Good day foks,

Piquo Pie here, head of the EFNW writing track. We're preparing for our pre-con contest in February and we had a question, what do you think about requiring entrants to review 3 random other entrants for first round of judging. The reason we are considering this is that last year we received 78 initial entries and this year we expect more. But, if we get more then more it could really screw up our judging. This would also make sure our judges don't have to review 30+ fics each in a few short weeks.

Now, there are a lot of potential concerns that we can account for. We'd be using software to monitor people and can account for people artificially lowering scores as well as to properly assign fics randomly. This process would only be used for the first round, to narrow down the list of stories to something more manageable. It would also increase participation and connectivity with participants.

The big issue we came up with is that it might this deter people from participating. That's where this post, and you, come in. Would needing to read and grade three 1000-3000 word fics over 7-10 days deter you from participating in a contest? The other question is would it make you more likely to participate?

Hoping to hear from you soon,
-Piquo Pie

I could handle it.

I think this is a great idea.

I do this already, I'd love to help with this

I think it could work, so long as you have a way to make sure judging is unbiased. If an author is familiar with another author, and they don't normally (or do normally) enjoy their work, it could influence their opinion. Hopefully it wouldn't be a real issue, but I think subconsciously a lot of us are slightly guilty of that.

This would actually prevent me from entering as I will be busy with my duties as a student teacher. However, if I it does get implemented and all entrants must, I will have to not participate this year. I do wish best of luck to all those who do enter either way!

I think 3980640 excepted, it would for the most part be not too big a deal. BTW are EFNW staff who aren't on the writing team allowed to participate?

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I'll have to check.

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You won't even see the name of the author until after you submit the grade and the selection will be random.

I could handle the work of it but I'm not sure how I'd feel about it. I realize it's a contest for mostly fun but reading other people's entries that I'm competing against would make me subconsciously dislike them slightly more. Also You guys have some kind of failsafe to make sure that people don't review their own stories right?

I'd be okay with a setup like that. Executed correctly, it could certainly lower the load on the panel of judges, who will have plenty of work to do regardless.

For the final round of judging, will the judges also be reviewing stories blindly? (as in no author name attached to it)

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Yes, judging would be randomly assigned except, perhaps, for the very last round where all judges may read all entries.