Hashing out contest details

[kailhofer]

Dan's approval for writing contests/challenges in his editorial seemed a bit tentative, but thank you anyway.

So let me start at the top. Has what is going to happen for contests been mostly planned out by the editorial board, and I should just be quiet and wait to see, or is it open for input from the rest of us?

Obviously, I have my own set of ideas on how I think it could work, and I can restate them all in one message for clarity's sake if it will help. I know Lee had a similar (but much shorter deadline) idea. I don't know if it requires a consensus from users (which we could poll), or a list of suggestions that the editors can pick one from and tell us to do that.

I don't wish to step on any toes, but I have been itching to try this for months. I have one all ready. All I think I'd need is a separate folder in which to post challenges and the polls to vote, unless you editor types would rather the challenge was located in the month's folder.

Let me know. I'd really like to help do this.

Nate

[doc]

I've been tentatively discussing a short story contest with someone in backchannels. Stay tuned.

[kailhofer]

Well, that's as clear as mud. Thanks.

I'll just be waiting.


Nate

[doc]

Nate, I'm sorry, but we tend to run on magazine time here. Aphelion isn't a real-time interactive project, and it probably never will be.

I know you're very impatient for things to happen, but you're just going to have to wait until we're ready to launch things.

[kailhofer]

Nate, I'm sorry, but we tend to run on magazine time here. Aphelion isn't a real-time interactive project, and it probably never will be.

I know you're very impatient for things to happen, but you're just going to have to wait until we're ready to launch things.

Considering that I'm the one who proposed this is the first place, have since brought it up numerous times in several threads, spent long hours debating openly ways that said contests could run (and proposed several compromises to objections both Robert and Dan posted), that I'm the one who sent separate messages to Dan and yourself asking permission to do it, and that I publicly volunteered to create a flash challenge complete with an example story each and every month, I think I've showed remarkable patience with the lack of action on it since it was proposed in November.

Magazine time or not, you didn't answer the question, at least not with that first post. What I was asking was if the challenges that Dan ok'd in his editorial (and said the details would need to be worked out in the near future) were something that people in the lettercol will have input on, or if it will be something dictated by the editorial board. Your answer was "I've been tentatively discussing a short story contest with someone in backchannels. Stay tuned."

I found your answer decidedly unclear. Did you mean to say such things have not been decided, that you're researching with someone ways in which contests could work, that your talking to someone about running said contests, or something else? What's a backchannel, again?

Your latest post seems to indicate that said challenges/contests will come from above. If so, well, I'll be disappointed, but at least I'd understand what was going on.

BTW, I think you are entirely wrong about the interactiveness of Aphelion. This forum is a real-time interactive facet of the greater, integrated whole that is Aphelion, especially now that you've added it to the new framework so well. Authors and readers interact over stories. People post interesting tidbits. Stubborn, declarative-statement-using people like you and me argue over parts and formats of the magazine. All this happens in real time.

Contests, as a part of their definition, are interactive. They are parallel marketing devices employed by organizations (like magazines) to attract additional participants (advertisers or in this case writers and readers), reinforce community participation (again, increasing circulation and submissions), and improve the skills of those who produce the raw materials, in this case stories, and thereby improving the quality of the product that is Aphelion.


Honestly, though, you seem quite threatened when someone who is not an editor suggests a change or improvement, and I don't mean just me. I respect that I am not an editor, and that you and your fellows work hard to produce this magazine. Please try to remember that we love this place too, and want to see it grow and thrive as well. While we do not invest money, our contributions are our own time, blood, sweat, and tears in our stories, which becomes Aphelion's raw materials. The better Aphelion does, the better exposure we get, and potentially, the more input we get on our stories. That is our pay in this equation, and I think it's safe to say we'd like more of it. Any author would.

The visible improvements so far have been fantastic, but appearances alone do not guarantee more readers. We'd like to help Aphelion grow. That's why people suggested updates to the look, flash challenges, etc. and the many professional marketing ideas from Gareth. None of these things are meant to show a lack of faith in any editor's abilities, but instead a desire to help improve this product so we ourselves benefit when our stories run.

So, gee whiz, we're just trying to help, too. Let us.

Nate

[doc]

To be honest, I misunderstood your question. To be fair, you're often impatient and irritable, which makes you unpleasant to deal with and as a result tends for me to keep you at arms length.

So, I offer you peace. I've been discussing the running of a traditional story contest of the likes we've run in the past. I hope we'll have some real news about that soon, maybe as soon as next issue.

I'm planning on adding a new section to the lettercol for just the sort of contest YOU were talking about, and I'll let you guys work that out.

Deal? :)

[kailhofer]

To be honest, I misunderstood your question. To be fair, you're often impatient and irritable, which makes you unpleasant to deal with and as a result tends for me to keep you at arms length.

So, I offer you peace. I've been discussing the running of a traditional story contest of the likes we've run in the past. I hope we'll have some real news about that soon, maybe as soon as next issue.

I'm planning on adding a new section to the lettercol for just the sort of contest YOU were talking about, and I'll let you guys work that out.

Deal? :)

Hmm. I was going for 'cold and driven'. Not sure how that 'irritable' got in there... How about we settle on 'damn hard to please"? :)

Deal.


Nate