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Watchingstone Writing Contests
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rodentone
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nadan. Do you have any figures about expected traffic?

About how many voters, that sort of thing, meaning how much bandwidth will be required and how much effort it would be to do some of it by hand?

I, and probably some of the others, have websites that can host the stories themselves. The problem comes with how many visits, which might cost more.

And, for instance, voting could be done by posting a sample voting page that voters could download and email in. But, for that, how much time would it take to count the votes by hand?

Simplified, I know, but that's about all we really need. A fancy site is much better, but we can get by with simply a place to post stories and let them be read, then a way to recieve and count votes.

Oscar Rat

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Nadan
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I'm not Mr. High-Tech. I received the ballots in my email and hand recorded the results in an Excel spreadsheet. That has worked well for me. As far as traffic, because the stories are not hosted on my site, it's not that bad.
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rodentone
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've got the time to count. And a new site I put up today, I suppose I cound host the stories. A simple form to download and fill out, then mail to me, would suffice.

I could try it and see what happens. What all you guys say? You wouldn't have to join my site or nothing. I'd just add another forum for the stories. Then make up a form and count the results. Sort of an Ad Hock thing.

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

FYI

I've been working on a site for the contest. Getting the voting code ready. Getting the story submission code ready. In a day or two I should be able to announce the URL so you can test my code and try to break it.

Step 1 is to simply e-mail the form contents to someone (or several someones). This would be for both: story entry--where you'd fill in things like the story name and your name, etc., and tick off a few boxes such as you wrote the story and are giving permission to have it in the contest--and the story scoring page.

Step 2 (assuming I have the time) is to tie the story scoring into a database and then to auto-generate the results, but I'd probably still keep the e-mail feature as a sort of audit trail.


Some Things to Think About

Hosting of the stories is currently done wherever the author can find space. This is okay, except that we end up with different file formats and different stylistic formats. Also some pieces ended up without author identification and some had all kinds of meta-information. I'm thinking that it might help level the playing field if everyones' story looked equally professionally published. I suppose that either I or Mike could process the raw files to get them into shape. I'm thinking same fonts, same margins, same layout, etc.

I've been doing some work with auto-generating web pages from text files with some markup coding. And I've done some work with auto-generating e-mails from web forms (and stripping out e-mail unfriendly junk from the inputted text). It's not that much further to get an auto-generated web page from marked up text dumped into a web form. Either text with BBCodes or a subset of HTML (or a choice). From there it shouldn't be too hard to generate a PDF file.

If we do this, I think the contest site should only host the stories for the period of the contest and the following period--four months total. Stories could be removed earlier at the author's request. There are many fine places for longer hosting of your anthrofiction--The Raccoon's Bookshelf for example.

Blind entries? That is we remove the author's identification from the story. This only works if we host the stories on the contest site.

The scoring: I like the idea of both the public and a panel to score the stories then to combine the scores. However, I think the public's score should count for more than 25%. Perhaps: public = 1/2 and panel = 1/2.

The name: I'm calling it The Anthrofiction Writing Contest. I can hardly use WatchingStone in the title. Wink I like the word "anthrofiction". Someday I want to be able to walk into a bookstore and see a section titled "anthrofiction". It's a good future-word and it doesn't carry any negative baggage.

The rules: As far as I'm concerned, it is too late to change the rules for the Spring 2006 contest, plus I don't really feel the need to change the rules. The only possible exception would be: Do we allow a writing sample as an entry, or is this for complete stories only?

Perhaps the badger is the wrong fursona for me. Maybe, as I tiptoe around this subject an elephant is more fitting. Let me just come right out and step on it: The Kit and the Colors was an awesome story, but I was confused by Pflarrian's second-season entry and deeply disappointed at his third-season entry--it was a chapter from a novel he's working on. The skill set needed to succeed with a short story is slightly different than success with a novel. Maybe someday (2007?) we can have a year-long novel writing contest, but for this season's contest do we accept chapters?

Pflarrian, I'd love to see you do another short story. I know you're good at it.

The award: I don't really have an award at this point. Help?

Nadan's Far From Home: Nadan, now that your involvement with the contest is lessening, do you want to enter this story? Everyone, how do you feel about this?


Well, that's about it for now.

Scotty

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rodentone
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm glad you're taking over, Scotty. I have time, but am not much of a go-getter any more. I like to sit around the back yard and watch human activity, very enlightening. If you need any help, I'd be glad to assist, but just don't feel like running anything except my mouth.

