SOTW Competition Guidelines & Rules

[Casanova]

Holding a contest:

(i) Guidelines
Guidelines threads are to be posted every Sunday. Only a member of staff may post a guidelines thread. Guidelines threads must include the following criteria:

• Theme
• Size Limit
• Rules on both transparency and animation
• Deadline for entry submission

Guidelines threads are to stay up for 7 days. At the end of that 7 days a voting thread will be made that is to contain all the entries made in accordance with the guidelines. The member of staff who posted the guidelines is the only one who can receive entries and the only one who can post a corresponding voting thread. Entries may only be handed in by way of Private Message. No entries will be accepted if submitted after the deadline set by a member of staff in the guidelines thread.

(ii) Voting
Voting threads are to be posted every Sunday. Only a member of staff may post a voting thread. All the entries that were received by the member of staff in accordance with the previous guidelines thread will be inserted into the voting thread and be available for selection in a public poll. The entry with the most votes after 7 days of voting will be the winning entry. Every time a voting thread is made, the corresponding guidelines thread will be archived to prevent confusion and clutter. Every week, a winning entry will be showcased at the bottom of the forum index, and the owner of the winning entry will receive +rep as a reward.

Note: A member of staff's guidelines thread will always open whilst another's voting thread is. Think of it as a constant rotation rather than a straight swap of weekly duties.

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Submitting an entry:

(i) Creating
Be sure to create your entry in accordance with the guidelines set by a member of staff in the guidelines thread. Entries that don't match the criteria set will be regretfully declined. Contestants may re-apply until their entries meet the criteria set, but only before the deadline is up.

(ii) Submitting
When hosting your image, we insist you use a hosting service that gives your submission a completely anonymous URL, to ensure that we have a fair and unbiased competition. Once hosted, your submission will then have to be sent by way of Private Message the the member of staff who posted the guidelines that your entry was made in accordance with. Only then can your submission be valid.

We recommend using www.tinypic.com for hosting, it's very fast and will assign a completely anonymous URL to your entry.

Please be sure to use "SOTW #[number] Entry" as the subject of your Private Message when you submit your entry to ensure that it doesn't get left out.

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The voting process:

(i) Contest creator voting
Members of staff are not permitted to vote in their own voting threads. This is to further ensure a fair contest.

(ii) Contestant voting
Contestants are allowed, but not forced to vote in a competition that they are a part of. However, voting for your own entry is not allowed and will result in disqualification.

(iii) General public voting
People who are not taking part in a competition, staff included, are encouraged to vote in any voting thread that they come across.

Disclaimer: All votes made in polls are shown publicly. The member of staff who created the poll will always know if you have voted for your own entry.

(iiii) Commenting
Whilst you are not forced to comment in voting threads, we wouldn't mind if you let everyone know what your opinions on the entries are, you're very welcome to do just that.

However, simply posting how none of the entries appeal to you, or general negative comments and flaming will not be tolerated and will be deleted. If you're going to comment, please be considerate of the entrants feelings and explain why an entry didn't appeal to you, or did appeal to you. Simply saying "it sucks" and such will not be tolerated and contributes nothing.

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Tie breaker:

(i) Secondary voting thread
If after 7 days of voting there is not a clear winner, then the member of staff responsible for creating the initial voting thread will create a secondary voting thread. The secondary voting thread will contain a public poll with the tied entries from the initial voting thread available for selection. All normal rules will apply for the secondary voting thread. The secondary voting thread will be open for 24 hours only.

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We reserve the right to change these rules, with or without warning.