A thought...

[valis2]

I was hoping for a little input from the community members.

Do you think we should list out all of the challenge pieces for each challenge, have a poll, and vote to determine a "winner"?

My first thought in creating this community was to have a non-competitive place for unusual short HP writing, but I realized that people do enjoy the "winning" aspect of a challenge, and even though I was only making challenges for fun, some of you might want to have a real competition.

Comment here and let me know what you think!

Comments

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

I'd be quite happy to vote for winners. Though I think for the Squid challenge, avus wins hands-down. But, well, that's just my opinion. :)

[ozymannedias.livejournal.com]

I think a noncompetitive one would be delightful - particularly for a round-robin style challenge or a humor-oriented one. It would encourage a lot of the more noncompetitive folks out there (like yours truly) to participate!

Good idea!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I just realized I posted this to my journal, instead of the community. *sigh* That's what I get for doing it so late at night.

Thanks for the opinion!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

So are you saying you would like both noncompetitive & competitive challenges, or only noncompetitive? Just to clarify.

[ozymannedias.livejournal.com]

Wow. On rereading my comment I don't see how it could be unclear. Don't you speak Crackheadese?

What I meant originally was that I personally don't like competitive challenges, as I feel that judging writing (particularly that most subjective of all genres: humor) in that manner leads to good fics being overlooked and contributes to the whole BNF phenomenon.

However, now I'm changing my mind: I would think it was really cool, particularly given short fics where it's possible to read (or write) many of them, if you had like one marquee challenge that would be competitive (it would be cool if it was the hardest challenge) and then other noncompetitive ones for people like me.

Just a suggestion! Take or leave as you see fit. You can count me in either way!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of having mostly just-for-fun challenges, with the occasional judged competition. That's a great plan.

I'll see if anyone else votes. I'm so scattered that I put this up on my private journal, when it should have been at quirky. Well, we'll see what happens now that I've posed the question to the quirky watchers.

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

Oh I dunno, you probably shouldn't listen to me since I haven't even manage to get over there and join, but competition usually leads to wank.

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

... and contributes to the whole BNF phenomenon.

Yeah that.

Sort of a Having Hermione in your class Syndrome. You get a couple of BNF types who are real loud and/or prolific and everyone else just throws up their hands and wonders, "why bother?"

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking about keeping it mostly competition free, as I originally envisioned it, with the occasional judging for certain events.

That is if I can get the membership boosted. I've been racking my brain over where to post it. I put up a couple poems today with a "crossposted to quirky" thing, hoping to get a little foot-traffic.

I'm wondering if I've gone about it in the wrong way. I never envisioned it as a humorous community. I was originally going to call it "oddhpshorts" and have it as a place where I could put little bits and pieces of unusual fic. But a friend said "odd" was too off-putting and that I should use "quirky". So I did. And now it looks demented because half of it is really dark!fic and the other half is humor!fic.

Oh well.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

LJ will not let me reply to your other comment, so I'll do it here.

You wrote: I thought it was supposed to be all humor, where'd all the dark!fic come from? Ugh. Aren't there enough sites overrun by angst?
I should go look, eh? I've been meaning to join but as I don't write in the fandom anymore it felt rather voyeristic.
But if it's gone all dark---aggghhh.
Damn. And I was gonna post a limerick.

I actually wanted it to be a dark!fic community, but it started in a much more light-hearted manner, with lots of squids and poetry and such. I keep posting dark!fic and now I'm giving myself a headache because I'm so worried that it looks bizarre to have dark!fic and limericks on the same community.

So most everyone else is writing happy stuff, but I keep posting these dark poems and such. Right now it has a rather schizoid appearance.

Just post your limerick! Everyone will be thrilled, I'm certain.

Now I'm wondering if I should break off and create a second community so that the light!fic and dark!fic will be separate. Then I keep thinking that is just too much.

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

Ok well I got the humor idea from the icon I think. Snape in a party hat didn't say dark!fic to me. I can do dark. But I'm kinda over it. It didn't go over all that well.
It's YOUR site! Put what you want on it!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I may just run with the whole dark & fun fic all in the same community. What the hell. We'll see what happens.