Writing Challenge Statistics

[The Judge]

75 Worder -- Years 1 to 5 inclusive

And here are the cumulative figures, covering the 5 years of the 75 Worders.

And what that shows is we've had 398 entrants over the 60 months, giving a grand total of 2998 stories (oh, for another two entrants with a story each!), accruing 2940 votes.

Still no changes to the select group of 5 with 100% records, namely Cul, mosaix, TDZ, me and Ursa, and chrispenycate still has only the one missing month, with Parson having missed only the two. Some 169 members have entered only one Challenge, but percentage-wise that's a slight improvement over the year, as to the end of year 4 the one-Challenge-only figure represented nearly 45% of the total, and now it's reduced to 42.5%, possibly because we had fewer newbies entering last year.

And the Great Leader of the Challenges remains HAREBRAIN! His 48 entries and 5 wins have earned him 126 votes, but I'm millimetres away from clutching his fluffy tail with my 125 votes (so that's going to keep him entering all year instead of slacking off as he has been doing! ). Teresa is still 3rd as she has 110 votes (in only 41 Challenges), but Cul has dropped a place to 4th with 108 votes, while alchemist has edged into 5th place with 107 votes (in 47 entries), and TDZ has vaulted up to tie in 6th place with mosaix with 95. Hex is 8th on 94 (in only 38 Challenges), Perp is still 9th with 82 and Chris p 10th with 69 votes. Victoria has shot up the leader board to come in 11th with 68 votes in 28 entries, then comes paranoid marvin and reiver joint 12th with 59, Boneman is 14th with 54, Jo has 53 votes bringing her in at 15th, and Moonbat is at 16th with 52, then Phyrebrat and Stormfeather share 17th place on 48, though she hasn't entered in 2 years now, and digs is also hanging in there with his 47 votes despite not having entered in 2 years, and Mouse is 20th with 46 votes.

Also attached is the updated table showing the winners and runners-up over the 5 years, with details of tie-breaks added this time.


And just to reiterate from previous years, although I do double check as much as I can, it's all too easy to make a mistake, so if you think something's wrong, just yell!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Wow. Tribute must be paid to the stunning achievement of HareBrain and The Judge.

 

[Bowler1]

I'm still trying to get over coming in 6th last year, I can't believe it. Most months I only got a few votes, but it's clear they all add up eventually (I can't catch the Mods totals, not with their head start!). I've not been too serious about the 75 worder this year, but I'm on a mission to be the character that appears in 75 entries the most (two by my count, and I hope two ahead of all the Mods!) - it's good to have goals....

 

[Phyrebrat]

I must have missed this latest batch of results somehow.

It came as bit of a shock to see my name in these stats - do we all think we do worse than we do, @ratsy ? I'm pleased to see Victoria on there as her stories usually figure in my shortlists. I'm glad @The Judge & I'm tied - it's good to have someone to chat to (is it another case of the name 'Christopher' figuring commonly in your world??).

Looking at the stats and the comment above about numbers being down, it really surprised me to see so many of us don't participate every month. I always have an (or thought I had) idea of who enters and so to see some of the people I rate as only entering a couple of times really surprises me (I think I have only missed one in the last year but that was because of a hissy fit I had with myself over the genre or theme - I aim to enter every month as it's so useful writing outside of your favourite genre).

Thanks and greatness to TJ for the effort here, and congratulations to all those winners.

pH

 

[The Judge]

300 Worder Statistics

For those not already sated (ie fed up to the back teeth) with statistics, if there is anyone, I've done the 300s. I’ve had to change the layout from last time, since I couldn’t get everything onto one table, so the attached is a hybrid, showing both the four quarterly Challenges for the 2014-15 year and their totals, and the totals alone for the previous three years, which I hope makes sense.


Year 4: 2014-15
Anyway, taking the year stats first, we saw a tiny improvement on the previous year’s figures in some respects, and some disappointing worsening in others. Improvements were 67 entrants (up from 63) providing 147 entries (up from 146), with 23 newcomers joining (the same). The best month for entries was July, but with only 39 again; the worst was April with only 33, which is one of the disappointments since that's the smallest field of entries since we started. Only 16 of us completed all 4 Challenges (down from the previous year’s 17, but not the lowest ever), while 10 of us completed 3 Challenges, 12 did 2, and some 29 members took part only once, though 8 of those were newbies in the January Challenge.

More disappointments arose with the voting – we had a total of 467 votes, slightly down on the previous year’s 472, but from only 117 voters, well down on the previous year’s 161, and well below the number of entries. This year I’ve looked at the voting in more detail, which shows that over the year we had some 19 missing votes, ie when members entered but were unable to vote in that Challenge for one reason or another (16 members in all, with 3 members missing twice), though more happily we had 30 votes from 18 members who voted without having entered that particular Challenge. Thanks to all of them.

