Event overview

Note for newcomers: While many participants choose to review others' entries, doing so is by no means required nor expected.

Please refrain from saying anything that might compromise your anonymity. Doing so is grounds for disqualification. It's recommended you do dummy reviews of your own stories should it otherwise be easy to deduce which you wrote.

IT BEGINS

IT IS HAPPENING

HAPPY NEW YEAR

It's a minific contest. My goal: 6 mini fics. Look out you guys. This is my specialty.

Just Over the Titanium Dragon

We're off to a great start.

Rainbow Dash's mane turns monochrome(Black and White)

Oh man, I hope this prompt gets chosen. So many possibilities!

3933427
Dear God, no!

I don't want to have to read through 30+ fics of Rainbow Dash spouting Zecora dialog. Even if they are mini-fics, one would be too many.

3933263
In b4 30 stories about Rarity and Applejack break up.

More seriously, I hope whoever that is is proud of themselves.

I also wonder if they're the person who suggested "A Perfect Present"...

3933532

I also wonder if they're the person who suggested "A Perfect Present

No, that was me. Bwahahaha!!!

Ah, minifics. We haven't done these in a while. This should be fun. Personally, I'm hoping that if "Twirling Towards Freedom" wins, we get a dozen stories of Kane and Kodos.

I'm pretty sure no one believed this was happening until the notification came. <.< Maybe it was just me, but okay. So much for Dirty Prancing. :D

This looks promising... Can't wait to get started.

Yay! My first Writeoff contest! This should be fun.

Well, right out the gate in January it is. Wheeee!

Ooh, haven't participated since October. Definitely gonna write something this time.

Again? So soon? Didn't we just finis- Wait what? It's been that long since the last one already? I still haven't even finished my extended version of All the World's a Stage yet and it's time for the next round. I've been struggling with it. The problem is that the core concept skirts dangerously close to one of the ideas of a story I've been in the middle of for a while. Like, almost exactly. I don't want to spoil the my long story, but I can't think of another way to get Stage to make sense. Maybe I'll finish it and not release it until the far-off (maybe never) day I finally finish Good Griff!. Ah well fine, bring the next round on.

Just one of those rare times where the writing period is shorter than the prompt voting slot.
Oh, look! I'm free for another write-off, finally!

Hmmm... I'm wondering if the 12 hour prompt submission window was a fluke.

Oh well, we've got plenty to pick from.

Pandas.

Well, it's that wonderful time again! The quickened pace threw me off and I missed submitting a prompt D: Oh well.

I'll see you all in the ring. >:]

I've got family visiting this weekend, but I'll see if I can sneak a fic in.

3933256
This (and some of the sparring last minific round) reminds me of an idea I'd been thinking of proposing. The MF rounds tend to draw a lot of multiple submissions, and even though they're short, the amount of work that goes into providing review feedback is proportional to the number of individual entries. It's a little disheartening to stare at a list of 50+ stories and know that you have a week to write up constructive criticism (that sometimes is as long as the story itself) for each and every one.

As far as I'm concerned, simply by entering, every author and every story deserves that consideration, but sometimes (especially with the minific rounds) authors know going in that they don't want/need workshopping for some stories. Maybe they're pooping out a dumb idea to pacify their muse so they can focus on another story they care about, or maybe the entire story's an excuse for a horrible pun, or maybe they know in advance they won't ever revise the story for publication. The purpose of detailed reviews is to suggest ways to make it better after the writeoff is over, so in those cases, the critiques might waste both the reviewers' and the author's time. So, what if we had a way to voluntarily ease reviewers' workload?

If we chose a standardized way to do it, like copying and pasting

[hr]
[i][b]#ReviewerOptOut[/b]: Brief feedback only, please.[/i]

... at the very end of your story, then it doesn't reveal any information on identity, and that would cost you only 5 of your 750 words.

The idea here would be a statement that reactions are still valuable, but suggestions aren't likely to be. Reviewers can, without guilt, limit their work to a sentence or two -- thoughts on overall story quality and/or scoring -- though they're free to go longer if they have something to say.

