Ok, once again, I need you to answer as many of these questions as possible. This will help us make the contest easier for you.
And by participating you'll essentially be giving yourself a leg-up in this contest - you'll already know what to expect and we'll be giving you sneak peaks at potential article topics and sample entries.
Trust me, for the amount of money we're giving away to the winner, you won't want to miss this!
Questions:
Is there anything you’re wondering about?
Is there anything that I’ve said so far that seems confusing?
Is there anything you’d like to see before the contest to help you prepare?
How can we help you during the contest?
Should the contest be a writing "free for all" or should we narrow it down to a specific topic?
If you think it should be a specific topic jot down a few ideas and list them below.
Please complete these questions as soon as humanly possible!
We're looking to move fast here and the quicker you get back to us, the quicker we'll have something for you to test.
Thanks!
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8 comments:
Is there anything you’re wondering about?
- Will the voting be done via the 5 star system currently in place? If so, is there a way to see what the exact ranking will be, i.e., 4.375 out of 5?
- Shouldn't there be some sort of rule that anyone who submits an article cannot vote on any of the articles in the contest to avoid bad faith actions? Would this end up diluting the voting pool too much?
- Will the number of votes placed be taken into account? What happens if one article gets a rating of 5, but only 100 people rated it, while another article has a rating of 4.9, but 3500 people rated it?
I guess in general it all boils down to wanting a specific, detailed description of the voting process. :)
Is there anything that I’ve said so far that seems confusing?
No, I understand that a contest is being set up where people submit articles. The readership of The Tycoon Report will vote on the articles, and the winner will receive a large cash prize and an annual subscription to all Tycoon products. It's the details that I'm craving! :)
Is there anything you’d like to see before the contest to help you prepare?
Official rules. :) If there is a topic, what is it? What will the voting system be? Who will be in charge of tallying the votes and declaring the winner? Can I get my friends and family to come vote for my article? Can I set up a bunch of fake accounts to vote for myself? (Full Disclosure: I'm not really this devious! I am a software engineer, and I have to think of these kinds of things before the hackers do.)
How can we help you during the contest?
Participate. Vote, make comments on the articles, provide writing tips beforehand on what you did to make your best articles turn out to be your best ones.
Should the contest be a writing "free for all" or should we narrow it down to a specific topic?
Hard to say. In all honesty, it doesn't appear that you're getting a huge number of articles submitted yet. That being the case, a "free for all" would encourage more participation. On the other hand, the prize may cause more people to enter the contest, in which case it might be better to have a general topic.
In the end, the more articles you get, the more I'd like to have a variety in what I read, rather than 75 Masters theses on a more narrow topic. It will force the voters to really distinguish between giving an article a 4 star or 5 star ranking if they have to decide if the options article was more useful to them than the bonds article, for example.
If you think it should be a specific topic jot down a few ideas and list them below.
I think I just convinced myself that a "free for all" would be better! :)
This is a great idea. I suggest you give a target length for the article. Someone may write a paragraph and another send the manuscript of a book. I think you should keep the contest to fewer than 1000 words (at least! maybe even 300-500). The readers who grade the articles should have some minimal guidance on whether they are to grade on writing originality or content (or both). Suggest that content and information value should lead and elequence be a secondary element.
p.s. since we have a heads up, are beta testers eligible?
Why do we need a contest?
What's the subject of the contest?
How long will it take to complete the contest?
How much time will be available to complete the contest?
To the benefit/advantage of whom is the contest?
This sounds like an exciting contest.
Maybe the pot can be sweetened by offering a first, second and third place. This would give the non-professional writer a better chance.
Also, I'm sure it would be helpful if the writers had some access to an editor (Ben?). This would help the ordinary writer with a great idea and less great writing skills compete with a professional writer.
After seeing Maya with her Tycoon hat in today's newsletter, I thought it might be nice to give the writers a hat or t-shirt - good advertisement for you too.
Joseph had good point about the fairness of the voting. With a lot of cash and benefits on the line, it may very well attract the unscrupulous.
I've been thinking about the voting. If making it more "fair" becomes an issue, would it make sense to do something like "Dancing with the Stars" where you editors are the judges, and your votes count for 50% (or some other percentage larger than a single member's vote), and the membership votes count for the rest?
Not sure of the subjects to be judged, I've never been a big fan of such contests. But I think I understand. It would be nice to be better informed of the type of subjects we are to be judged on.
The main question in the writing contest is:
What subject are we going to write about? Anything about investing?
This is the first beta test that I have been involved with that did not have a clearly defined objective at the outset and a timeline with benchmarks. Maybe there was one and I am too dense to recognise it.
As far as a contest, I am already a winner because I am learning about investing and not "playing the market."
Thanks
Sam
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