I blagged my way into leading the board over the year, and Jo came second with her 30 votes, just pipping Juliana, who crowned a good twelve months of Challenging by leaping up from last year’s 9th place to come 3rd with 29 votes. In 4th place were mosaix and Victoria with 23 votes, then TDZ was 6th with 22, and Teresa came in 7th with 19 votes (in only 2 Challenges!). Perp was 8th with 18, alchemist 9th with 16 (also in only 2 Challenges) and Phyrebrat was 10th with 14 votes.


Years 2011-12 to 2014-15 inclusive
Looking at the four years of the 300 Worder we’ve had 633 stories, from 171 entrants, receiving 1945 votes from 625 voters. Only 5 of us have completed all 16 Challenges (mosaix, Perp, me, TDZ and Ursa), Chris p has missed only the one, and another 5 have missed only 2 quarters (alchemist, Jo, Karn, Starbeast, and The Spurring Platty), but 81 entrants have only ever taken part in one Challenge. Let’s see if we can persuade some of those entrants to return, and let’s also try to keep any newbies with us for this year.

My plans for conquering the literary world continue (gross plans, evidently... *maniacal laugh*). In second place Jo is batting strongly, now just 2 votes shy of her century, while mosaix has slipped into 3rd place ahead of Teresa with his 85 votes to her 84 (though Teresa has accumulated hers in only 11 Challenges). Perp is now 5th with 80, alc is 6th with 77, and TDZ has climbed up one place to 7th with 74 votes. Despite missing every Challenge this year, Hex is still among the leaders, coming in at 8th with her 60 votes in 8 Challenges, while Boneman and Cul have moved up the table to join Mouse in 9th place with 56 votes apiece (though Mouse has got hers with only 8 entries). Juliana and Victoria make their first appearances in the overall leader board, coming in at 12th and 13th with 52 and 47 votes respectively in their 9 Challenges, followed by Chris p, 14th with 39, and DEO, 15th with 37.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Cat’s Cradle was our 150th entrant in 2014-15, and with luck and a following wind we might get our 200th entrant sometime in 2015-16. As for this year’s other newbies, welcomes and congratulations to them all, but extra congrats and special applause are due to willwallace for his stunning 9 votes in his first ever Challenge! And close behind him in achievement with their respective first entries were gdoc with 8 votes, Cascade with 7, Void with 6, and jastius with 5.

Here’s to 2015-16 – more new entrants, and more great stories!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Lovely stats. Only 46 votes behind. Wee buns.

 

[The Judge]

In case anyone is confused by some missing posts, I've transferred the conversation ref falling entry numbers into a thread of its own -- https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/552425/ It occurred to me some people might want to comment on the issue, but wouldn't know about it if they weren't interested in the stats and therefore never looked here, so a new thread might give it better visibility.

 

[Juliana]

I may have done a little bit of a dance when I read the 300-challenge stats.

So nice to see the progress! I remember my first ever couple of 300 and 75-word entries, when I was just excited if I even got a mention...

 

[Moonbat]

Howdy. I am amazed at The Judge's stats and how well she has kept them going over the past 5 years. I have had a few things going on in life (happy things - wedding and a baby girl, plus busier at work) over the past couple of years and so haven't had time to really get to grip with the stats. But I downloaded TJ's stats and have used them to knock up a couple of graphs (I do love a graph) to illustrate the stats more visually.

Firstly we have the classic, votes to entries graph.
As there have been 5 years of this now the bottom left of the graph is a bit messy. I did some breakdown of the stats and we have had 169 people who have entered only once, so you can imagine how many names are down there. I think it does show something of the spacing of our entrants.
You can see a nice line of 5 names at the 60 entries point, which shows those who haven't missed a single challenge.

Then we have a new graph showing how many people have got the same stats on entries and votes. A huge 126 people have entered once and got no votes, this soon drops and we then end up with the people at the far end having lots of entries and lots of votes. I know the yellow is hard to see but I couldn't find a way to change the colours that Open Office uses.

We also have a similar graph but without the votes.

I had to remove the first few entries as the 169 people who have entered once make the graph almost unreadable for the majority of number of entries, as you can see.

And then just to make Harebrain, Judge and Hex (and me) feel great, the winners and runners up

I hope I've got all these right, sorry if I haven't. I was a little confused because Jo Zebedee, used to be Springs and (I think/hope) used to be Springs1971 before that.

Whilst looking through these I found that Dante DiBenedetto has the best entry to vote ratio at 4, even digs at the next best has only a mere 2.7647 votes per entry. Followed (I think) by Teresa with 2.6829.

Anyway, these are my graphs, if you want better versions you might be able to download them. I'm off to bed, but I'm still thinking/working on my 75 worder for this month.

 

[HareBrain]

Impressive work, @Moonbat! It's nice that I was able to download that graph before TJ zoomed past me in the overall score.

