Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf

For more information, including the rules and contest calendar, please see the Top Sims Contest website. *Note* If you're submitting a sim, please use the name of the author's primary character -- not the "NPC" name, if applicable. Important Dates: - Round 11 Submission period opens: Mo 06-23 - Round 11 Submission period closes: Su 07-06 - Round 11 Voting period opens: Mo 07-07 - Round 11 Voting period closes: Su 07-20 Procedure: 1. Submit sims (from your ship, or another ship -- all sims welcome, member or staff) 2. Rate sims you see in this forum 3. Vote on sims submitted in the last round Notes: - Please find a balance between "too much" and "too little" on the submission end of this contest. Don't submit every post from your crew. But I DO encourage everyone to submit at least one post to the contest whenever they can. Last week there were approximately 300 sims in the fleet - an average of 40 a day. I would expect no more than five or six a day to be considered "Top Sim" contest worthy. - REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. We welcome submissions of your crewmate's sims, but ALL sims should be rated based on their MERIT, and NOT the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew. - Want your crewmates to win more? Nominate only the best sims, and encourage higher quality sims!

Please use this thread for any general discussion or questions about the Top Sims Contest. Please do not post praise or criticism for submitted sims in this thread. Instead, post those praise or criticisms in the submitted sim's own thread. Any discussion about Round 10 should go in the Round 10 Discussion Thread, not here.

"The Wedding" by Idril Mar, Danny Wilde, and "friends" wins this round. Their sim will now be entered into the final round of the year for the chance at the title of Top Sim, 2008. Congratulations to them!

No sims were disqualified due to low rating. This round of voting only qualifies one sim to be part of the final round of voting for the title of "Top Sim, 2008." REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. Vote based on MERIT, not the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew. ... Ronin's going to be hard to beat this round, considering the fact that they were almost the only crew who submitted anything. I wonder if anyone's going to publicize the contest to their crew a little more, this round?

For more information, including the rules and contest calendar, please see the Top Sims Contest website. *Note* If you're submitting a sim, please use the name of the author's primary character -- not the "NPC" name, if applicable. Important Dates: - Round 10 Submission period opens: Mo 06-09 - Round 10 Submission period closes: Su 06-22 - Round 10 Voting period opens: Mo 06-23 - Round 10 Voting period closes: Su 07-06 Procedure: 1. Submit sims (from your ship, or another ship -- all sims welcome, member or staff) 2. Rate sims you see in this forum 3. Vote on sims submitted in the last round Notes: - Please find a balance between "too much" and "too little" on the submission end of this contest. Don't submit every post from your crew. But I DO encourage everyone to submit at least one post to the contest whenever they can. Last week there were approximately 300 sims in the fleet - an average of 40 a day. I would expect no more than five or six a day to be considered "Top Sim" contest worthy. - REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. We welcome submissions of your crewmate's sims, but ALL sims should be rated based on their MERIT, and NOT the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew. - Want your crewmates to win more? Nominate only the best sims, and encourage higher quality sims!

Please use this thread for any general discussion or questions about the Top Sims Contest. Please do not post praise or criticism for submitted sims in this thread. Instead, post those praise or criticisms in the submitted sim's own thread. Any discussion about Round 9 should go in the Round 9 Discussion Thread, not here.

"Beneath the Surface" by Jackford Kolk & Karynn Ehlanii wins this round. Their sim will now be entered into the final round of the year for the chance at the title of Top Sim, 2008. Congratulations to the both of them!

No sims were disqualified due to low rating. This round of voting only qualifies one sim to be part of the final round of voting for the title of "Top Sim, 2008." REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. Vote based on MERIT, not the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew.

For more information, including the rules and contest calendar, please see the Top Sims Contest website. *Note* If you're submitting a sim, please use the name of the author's primary character -- not the "NPC" name, if applicable. Important Dates: - Round 9 Submission period opens: Mo 05-26 - Round 9 Submission period closes: Su 06-08 - Round 9 Voting period opens: Mo 06-09 - Round 9 Voting period closes: Su 06-22 Procedure: 1. Submit sims (from your ship, or another ship -- all sims welcome, member or staff) 2. Rate sims you see in this forum 3. Vote on sims submitted in the last round Notes: - Please find a balance between "too much" and "too little" on the submission end of this contest. Don't submit every post from your crew. But I DO encourage everyone to submit at least one post to the contest whenever they can. Last week there were approximately 300 sims in the fleet - an average of 40 a day. I would expect no more than five or six a day to be considered "Top Sim" contest worthy. - REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. We welcome submissions of your crewmate's sims, but ALL sims should be rated based on their MERIT, and NOT the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew. - Want your crewmates to win more? Nominate only the best sims, and encourage higher quality sims!

Please use this thread for any general discussion or questions about the Top Sims Contest. Please do not post praise or criticism for submitted sims in this thread. Instead, post those praise or criticisms in the submitted sim's own thread. Any discussion about Round 8 should go in the Round 8 Discussion Thread, not here.

Weird -- looks like I never declared this one. Anyway, here goes: "Murder Ballad": Danny Wilde as "Synak" and Jhen Thelev as "Tor Jolan" wins this round. Their sim will now be entered into the final round of the year for the chance at the title of Top Sim, 2008. Congratulations to the both of them!

In defiance to opposition, "It's Not All Great Being Engaged" by Heath West & Toni Turner wins this round. Their sim will now be entered into the final round of the year for the chance at the title of Top Sim, 2008. Congratulations to the both of them!

