Perpetual Writing Contest Discussion

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Sat, 2006-02-25 05:27

njm2006

Perpetual Writing Contest Discussion

hi!

last week i posted a note about a $100 US perpetual writing contest:

http://www.lifeforchange.com/life

i'd like to address some of the comments you made.

Jack Cade: Sounds highly prone to rigging to me. And I fear the prospect of seeing cash sums paid out for crap stories voted for by idiots.

Response: before a payout is made, a full analysis is performed on the votes, including e-mail and IP addresses that made the votes. IP addresses are also examined for proxy servers. there are a number of other security measures in place, which you can read about on the Questions page. if there is any doubt as to the authenticity of the votes, no payout is made.

also there are some rules restraining the types of stories (nothing political, no erotica, etc.) that helps drive the quality of story. although there will be some poorly written stories, there is the notion that nobody will vote for them.

bobblehat2000: At worse, quite a few silly people will lose money and it will end with recriminations and increasingly desperate attempts to track down the true postal addresses of the people behind the site.

Response: to keep costs down, there are very few people involved with the project. further, there has been no financial investment; the project is completely self-sustaining. also, the postal address of the technical administrator for the website is easy enough to "track down" ... perform a "whois" query on the domain name.

mykle: Could be a crafty plan by statisticians, advertisers or simply publishers to cheaply find out what sort of things are popular :O)

Response: no crafty plan, no advertisers and no publishers are currently involved. the goal of the site is to provide funding to people who will put it to good use.

barely black francis: Personally I can't think of anything worse than being 'voted' on by a load of people. If I wanted that I'd go back on Pop Idol with another song.

Response: while true that some people may feel there is a negative stigma attached to having their story "voted" upon, at the moment there is no "bad" vote. there is a "junk" vote, but that is so that the site can self-regulate spam. consequently every "vote" is a good vote.

thank you for the encouraging feedback! i hope to read some of your stories online Life for Change soon!

-nancy

Sat, 2006-02-25 09:38

archergirl

The Brits are a cynical bunch. Takes getting used to.

Sat, 2006-02-25 11:15

Jack Cade

How is this project self-sustaining? Where does the money come from? "although there will be some poorly written stories, there is the notion that nobody will vote for them." This is a notion I find at odds with my experiences. After all, people will quite happily *pay* for poorly written stories.

Sat, 2006-02-25 19:36

(Reply to #3) #4

njm2006

hi, jack. From the website: Revenue comes from a number of sources, who have asked to remain anonymous. the site is working on the Law of Averages. that is to say, with a sufficient reader base the good stories will be voted to the top and the bad stories will not be voted for (relative to the good stories). keep in mind that the main goal of the site is not to award people for bad stories, but to reward people who have a story that shows they'll put the money to good use. in that context, i believe the site will be a success and "poorly written" stories will not be rewarded. also, consider that a story may be poorly written (grammatically), but the tale of woe experienced by the author could be heartwrenching. such a story could garner enough votes to win -- which would be terrific; the point of the site isn't necessarily to award the "best written" story, but the story with the best intent to help the life of a struggling author. thanks again for the comments, Jack! -nancy

Sun, 2006-02-26 02:16

(Reply to #4) #5

njm2006

hi, bobblehat2000. sorry to read that you are feeling skeptical about the website. given so much trash on the Web these days, i can understand your reaction. i believe the intent of the website is noble. and even though it does not have the funding to support 40 million people without health insurance, it does have the funding to provide $100 to people who share a worthy story. certainly that has some value. thanks again for your viewpoints. -nancy

Sat, 2006-02-25 19:58

Jack Cade

Am confused, Nancy: "...further, there has been no financial investment; the project is completely self-sustaining." "Revenue comes from a number of sources, who have asked to remain anonymous." These two statements can't both be true - for the project to be self-sustaining, it has to generate the money itself, rather than relying on input from other sources. Furthermore, these sources have surely, in providing your with revenue, made a financial investment? "the site is working on the Law of Averages." If you trust a Law of Averages, that's fine. My problem is that I don't. I have oddly specialist tastes (in the way I think most people do - hard to pin down, but definitely your own). Other people's opinions I trust are few. And things that are liked the most, on average, are very rarely the things I like the most. They are, very frequently, things I like the least. Look at it this way: story A is rated 6 by 3 people. None of them are really moved by it, but it's OK. Well written, decent idea. Story B is rated 9 by one person, and 4 by two others. The latter two dislike it, grudgingly conceding it has some merit. The other person thinks it's brilliant - really gets to them. Now, I think delighting one third of your readers is a pretty huge achievement for any story, in an age of very varied tastes. But by Law of Averages, story A wins. That's a gross simplification, of course, but I feel that's the way it goes, and I don't like it.

