[Report]Possible Trolling in Poetry Contest

[Schiltzberg]

I am the OP of the Fall of 2016 Poetry Contest, which has been stickied in the Arts & Fiction forum. To give a summary of the situation, a contestant, whose nation is Thranon had a question about why I (myself being a judge of the contest) judged her entry a certain way, and then a nation called The New World Oceania, who is not signed up for the contest as either a contestant or a judge, stepped in and went on a sort of rant about how everything in my contest is wrong, and he questioned the legitimacy of the contest, the legitimacy of the judges (especially me), and basically just has been a nuisance. The New World Oceania really has no right posting in my thread, since he is not signed up as either a contestant or a judge, so I see it as basically just spam and possibly trolling. I was wondering if the mods could help me out here, because I feel like if this goes on for much longer, my thread is going to collapse. Thank you. Here is a link to where incident originally started: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=393721&p=30550082&sid=5721da176a722e84e8a7117625645cb3#p30550082

[The New World Oceania]

Firstly, she, as indicated in my sig.

Secondly, criticism is an integral part of A&F. I am trying to get you to realize where you can improve. If you're going to refuse to follow the same standards as every other writing contest we've had in the past, it shouldn't be stickied.

[Mergloria]

Trolling my ass.

[Schiltzberg]

Firstly, she, as indicated in my sig.

Secondly, criticism is an integral part of A&F. I am trying to get you to realize where you can improve. If you're going to refuse to follow the same standards as every other writing contest we've had in the past, it shouldn't be stickied.

Let's let the moderators and administrators have a chance to make a decision. Edit: and I'm sorry that I called you by the wrong gender. I didn't notice your sig.

[Frisbeeteria]

I'm going to leave this open for the mod who stickied the thread to respond, but this is a valid point: I'm also not clear as to why a stickied thread should be closed.

If you're going to refuse to follow the same standards as every other writing contest we've had in the past, it shouldn't be stickied.

This, on the other hand is easier.

Trolling my ass.

*** Warned for spamming Moderation *** Your opinion was both obnoxious and irrelevant. Don't post here unless you're a party to the complaint.

[Schiltzberg]

I'm also not clear as to why a stickied thread should be closed.

It is closed to new entries, since it is now time for the judging of the contest.

[The New World Oceania]

Regardless of the decision here — I have no intention to belabor the point in the thread any further, of course, since I'll admit it's a petty argument I shouldn't have started in that thread in the first place — when USS Monitor gets on we should (in the Writing Discussion, probably) set out guidelines for what contests are going to be stickied. Not every writing contest can be stickied and making it clear what an official contest should look like will prevent this in the future.

[Schiltzberg]

Regardless of the decision here — I have no intention to belabor the point in the thread any further, of course, since I'll admit it's a petty argument I shouldn't have started in that thread in the first place — when USS Monitor gets on we should (in the Writing Discussion, probably) set out guidelines for what contests are going to be stickied. Not every writing contest can be stickied and making it clear what an official contest should look like will prevent this in the future.

I modeled this contest exactly after the short story contests of the past, except for poetry instead of short stories. I do not understand what guidelines I have not followed. You never clarified that.

[The New World Oceania]

Regardless of the decision here — I have no intention to belabor the point in the thread any further, of course, since I'll admit it's a petty argument I shouldn't have started in that thread in the first place — when USS Monitor gets on we should (in the Writing Discussion, probably) set out guidelines for what contests are going to be stickied. Not every writing contest can be stickied and making it clear what an official contest should look like will prevent this in the future.

I modeled this contest exactly after the short story contests of the past, except for poetry instead of short stories. I do not understand what guidelines I have not followed. You never clarified that.

We've never required stories be written in the short time frame between the start of the contest and the beginning of the judging period, firstly, only that they hadn't been published before. What's more important, though, is that you're asking for a very specific and formal kind of poetry, taking extensive precautions to limit the range of acceptable work, when the most a short story contest has ever done is set a general theme.

Really, you should have just run the idea through the Writing Discussion. All of these issues could have been resolved from the start with community input, and that is the root of it — if it's not a community contest, it just shouldn't be official.

[Schiltzberg]

I modeled this contest exactly after the short story contests of the past, except for poetry instead of short stories. I do not understand what guidelines I have not followed. You never clarified that.

We've never required stories be written in the short time frame between the start of the contest and the beginning of the judging period, firstly, only that they hadn't been published before. What's more important, though, is that you're asking for a very specific and formal kind of poetry, taking extensive precautions to limit the range of acceptable work, when the most a short story contest has ever done is set a general theme.

Really, you should have just run the idea through the Writing Discussion. All of these issues could have been resolved from the start with community input, and that is the root of it — if it's not a community contest, it just shouldn't be official.

I don't mean to be a bother again, and maybe I should have gone through the Writing Discussion before making this thread, but you also have to understand that I never expected it to get stickied. I thought that maybe five or six people would sign up, and me and two of my friends would judge it, so I never really considered making a big deal about it before I posted the OP. I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding between us.

[Farnhamia]

Firstly, she, as indicated in my sig.

Secondly, criticism is an integral part of A&F. I am trying to get you to realize where you can improve. If you're going to refuse to follow the same standards as every other writing contest we've had in the past, it shouldn't be stickied.

You've expressed your opinion. Since you don't care to be a part of the contest, knock it off.

viewtopic.php?p=30554966#p30554966

[USS Monitor]

I went ahead and unstickied this, since the deadline for entries is past. The primary reason for the sticky was to make it visible to potential contestants while entries were open.

As to the dispute between Schiltzberg and NWO, I don't think this contest was terribly different from the old short story contests, and I'm not sure why it sparked this argument.