This week: Status Check: Open, Closed, Abandoned? Edited by: GeminiGem of House Lannister  
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Hi there! I'm GeminiGem of House Lannister and I am your guest editor for this issue of the Contest & Activities newsletter. I brought along former U.S. President Richard Nixon with one of his more infamous quotes. Let's talk about making things perfectly clear! |
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STATUS CHECK: OPEN, CLOSED, OR ABANDONED?
This one's for the contest owners (and the would-be contest owners). Let's see if we can get your contest to attract loads of entries.
The following information can also be applied to challenges, fundraising activities (like raffles), and any other activities that you would like people's participation. I will be referring to contests just to keep things simple.
I like to see contests thrive. I'm not talking about just the ones I run, but all member-owned contests. Why, you ask? Because I think having a nice variety of contests open and running at any one time is great for the members of this site. It can motivate and inspire writers to do their thing. It even may push and stretch a writer to try things that are new or different. Any way you shake it, it involves writers WRITING. That includes me as, as well. The very first thing I put in my port as a brand-new WdC member was a short story written for a contest. I know, the audacity, right? Nobody told me it wasn't a good idea, so I just rolled with it.
I have looked at just about every contest on Writing.Com at one time or another. I keep a list of currently running contests, and do my best to keep it updated. This requires me to look at all the contests from time to time. I have to determine if the contest is still active and accepting entries, for instance. Right off the bat, we run into my very biggest pet peeve of ALL time. Believe it or not, it can be incredibly hard to tell if a contest or activity is open currently or not. If I find it to be a problem, you can bet that it is problem for potential entrants as well.
Why should you, the contest owner, care? Well, this small obstacle could cost you entries to your contest. You may never know it, though. Although some people will post with an inquiry if they are unsure, most people won't because the will assume it is probably closed or has been abandoned. They will just pass your contest by and you will be none the wiser.
Here's the thing. It really should be easy to determine at a quick glance that a contest is currently accepting entries. I would even venture to say that a person shouldn't have to open up your forum page to know the status of your contest. Don't make prospective entrants hunt for this information! If you make it as clear as possible that you are open for business, interested entrants will then open up your forum page and read more details with the confidence that they are looking at a contest that they could potentially enter.
If your contest is closed, people can still look at it if they are curious, but they won't feel like they wasted their time trying to determine if they could enter the contest at that time or not.
LIFE HAPPENS. I know this better than most. If you are unable to attend to a contest or activity you have running, take just a few moments on post something. One thing you can do is post a message and then "pin" it to the top of the message board so that is doesn't get buried if other people post. Let people know you are away temporarily and you will post again when you are able to attend to the activity. This is not a judgement in any way, shape or form. If communicating this information is too much, maybe drop a WdC friend a note and ask that they post something.
 HOT TIP #1
Put OPEN or CLOSED status right in the title or description line. If your contest is CLOSED but you know when you plan to run it again, put the re-open date on there so people know to watch for it later.
The open/closed information is in the title line.
The open/closed information is in the description line.
Okay, what if you put the information in one of the formats shown above, but the potential entrant somehow missed it? THAT'S OKAY. You are still going to make it easy to find the information in your forum. Again, don't make someone hunt for it. It does not have to be the first thing on your forum page, no, not at all. It should, however, be fairly close to the top. In ALL CAPS, BOLD (or an eye-catching image that says CONTEST DEADLINE), etc. to make it easy to spot.
HOT TIP #2
Use this countdown tracker to help keep your entrants on track. Here it is for coping and pasting pleasure. All you need to do is substitute your actual contest deadline date. Don't forget to change the year as well. When the dead line passes it will say "Countdown Expired."
{code:countdown('12/31/22 11:59p')}
looks like this: [Refresh to load countdown.]
HOT TIP #3
On the day your contest opens or the first day of a new round of your contest post, post a message that alerts people that you are ready for new entries for that round. I also recommend that you pin that message until you close the round, then unpin it. Here is a sample:
Contest open for December 2022 Entries.
YES. PUT THE YEAR as well. PLEASE. Again, I can't tell you how often I have researched a contest, and the information gives a month, but it had actually been abandoned a year earlier. This goes for in the body of the forum, especially.