Sun, 2006-02-26 02:25

(Reply to #6) #7

njm2006

hi, jack. there is nothing inconsistent about those two paragraphs. relatively speaking, there has been no initial financial investment (aside from the obvious: domain name registration, and server hosting costs). think of the funding this way. imagine someone has left you five million dollars. you could live quite easily off half of the interest. with the other half of the interest you make, you give it away to a good cause. as long as you never give away more than half the interest you make, you should never run out of payouts. does that help answer your question? if not, i can provide you with a bit more information on how the "interest" is mapped to the "payout progress meter". the "life for change" site doesn't rate stories on a scale, which may be where some confusion is happening. if someone reads your story and likes it, they cast a vote for it. no rating. the more votes you receive, the greater the chance of winning a payout. it is this aspect that makes the "law of averages" a bit more viable, i think. thanks again! -nancy

Sun, 2006-02-26 18:59

(Reply to #7) #8

njm2006

hi, bobblehat. the "investment" analogy was an example to show how a website could be considered "self-sustaining"; it was not meant to be taken literally (hence the word "imagine"). but once again, i am limited to how much i can say due to requests for anonymity. i am not here to convince anyone to join, i initially posted the website thinking that some people might enjoy the concept and wish to participate. perhaps in the future you may change your mind. now in just over a week, the site has 40 stories, 160 accounts, and 70 unique visitors per day. i dare say that there are people who do enjoy the concept. i really wish i could be more helpful! -nancy

Sun, 2006-02-26 21:12

neilmc

Yeah, and I like to write erotica. And maybe a little political content from time to time. I'm not big on profanity but I reserve the right to use it occasionally for effect. Clearly, a "good" story will be one which offends nobody and anything provocative or in any way "edgy" will end up in the junk pile. Way too much censorship there for me, but as I earn more than the $40000 cut-off for deserving cases I wouldn't be considered anyway.

Sun, 2006-02-26 21:28

#10

Jack Cade

"he "investment" analogy was an example to show how a website could be considered "self-sustaining";" Nancy, I think you're missing the point. The site isn't self-sustaining. 'Self-sustaining' means it sustains itself, with no outside input. If the site uses money, but doesn't generate it, it simply can't be described as 'self-sustaining', and it's confusing to label it as such.

Sun, 2006-02-26 22:35

#11

njm2006

hi! probably my last post here. i want to thank you for critiquing some of the statements made throughout the website. the restrictions are in place so that the site can remain open to people of all ages. if this means stories cannot be as provocative or vulgar as you would like, feel free to post your text on any of the six million other websites, blogs, and message forums lurking about. if the restrictions are sufficient to prevent you from sharing your life story on the Life for Change website, so be it. yet if you believe your story would get enough votes to win a few bucks, then you are quite welcome to post it. or if you just want to have more people read your story, and don't care about winning or losing, then post it. the worst that happens is you don't get votes and you waste a few minutes of your life posting. the best is that you win $100 US. also, instead of besmirching the guidelines, consider sending your comments or questions to them directly: http://www.lifeforchange.com/life/contact.do -nancy

Mon, 2006-02-27 08:38

#12

camus

Ha...well, last weeks winner zoomed to the podium with 42 votes, I reckon if we all joined and took it in turns to post a story every week and voted en masse we could pay for the next abc night! (although of course according to dear Nancy you can beat the system) Wouldn't be cheating, cos let's face it most of the stuff on there is shite anyway!

Mon, 2006-02-27 08:39

#13

camus

hmmm....or even *can't*

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