Good idea? Bad idea? More importantly, is this something that anyone would use if the community bought into it as an option?

3934108
I certainly wouldn't be opposed to trying this out. Anything to remove unnecessary burdens from the process.

3934108
Quick question: does the BBcode formatting count as a word? Like, would an {hr} take up a counter? (done with the proper brackets, of course)

Also, couldn't this be done with a single word?

Put it at the end so it doesn't influence the read any more than it has to.

Just make it a single line, keyword that would be standard for all. Something like this:

<Review>
<Suggest>
<React>
<OptOut>

It might not be needed, and will probably work better if everyone used it instead of only a few. The format and options would need to go in the rules so everyone is clear on what it means and how the author intends for the reviews to be handled.

Yesssss. Short shorts are my fort-eh, so this should go better than the last one, prompt depending.

3934108
I caution against formalising anything with respect to reviews/critiques. Asking people to specify the type of review, if any, they wish to have is a complexity catastrophe waiting to happen. And I'm quite insistent that the story field contains only the story.

I recommend giving primarily reactions rather than suggestions, since they're more in line with wise reading, and it will also save you time. You shouldn't be sweating to find suggestions. If they aren't immediately obvious, or you don't think it's worth the effort, just stick to reactions.

3934108 how bout I just don't write shitty troll fics?

I wanna get this out early so it's visible (and so that I don't forget and can find the link again): I've been randomizing my read order to help keep the number of ballots from being biased, and last thread Doseux pointed out an easy way to do that online. (Thanks Doseux!) I'd strongly recommend getting a personal random read-order from there once voting opens and we know how many fics there are; if all the voters, or even many people, do this, it will prevent the overall votes from being biased by the arbitrary reading order of the fics in a way that e.g. going backwards cannot. (Not that I'm actually worried about such bias affecting the competition, but I like to do stuff like this when I can.)

3934603
Where's the fun in that?

3933427
I love the idea, but I didn't vote for it because it's not a "proper" prompt (in terms of both Title Case and a certain amount of broad applicability that I think prompts should have). Whoever submitted that, next time do it clean!

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3934589
I find myself preferring RogerDodger's perspective here. Feedback is great, but for 50 500-word stories (or whatever) you can't really approach them under an assumption of "this is here to be expanded and published". I think reactions are fine as a general assumption of how to review, which can of course mean something brief or something huge depending on how you reacted to the story; anyone seeking to expand something for publication can ask for prereading the same as with any other fic if they need it (and will probably be adding enough stuff that they will need eyes on the new material as well). This is my first minific comp, though, so take all that with a grain of salt.

3934108

Maybe they're pooping out a dumb idea to pacify their muse so they can focus on another story they care about, or maybe the entire story's an excuse for a horrible pun, or maybe they know in advance they won't ever revise the story for publication.

Or they just want to keep their head in the game and ribbons on their wall. :V I like this idea, for what it's worth. (Though Roger brings up a good point.)

3934769
The reason I don't do randomized order is that then I can't hit "next" or "previous" on the site to navigate through the fics. :B

3934108
I'm not entirely for this idea, just because it's possible to have something substantial to say about a story that wasn't written entirely seriously. Besides having a generally amazing body of participants, I think a lot of the quality and effectiveness of this event's reviews come from the fact that we're freed by author anonymity to be honest about how we feel about each entry. Putting author-imposed restrictions of any kind on this process doesn't seem to be the best idea in light of that.

Besides, IMHO I think it's already pretty easy to tell which stories aren't meant to be taken very seriously. I trust that reviewers can decide how thoroughly to investigate each story based on their own discretion. I mean, no one can justifiably get worked up by the fact that reviewers chose to give only passing thoughts to their trollfic.

3934861
I didn't even think of that -- but I read in batches anyway, and tend to open up a few stories at once in parallel tabs.

3934969
I only touched on this in my comment, but I think the free-wheeling nature of the reviews definitely applies to how in-depth they go, and that's a lot of why I'd prefer not to have authorial requests. Last round I definitely spilled a disproportionate number of pixels on "Audit" (which was also a product of seeing it early, which is one reason I'm pimping the randomization thing so hard), and I think I managed to touch on some interesting territory in the process.

