forum does not. Some stories have nice indentations at the beginning of each paragraph. Sometimes that indentation gets carried over to the forums. Sometimes only SOME of those indentations get carried over to the forums. Other times, NONE of the indentations get carried over to the forums. Why? Heck if I know. Do I bother to save all the indentations? Only if most of them have been preserved in the copy/paste.

Do I painstakingly separate out each paragraph to have an extra space in between? You bet your sweet, sweet forumite butt I do. Why? Because legibility is amazing.

Do I want to create a big set of formatting rules so I don't have to do nearly as much work?

NO!

I want people to write and enjoy writing. I want people to submit and enjoy submitting. I want people to read stories and enjoy reading. I don't want people to get caught up in formatting hell.

Okay, sure, it wouldn't be THAT hard for someone to format their story, but where does it end? Are stories not qualified if they're not formatted properly? If someone doesn't pay enough attention to the rules, do they get a lazily copy/pasted story without proper attention to their formatting? Italics, underlines, etc. add depth to the reading experience, inform us how a story might be read aloud, and every story deserves proper treatment.

The contest is about writers established and new coming together in one place to battle to the bloody death in the spirit of friendship and healthy competition.

I'd rather not slap more rules on it.

:)

(but next year may have some _suggestions_ for formatting)
« Last Edit: September 17, 2019, 11:20:08 PM by Bdoomed »

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Bdoomed

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Reply #33 on: September 19, 2019, 02:06:38 AM
HEY, YOU.

Are you wondering when this contest is going to start? Are you at the edge of your seat?! Well wait no further, because the initial post of this thread has just been updated with the FULL SCHEDULE along with DATES, GROUP COUNT, and also DATES.

So, you know... go look.

Also FYI I'm on vacation from now until the 25th. I'll be checking the forums of course but responses will likely be delayed.

GO CHECK OUT THOSE DATES!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Feverwood

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Reply #34 on: September 19, 2019, 10:10:31 PM
That is a very interesting way the other rounds are being done. Also I am surprised that there are less stories this time. Still looking forward to the 1st!



Fenrix

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Reply #35 on: September 22, 2019, 06:20:27 AM

That is a very interesting way the other rounds are being done. Also I am surprised that there are less stories this time. Still looking forward to the 1st!


The numbers depend a lot on how heavy the drumbeat is. We let promotion for this one develop mostly organically, with the drums being fainter, as if they were underground, or at the back of the darkened closet.

Once the contests exceed 200 entries, they start to break down. We're rather happy with the turnout for round six.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Liam

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Reply #36 on: September 23, 2019, 06:34:38 PM
My pedantic worry beads are in overdrive...

Should it be 17 groups - 12 with 10 in and 5 with 11?

Because, 16*10 + 11 doesn't equal 175...

And in the quarters, 3 groups of 13 and one of 12? Because one group of 15 and 3 of 12 seems unfair odds for the larger group?

Just a thought.




Bdoomed

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Reply #37 on: September 27, 2019, 07:51:53 PM
^ sorry... I may have been up too late making that while trying to finalize my vacation plans when I made those numbers up. I'll fix 'em up today. hehe.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Bdoomed

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Reply #38 on: September 27, 2019, 10:59:25 PM
Alright, I made some updates to the schedule, and I also made a nice chart that can help everyone navigate the contest!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


spintheiryarns

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Reply #39 on: September 28, 2019, 06:11:25 PM
it's a very pretty chart! thank you!



tely

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Reply #40 on: September 28, 2019, 08:50:23 PM
I anxiously await all of the stories! 

Question: as a pseudopod fan, I want to read the stories and vote.  However, I am also a participant. Thus there are some conflicts of interest if I were to vote. Are there rules about participants voting? Should we refrain? Are we on the honor system? I will definitely be reading the stories.  If I were to vote, I would do so with my honest opinion - but I understand if there is a rule to avoid conflicts of interest.

Question 2: (as a newbie) is there opportunity for giving / receiving feedback? I'm totally happy giving and receiving, though I understand this can be a sensitive thing for some folks.



Bdoomed

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Reply #41 on: September 28, 2019, 10:05:47 PM
Wonderful questions!

1. You are absolutely encouraged to vote on all stories, and are more than welcome to vote for your own story as well! The only thing you CANNOT do is ask other people to vote for your story or reveal yourself to be the author of your story. If your story fails to move forward from any of the rounds, you can then reveal yourself as the author and answer any questions or criticisms from other forumites!

2. Somewhat answered by #1 above, but YES! Feel free to comment on any and all stories about what you liked, disliked, how the story might be improved, etc. Just remember our One Rule and be respectful at all times!

Enjoy the contest!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Bdoomed

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Reply #42 on: October 01, 2019, 03:50:32 AM
Let the voting begin! -- Group 1 has been posted!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Feverwood

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Reply #43 on: October 01, 2019, 10:38:53 AM
Is there a, “if you are new to the forum post here” post?



FictionPhial

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Reply #44 on: October 01, 2019, 11:24:22 AM
Do I want to create a big set of formatting rules so I don't have to do nearly as much work?

NO!

I want people to write and enjoy writing. I want people to submit and enjoy submitting. I want people to read stories and enjoy reading. I don't want people to get caught up in formatting hell.


You are awesome. That is all.

"You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible was possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible.  And if you failed, well, it had been impossible." -- Going Postal


Baskerville

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Reply #45 on: October 01, 2019, 03:56:00 PM
Good luck, everyone!



Ettan

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Reply #46 on: October 02, 2019, 02:23:21 AM
Is it just me or are others finding the new look website harder to read and less discernible than the previous version?

weirdwildart.com


Angela_Yuriko_Smith

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Reply #47 on: October 02, 2019, 03:04:54 AM
I've never done anything like this before. Very cool! Bring on the stories! Let the blood begin to spill. Muhahahahahahaha!




Bdoomed

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Reply #48 on: October 02, 2019, 04:34:20 AM
Is it just me or are others finding the new look website harder to read and less discernible than the previous version?

I didn't really like it either TBH, so I went back to the old theme (you can do that! Profile > Look & Layout > Current Theme > Core Theme)

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


bconn

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Reply #49 on: October 02, 2019, 04:49:28 PM
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