I'm glad you're keeping the same subject for Spring though, since I have my stories written.

Why not require everyone to submit in Rich Text Format? It's hard to find a word-processor that doesn't have it as an output option? Or one that doesn't read it.

As for all the work to get them ready. If you give enough notice, and have them emailed, you could always send them back with a notation for the sender to fix them up. Of course, maybe you want to try out your skills in reformatting? It sounds challenging.

I agree that the stories should have a limited life on the site, the reason being that whenever I want to send a story in to be published, I have to search all over for stray copies. I'll put them on all sorts of sites for critique, then forget where they are. Many publishers won't touch them if they find copies with a search engine.

Blind entries sounds good to me. That way a writer's popularity won't get in the way. I can't get reading rats to favor my story just because it was written by a fellow rat.

The scoring and name are alright with me. As for samples of novels or longer stories, I'd say it depends on whether they're 'stand alone.' I agree that it takes a different writing style for a novel, for instance, more attention to detail and putting in little hints of future activity. Sometimes I wish I had started in on novels, rather than short stories. It's hard to readjust my thinking. Very often, excerpts from novels get confusing, with excess characters and unexplained backgrounds.

Good luck,

Oscar Rat

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PrincessB
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmmm, most of it sounds pretty good.
I would be willing to remain on the judging panel till further notice if you'd like, with job about to start, taking correspondance college courses and all my other much loved hobbies I don't forsee me having the time/desire to write much in the near future (the desire to do various hobbies comes and goes) but I will make time to read each story in the contest.

I do like the idea of a standard format, type font, etc. Some I've seen have been hard to read and would flow better if were better set up.

As for whether or not to accept chapters, I really think that if the chapter is not strong enough to stand on it's own then the author really hurts themselves, the fact that it makes no real sence alone makes folks less likely to give it a good vote. So maybe incourage folks to write just a short story but not completly rule out chapter admitance if thats what the person really wants to enter.

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Tygon
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Regarding Pflarrian's entry to the last contest, to my knowledge he had planned to write a new chapter for each contest, thus completing the whoe story eventually.

I rather nice idea I thought but I see that some might not like it.

Anyway, I don't know if I can make an entry for the spring contest at all. I had not bothered to even try and think off a possible story since the contest was called off. These days I have not much time for writing and the little time I have I am devoting to a story I hope I might get published in an anthology book.

Not that it matters, mind you. None of my entries was much of a contribution.

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rodentone wrote:
... I'm glad you're keeping the same subject for Spring though, since I have my stories written.

It would be insanity to do otherwise.

rodentone wrote:
Why not require everyone to submit in Rich Text Format? It's hard to find a word-processor that doesn't have it as an output option? Or one that doesn't read it.

As an input format I'll strongly consider that. Perhaps text with BBCodes, RTF, and a subset of HTML.

As a publishing format for the web, I'm not fond of it, although it is far better than plain text. For reading online, HTML with the proper styles is best and for the printed page, PDF is best.

rodentone wrote:
As for all the work to get them ready. If you give enough notice, and have them emailed, you could always send them back with a notation for the sender to fix them up. Of course, maybe you want to try out your skills in reformatting? It sounds challenging.

My simplified vision is to have an entry form where the author could fill in some info about their story, pour the story (in the proper input format) into a big fat text box, then click a "Show Me" button. This would take the author to a second page that would show the story in clean, formatted HTML. They would look it over and note any errors such as missing italics or whatnot. At the bottom of the page would be three buttons: "This Wants Editing, Take Me Back", "Enter This in the Contest", and "Just Trying out the System, Delete This". As long as an author clicks the "Enter This in the Contest" by the entry deadline, they are in. I'd probably have to translate the entry into PDF between the close of the entries and open of the scoring (hopefully only a few hours).

rodentone wrote:
I agree that the stories should have a limited life on the site, the reason being that whenever I want to send a story in to be published, I have to search all over for stray copies. I'll put them on all sorts of sites for critique, then forget where they are. Many publishers won't touch them if they find copies with a search engine.

Legally speaking, any posting of your story to any website for any length of time, constitutes first publication. However, if your story is behind a username and password, then it is not published. The real reason not to keep stories on the site for long is because I don't envision the contest site as a story publishing site. There are many sites that do that very thing.

