Board Thread:General Wiki Discussion/@comment-24101790-20150507225140

Lately we have noticed a bit of fatigue among the CP users with the recent slew of creepypasta contests. (Currently there are five+ contests going on and two were proposed last night, with a third in the works by this jerk and this saint for agreeing to help.) This has lead to a decision amongst the staff here to make a rule regarding contests. At this point, no contest is to begin/be posted in a blog without admin/bureaucrat approval first. Doing so without having approval will result in the blog being deleted.

Let’s start with the basics; we are not looking to discourage contests or community projects (quite the opposite actually). We want interesting contests to get the attention they deserve while discouraging contests that aren’t well-thought out or could result in stories that are hobbled by a difficult guideline that could result in spam pages or a troll pasta. It should be noted we are not saying you’re unable to rise to the challenge, but too difficult a concept may produce lower quality stories. (And thus the “write a creepypasta using only your nose to hit the keys” and the "no vowels allowed" challenges died before they even had the chance to begin.)

Why are we enforcing this new rule?

 * We have had a lot of contests crop up in the past few months and unfortunately some really interesting ones have been overlooked with the influx of contests (some of these contests have even been abandoned by the user who made them in the first place due to a lack of participation or interest).
 * There are also had a number of users participating in multiple contests at the same time and churning out low-quality stories due to being in too much of a rush to participate in multiple contests at the same time in the span of a week than to spend the time and effort each story needs to be well-written.
 * Finally a recent contest that was directed at breaking clichés has unfortunately resulted in accidentally encouraging users to post blacklisted content which have to be deleted and result in a person spending hours working on a story only to find out it is no longer allowed.

What are the benefits of needing approval before beginning a contest?

 * Surprisingly enough, there are quite a few benefits here. The first being that having an admin’s support will result in their assistance on the project and they can help with organizing, renaming, and mediating in issues. (For example, Blacknumber1’s contest was extremely successful in part due to the creation of categories and admin input to help deal with the sudden rush of stories.) This does not mean they will do all the work for you, but they will be able to lend a hand and make it a lot less chaotic.


 * This will also help draw attention to approved contests. The initial blog that has the rules and entries will be tagged “Staff Blogs” (by an admin) while the contest is in effect. (And removed after it is finished to prevent users from trying to jump in on contests long since completed.) This means that more people will be able to see it (as normal blogs tend to get buried under the steady flow of new blogs.) and participate.


 * Limiting the number of contests will also result in participants taking their time with their stories and increase overall entries. In fact, if a contest receives enough focus and produces quality stories, it could be possible that the winning story is featured on the main page for a while or maybe added to a special category where all the contest entries and winners are compiled. (Time will tell.)

How do I propose a contest?

 * Simply message an admin or bureaucrat with a contest proposal. This should contain the contest idea, rules, time limits, and rewards (if any) and they will respond with whether or not they approve/support it or not. Each proposal has to be considered by the admins so it may take a few days, please don't expect a response within minutes of making the proposal as we need time to discuss it and see how to best implement it. (For example, we may ask you to wait a bit if we have too many contests in effect or ask you to tweak a rule in some way like reducing a time limit from something excessive like a month or year.)

'''TL;DR: Contests now need admin approval before they can begin. Trying to slip a contest by without said approval will result in it being deleted.''' 