Hey!
I'm sending you this review because you asked for feedback about your new contest and I ended up having more feedback than expected. lol Well, I do love to give an opinion...
Anyway, here goes...
First, good job having all 3 genres filled out! Also, I see you listed Contest as one of those. Great! Definitely don't do that if it's a contest entry you are writing for someone and don't bother using Contest Entry as one of your genres because no one really searches for that when looking for something to read, even if what you wrote IS a contest entry. It's really a category that shouldn't hardly ever (if ever) be used. But good job with your genres here. I might not go with Writing, because to me, that suggestions perhaps info on writing rather than actually a written item since anything that's an item is almost always a written item. lol If the contest is always going to focus on mondegreens, I'd use Music as one of the genres, myself. Also, since these so often involve humor, you could use Comedy as one of your genres. But at least you filled all 3 in, which makes you a step above half the site, so well done!
You rated your contest E. I saw that both of you seem to be underaged, so good job not creating something you shouldn't be judging. But E is REALLY restrictive. Consider 13+? Not saying you HAVE to do that, but consider it. Also, list the rating in the rules, especially since it's not 18+.
I also really appreciate that you used a larger font. Smart! There are a lot of older adults on WdC and even some people with vision problems, so it's a good idea to use a larger font. I encourage people to at least use 3.5, but I tend to use 4, myself. Anyway, well done.
Are you sure a malapropism is when you HEAR something wrong? I'm pretty sure it's when someone SAYS something wrong.
This is a link that says a mondegreen is sort of the opposite of a malapropism and is when you hear it wrong, but that it often happens in music.
http://www.fun-with-words.com/malapropisms.html#:~...
Here's where it says saying it wrong is the malapropism.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malapro...
In your second sentence/paragraph, you put the period inside the quotation marks. In your third sentence/paragraph, you put it outside. Are you British or American? Because for Americans, the period always goes inside the quotation marks. (Question marks and exclamation points vary, depending on the usage.) Just making sure you're using it right if you're American.
Just so you know, 500 words or less isn't usually considered a short story. Depending on who you ask, it's either flash fiction or micro fiction. Here's a link that talks about the various lengths of things. Though that link leaves a gap between 500 and 1000 words. lol
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/word-count-gu...
I think here we consider anything below 1k flash fiction, but I've seen micro fiction thrown around and it's even the title of a couple of contests. But for here, either is probably acceptable. But I wouldn't use the term short story.
Also, in that bit where you are saying it's a short story and we can write whatever, that it can be funny or crazy or just plain weird, that is a run-on sentence--the last part, especially.
I would put the word "Rules" in bold, personally. But what you have isn't wrong.
The 1st couple of rules don't have periods, but the rest do.
Be sure to mention the max rating limit in the rules. Otherwise, you're definitely going to get some non-E (or even non-13-+, if you raise it) stories.
You say each round is 2 weeks, but I recommend also including the current deadline because we don't necessarily know when you started counting the 2 weeks. Maybe say that the rounds last 2 weeks, then immediately under, in bold, put something like "Deadline: July 15, 2023" or whatever. I do encourage you to include the year so that when a newbie runs into this, they know it's still active (or not) because they don't know all the clues like the last updated date in the lower right corner of the top part of an item.
When you talk about the entries being submitted as a b-item link, I can show you how to write that example so it's more clear. You literally use 2 sets of braces such as {{bitem:2109126}}. To show you those 2 sets, I created 3 sets. When you create 2 sets, the reader will see only 1 set because 1 set always disappears. See this 1 set of braces? {bitem:2109126} I created 2 sets to show them to you. (Also, you don't need the dash, in case you didn't know.) And consider using # instead of X as {bitem:#######} to help them understand it's numbers they should be including. And I would call it the item ID number and mention that it's 7-digit number at the top of their item, between the title and description. But that's how I'd do it.
Also, I see you aren't allowing book entries like from blogs and such. A lot of folks use books/blogs for writing their contest entries to save space in their port. I'm not saying you have to allow them, but most folks do. When the person creates their entry, they then use the 7-digit number in the upper right corner of that entry and create a link with {entry:#######}. If you use the number at the top, you link to the whole blog, not that specific page.