3934977
Assuming Short Story entries follow a normal (or flat) distribution of length, that's 50 million words; I think FiMFic's estimated reading time is based on 15,000 words an hour, so that's most of a year reading as a full-time job just to finish half the fics and have a valid ballot. Even for minifics that'd be like a month of full-time reading. I think if we reach that point we'll have plenty of bigger problems.

What, again already? Sheesh.

Maybe I'll get something in this time, however.

3933160
Roger! I just put in votes for two prompts. You don't care about that, I'm just getting your attention here.

What you should care about (imo), is that I did so knowing full well I wouldn't get any other chances to vote for prompts. I found this out the hard way. With stories, you can change your votes right up to the closing deadline. With prompts, you only get one shot at voting for them. But the prompt-vote page doesn't give any indication of this.

Possible fixes I thought of:
- change the prompt-approval process so you can change your prompt-votes up until the deadline
- add something to the prompt-approval page saying that you can only vote for prompts once

3934977
The day we have 10,000 writeoff entries is the day I quit the writeoff. :|

3935109 I'm taking that as a guarantee that you won't quit before then.

EDIT: Eye cann't spel.

3935072
Your vote for prompts just increments a single integer on each voted prompt. There's no actual record for what you voted on for it to be updated.

By contrast, votes (and guesses) are stored as a separate relation (well, multiple).

I don't consider this that big of an issue since voting on prompts should really only take one session, and the data is otherwise useless. By comparison, the other voting processes are fairly drawn out and could take quite a few sessions. (Also, you can't actually calculate a running total for standard deviation like you can an average or sum

I guess it would be nice to be able to update your vote if your opinion of some particular prompt changes, but eh... People shouldn't be toiling over the prompt selection process that much.

The prompt voting page is pretty ugly though.

3935109
Whereupon Roger says to you...

3935185

I guess it would be nice to be able to update your vote if your opinion of some particular prompt changes, but eh... People shouldn't be toiling over the prompt selection process that much.

Well, sure. My gripe is that the prompt voting page doesn't say you can only vote for prompts once, and it took me completely by surprise that first time.

If it were obvious you can only vote prompts once, I'd have no grounds. Experience doesn't count as obvious.

(There's a guesses function? Is that new? I think I remember there being something else that makes me think that's new.)

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For the record, I've always said I'll give the writeoff a rest if I can win a non-minific event (since I already have) with at least 11 other participants.

That has not come close to happening for a long while. :B

3935235
At least you've won an event xD

3935233
You're right. It would be better to have things consistent. However, someone submitting a half-filled vote for prompts isn't that big of a deal, so it's fairly low priority.

3935271
Now I feel like I'm being an excessive nag. But:

One line of text next to/above the prompt vote button would be enough to shut me up. ("You can only vote for prompts once!")
How long could adding that possibly take?

(And with my level of experience I'd both understand and be genuinely interested in an answer to that, if you wanted to give one.)

...I've pestered you enough. Probably too much. I won't say anything else about this.

3935352

It would probably take less time to make that text update than to type out a response here, but hey, it's not a big deal.

3934108
If the story is really an excuse for a terrible pun, shouldn't we, the readers, be able to recognize that?

I dunno. Are you thinking about writing a sequel to Hugh Jelly or something?

3935662
Hey! Terrible puns are the only arrow in my quiver!

3935947
My father once told me a feghoot for 45 minutes.

I have a great appreciation for such things.

3935262
And I still don't know why! :O

Bleh, I hope I can participate. My entry might be coauthored by DayQuil

3935628
So I would expect, which is why I'm interested if that's not the case.

It's also why I concluded I've reached the threshold of being an excessive prick about the matter

3935950 Hm, now there's a prompt that would be murderous. Feghoots.

The Duration of Eternity

Whoever submitted this prompt entry has a very ironic sense of humour.
Good luck fitting Eternity into under a thousand words.

3933250
Thanks in advance! Feel free to make mine appropriately hackish. Probably a crackship.