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DiMono
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Well folks, it seems that since we have a brand new Official Number for The Eighth, we should start making use of it in more general terms too. With that in mind, here is this month's official contest:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do some creative writing. Since pi is 3.14159etc, and since we've already done a contest that made good use of the part before the decimal point, this time we're going to make use of the second part of the number.

Rules of the Contest

1. Your entry must not contain more than 1,415.9 words.
2. Your entry must have a beginning, a middle, and an end
3. Your entry must contain Eighth-related puns. We encourage you to include lots of puns; as many puns as you can, short of ruining the entertainment value of your entry (because usually, too many puns is terrible).
4. Aside from the above restrictions, your submission can be in any form, and can be about anything at all. If you want to enter a series of Haiku that tells a story, that's fine. If you want to submit a mockumentary, go for it. If you just want to write some prose, that's fine too. Please though, no porn; this is the Internet, show some class.
5. You may enter up to 3 times. If you enter more than 3 times, only your most recent 3 will be used. All entries must be posted in the submission topic no later than Local Time:05-22-2011 at 10:00 PM.
6. Voting will take place from Local Time:05-23-2011 at 03:00 PM to Local Time:05-31-2011 at 10:00 PM, and will be based entirely upon how entertaining each entry is. It's a good ol' fashioned opinion vote, folks!

Prizes

First place winner gets any item of his/her choosing from the Prize Pile and 100 rank points. The second- and third-place runner-ups get 50 and 25 rank points, respectively. If the same person wins two prizes, they will take the higher ranking one and everyone else will be shuffled up.

Now, what did I miss...


Note: entries close and voting begins a day early on this one because I will be out of the Country and likely without Internet starting on the 24th, and I want to make sure I don't forget to put up the poll before I leave. If there is a problem with the polls or vote thread in that time, I will leave it in the capable hands of our marvelously talented admin team.

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[Last edited by DiMono at 05-09-2011 10:07 PM]
05-06-2011 at 08:14 PM
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Dischorran
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DiMono wrote:
1. Your entry must not contain more than 1,415.9 words.
But I was really counting on having another .026 of a word!

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05-06-2011 at 08:46 PM
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DiMono
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Dischorran wrote:
DiMono wrote:
1. Your entry must not contain more than 1,415.9 words.
But I was really counting on having another .026 of a word!
Sorry, in these economic times it's become necessary to round down.

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05-06-2011 at 08:48 PM
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Rat Man
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Is it okay to ask my brother for help with puns again like I did last time? I thought it might mot since this is actually pun-oriented.

Oh, and are all the contests gonna be about Pi until the end of this year?

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05-06-2011 at 09:35 PM
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skell
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Rat Man wrote:
Oh, and are all the contests gonna be about Pi until the end of this year?
Please YES! :D

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05-06-2011 at 10:03 PM
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DiMono
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Rat Man wrote:
Is it okay to ask my brother for help with puns again like I did last time? I thought it might mot since this is actually pun-oriented.
I'm going to leave this one up to public opinion. For all I know everyone submitting an entry has a team of professional writers helping them, and it's not like I can really stop you. However, if the general consensus is that people feel it will be more fair for everyone to work on their own, then I'm going to have to trust to the honour code.

Oh, and are all the contests gonna be about Pi until the end of this year?
I think this is as good a time as any to reveal my master plan. All the contests for the rest of the year will indeed be directly connected to one another, though pi will not necessarily be the connecting factor. This is an idea I had late last year, and those in charge seemed to like it, so for the rest of the year you get a whole bunch of related contests, culminating in ...well I don't want to spoil it. But it'll be AWESOME.

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05-06-2011 at 11:06 PM
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NiroZ
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Rat Man, whatever improves your entry, I say go for it. Provided your not spending money/other resources, I don't think its unfair.
05-07-2011 at 03:12 AM
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Rat Man
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In that case, I think I'll have my professional writer friend write it for me.

(Not really)

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05-07-2011 at 09:56 PM
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Rat Man
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DiMono wrote:
I think this is as good a time as any to reveal my master plan.
I didn't know you made the news, I thought you just reported it!

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05-07-2011 at 10:23 PM
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skell
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I know I am nitpicking, but there is no space between "May's" and "Official" in the news :)

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05-07-2011 at 11:08 PM
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Penwielder
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This sounds fun.

First, what format would you like that submitted in? PDF? Plain text? Along those lines, should the author's (screen)name appear under the title as it typically would, or is this going to be anonymous again?

Second, what do you mean by requiring us to have "a beginning, a middle, and an end?" If you mean it very generally, then that's hard not to do, provided there's a plot to begin with. Is this rule essentially just mandating the presence of a plot, or are you looking for something more specific?

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05-08-2011 at 01:48 PM
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Elfstone
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Penwielder wrote:
Along those lines, should the author's (screen)name appear under the title as it typically would, or is this going to be anonymous again?

Oh please let's keep the entries anonymous! Competitions are always so much better to be anonymous - avoids any concerns about bias in the judging/voting. :yes

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05-08-2011 at 04:26 PM
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Tim
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Elfstone wrote:
Oh please let's keep the entries anonymous! Competitions are always so much better to be anonymous - avoids any concerns about bias in the judging/voting. :yes
Does that really matter? I can't remember any writing contest that wasn't won by the same person.