For the future, I'd love to explore the idea of splitting the contest site into an authors' side and a readers' side--both having usernames and passwords for access. The authors' side would allow tit-for-tat critiquing between authors before the contest entry deadline. The readers' side would allow readers access to the finished stories and the ability to save their scores and comments in a half-finished state and "cast" them later (before the scoring deadline). Username and password access is specifically to address the first publication issue.

PrincessB wrote:
... I would be willing to remain on the judging panel till further notice if you'd like, with job about to start, taking correspondance college courses and all my other much loved hobbies I don't forsee me having the time/desire to write much in the near future (the desire to do various hobbies comes and goes) but I will make time to read each story in the contest.

Awesome! I hope Mike Regan can remain on the panel as well. What I'd like to see for the panel are members who are passionate about writing and keenly interested in anthrofiction. Like Nadan, I think it would be fairer to everyone if at least some of the panel members rotated.

PrincessB wrote:
I do like the idea of a standard format, type font, etc. Some I've seen have been hard to read and would flow better if were better set up.

Uhh, Princess... Come Home Soon was hard to read because your line width for the font size was way off. A newspaper column width is a bit on the narrow side, but typical books are pretty good. About 60 to 90 characters on a full line is ballpark. However, your font was great and the contrast was great too. FYI, I did not mark you down on technical for the too wide lines.

rodentone wrote:
... As for samples of novels or longer stories, I'd say it depends on whether they're 'stand alone.' I agree that it takes a different writing style for a novel, for instance, more attention to detail and putting in little hints of future activity....

Quite so. Family Matters is a chunk taken from the middle of a novel I'm working on. I had to further simplify the goal of that story bit to get it to fit in 3500 words, and I had to resist putting in references to other bits of the novel. Although a pivotal point in the novel, it does not give anything away, so I can keep it online without ruining the experience of the novel for later readers.

PrincessB wrote:
As for whether or not to accept chapters, I really think that if the chapter is not strong enough to stand on it's own then the author really hurts themselves, the fact that it makes no real sence alone makes folks less likely to give it a good vote. So maybe incourage folks to write just a short story but not completly rule out chapter admitance if thats what the person really wants to enter.

I have no problem with a chapter that reads like a complete story. It's when there is a beginning to this, and a beginning to something else, and a beginning to another thing--and no resolution to any of them, that I have a problem. How are we, as readers, supposed to evaluate something like that?

However, I'll put you down as one vote for not adding a rule against entering writing samples in place of a story.

Tygon wrote:
Regarding Pflarrian's entry to the last contest, to my knowledge he had planned to write a new chapter for each contest, thus completing the whoe story eventually.

If Pflarrian wants a critique of his novel in progress, there are better venues than a quarterly short story contest. I'm partial to Critique Circle.

One of the big problems with a novel critique is that some systems (such as Critique Circle) are not really set up to take a whole novel at a time. Also, most authors want to start getting feedback before they complete their first draft. For someone who writes an outline or plan before they complete their first draft, what might be nice is a critique of: their plot, their characters, their world (for sci-fi/fantasy), and their theme. I.e. can this author spin a story? Looking at one chapter per quarter, or even one chapter a week, it's almost impossible to tell. It's the classic forest and trees issue.

That said, it might be interesting to have a year-long novel contest--with way points. That is, fellow authors would be the judges for the first three quarters (since something like a plot outline would reveal the ending), and the final quarter's judging would be by a wider group--the "public" (via username and password access).

Tygon wrote:
Anyway, I don't know if I can make an entry for the spring contest at all. I had not bothered to even try and think off a possible story since the contest was called off. These days I have not much time for writing and the little time I have I am devoting to a story I hope I might get published in an anthology book.

Not that it matters, mind you. None of my entries was much of a contribution.

Dude, my personal rank for Boys of Summer was tied for third, and when the source of the conflict in Hunted was revealed, it made me smile! Dude, I gave you a five in enjoyability for Hunted. Don't think your entries don't contribute.

As for taking time from another writing project to participate in the contest: Sometimes that's not a bad idea. Sometimes it can be a good thing to step back from a long project and jump into a quickie. Can you take a character to two from your current project and put them into a new situation? This is what I did for Beach Tour and it took me two days for the first draft--which is the fastest I'd ever written. Because I write long, it took me another four days to get from 3900 words to under 3500--but that's a different story. Wink

As for working on a paying project: That's a tough one. I can't help you for this contest cycle. Eventually I'd like to get a password system setup so it would be possible to enter a story you later hope to sell.


