Pod Castle Flash Contest - Rules

[Wilson Fowlie]

I get why you went with three days between groups, and I agree for the most part, but that third day, spent waiting for the new group, tended to be agonizing. Especially while waiting to see what groups my stories would end up in 

And for me, that 3 days was barely enough. I had to work pretty hard at carving out time in my life to keep up with them! (As it was, I came close to missing a couple of voting deadlines.)

[DKT]

Last day of voting on the first round!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?!

Crap. I thought I had an extra day.

Oh, well. Carry on, Ocicat You're doing a great job!

[Ocicat]

Last day of voting on the first round!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?!

Crap. I thought I had an extra day.

Dave.  You don't get to vote.  

[DKT]

Oh, I'm well aware of that 

[Cutter McKay]

Oh, I'm well aware of that 

This makes me curious though. Dave, after the contest is over, maybe you'd like to share with us which stories you'd have voted for. Maybe not out of all 10 groups, maybe just in the semis and finals. But I'd like to know. 

[DKT]

I will consider that, Cutter OTOH, I will probably shy away, 'cause I don't want to take anything away from the folks who did advance.

I think there's a pretty good chance we'll be buying additional stories beyond the three winners. I'm making a list, and I will be checking it twice

[Cutter McKay]

I will consider that, Cutter OTOH, I will probably shy away, 'cause I don't want to take anything away from the folks who did advance.

I think there's a pretty good chance we'll be buying additional stories beyond the three winners. I'm making a list, and I will be checking it twice

Make sure to Damn the List 

[Moritz]

Oh no, I missed the Siren league voting deadline... 

That's a shame, since it was a really close group!  Make sure you vote now for Barnacle Goose League - not too much longer to go on that group now.  Those that fall in the sea will live, and those that fall on land will die.

Hi Ocicat, first of all, thanks for all the hard work you are putting into the contest. I have finished reading round 1's stories, voted in all groups, and I am now finally tackling the stories in the Siren league. I think my voting wouldn't have changed the outcome, BTW.

[Ocicat]

Group 10 is over - today is a day of rest.  Semi-finals tomorrow!

[benjaminjb]

Thank you, Ocicat, for your hard work and hard-won day of rest.

[DKT]

Well, I've now read every single entry in this contest. Nice job, everyone. I was kind of floored by the quality of the stories here, and I've found myself learning a lot from it.

Looking forward to the Semis!

[Ocicat]

And the Semi-finals have started!  We're now down to 30 stories by 24 authors.  And congratulations to the 6 authors who managed to get two stories into the semis.  No matter what happens from here, that's quite an accomplishment - no matter how hard it made my job of putting the stories into groups.

From here we go down to just 9 stories for the final.  That's not going to be easy - there are far more than 3 great stories in every group!

[Ocicat]

Semi-Final C is up!  Oh ya, Semi-Final B too!   

[Ocicat]

Last day to vote for Semi-Final A - don't miss out on having your say on which stories get into the finals!

[Ocicat]

There's now a runoff up for Semi-Final A.  It has 5 stories in it competing for 2 spots.  This was necessary because there were several different and unrelated voting problems - from spouses not realizing they shouldn't vote for their partner's story, to a family member creating a sock puppet account to push a story into the finals - without (I believe) the author's knowledge or consent. 

The runoff poll will last for 3 days, and be watched over by the Salamander - who should be able to prevent any further shenanigans. 

[Ocicat]

The Final is up!

Nine stories by nine authors; none of the six folks with two stories in the semi-finals managed to get both into the finals.  And remember back in Group 1 and 2, how everyone was blown away by the quality of the competition?  None of those stories even got in!  There are fewer slots in the final than there were initial groups, so some not being represented was inevitable.  Three groups (3, 4, and 9) got two stories to the final.  In each case the first and second place story.  No third placers made it, I'm afraid.  I think that shows the groups had a pretty good distribution, not bad for totally random!

[Wilson Fowlie]

I think that shows the groups had a pretty good distribution, not bad for totally random!

As a programmer, I'm interested to know what method you used for the randomization.

[Ocicat]

I program a bit myself, but I like to think I know when doing something by hand is easier than coding it up.

Since the major problem was going to be making sure two authors weren't in the same group, I first split the stories into 12 buckets alphabetically by first name.  So all the "Johns" were in the same bucket.  Then I just drew lots 1-10 for each story in the bucket, and that's the group they went into.

I'll admit to fudging a bit and picking the shortest story to be the 13th story in the extra sized group, and deciding beforehand that that group should be #6.

[Wilson Fowlie]

Old school randomization - cool.

[Max e^{i pi}]

I program a bit myself, but I like to think I know when doing something by hand is easier than coding it up.

Then you are not a programmer.
The difference between a programmer and someone who programs is that the programmer will usually decide to write the code rather than do it by hand even though (read: especially when) that will take 4 times as much time.

[Ocicat]

No, I'm really not.  Professionally I'm a software tester.   

[Unblinking]

I program a bit myself, but I like to think I know when doing something by hand is easier than coding it up.

Then you are not a programmer.
The difference between a programmer and someone who programs is that the programmer will usually decide to write the code rather than do it by hand even though (read: especially when) that will take 4 times as much time.

Not necessarily.    I do things by hand sometimes, but I usually do them in a very code-like way anyway. For instance, if I need to choose one selection out of eight possibilities I will flip a coin three times to pick a binary number to make the selection.  Or my podcast-listening order (which I've gone on about in other threads)

[Ocicat]

Almost done - voting closes in less than 24 hours!