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Brand New Contests Section!

Nate · 2011-05-21T10:04:01Z

Astute observers will notice a new link in the top navigation menu. Namely, a link titled 'Contests.' I've been working on the contests section for almost three weeks now. It's a huge undertaking designed to make contest management for creators and participants as easy as possible. So what does it do? For Participants Go to the contests forum, and it's difficult to tell which contests are open and which ones aren't. That's no longer the case. You can now see the contest deadline right on the contests index page, and those whose deadlines have expired won't appear at all on the contests index page. Submitting entries is also much easier. If the submission process is open, meaning you post the work in the forums first, then you just go and submit the topic id. Everything else is taken care of for you. If the submission process is closed, then there's a handy form that allows you to easily submit the work to the contest judges without dealing with private messages or e-mails. Moreover, once the contest is over and the judges have made their choices, all participants are notified. Of course, the winners get customized private messages, but I figure it's nice to know regardless of whether you win or not that the winners have been picked. There's also the new watchlist, which allows you to easily keep track of any contests you're interested in. For Contest Creators The real meat, though, of the new contests section is in how it helps creators. Instead of having a free-form contest creation process, everyone now must fill out a form. You're still allowed a lot of freedom of course; the form just ensures that you don't forget some important stuff (such as the deadline). The form also allows you to pick up to five judges to help you out with your contest. However, all contests now must go through an approval process. This process merely consists of a global moderator taking a look at your contest and deciding whether or not it should go through. That's not as bad as it may sound; all the moderator is really looking for is good grammar and that you wrote up a decent enough description. If your contest is rejected, then you're given as many opportunities as you need to get it right. So really, the approval process is just a way of making your contest as good as it can be. After the contest is approved, it goes to the contests index page where people can find it. Once people start submitting, you can view their entries from the View Entries page (accessible via your contest page), but there's not much left to do until the deadline comes up. Once the deadline arrives, you and all your judges get a PM letting you know that it's time to judge. At this time, when you go to the View Entries you'll notice that you can vote on first, second, and third place. Once you and your judges have made your picks, the contest system makes recommendations as to who takes what. If you don't like the recommendations, you can overrule it with your picks. Your also able to write a customized PM to each winner right from the View Entries page. If any of the above sounds complicated, don't worry: it's not. On each step of the way, there are prompts and notifications to help you out. The entire idea is to streamline contest management and to make it much easier. Entries are gathered all in one place, judges can make their picks without having to send you a PM, and you don't need to go through the bother of writing a PM to each winner. It really is incredibly simplified. But, not finished yet The section isn't entirely done yet. I still need to plug contests into the notifications area, and there's a few sorting tools to the index page that I want to add (such as allowing you to send only contests you've entered). However, it is pretty much done now. If you run into any bugs, please use the 'report a site bug' thread. As this is an incredibly complex addition to YWS, please expect bugs. With that said, have fun!

lilymoore

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Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:18 am

lilymoore says... · Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:18 am

Just figured I would mention this and I don't know if it's a bug or if it's just something that hasn't been gotten to yet but the list of contest on the right lead to nothingness and all of the links are:

Code: http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/contests/viewcontest.php?id=

Never forget who you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.

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Uh, Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don't have to think all the time. Just like that rainforest scare a few years back: our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn't they?
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Brand New Contests Section!

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