Ravished in a Flash 2.0 - The Flash Fiction Tournament is Back

[Blue]

Let's wait and see how many participants there will be.

In the first competition, there were duels where both authors received a lot of votes, but only the top vote-getter advanced, while others went straight to the next round without even having to fight.

How about this: the winner of each 1-on-1 duel is guaranteed to advance. And then "x" participants who received the highest scores in the evaluation also advance. We just need to figure out how to handle the rounds. With nine participants, for example, it becomes difficult. We could, for instance, have three competitions with three participants each. The winners of each competition would definitely advance to the next round, as would the person with the next highest score. Then we'd have an even number again to structure the quarterfinals and semifinals as before. I would find it a shame if talented authors were eliminated simply because they had one point less than their opponent, even though they themselves might have received ten more votes than the other round winners.

[Shocker]

@Claire sorry if I expressed my idea poorly, I would still keep the 1:1 competing teams, but my suggestion was to use the same prompt for all matches. Just like in a soccer tournament, were all teams are playing the same game, but have only one direct opponent.

[Claire]

@Shocker No need to apologize. So if two people drop out you would then just rematch the two lonely competitors? I'm mostly concerned with avoiding so many people advancing to the next round without competition like in the short story tournament.

[Shocker]

@Shocker No need to apologize. So if two people drop out you would then just rematch the two lonely competitors? I'm mostly concerned with avoiding so many people advancing to the next round without competition like in the short story tournament.

Yes that was the general idea, it also takes some pressure off you to come up with the themes.

As a writer I find it more enjoyable to measure up against somebody, than sailing through unopposed.

[Lucius]

@Shocker No need to apologize. So if two people drop out you would then just rematch the two lonely competitors? I'm mostly concerned with avoiding so many people advancing to the next round without competition like in the short story tournament.

Yes that was the general idea, it also takes some pressure off you to come up with the themes.

As a writer I find it more enjoyable to measure up against somebody, than sailing through unopposed.

I wasn't around for the first Flash contest, was it a problem then?

[AdmiralPiet]

I support @Shocker 's idea.

Also for another reason:
It is a contest, but if every pair has another theme, one could just have the bad luck of getting a theme that does not work for them, but another pair has just the right one.
There is always the risk of having a theme you are not good at, but I think it would level the playing field a bit, take pure chance a bit out of it.

[Lucius]

I support @Shocker 's idea.

Also for another reason:
It is a contest, but if every pair has another theme, one could just have the bad luck of getting a theme that does not work for them, but another pair has just the right one.
There is always the risk of having a theme you are not good at, but I think it would level the playing field a bit, take pure chance a bit out of it.

I like the aleatory component, yet having one theme is way easier for the contest runner.

[Claire]

Maybe I try to give a quick breakdown of the previous two tournaments so that everybody knows what we're talking about.

The first Ravished in a Flash had 7 contestants. We had a quarterfinal with 3 matches between 6 contestants and one contestant got a free pass to the semi-final. Other than lacking one contestant for a proper quarter-final everything went fine. All contestants handed in their stories on time. Each match had a different theme. With 3 quarterfinal, 2 semifinal, and 1 one final match we had 6 different themes for the contest.

The second tournament, Used and Abused, was for short stories and had 16 people sign up. In the first round, 4 people dropped out and one contestant handed in their story 5 days too late but was allowed to participate nevertheless. Then another... 3 I think dropped out in the quarterfinal. In the end, almost 50% of matches saw a contestant advance to the next round without any competition.

Now, let's talk about the different options we have.

1) We keep the contest as the original Ravished in a Flash because it worked the first time. But that model is very sensitive to people dropping out.

2) We go with @Shocker's suggestion and have the same theme for all matches. The 1 vs 1 model stays intact. If an even number of contestants drop out we can rematch contestants and still have everyone competing. If an uneven number drops out, one contestant advances without competition or we create one threeway match.

3) Every participant writes a story for the same theme and everybody competes against everybody. Half of the contestants with the highest ratings advance to the next round, the lower rated half drops out. So if for example 16 people sign up, then 8 would advance... If for example 4 people were to drop out, we either reduce the number of contestants that advance to (16-4)/2=6 or we still let 8 people advance and just count the 4 that dropped out as being in the last 4 places with -1 ratings.

@Shocker's suggestion keeps that 1 vs 1 duel spirit alive. Option 3 is the most robust to people dropping out and guarentees that there is always a competition. Option 3 is also more in line with what @Blue suggests. He essentially wants a lucky loser rule. The tournament model, of course, takes some of its charm from the fact that the two favorites to win the whole thing could meet early on and eliminate each other.

We could have a poll for these 3 options. I just don't know what the elimination method is called that I described in option 3. I think that's how 100m dashes operate, right? 8 people race against each other, 4 advance to the next round, 4 drop out?

[AdmiralPiet]

The 3rd Option is kinda like the Group-Phase at FIFA Worldcup where 2 Advance and 2 Drop out.

According to Wikipedia that Format is called round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament.
The other mode is elimination or knock-out tournament.

[RapeU]

I like option 2 the best, but wouldn't complain if we did option 3.