This was the very first PTB event that I participated in. I did enjoy it.

I can understand the rant but at the same time I can't say it is anyone's fault really. Here is why: The districts at the time of the event weren't evenly populated. We had a method where small HQs were the only ones permitted in some cities. So those would have been hard with such small populations.

I think for some families they had names of people that said they were interested and it just fell through. Maybe things came up or what not.

At the end of the day though I don't believe it to be your fault in any way. It is an event that you would think most people that are on the streets could get interested in.  I know I did take a bit of a peek at some of the stories, not all as I am easily distracted.

Thank you for having the event and it is a shame to see that it will no longer be happening.

The five people thing is obviously thoroughly depressing, so much that I have a hard time even believing it. Personally, I found many of the entries entertaining. Does this mean that 5 people viewed all the threads? That five people viewed some of them? I assume this discounts all the people from inside the district who were reading them? Reading all of them is a pretty big time commitment; I wouldn't be shocked if people were waiting to see who the winners were before picking the top three or so. 

I also don't see how a lack of audience suddenly invalidates the competition as it was laid out.

This game was founded on the art of storytelling, this is a skill that I really look forward to heavily rewarding.

Didn't storytelling take place? Isn't someone playing an instrument in a nearly empty club just as much of a musician as someone playing a packed stadium, despite all the other differences between them?

Who cares how many people read it? I've probably written a goddamn novel's worth of words on this site in the past year, never mind my previous run in years past. Some of my threads get lots of compliments. Others have been literally ignored by everyone other than me.

I submit that art has a purpose, irregardless of audience. If you paint a beautiful picture and hang it in your room where only you can see it, that's still art. The act of creation is what matters- not the amount of viewers/listeners/whatever. 

Emily Dickinson wrote poetry her whole life. She submitted a few poems for publishing, but they were heavily edited (usually by men who assumed she didn't know what she was doing, but that's a whole other story.) When she died, she asked her sister to burn her poetry... and the sister didn't... and now she's universally viewed as one of the greatest American poets.

So when did Emily Dickinson accomplish something worthwhile? When she wrote it? Or when it found an audience? Sure, having the giant audience is a pretty big deal. But what were you trying to reward here? People catching eyeballs? Or people writing?

What is the legacy of Pass the Baton, if it is indeed over forever as it seems to be?

Is it that five people apparently read all the entries?

Or is it that, in a game where writing is almost never the main focus, over 80 people sat down and wrote a story in a single 24 hour period? Even if no one enjoyed reading the story, did the writer enjoy writing it? Did they pick up their metaphorical pen a couple days later to try something in the streets or the business district? Did it inspire a few people to write more?

I understand if you feel demoralized due to a lack of readers so unfathomable that I assume there must be some kind of bug... five people is pretty damn rough. But I would argue it's not as demoralizing to the groups of people who actually worked on this than finding out that, after a writing competition like this finally happens again, that everyone lost. (Yes, I read that the individual prizes are still going out, thankfully. But I know a few people who didn't give a damn about their personal reward and wanted the thrill of the competition.) You know what I would have been curious about? If the winning entries were announced, in the aftermath of the competition, how many people would have read the winning entry? Would they have read the top three? The top five? (I understand that the contest itself, potentially combined with difficult RL situations, may have made rapid judgment and announcements impossible- and I'm certainly not critiquing volunteers who dedicate themselves to keeping this site running- but that doesn't change the fact that announcing winners might have resulted in more eyeballs, if that was the goal.) 

So I can't blame you for being frustrated- but even if that five person number is accurate and a competition like this never happens again, I'd encourage you to reconsider. 

There's one thing you said where I think you're dead wrong, at least as it applies to my experience.

There was an epic failure on the crews and my part alike to inspire any kind of competition outside of click click click. 

I categorically reject any sense of failure that I'm apparently expected to claim from this event. How about the click-click-click of eighty freaking people writing a story in a day? Compared to the usual amount of... five? Ten, at most?

Twelve people from The Strip showed up and busted their ass. We organized, we improvised, I wrote with old friends, I wrote with new acquaintances. We wrote a story together, and I'm proud of the end result. I don't give a flying goddamn purple glowing fucking shit if no one outside The Strip ever saw or sees a single letter of what we wrote, because that wasn't the gosh darn point. 

Even if the rest of the people who wrote with me didn't see a cleverly orchestrated birthday party or Durden's attack on Chicago or Disappointment Burger exploding or a bunch of New Yorkers get trapped by the cops or St. Louis make a move in Paradise... even if they didn't see any of those... they still showed up to write! Wasn't that the whole point?!

My team showed up, dozens and dozens and dozens of people showed up- and we told stories. Sure, maybe they were stories that the majority of people didn't seem to pay attention to. But that's not a failure. If it is, then I've apparently been failing nonstop since I showed up here almost a decade ago- and apparently a lot of other people who enjoy writing have been failing, too- which is, ironically, probably the opposite vibe that this competition intended to send.

