Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

So I am hoping the ALL the entrants will be available for downloading after the contest is over.

That's normally what happens. And authors are supposed to keep them on the site for a set period (2 years?)

AJ

If you want to see how it works after the competition finishes, then simply head here https://storiesonline.net/contests and have a gander at previous competitions.

AJ

And authors are supposed to keep them on the site for a set period (2 years?)

Competition rules 8&9:

8: By participating in a contest, the author grants World Literature Publishing Co. the right to publish the contest entry on the site in the free area for a minimum of 2 years after the contest end date. (You retain all copyrights, but you are agreeing to keep your entry on the site for a minimum of 2 years.)

9: By participating in a contest, the author grants World Literature Publishing Co. exclusive right to publish winning entries in the site's premier area for a period of 6 months. Due to this rule, stories previously posted on other sites are ineligible to participate. After the six months exclusivity period, the author can publish the entry elsewhere.

EDIT: So after six months LonelyDad, the entries leave premier jail and become available to those with non paying premier status (like writers with content earned premier perks).

I don't participate in evaluating stories in a given contest because I believe it would not be fair for me to only read the ones that sound interesting to me, and any such action on my part would result in an unequal evaluation of ALL the contestants.

But my observation of previous SOL contests is that is how it works. People don't compare Story-A to Story-B like they would in the Clitorides where they vote for their top 3. People select a story that interests them and read it. I'm not even sure that the story being in the contest even makes a difference other than it's another criteria for choosing the story. So one contest story could have 1,000 reads and another 50. And then the reader decides if they want to score the story, just like any non-contest story they read. So one contest story could have 100 votes and another 5.

I believe it's actually the correct way to do it.

Why make a reader read a story they won't like or might even have one or more squicks? And would it be fair for that reader to compare those two stories? And how would you compare a much-sex story to a no-sex story or a 4,000 word story to a 40,000 word story? Or a rape/snuff story to a romance/tearjerker? A heterosexual story to a gay story? Allow the readers who like gay stories to read and score them without requiring those who don't like gay to read and score it.

The SOL model is based on what appeals to readers. Remember the old TPA score? Only the A (appeal) score applied to the SOL score. People should read what appeals to them and not be forced to read what doesn't. At the end of the contest, SOL simply tabulates which stories had the top 3 scores (Sort of like the Recent Top Stories for that category).