Hello everyone! I was thinking after the success of the Lost Idols? story contest, would people be interested in a story contest every month? While inspired by the previous contest, my rules would be a little different: Everyone would have the first half of the month to write a story and submit it to me personally in dms, along with a chibi for entry. On the 15th of the month at changeover I will post all the stories anonymously in separate posts to be voted on through likes. This will hopefully reduce votes based on who wrote the story. Voting will continue until changeover on the last day of the month, when after counting the votes the authors with the most votes get prizes. First place gets three prizes from whatever gets donated as prizes, second place gets two, and third place gets one. If anyone has any suggestions on changing the rules, let me know. Also let me know whether you think this is a good idea! I will also be taking suggestions for themes, although I already have one that I want to use for September. Thanks for reading(?) and I appreciate the feedback!
So one thing I forgot to mention is that, like the Lost Idols? story contest, the prizes would be based on whatever is donated to me labeled as a contest prize. Any unclaimed prizes will be carried over into the contest for the next month.
That sounds so fun! I love the anonymity of it, because then it wouldn't be a popularity contest and would be solely on how good the writing is (as long as ppl don't go like "vote for my story it's the #7 post in the voting thread uwu").
If that's the case I recommend only accepting 6 donations per contest, a lor of people donated to Strange Idols? Unless you just do the prize pool and let each individual choose their winnings, 1st place 1st than 2nd and lastly 3rd. But will you be the one choosing the winners story? I feel like if I were gonna continue with them they'd coincide with the theme of the hunt. But that's just me. And I'd personally run one every long hunt.
My idea was to have the prize pool and let the winners pick from it as you described. The voting would be the same as with your Lost Idols? contest where people would vote for their favourite(s), but they would be submitted to me personally and then I would post them anonymously on the forums. I was thinking about doing one every 2 week hunt but at the same time, especially with a lot of people having busier schedules coming up, I didn't want people to feel rushed to write their story in only 1 week. If there is enough support for that idea though I will gladly change that.
Even with it being anonymous though people can go on find their story and let people know that it's theirs, there's really no way around it, so there's gotta be a rule to prevent that
If you have an idea on how to make the protections better on that I'd love to hear it, but that was the best I could come up with. I will at least be monitoring votes to try and protect against alt activity as well.
Maybe when they start getting a bunch of votes ask a few of the people if they were told to vote on it and if they did its automatic disqualification
Itll be a lot harder to control a bunch of people and get them all to say no than it would be a few people, someone will forget
I think this is a great idea! I will definitely be entering regardless if it’s one hunt length or one month. I agree that the stories should be posted in an anonymous manner, but people are still going to tell their friends and be like, “This one’s mine! Help me out sis!” I think doing it in the way you mentioned is the best way though. Anyone randomly coming to the thread will be able to read each story without any preference going into it, which should be beneficial to seeing who a true winner is. Good luck orchestrating this 🥳
Easy to cheat with but could be fun. I like writing and would enter if the prompt is cool c: I wasn't a fan of the lost idols prompt tbh
I’d probably only participate if it’s like a creepy story prompt, been looking for a reason to write more creepy stories.
Okay do based on this feedback I will be starting my first contest Tuesday a little after changeover so that I can see the new hunt! It will last the duration of the hunt, with the first week for people to submit stories and the second week for voting! I hope to see some interesting stories! Also please donate prizes if you would like to help out!