  Contests & Activities
This week: Stay Flexible Edited by: Annette  
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Stay Flexible
How important is it to have rules, enforce them, and when is it necessary to be flexible?
For every activity and for every contest on this site, there are rules that the host makes up. There are some rules that should be set in stone and not tampered with, but there are aspects that can make it necessary to make changes. I am currently running a contest that asks members to submit stories about parenting. The contest started on Mother's Day and ends on Father's Day. I felt those dates were appropriate for a parenting contest. Once I opened the contest to submissions, I got some questions.
One of the rules was that I would only allow new stories. A member asked if it would be okay to submit an older story if it wasn't awarded yet. Hey, I'm not in the business of stifling creativity. So, I changed the rule to say that new and unawarded stories were welcomed in the contest. A few days later, I got another submission. Why, wouldn't you know it ... somebody decided to send an award to that story. What to do now? 
For a day, I really didn't know what to do. Then, it came to me. At the time that it had been submitted, that story did not have a ribbon. It is hardly the entrant's fault if his story is so good, another member feels the story deserves a ribbon. So, I posted that this particular story is still 100% eligible for the contest since the ribbon was awarded after the submission.
 As a possible entrant, you should never be afraid to either send a contest or activity host an email, or post your question in the forum.
Things that should not be questioned.
 Never ask a host to read in a genre they didn't ask for.
Never ask a host to read anything with a higher rating than their posted limits.
 Accept the judge's decisions.
Things that may be subject to change.
 You can always encourage a host to give out bigger prizes, especially when you send a gift point donation along.
 Some contests have to alter submission deadlines.
 Hosts want their activity or contest to thrive. Small changes, such as the ones in the example above, can be made at the host's discretion.
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A contest for short stories based on a list of prompts. This round's theme: Death through the eyes of Edvard Munch.
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Contests & Activities: May 30, 2012 Issue [#5067]
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