Next contest?

There was an interesting comment to one of the earlier posts, and since comments don't display very obviously on blogspot, I'm posting and replying here.  Here it is: 

the_desertpunk
December 10, 2012 5:16 PM
Does this contest have to be a one time thing? Why not make it either an annual or semi-annual. Could even make it more challenging by giving say more Specifications such as: write a comedy in New Eden, or write a story that includes the following subject. Keep the categories you have as free form and then maybe include some theme categories. Up to you, its all food for thought. But would like to see this contest happen again and soon. In a perfect world I'd like to see it be Quarterly, but I'd be happy with a Semi-annual. For a semi-annual I'd be more than happy to kick in isk prizes.
Ren K.

I suppose the only considerations on the timing of contests are:

a) Do people still have enough stories in them, so that they're ready to write for a new contest? 
I think the answer to that is 'definitely.'  In the five weeks or so that this contest was open, we got 101 stories from about 90 different people.  Good stories with good writing, so it didn't seem like people struggled a lot to write and create stories.  And some people were able to create 2-6 stories in the five weeks.  So to me, it seems like there's enough writing energy out there for another contest in 3-6 months.

b) Would there be sponsors and prizes available for a new contest?
Practically speaking, to have another one with this level of prizes, we’d need “official” sponsorship.  In other words, EON or CCP would have to participate again, to some degree.  I doubt that “private” (corporation/alliance) isk and PLEX donors would donate at the same level without that.  It didn’t occur to me when I was approaching sponsors, but there could be a lot of opportunity for cheap grifting with a contest with donate prizes.  
-Get donations; 
-Have yourself and alts/friends do the judging; 
-Make your alts'/friends' entries the winners; 
-Split the proceeds among the scamming participants.  
Not an especially brilliant or sophisticate scam.  But apparently corps/alliances that handle lots of isk get propositioned with these kinds of schemes all the time.  So to gather a pool of prizes the size we had this time, 'official' endorsement seems pretty key.  Without it, potential sponsors just have to trust you at your word.  Would you or I do that, in EVE...?   

The point is, another contest with prizes of this size would probably need some official endorsement/participation.  We're still judging this one, but who knows, when this is finalized, the big guys might have ideas of their own for a next thing.

In the meantime, we or our our corps or alliances can sponsor smaller contests of our own.
Daelmaron Fyresong's new contest is an example of that, and it's currently running.   Daelmaron says he plans to do them on a monthly basis.   o7 Daelmaron!

In any event, once this contest is finalized and everybody is docked up and reorganized, I intend to check the weather for when a next one might be workable.  And at the same time, thinking about a way to get the current for the current group of stories shared, read, and discussed among the community.  Not every entry can win a prize, but they all deserve a reading and some feedback.


Finally, I like the_desertpunk's idea of having some theme subcategories.  This time around, I was mightily tempted to make a DUST 514 subcategory, non-capsuleer/planetary fiction only subcategory, and a separate humor category.  But for this first time, I decided to just leave it free form for people to write whatever came to them.  Next time, there are all kinds of interesting things we can do.  

Any thoughts on any of this, please leave a comment and/or reply to other comments.
o7