You say it's not necessary to write an entry in the timeframe of the round. Does that mean you allow late entries? I assume that means up until the judging, of course. But then, what if you are judging right now and just before you post the results, someone else posts an entry. So, before each time you post the winners, you'll double check the forum to make sure no one else has entered in the meantime? If that's what you mean, that's quite generous of you! If that's not what you mean, maybe rewrite that part because that's what I'd assume. lol And if you are going to allow late entries, perhaps say something about entering late at their own risk and that you don't announce when judging begins, but when it does, late entries will no longer be accepted. That way, if you get a late entry right before you announce the winners, you don't have to go back and rejudge. Just my opinion...but if you want to check the forum for late entries before you post winners, by all means, do so. That's very generous of you!
You have the word count as "under 500." Consider putting in bold below that something like, "Max word count 499." These types of things like the bold deadline and bold word count help new folks quickly see what they need to do.
You say that the entries will be disqualified if they exceed the word count, but you don't require one. Just so you know, different sites give different word counts. I think it's good that you don't require it. I once lost a contest when I was the only entry because they wanted the word count in 2 places and I only put it in one. But maybe state the site you'll be using for determining the word count? And are you going to test everything? Otherwise, a person can just lie. Not saying you need to. No one does...to my knowledge. But just asking questions here. You can also just leave that bit out because it's assumed you are disqualified if you don't follow the rules and one of the rules is a max word count of 499. Also, those 2 lines (over word count and wrong bitem link disqualify you) don't have a period. lol And this isn't something to necessarily put on the page, but if you are going to look at the page throughout the month, if you see someone who linked wrong, are you going to let them know or they're just on their own. It's something to think about. Newbies may link wrong (thus why it's important to have clear instructions on how to do it) and even those who know better will occasionally use a square bracket instead of a curly brace because their fingers weren't in sync. I'm not saying you have to call people's attention to it or help them if they are new, but it's something to think about. What are you going to do in that case?
I'd bold "Prizes."
WHOA! Those are some really good prizes! Are you able to afford that on a regular basis? Or is this contest not running regularly? If not, that's totally fine. But you make it sound like it will run every 2 weeks since you didn't say that it will run for 2 weeks once a month or every other month or whatever. So, if you run it every 2 weeks, that's 80,000 GPs in prizes (the GPs and awardicons together) if you only have a winner and 1 honorable mention. And if you run this twice a month, that's 160,000 GPs per month. Do you have that ability? If not, either back off the prizes (just GPs or just an awardicon is fine and don't mention a specific number of honorable mentions, only that they will be awarded at the judges discretion) or mention how often you plan to run it.
In your number of entries vs. number of honorable mentions, you have a period on the last one, but not the others. I'd say it's okay to leave that period off since they aren't really regular sentences.
I'd put "Judges" in bold and add a colon since you did with the other parts. Also, I do prefer the blank space between that headline and the info, so consider putting a blank space between "Rules" and the rules as well as "Prizes" and the info on prizes. Though I'm not sure you need to say, "The judges of this contest will be" because you just labeled that part as "Judges." lol Will both of you be judging? That's how it sounds. If not, or if sometimes yes and sometimes not, consider putting "and/or" and maybe something like "depending on the number of entries received" so you have some flexibility.
If you are running a round where for sure only 1 of you is judging, you should probably take off the other person's name. You can do that with hide tags {hide} Put text to be hidden in here {/hide} or with these type of hide tags... {-- Put text to be hidden in here --} Usually you use the hide /hide ones if you are hiding larger amounts of text, but in the case of just hiding a judge temporarily, the others might be more commonly used. Though it doesn't REALLY matter since we won't see what you used. lol
I really like that you used "user" instead of "suser" or "huser" tags for the judges so folks can see who is online if they have a question. Smart.
For "Donations," I'd also put that in bold and add a colon and a blank space between it and the info below.
I like the simplicity of the contest and rules. Good use of color. You can consider adding a GIF, if you want to make things a bit more interesting. I did a quick search and found {embed:giphy:26BRO4GNTxgD3jVwA} which creates
I'm not in love with it, but didn't care for the others...well, I did like 1, but it used the b-word, so you can't use that with the current E rating. But you can see what you find with different searches, if you want to use a GIF, but don't like that one. Click the black box on the far right of the list of buttons at the top of the text box. It's the one that has a colorful rectangle and is next to the smiley face button that lists all the emojis. Click that black button and then search a word or short phrase. I checked for both "malaprop" and "malapropism." They both yielded the same 4 options. Usually there are a lot more, but not for "malaprop." lol When you find one you like, click it and the code will appear above the GIFs, just below the search bar. Copy that, of course. lol
You are both newbies, so you're going to need to advertise in more creative ways. You have just 1 fan and your judge has only 6, but one is you, so really only 5. When you post on the Newsfeed, only people who have clicked your plus sign at least once will see your notes...unless they're on the Community Newsfeed, but since barely anyone gets on that, don't count on that option.
