To give my two cents, I think we can keep playing around with the contest rules until we find the right formula. After organising the first one and witnessing how the second one went down, I think next we should try the idea that some of the other anons have been suggesting like
>>66763089 -- all stories are submitted to the same voting pool and different "prizes" are chosen as the voting criteria.
So before the contest starts the thread can decide on which prizes are available to the contest entries, like the example below:
>Best comedy>Best (hottest) smut>Best narrative>Best characters>Best ...>Best ...And so on. Then the writers can go wild, writing whatever the fuck they want and dumping it onto the contest anchor. Once the submission period is over the voters will come together and vote for which stories they think deserve each prize out of the entire entry pool.
As for the word limit issue, I always prefer giving more freedom to the writers. If we wanted to add a wordcount aspect we could have three or four categories at the end of the poll that DON'T contain all of the submitted stories, but rather the stories that fall within each individual wordcount limit, like:
>Best 0-1000 word fic>Best 1001-5000 word fic>Best 5001-10000 word fic>Best 10001+ word ficWith each question only allowing you to select the relevant stories of each wordcount category.
For a contest like this, however, we'd need a shitload of stories to ensure one story doesn't end up taking like 90% of the prizes. To provide for this I say we let the thread recharge for a while and make contests less frequent, while also increasing the contest submission period to two months. With a length like that it can just be something hovering in the background should somebody have a story they wish to submit.
I'd like to hear everyone's opinions, though. It's just an outline of an idea and feels incomplete.