PS. Note that this is not against that person, but since english is not my first language this contest is automatically not interesting to me.

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[Last edited by Tim at 05-08-2011 06:59 PM]
05-08-2011 at 06:51 PM
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Tahnan
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Tim wrote:
Elfstone wrote:
Oh please let's keep the entries anonymous! Competitions are always so much better to be anonymous - avoids any concerns about bias in the judging/voting. :yes
Does that really matter? I can't remember any writing contest that wasn't won by the same person.
How many writing contests have there been? I mean, I know I won a recent one, but I don't remember winning many other writing contests.

Oh, and while I'm here,

...Eight-related puns...

Is that "Eight-related" or "Eighth-related"? That is, related to the number eight, or related to world of the Eighth?
05-08-2011 at 08:47 PM
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Jatopian
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"Eighth", probably, since it's only one letter off and he capitalized it.

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05-08-2011 at 11:06 PM
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Rat Man
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DiMono wrote:
Now, what did I miss...
The letter 'H'! Oh, and if it has three words, it technically has a beginning, middle and end!

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05-09-2011 at 10:03 PM
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DiMono
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As always, entries should be kept anonymous. By beginning, middle and end I meant it should have a proper story structure. Remember, "For sale: baby slippers. Never worn." follows that guideline, so it's not like you're forced to submit something long. As for the format of the submissions (since you may submit up to three), I think as long as it's kept to just text so that the emphasis is on the words rather than the presentation, pdf is as good as plaintext.

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05-09-2011 at 10:10 PM
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skell
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DiMono wrote:
As for the format of the submissions (since you may submit up to three), I think as long as it's kept to just text so that the emphasis is on the words rather than the presentation, pdf is as good as plaintext.

I strongly advise kindly ask contestants to use plaintext. Not having to download any files is a godsend for some of us, lazy people ;).

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[Last edited by skell at 05-09-2011 10:39 PM]
05-09-2011 at 10:38 PM
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west.logan
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Good on anonymous.

Skell, if I post something, I was planning on using PDF myself because textual presentation is an artform as well...

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05-09-2011 at 10:53 PM
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skell
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west.logan wrote:
Skell, if I post something, I was planning on using PDF myself because textual presentation is an artform as well...

I won't be stopping you. But, while I agree with you, this is a writing contest and not a book preparing one. And I will be honest, in terms of downloading files I am lazy, especially that I have a really slow internet connection (really slow, 0.5MBit download) and, at least for me, not having to download something is a good thing.
I am not saying I won't participate in voting if I have to download files (unless I am too busy) but I suppose it is likely that more people will vote if all they have to do is uncover the secret tags :).
On the other hand, if all the entries were (optimized) PDFs, in one big zip, I wouldn't mind at all.

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05-09-2011 at 11:00 PM
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DiMono
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west.logan wrote:
Good on anonymous.

Skell, if I post something, I was planning on using PDF myself because textual presentation is an artform as well...
Which is exactly what I want to keep out of it.

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05-10-2011 at 01:42 AM
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west.logan
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So would you prefer plain text?

I'm talking about font choice, size, layout, not graphics or borders. Purely characters arranged as a mode of conveying the text's message.

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05-10-2011 at 01:53 PM
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DiMono
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Plaintext is my first choice. What I don't want to see is the font (size, family) being used as a tool, or colours in the text, or anything that could cause the presentation of the submission to unfairly influence the content of the submission; basically I want all the submissions on equal footing come judgment time. However, provided the pdf format isn't used as a tool to give your submission an edge, I'm okay with it.

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05-10-2011 at 02:10 PM
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west.logan
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Ah well, there goes my idea for using 78.54 characters per line (pi/4), 31.4pt headers, and 14.159pt text. ;)

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05-10-2011 at 02:30 PM
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Rat Man
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What do you mean by "plain text"? just typing it a a post or a .doc file?

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05-10-2011 at 04:36 PM
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west.logan
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Rat Man wrote:
What do you mean by "plain text"? just typing it a a post or a .doc file?

Pretty much unformatted text, like you'd copy from Notepad.

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05-10-2011 at 04:39 PM
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Rat Man
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Okay, thanks!

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05-10-2011 at 04:53 PM
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west.logan
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The items in the prize pile are quite tempting...

I've bought JtRH and TCB but TT looks quite enjoyable. It's worth a shot at least!

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05-12-2011 at 01:58 PM
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Rat Man
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Sadly, I will not be entering this one. I'm too busy writing something entirely unrelated.

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05-17-2011 at 09:50 PM
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Tahnan
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DiMono wrote:
Note: entries close and voting begins a day early on this one because I will be out of the Country and likely without Internet starting on the 24th, and I want to make sure I don't forget to put up the poll before I leave.
(Poke poke poke.)

If we haven't heard from DiMono soon, does someone who can access the submission topic want to post a poll, in case he forgot?
05-24-2011 at 04:26 AM
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