The Bottom Line

For me it's passion. Passion to promote anthrofiction as a genre. Passion to learn to write and to help other authors learn to write. It's passion to be the best that we can be right now--and then to get a little bit better.

Scotty

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 4:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Update

<le sigh> Confused

I'm one of those people who cannot do things half-way. I don't have a live database running yet, but my static data structures are compatible with a database solution.

So I got rules "database", a contest "database", an authors "database", a stories "database" (for temporary onsite hosting and links offsite), a results "database" (but I think I need to break it into raw data and processed data), and a comments "database". And I got some Mighty Morphin Power Pages that change with the time periods: pre-entry, judging, results, and stories removed. I even have a "test" contest dataset with a couple of sample stories and big buttons on the pages so you can diddle the dates and see how the pages morph. Oh yea, you do something like "index.php?contestID=test" and you get the test contest with the magic buttons, or "index.php?contestID=2006_q1" and you get the real contest.

Unfortunately, I spent the last few days futzing with the story page and getting it to properly display based on the date. Stuff like showing "Author #2" during the judging phase and "Scott Miller (ScottyDM)" after the judging phase is pretty simple. But I spent too much time trying to process results to show graphs and numbers and whatnot (I'm an engineer, so graphs are to be expected). Well, showing pretty pages after judging isn't so important right now--so I'm skipping that for a bit. FYI, for the "test" contest I got Randy, Paula, and Simon as the judging panel. Whoot! Very Happy

Well, other than the live database thing, I'm really close to letting y'all pound on it and try to break it. I want you guys to pour text into the entry page and see if it messes up your funny foreign characters, doodlebug punctuation, weird paragraph line-endings, left and right leaning quotes, and all that other good stuff. For now I'm only supporting plain text plus a subset of the BBCodes. I'll publish proper destructions.


Nadan (Anthony Tiger) saw the site a few days ago when a big chunk of my navigation was in shambles--of what he saw he said, "I liked the format, the detail, and was honored by your references to past seasons." He also said he would not be entering his story Far From Home. Something about "feeling bad" if he won. Rolling Eyes


About the prize: Well, I have an idea, but it may cost me a bit because I'd need to scratch up the raw materials, assemble them, then ship it to the winner. Maybe $20 total. The good news is that if I pass my drug test (and I studied real hard) I should be starting a job in a week or two, so I'll have $20.

I hate to pre-announce anything--and hopefully I'm looking at something that is real, not foolish--but if what I think is true is true, then this will either be the coolest cheap prize in the history of the world, or the geekiest. It is something that is very rare, in a global sense, but accessible in my part of the world. It is wonderful by almost anyone's standards, but doesn't look anything like what it really is. That is, if I am correct about what it really is--I'll find an expert. Finally, I've come up with a High Concept to tie this to writing. Oh yea, badgers and like-minded people can dig it.

The downside is that it would be yet another thing to gather dust in your life. But heck, you could take a picture of it, post the picture on your website, and then give the thing to your little sister, or your kids, or your grandkids--as appropriate.


The closing date for contest entry should probably slip. Even if I get my entry page 100% functional by Saturday, that's not really enough time for you. However, I don't want to eat too deeply into the summer contest season. These are my thoughts on the schedule:

  • Two months to write, one month to judge.
  • Stories would be visible during the judging period (one month) at a minimum and the default would be to leave them up during the following quarter (three more months) after which you'll need to find a permanent home if you want to keep them online. I have an option in the story "database" to link to past seasons' online stories. Or you may option to remove them automatically at the end of judging (hosted one month only). Or manual removal sometime in the three months after judging.
  • The past quarter's results and the new quarter's theme would be announced on the first day of the quarter--and the prize awarded.
  • NaNoWriMo will correspond with a judging period, so as a writer, you can do both. Very Happy

If I push the contest entry deadline back by 10 days, then I'll push the close of judging back by 10 days, and the start of the summer contest back by 10 days--leaving you a bit more than a month and a half to write for summer.


That's about it for now. I thought some of you might be getting a bit anxious--I know I am. I'd better get back to working on the website. A couple of hours ago I did a global find and replace on a cluster of pages (trying to fix the navigation gizmo) and royally messed up my pages. Shocked Sad I'm such a clutz.