HOT TIP #4
Even if your contest is "always open" and it says in the forum that each round starts on the first of every month and goes to the last day of every month, DO THE ABOVE HOT TIPS ANYWAY (especially Hot Tip #3). I run into this way too often with this situation. The owner assumes that the contest is self-running, and doesn't attend to the forum. If I go on the forum and see that there is no activity indicating anything is going on with the contest, I wonder...has the contest been abandoned? Should I even bother putting in the effort to write something if they aren't even willing to update their contest forum? If I do enter, will there be any other entrants? Am I wasting my time? You can bet that if that goes through my mind, it goes through the minds of other people considering your contest, too.
WARM TIP
If you are one of those contest owners that label their contest rounds by consecutive numbers, I'm about to give you something to think about. I "inherited" a contest that uses that system, and I decided to keep it as it was, so I count myself in this group.
If you have a notification in your forum that says something like, "Round 52 now open", that is good, but...it can still cause some confusion. In my vast research of contests (that I have been referring to over and over), I have seen this exact thing, but the contest was abandoned and never closed up. There were all sorts of messages asking if the contest was open. First all, don't abandon your contest. Close it officially. It is absolutely your right to do this! Second, put a date to that round. "Round 52 December 2022 is open". There, you've covered all your bases.
These are simple fixes that will take just a few seconds to do to make your contest or activity more accessible to potential entrants. Let's get those entries rolling into your contest.
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From my last Contest & Activities newsletter, "Keep Yourself In The Game"
QueenNormaJeanGreeneggs&vegham 
Thanks for this newsletter. As an encourager for the OctoPrep Challenge, it was disheartening to see writers get discouraged because they didn't understand all the rules before they started.
It can be frustrating, but I it see all the time. It isn't just on WdC, either. In my "real" job, I'm amazed how hard it is to get grown adult-type people to follow simple instructions.
StephBee - House Targaryen 
I was just thinking, maybe you could focus on activities? I usually try to make a poll, crossword, word search, and madlib for the RL newsletter. I wouldn't mind seeing a NL that focused on how the activities engage the community.
I will definitely keep that in mind for any upcoming C&A newsletters that I do! Thank you for the suggestion.
Beacon - House Night's Watch 
I do like Contests and learning more about them. There are many things that we can learn about writing. I would like to see, if you can have something for Proofreading. That would be interesting to know and learn.
I don't know if proofreading would be a subject I would cover in the Contests & Activities newsletter, but I'll keep it in mind in case I guest edit a different newsletter where that would be a good fit.
In the newsfeed for the issue "Keep Yourself In The Game" , I asked: Have you ever accidentally messed up when entering a contest? What rule did you break? Here is a selection of answers received.
From s 
Not including the word count in the body of the entry.
I do have to say, though, that sometimes I won't enter something because the rules are too complicated and involve some strange stuff. Making it hard might weed out some participants, but it also makes it feel like it's not worth the effort.
Yeah, the word count gets missed by LOTS of people. I have to agree about the complicated rules, as well. I have seen some activities that someone obviously put a lot of time and effort into developing, but the rules are so complex...I just can't.
From AmyJo- only 2 steps behind -
Having a well written poem, when calling for a short story. I just did this.
Oooops! That's a rather big boo-boo. You ended up writing a good poem out of the deal, though, so not all was lost!
From Writer_Mike 
1) Forgetting to include the word / line count, 2) exceeding the word / line count, 3) missing the entry deadline...need I go on?
Yep, the word on the streets is you're the entrant to keep an eye on, Mike. (Just kidding  )
From Kotaro
Editing after the deadline, though I don’t think I would have won or placed in that contest.
That can be a tricky one, especially if it takes a while for the contest to be judged. It actually gave me pause, though, as a contest owner, that there should be a time limit to that rule, like no editing for the two weeks after the contest deadline.
From THANKFUL SONALI 17 WDC YEARS! 
Yeah, once when entering 'Cramp', I didn't recall that the prompt was to be used as the title.
I entered the story with another title.
There were two entries that day. The judge said it would've been a tie but that I had to be disqualified so the other one won!
That's a bummer. That is why I personally re-read all of the rules one more time before I submit. It is easy to forget or miss something like that.
From Dave 
No rules broken, but I have had a couple of entries set on "PRIVATE."
I can't tell you how many times I have done that and have had entrants do that. It would be a really good reminder to add into the rules: DON'T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR ITEM OFF THE PRIVATE SETTING.
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Contests & Activities: December 07, 2022 Issue [#11690]
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