TotW Commentary Thread.

**Commissar Caligula_** · January 03, 2018, 05:57 PM

I've got a suggestion for the TotW Index of Winners.
Now I appreciate it'd be a

load of work, for potentially not that big of a payoff, but I'd suggest that instead of linking to the Winner's Thread AND the winner's user profile you instead link to the winner's post in that weeks' Submission thread. That way you only need to link once, you can still see who the winner is easily, and the other people who submitted that week aren't ignored. This way if someone wants to read old submissions they can read everyones rather than just the winners.

Since it'd be heaps of work to redo 268 Tales of the Week (plus all the other writing competitions), probably just do it going forward? Or redo TotW 251-268 and going forward.

Instead of...
Winner: TotW 268: Heavy Cruiser - CommodusIV

Do this...
Winner: TotW 268: Heavy Cruiser - CommodusIV

Thoughts?

**NorseThing** · January 03, 2018, 06:11 PM

A good idea.

I could volunteer if a partial redo is desired. It is not like volunteering for a suicide missions or other dangers. Of course to do a redo at least back a bit might be helpful. To go forward I am certain the current staff can do the job if the idea is acceptable.

**Dismounted Feudal Knight** · January 03, 2018, 06:23 PM

As a policy in the future it sounds quite economic. As something to do to all old entries, I'm not sure if it's quite as worthwhile, unless there was someone volunteering to do it, in which case, why say no.

**Owlparrot3** · January 03, 2018, 09:38 PM

So what kind of help exactly do you need .Does it require the use of coding??

**Commissar Caligula_** · January 03, 2018, 09:47 PM

Nah its just time consuming to find the original submissions thread and link it to the person who won.
I did about 120 weeks worth for the Screenshot Competitions a few months ago and its incredibly boring lols.

**Owlparrot3** · January 03, 2018, 10:20 PM

But why cant it just be done from now onwards .

**Commissar Caligula_** · January 03, 2018, 10:25 PM

Can and probably will.

**Owlparrot3** · January 03, 2018, 10:46 PM

And can i help in any way .Please ,please .
I dont know coding but outside coding i can help in any way .

**Dismounted Feudal Knight** · January 03, 2018, 11:00 PM

The 'coding' involved is a very elementary use of bbcode to link to a post. The difficulty only arises from hunting down each week, linking it and editing it in. Along the lines of the work I'm chipping in for a TES mod - not coding, not even hard, just something people don't want to do given sheer volume :p

**Caillagh de Bodemloze** · January 04, 2018, 08:03 AM

It's not a bad idea, Caligula, and I'll certainly ask the WS staff to discuss it.

I'd like to point out, though, that the other people who entered are never ignored. We catalogue every single entry, in full, in the TotW Story Archive. The list of winners in the Index helps us keep the figures in the Hall of Fame straight, and makes it easy to see if it's someone's first win, or sixth on the run, or something like that, in case it deserves extra comment. (It's also interesting in itself, of course.) The Archive is the full record of TotW contests.

Edited to add:
Thank you to everyone who offered help. Your offers are very kind, and we're very grateful. But, even if we decide to do this, the only people who have the necessary permissions to do the work involved are the WS staff. (Well, and Moderators and Hex, but they're busy doing other stuff, obviously.

)

**Commissar Caligula_** · January 04, 2018, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by Caillagh de Bodemloze

It's not a bad idea, Caligula, and I'll certainly ask the WS staff to discuss it.

I'd like to point out, though, that the other people who entered are never ignored. We catalogue every single entry, in full, in the TotW Story Archive. The list of winners in the Index helps us keep the figures in the Hall of Fame straight, and makes it easy to see if it's someone's first win, or sixth on the run, or something like that, in case it deserves extra comment. (It's also interesting in itself, of course.) The Archive is the full record of TotW contests.

Oh awesome, that's exactly what I was looking for.

**Owlparrot3** · January 05, 2018, 07:57 AM

Official notice -Having read Norse thing's entry for winter solstice totw and even repped him .
I will not participate in the same .

**NorseThing** · January 06, 2018, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by mad orc

Official notice -Having read Norse thing's entry for winter solstice totw and even repped him .
I will not participate in the same .

The contests work better with everyone joining in the fun!

**Dismounted Feudal Knight** · January 06, 2018, 11:31 PM

Indeed. It's rather dull if there are two contestants, and in my case, I simply posted because I wanted there to be more than a single entry >.>

**Commissar Caligula_** · January 06, 2018, 11:59 PM

Just wondering, how long do you guys usually spend on thinking of ideas, planning and actually writing your the TotW submissions?

**Owlparrot3** · January 07, 2018, 12:53 AM

The contests work better with everyone joining in the fun!

No i cant .There is a rule which doesnt allow me to .

**Axis Sunsoar** · January 07, 2018, 02:25 AM

Originally Posted by Caligula

Just wondering, how long do you guys usually spend on thinking of ideas, planning and actually writing your the TotW submissions?

When I enter TotW it is usually an off-the-cuff work which involves me opening the TotW page, copy-pasting the list of required words into a document, and writing a piece top-to-bottom. I tend to not edit extensively (except in order to achieve proper word length) and I try and just take the opportunity to stretch myself a little, e.g. writing a topic I wouldn't normally consider or picking a certain device to focus on.

Simply being forced to tell an entire story within the space of a few brief words is a substantial challenge for me, since I have a tendency to expound on the details of characters and scenes, so it serves as an excellent writing exercise. It is the sort of exercise one might create for themselves, but WS are kind enough to pick words for me so I try and take advantage of it to improve myself as a writer. The actual final work isn't so much the goal for me as the process of having created it.

**Dismounted Feudal Knight** · January 07, 2018, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Caligula

Just wondering, how long do you guys usually spend on thinking of ideas, planning and actually writing your the TotW submissions?

Spontaneous. I look at the words and the theme, dream up a perspective, and simply write from there, continuing until a point where I find it's long enough.

In other words, nothing like the other writing I do, which has no presence on this site as of yet. Dunno which angle, still, I would use for this site.

**NorseThing** · January 08, 2018, 05:31 PM

The amount of time spent may be small, but it is spread out over time as I keep fussing with edits. Mostly I just look at the contest and as already stated -- a bit of copy and paste and then to think. I know that I have a week or even more to fuss and think.