Squishy

Why are we counting readers and not writers?

I'm just getting this very woe-is-me, writing-is-goddamn dead vibe in this announcement about an event where I saw more people writing on here than I ever had before. And my understanding, which could be incorrect, was that getting people to write was the whole point. 

Squishy is there any chance that those prizes could be sent to the account/next of kin? For example, my previous character Shady_Sam participated and obviously cannot reap the rewards. 

For what it's worth, I enjoyed writing and participating in the event. I can't say I took the time to read much into other district/city threads apart from skimming a few that had people I personally knew, but I overall thought it was adequate for a public event. I realize that storytelling and writing isn't what it used to be compared to when I first started in '09, however I'd like to see that aspect continue to be rewarded. It's rare enough to see characters in the streets that aren't mirror images of the person behind the computer screen, as while that makes sense in the OOC scheme of things, it doesn't make for interesting storytelling in my eyes. 

Just my two cents on the entire matter. I appreciate the work put into the event, hopefully the community will produce a similar but less taxing(for the admins) concept. 

When were these first two attempts? I returned last April and I don't recall this trying to get launched before. Why are we letting results from 2010-2015 determine the lack of a winner in an event from 2017?

And if we're going 0/4/81... isn't that huge progress? Shouldn't you be excited, compared to the previous two tries? I mean, you obviously care about this event if you tried to launch it three times. Four, if you count the original? Isn't this the most successful PTB, when looking at the number of writers?

If you're telling me that this was too much freaking work for you... well then, that's totally justified, man. You're the expert on you, and you get to decide what you want to devote your energy to. But why not award the prizes here and make it clear that, if this is going to happen ever again, changes need to happen- as opposed to cancelling the competition and saying that it's dead forever?

I'm not trying to alternative fact your way into thinking "Oy! Squishy! This was a purely smashing event with no issues from anyone and it was a total wonderful success and now we'll all be pissing whiskey and farting peppermint"- but I just feel like this final analysis and abandonment of the competition is far too defeatist, based on the writing participation level. 

Ok, so I have some thoughts, although I'm not nearly as ~heated~ as my darling Kathryn is. But I also just woke up from a nap, so that might be why. 

1.) Who cares how many people read it? One of the big things people who write on here complain about is how few people write these days, and look at what happened. Lots of people wrote. And had fun. 

2.) I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that on that day I had to go do a family thing so I didn't really have time to sit down and read everything. I skimmed while I was still at home, but I figured I'd read later. And then life got crazy busy, and then things were unsticked and so I figured I'd wait until the winners were announced. Because, lets be honest, thats a LOT to read. I mean you read it all, and while I'd like to be able to sit down and spend hours reading the threads, I do come on here to do other things. And I read my cities thread, and I'm happy with that. 

Honestly, if I have time to play MR I'd rather be writing with my friends and answering mails and dicking around in IRC rather than reading 2-3 hours of posts that I wont even be able to reply to. A lot of people might feel that way? I mean I wrote like 1600 in my post alone, I can't imagine a whole shit load of people who want to read that much writing in a thread, much less 1 post out of 10+. 

I mean at the end of the day I write because I enjoy it and then I get to write with other people who enjoy it. If people want to read it, great. If they don't? Well at least I had fun doing it. I figured thats kinda what this whole thing was about. Its a writing competition, not a reading on. 

That said, Im sorry you feel that way, Squishy. And I dont think it should be the last one, I just think certain things should be tweaked perhaps? Its 1am so I can't say what, but I mean things can be improved. 

if none of this makes sense or is rude, Im sorry. I just woke up and the cat wont get out of my face so I keep sneezing. 

Are the 0 and the 4 the tries to get this one off the ground? Because I don't count that as 0/4/81... I count that as one legit attempt resulting in 81. 

My understanding is that the first time (the 0), there were players who were interested- but no CLs jumped up to participate, so it never got off the ground. 

I know that when KateLogan tried to get this going, the leaders of every city were interested in running this- the only reason this didn't happen months ago is that a lot of those leaders died, so the competition was pushed off. Was that an attempt? I know you said that the admins would only do it if people were interested- and people got rounded up, and people committed, and we freaking did it.

Because based on my search of the announcements, streets, and OOC forums, I only see actual threads for the '13 and '17 competitions.

I understand why you didn't want to put a lot of work into something that had no interest, but you told KateLogan that if there was an interest, it would happen. So dozens of people got interested and we made it happen. It's not like this was officially launched three times, right? You put out feelers, got nothing- put out feelers, then everyone died- then put out feelers, and it happened?

I can't find any threads with Passing the Baton in them other than the 63 writers who participated in the '13 edition and the 81 writers who participated in the '17 edition. Even if the player base has grown by a quarter in the last 4 years, that's still an equivalent amount of interest. If the player base has stayed the same or shrunk, then that's either the same amount of participation or a sizable increase!