And this seems to be the essential sticking point. It's frowned-on by some, in direct opposition to the stated rules of the competition. The rules are very clear: self-nomination is allowed. Again: the point of the competition is to find the best sim of the month/year. The ability to recognize others for their work is a part of the competition, no-doubt. But that's not the primary goal. If it were the primary goal, I'd remove the ability to self-nominate. I'm certainly not forcing anyone to participate. If you want to boycott, then by all means: stamp your feet, raise a fuss, and don't play along. You, and your shipmates, will be the worse-off for it. But when the submissions slow to a trickle because everyone's just being stubborn, I'll just go ahead and shut the competition down. Believe me -- it's no sweat off my back. Takes me 30+ minutes every two weeks to organize this particular competition, and I've certainly got plenty of other things to do on a regular basis. I do it happily because I want to encourage people to have their sims, and the sims of their peers, recognized. But I'm not going to beg and plead for everyone to follow the rules. So, it seems that we have quandary: either we talk about a suitable compromise to allow everyone to submit sims as they have been, or we move to a blind nomination form.

I'll have to think on this. We may need to go back to a system where sims are submitted via a form and then posted here. I think it's a bit distasteful that people are 'disqualifying' sims on their own accord simply because of who submitted them. It's not in the spirit of the contest. Update: there are dozens of competitive situations that come to mind where people self-nominate. College applications, sports, jobs, etc. We don't rely on someone to be nominated by their peers just to get a new job, so why must we rely on such a thing here?

Why not simply judge the sims on their merit, instead of who nominated them? The purpose of the contest is to find the best sim for each month/year. Being able to recognize others for their work is a nice by-product, which I've clearly publicized and pushed, but you can see by reading the contest materials that it's not necessarily the only intent of the contest.

For more information, including the rules and contest calendar, please see the Top Sims Contest website. *Note* If you're submitting a sim, please use the name of the author's primary character -- not the "NPC" name, if applicable. Important Dates: - Round 8 Submission period opens: Mo 05-26 - Round 8 Submission period closes: Su 06-08 - Round 8 Voting period opens: Mo 06-09 - Round 8 Voting period closes: Su 06-22 Procedure: 1. Submit sims (from your ship, or another ship -- all sims welcome, member or staff) 2. Rate sims you see in this forum 3. Vote on sims submitted in the last round Notes: - Please find a balance between "too much" and "too little" on the submission end of this contest. Don't submit every post from your crew. But I DO encourage everyone to submit at least one post to the contest whenever they can. Last week there were approximately 300 sims in the fleet - an average of 40 a day. I would expect no more than five or six a day to be considered "Top Sim" contest worthy. - REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. We welcome submissions of your crewmate's sims, but ALL sims should be rated based on their MERIT, and NOT the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew. - Want your crewmates to win more? Nominate only the best sims, and encourage higher quality sims!

Please use this thread for any general discussion or questions about the Top Sims Contest. Please do not post praise or criticism for submitted sims in this thread. Instead, post those praise or criticisms in the submitted sim's own thread. Any discussion about Round 7 should go in the Round 7 Discussion Thread, not here.

No sims were disqualified due to low rating. This round of voting only qualifies one sim to be part of the final round of voting for the title of "Top Sim, 2008." REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. Vote based on MERIT, not the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew.

Guidelines: To participate, create a new thread. The subject of the thread must be the title of your story. If it is a Work In Progress, denote that with the heart post icon. If your work is complete, use the horizontal arrow post icon. Items not marked with an icon or marked with the WiP icon will not be considered for judging and will be moved to the "Character Cafe" forum at the end of the contest. Your work must be entirely your own. No co-authoring. You are welcome to create any character you so desire, but they must be from the Star Trek universe. No "canon" characters allowed. (i.e.- No one who has been on a show.) Want to participate, but can't start a new topic? Why didn't you view the "Read Me First!" forum? You'll need to ask a moderator or Senior Member to create a thread for you! Length: No more than 3000 words accepted. Beginning Date: Wed., May 14th Ending Date: Sun., June 22nd See Also: the Writing Challenge Website Challenge: "Hospitality" Good Luck!

Please use this thread for any discussion or questions about this writing challenge.

Congratulations to Jhen Thelev, winner of this round with his story "Each to Their Own." Final reviews are coming in over the next few days. Banners will be posted within a week. Next challenge will also be announced within a week. Thanks again everyone -- great job!

Obviously, due to the website issues in the past few days, the challenge results will be delayed. Thank you for your patience!

This thread is ONLY for moderators to post their feedback as they write it. All other posts will be DELETED. Remember: you are under no obligation to accept or follow the feedback provided. It is only provided as a courtesy to challenge participants, and only reflects the personal opinion of the person writing it. If you don't like the feedback, we don't want to hear about it -- just close the thread and move on.

Wonder who that would apply to? Doesn't matter when it was posted to the sim list, but when it was posted here. You posted this sim after the cutoff for round 5, so it'll be in round 6

No sims were disqualified due to low rating. This round of voting only qualifies one sim to be part of the final round of voting for the title of "Top Sim, 2008." REMEMBER: This is NOT a popularity contest. Vote based on MERIT, not the fact that someone is your crewmate. Any crews found "stuffing the ballots" or ratings, will be disqualified PERMANENTLY - yes, that means the whole crew.