Scotty

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ScottyDM
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PostPosted: Mon May 01, 2006 12:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another Update...


Big Chunks of the Site are Fully Functional, but...

What is not working yet:
  • The story entry form -- ultra high priority.
  • The story entry processing -- ultra high priority.
  • Contents for static pages: links, history, motivation, and the home page -- high priority, at least for some of them.
  • Working contact me pages (form and processing) -- high priority.
  • The story ballot processing -- kinda low priority.
  • The proper display of results on the contest index and story pages -- very low priority.

I'll get the entry form and processing working, toss a few paragraphs on the home page, then post the URL.


The Schedule

The entry date has officially slipped to May 10th.

The close of judging date has officially slipped to June 10th.


Other Stuff

I should know more about the prize by Friday.

That is all for now.

Scotty

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Kayngi
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PostPosted: Mon May 08, 2006 10:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, where do we submit our entries for the season then? I must have missed that...
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PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2006 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You did not miss it. I haven't announced the new URL.

This is one heck of a project. I have learned many new things. I was thrashing around on the webification code and realized I simply had to learn regular expressions (regex).

I started this project about the 12th, and it took about a week to get a good idea of how to proceed. About the 20th or so I caught fire and have worked on it every single day since then. Ahhh, some days maybe only two or three hours, but every single day. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (yesterday) I worked a total of just under 40 hours. Actual work, not just sitting my tail down in front of the computer.

Saturday I learned regex and recoded my webification script, came up with a scheme to let the user loop on the page while preserving their data, and came up with a word count. The previous week's webification script was horrid and useless.

Sunday I tweaked and debugged the initial pages of the story entry form and got more story entry pages done.

Monday I realized I'd taken the wrong approach to getting the data to flow through my system: it was too fragile and data could be lost, plus the URL wasn't the real URL of what you were looking at and that broke all kinds of expected functionality. After a bit of brainstorming, I thought of building redirect pages to clean up the URLs. I needed to store the state of the data in temporary files and fortunately, creating a file on the server with PHP turned out to be a snap.

I've done PHP before, but limited in scope. I've done web forms before, but my past approach was "broken"--or at least grossly sub-optimal. I've never done regex before--not real regex where I knew what I was doing anyway.

Story entry is via a series of six pages. The entry* pages you can stare at and cogitate on a bit. Buttons at the bottom of each entry* page takes you to the next step.
  1. entry1: You enter your story: title, short title, and the body of your story as plan text with a few square-bracket tags.
  2. process1: This is the webification process and it took days of effort. When done it redirects you to entry1 (bad input) or entry2.
  3. entry2: Shows you a web page with your story in all its XHTML glory. Look it over and click a button.
  4. process2: Figures out which button you clicked and redirects you to the page you asked for.
  5. entry3: Enter your personal information, select a few options, then click a button.
  6. process3: checks your data (e.g. bad format for e-mail) and either redirects you back to entry3, or it e-mails me your entry and redirects you back to the main contest page.

Where I'm at with story entry: entry1 needs a tweak (reloading the page will clear the form), process1 is done, entry2 is done (except there is a CSS issue in IE with bullet lists), process2 is done, entry3 is.... I'm working on that now.

I will be done with the entry/process pages in about 12 hours.

What is still not done:
  • Rewrite (for clarity) my instructions for square-bracket codes and how the webification process works (so you can fully utilize it), then code up the page and generate a .PDF file. Priority 2
  • The general e-mail contact form. I simply copied it from another of my websites. It's a new domain and I don't have e-mail set up yet. Priority 3.
  • Finish my sample story, 'Round the World with Wee Mr. Winkle. I've left my poor protagonist at the Baghdad airport, dangling by his comma. Shocked Priority 4.
  • Finish the ballot pages. ballot is done, but process_ballot is not even started. Priority 5.
  • Look the whole thing over and clean up any loose ends. Priority 6.
  • Come up with a plan for next contest season. Priority 7.


The moment I have a functional story entry system. I will publish the URL here.

It may be wise to slip the date again. I'll announce that when I announce the URL.

Thank you for your interest. I'd wondered if anyone cared.

Scotty

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PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 8:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

FINALLY!

I think I might have something that works.