Which like... isn't that progress? This may not be perfect, but I'm just confused as why the competition is cancelled and it's never happening again.

Based solely on the number of replies, 63 people wrote in 2013. I have no idea how many people read every one- but if the writing is what matters, than 63 seems to be the number.

After that happened, you came out in the streets to announce the winner and you said:

Man this turned into an epic competition with each and every city bringing forth their absolute best.� I am proud of all the contributors and the cities that gave them the support they needed to come out and show off their creativity.� I can continue to blow smoke up your asses, but I am sure you all want the results ASAP.

And I don't blame you! I'm sure they were freaking awesome!

But this time, we have 18 MORE people write for this competition, and instead of "an epic competition" we get a quote from you that literally stated that this was "an epic failure" for everyone? What was the difference? Why was the first one an event that called for blowing smoke up our asses, but this one called for kicking peoples' asses?

Also I can say that for the first attempt to get this going, whatever city I was in at the time (NY maybe? With Gato?) we had more than 20 people interested. But when you die on here after months of effort, you kinda don't really want to put in the effort so understandably people were a bit demoralized and so interest died down. 

But I mean, for a writing comp. it went pretty fucking great. Which is great, since thats what this was. For a reading comp? Ehhh not so much. But thankfully, it wasn't a reading comp. And also, again, maybe people are just waiting to read the top three. Or just my post. My post is so good, guys. A++ for Me, for sure. 

Squishy mate, its not about how many people read other entries as participants. Its about coming together as a District and writing a combined story. If only the groups read their own,, why is that such a big Problem? I bet seventy to eighty percent of shit ive written on these Forums no one but a small group of friends have read. And when you have to take an hour to read one districts story, its hectic mate. As a judge you already know this.

Posting on these Forums is about writing. The journey is the prize bud. If it were about who reads what, most people wouldnt be posting, period. I think you're looking at this from a very limiting and frustrating perspective. Flip it around mate and see how truly successful it really was.

Ask this who participated how it went. It was Amazing.

You still dont see it bud, but thats fine, everyones truth is there own and alls good. I just feel with the amount of turn out for the event, admin pushed writing is much better than local efforts. And in the future, if you want your events to be about who reads others, you should probably state that Intention to begin with and make it criteria.

If you wrote on these Forums consistently you'd have a different perspective. No one reads much story based content tbh. And if it seems long, most wont bother. Fuck, as a writer im even the same. Maybe as admin you could do something to change this fact, if thats your issue here. Otherwise its a shame you're taking this so negatively.

Once the individual efforts are rewarded ill pass them to my CL then be offski, for good. Cause this kind of admin level shit just kills it. What you put in you get out mate, and all I see is negativity about something completely not necessary. Nice job. :)

Squishy

Bold isn't yelling, for me. Bold is for emphasis. I assume that many people, tomorrow, will be disappointedly skimming through this thread. I considered the bolded portion an essential question, so I wanted to draw attention to it. I apologize if you construed that as yelling- while I am obviously passionate about this, I'm hardly a ranting maniac.

Misconstruing and critiquing the manner in which I ask my question did not, obviously, provide any answers.

I will now ask my question again, in a thoroughly unbolded way, so that it can potentially get answered instead of ignored.

But this time, we have 18 more people write for this competition, and instead of "an epic competition" we get a quote from you that literally stated that this was "epic failure" for everyone? What was the difference? Why was the first one an event that called for blowing smoke up our asses, but this one called for kicking peoples' asses?

For the rest of your response:

I'm sorry if you are not pleased that I wont sponsor an event like this in the future because it doesn't meet my criteria to do it again. 

You can do whatever you want in the future. I'm just trying to figure out how your criteria changed so radically in 4 years where 63 writers is epicly good and 81 writers is an epic failure, because it doesn't make any sense to me- and I'm assuming that other people are curious, too.

I think an event where the overwhelming majority are only concerned about the local results... should be run on a local level.  

Fine. It's your show. But this competition was not run on a local level, but on a sitewide level. I saw it as a great day and a success, like many other people.  If you don't, that's your prerogative.

I encourage you to take that very same passion and provide events similar to this for your family.

I do, actually. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that we've got the busiest business district I've even seen, and we're currently planning a three group collaborative effort to take down Paul Moreau, the Godfather of New Orleans, ending a story arc that has stretched back months and personally affected several members of the crew. It's pretty exciting stuff.

Maybe extend your expertise to other families so that they can do the same. Just because an event would work better on a local level than a global stage, doesn't mean that those that did enjoy it can no longer do the same within their own circles.

Hey! That was actually going to be our next step after the Moreau thing. Vegas, in particular, before we branch out. But you're correct- RP Inc. has been a little insular lately.  

But what does my crew's stellar activity level and future events have to do with my question? I get it, you're saying this sort of thing works better locally. But the previous PTB wasn't local, and it was an amazing, epic win. This one wasn't local, and it was an epic failure. So that can't be the only difference, right?