Winter Writing Contest 2014: Poll #1

Welcome, the first poll has arrived. The 16 submissions will be broken down into two polls of 8. The top three of each poll will go on to the third and final poll. The top two of the final poll will receive the benefit of winning the Reader's Choice and Runner-up awards. These groups were randomized on random.org.

The other judges and I will meet and suggest our top picks and analyze them very carefully amongst each other. We should have a winner for the Judge's Choice and Runner-up award about the time when the final poll ends, or shortly thereafter. We will also prepare a backup in case the public elect our choice. However, if the Reader's runner-up is our selection, they will still be the winner of the Judge's Choice award and the Reader's runner-up will move onto the next closest. If there is a tie...Well, there will be a tie. I'll see what I can do if that happens.

When you read each submission, if you have not already, please take a moment to stop when you finish and write the author a little note how and if you liked it or some constructive criticism they could benefit from. I know that if you are an author, you may want the same done for you. As a judge, I will withhold my comments until after the contest is over to those who request it. Happy reading, everyone.

Entries in this poll:

d(^_^)(^_^)d submitted Strike!

Chiligyro submitted Deception

Ryuuchamashi submitted Bittersweet

RavenxSinon submitted The Curse of My Kind

jwub4 submitted The Vivid Dreaming Soul of Mister

Nejik submitted Black Sheep

Dawn_of_Dark submitted “The pieces I lost for my puzzle"

leonard267 submitted Concerning Morality and (a Case Study of) the Human Life Cycle

I have not voted yet, but I assume it is bad sportmanship to vote for yourself, right? Since people might do so given the option. I would like a clarification of voting rules before I vote, and I assume I am not the only one. (I am still undecided, so no need to rush for my sake)

It is entirely acceptable for one to vote for themselves, and you may make that as known as you like. Since the vote is anonymous, not many will know beyond anyone who does it regardless.

The only action frowned upon is going to other areas of this forum or elsewhere to recruit votes for your entry, but even that isn't against the rules or worthy of disqualification. You'd just lose most people's respect.

Thank you for the clairification. I have no intentions of of doing anything unsportsmanlike, so I felt the need to ask.

May I ask when will be the deadline for voting? Because recently, my internet connection is what you could call "shitty" and as a result I have not yet read the works of some other people listed. And voting without properly examining each work is, for me, unacceptable.

It was stated just over the poll options.

Well that was embarassing, my ignorance is showing. Thank you very much!

I'm curious, though; how slow of an internet are we talking about here? I've used pretty dumb-tier internet before... like those 128 kb/s (5-9 kb/s DL speed). They'd take some time to load pages but still worked to open threads in Fakku for me.

Is yours slower than that?

Its on a suicide-inducing-no-connection tier *sobs*


On a side note, as of this moment its fixed! YAY

This poll has ended. As we can see with the results, RavenxSinon and Dawn_of_Dark are our winners of the first preliminary poll. However, the top three will go on to the finals poll, so leonard267 will join them. Congratulations!

OMG. I'm totally astounded to see my entry make it to the next round.

Congratulations to RavenxSinon and leonard267 as well.

Likewise. Congratulations to you and leonard267 too!

CONGRATULATIONS to all of you!

You all deserved it with all the astounding works you have submitted! I look forward to reading more works of yours!