Anthrofiction Network

Many bits are not 100% so enter early and enter often. Help me check out the system. Put in your real e-mail address and I'll let you know if it worked or not. Just leave a note, "This is a test entry."

I need to finish that page on how to add square-bracket codes to the body of your story, and what that green bar is about.

For site testing, I've pushed the dates (again) back to the 20th.

Thank you for your patience.

Scotty

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Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up.
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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2006 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've reset the statistics counter for the 10th, and the site has had 12 visitors since then (and 26 page loads), but no one has tried the story entry process. Only two people even looked at the first page.

It doesn't bite... well, okay, I found a bug in the "Quit" button on the second page that did bite, but that's fixed now. And well... the third page of the entry process needs work, but other than that it's fine. Umm, yea, the navigation widget isn't 100% copacetic while you're in the entry processing pages either, but you don't really need the navigation widget while doing the entry thing, but I'll fix it just because. And an important page is still missing.... Confused Rolling Eyes <sigh> While the contact me page doesn't work the way I want it to work, it works--it sends me an e-mail to the "wrong" address. That's something I guess. Smile


So Try It

You may make test entries to check how the webbification process works--then hit "Quit" on the second page.

You may go all the way through the process with a test entry--and leave me a note in the instructions box to ignore your entry. (the reset button on the third page doesn't actually do anything useful, I need to fix that)

You may go all the way through the process with your real entry--then enter it again as a replacement (everyone needs last-minute edits at some point in their writing career), and enter it again, and again, as long as you get your final in before the closing of the contest entry period. I'll sort them out.

During the judging period, authors are identified by number. So far, I've given Nadan (Anthony Tiger) author #1 and myself author #2. Who wants to be author #3? I generate the numbers manually based on story entry date.


Test Pages

I have a dataset for a "test" contest, instead of the real deal. There's a link at the bottom of the main page, or you can use this link:
http://www.anthrofiction.net/short_stories/index.php?contestID=test

The regular contest is:
http://www.anthrofiction.net/short_stories/index.php?contestID=2006_q1

The test contest puts fun "time travel" buttons on the pages and you can see how things morph depending on the period: pre-entry, judging, or results. I suppose I should code the first entry page so if it's using the test contest dataset, it will allow entries less than 1000 words. It would make it easier for you to play with the system.

On this site I will not be fiddling with the code--other than working on the completion of the judging forms or adding that missing page. For big stuff that can take pieces of the site down until I get chunks working again, I'll generate a second site and do my testing there, then roll all changes over in a few seconds. I'm at a point where I mustn't break what I have.


The Date

I will hold the date of the 20th. No more slipping. That's 23:59:59 Greenwich Mean Time, not six or seven hours later. My other server is a tier-two time server, so the server the Anthrofiction Network is hosted on is within about 1/10 of a second of absolute time (UTC) which is close enough to GMT (+/- 1 second).


The Prize

Still working on that. I'm thinking of something physical made of "found" objects, with a brass plaque. I have a tree I found several years ago--claro walnut, a west coast (California) black walnut with amazing colors--it's been through the lumber mill (years ago) and is waiting to be turned into a nice backing for object #2 and the brass thingy.

Last Friday I made a stab at finding object #2, but it was a miserable day--overcast with drizzle and then snowflakes started to come down (I was at about 9800 feet above sea level). So I'm crawling around on my hands and knees, in the damp, in the dank, without a jacket, and with snowy drizzle. Sad I did find a few things, but I got sulfide and not "sulfide". Confused Pooo!

The good news is I came into a bit of money (my cousin, God bless him), and I came into a part time job. So in June I should be able to afford the brass plaque thingy and a few bucks for shipping. If worse comes to worse, I can purchase object #2... <sigh> But where's the fun in that? Oh well, I have 38 days.


Thought you all would like to know.

Scotty

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No_Idea_What_I'm_Doing
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Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 136
Location: PR, La isla del encanto y de las calles malas

PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2006 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice work. If only I knew what was going on... I got lost back there. Is there a way to submit our final entries yet? Call me stupid, (no, seriously, call me stupid) but I don't understand what was said in those last posts. Things like:
ScottyDM wrote:
You may go all the way through the process with your real entry--then enter it again as a replacement (everyone needs last-minute edits at some point in their writing career), and enter it again, and again, as long as you get your final in before the closing of the contest entry period. I'll sort them out.

Have really confused me.

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