Ideally, you need more fans, but those are hard to get suddenly. I do encourage you to get on the Community Newsfeed and start socializing to make friends who will hopefully turn into fans eventually. To get there, click Newsfeed. It will take you to your Personal Newsfeed by default. This is where you only see people whose plus you have clicked and official WdC stuff. You have your Newsfeed rated as E, so you won't see too much. Consider changing it to 13+. You can do that in the settings or in the upper right corner of the Newsfeed, though I don't recall if that changes it permanently or not. I have mine set to 18+, but rarely see anything worse than 13+ and most is probably E. The problem is that even if the thing is actually an E post, you won't see it because you have your rating set to E, but they have theirs set higher by default, regardless of what that specific post should actually be rated. Does that make sense?
Anyway, when you get to your Personal Newsfeed, click "View the Community Newsfeed" on the top of your Personal Newsfeed. This will allow you to see what everyone is posting within your rating limit. (Double check what rating it's listing in the upper right corner as I'm not sure if it changes or reverts back or whatever if you switch to the other Newsfeed, but had just changed your rating limit.) Anyway, scroll, Like, comment, and start making friends. It takes time to make friends, but as you do, people will eventually start clicking your plus.
In the meantime, since right now, almost no one will see your Newsfeed notes, you need to find other ways to advertise. Consider clicking Community on the left side, then click Newsletters. Go to the Contests & Activities Newsletters and look for ones that talk about how to advertise. I know there have been several over time and I feel like 1 was within the last 6-8 months, but I might be wrong. Anyway, those can be useful for creative ways to advertise besides just posting on the Newsfeed. You can advertise by going to Community, then Contests and filling out the form there to get your contest listed. If you see the Newsfeed Highlights, at the bottom, it has a link for how to get added to that, but if you don't plan to run this regularly, that might be hard to plan for since you can't be guaranteed when your contest will be highlighted. I know there are other ways to advertise, including asking your fans to post on their Newsfeed, but I can't think of anything else right now. Like I said, check the Newsletters for ideas. Oh, you can add a link to your signature block (if you have a membership level that allows that--not sure what does and what doesn't). Check the membership info for that and/or Settings.
Well, overall, nice job! There are a few things that need to be just tightened up such as a period or colon here and no period or colon there. But overall, nice work. It's a fun idea for a contest! Do know that it's not easy to get entries, so don't get discouraged, especially since you're both so new. But the fact that this is asking for something short, that might help. Yes, there are plenty of folks here who think even 2k isn't enough words and refuse to enter contests because of word count limits, but many people are happy to enter a shorter contest and this short might find many people interested...if you can get them to know about the contest.
One thing you can do is when you are on the Community Newsfeed, when you see a person who is saying their bored or looking for a contest, you can link yours. If you see a person who posts like, "Read my new story I just wrote" but they don't include a link, teach them how to create a link using your contest as an example. Be sure to use the double braces so they can understand and explain where to find their item number. I tend to show both item and bitem links, myself.
I do hope you two find great success on here! If not, remember that your newness might be part of the problem and wait until you have a larger fan base. You can see how many fans you have by clicking the Fans tab along the top of your Portfolio. It's just after the Community tab. The fans are the ones who have double clicked your plus. Those are the best because you can see who is following you. If a person clicks only once, they set you as a favorite and you can't track them as favorites are private. Thus, I always encourage people to double click my plus. Fans see the megaphone. Favorites see the finger with the string in place of the plus, after clicking it. No pressure, but have you double clicked mine? Schnujo is Late to Lannister If you haven't, you don't have to, but I do pay all my new fans 10k GPs. Anyway, I definitely encourage you to work on making more fans. It's a long, slow process, but without fans, very few people see what you put on the Newsfeed.
Back to the contest, nice idea and good job with the plan. I like it and hope you get a lot of good entries! The prizes are definitely impressive! Just be sure you don't go broke if you are planning to run this repeatedly. You are definitely generous! |
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