 

[The Judge]

Oooh, I am beyond impressed by those, Moonbat, and soaring into utterly gobsmacked with admiration at the sheer mindbogglingness of them. Much easier to comprend than my dry stats. (It took me a little while to cotton on to what the second one was showing, but then I grasped I'm the lovely blue line at the far right hand corner!)


And yes, Jo used to be springs1971, which caused me a couple of headaches too, trying to merge old and news lists!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Moonbat, we are not worthy...

Ooops, sorry. I shall try not to change my name again. Let's hope I never need a pseudonym.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Moonbat! How good are these graphs!? Thanks for doing this, it's really interesting.

I'm pretty sure I should be getting some kind of award, too, for occupying more or less the centre on that scatter graph...

(I like red bounty, or Waitrose do a fantabulous Chocolate mousse-y thing)

pH

 

[Parson]

Moonbat: I'm blown away by your work on this! It would have taken me days to get something like that worked out. (I use computers for word processing and little else.) Speaking for myself it underlines the fact of how precious votes are. Even getting a single vote is a rare thing. For the first two years or so I was averaging about a vote a time, and only now do I realize how lucky I was at that time. In the end it makes me feel better about my results in the challenges.

Thanks

 

[The Judge]

I'm pretty sure I should be getting some kind of award, too, for occupying more or less the centre on that scatter graph...

Does that mean everything really does revolve around you?

 

[Hex]

Great graphs, Moonbat. I especially enjoyed the last one.

 

[The Judge]

With another Challenge year finished – the SIXTH! – it’s time for the Writing Challenge Statistics. *fanfare and roll of drums*

75 worder -- Year 6 -- April 2015 to March 2016

And the good news is we have a slight improvement on last year’s figures, though we’re still well down on those of previous years.

In 2014-15 we had only 114 members enter the Challenges, the lowest ever (2010-11 = 148; 2011-12 = 151; 2012-13 = 154; 2013-14 = 129), but 2015-16 gave us a total of 120 entrants. We’ve also improved the numbers of new entrants joining the Challenges, up from 40 last year (again the lowest ever – 2011-12 = 85; 2012-13 = 70; 2013-14 = 55) to 50 newbies.

Despite the increase in members taking part, the number of entries is only a very slight improvement, up from 568 (once again the lowest ever – 2010-11 570; 2011-12 = 612; 2012-13 = 670; 2013-14 = 578) to 573 entries over the year. The highest achieving month was 57 in July (the highest last year was 52; the year before 59), but we again managed to hit at least 42 every month. But we had three months with that low, not just one as last year. The best month for new members was January with 8.

But, disappointingly, the number of votes cast was slightly down, from 539 to 529, even though we had three months when votes exceeded the number of entries, which is excellent. The figures would have been worse were it not for the fact that we had some 43 “extra” votes over the year, ie where members voted without having entered that particular Challenge. Attached is a list of those who so voted – our thanks to everyone named there, but most especially to DEO, crystal haven and Ensign Shah who voted 4, 5 and a wonderful 6 times respectively. Regrettably, the year saw some 85 missing votes, where members participating in a Challenge didn’t/weren't able to vote.

Some 15 entrants had 100% attendance records over the year, with another 7 people dropping only one month, and 7 missing only two Challenges. But more disappointing news, last year we had a low figure of 33 members entering only one Challenge; this year it’s gone up to 44 members (though 6 of those had their first Challenge in March, so the figure is 38 who could have returned but didn’t), and another 11 entered only twice (16 last year).

And the year as a whole belonged to CULHWCH with two wins and a magnificent 34 votes! DG Jones – also a double winner over the year – came second with 28, and Robert Mackay’s win this month brought him into joint 3rd place with HareBrain with 24 votes (though HB got his in only 8 Challenges). In joint 5th place, Bowler, TDZ, Victoria and Cascade, each with 19 votes, and in joint 9th place, Cat’s Cradle and Bob Senior with 15 votes apiece. Congrats to all!

The 6 year cumulative stats to follow.

 

[The Judge]

75 Worder -- Years 1 to 6 inclusive

So the cumulative figures cover the six years of the 75 Word Challenges to date – not bad when we thought when we started we might only get a dozen or so entries and it would run for only a few months!

The complete table itself is apparently too large to upload. I've no idea how to compress it to make it smaller and acceptable to the software, so what I've done it simply cut it in two. Part A contains the names of entrants from A-K inclusive; Part B, those of L-Z. Each table ends with the combined totals of both parts.

And what those totals show is we've had 448 entrants over the 72 months, giving a grand total of 3571 stories, accruing 3469 votes.

Only 4 members now have 100% records, namely Cul, mosaix, TDZ, and Ursa, with chrispenycate following them with only the one missing month. Some 194 members have entered only one Challenge, though, an increase of 25 from last year, and percentage-wise it’s slightly worse, since last year’s 169 represented 42.5% of the then total, and it’s now increased to 43.3%. Let’s try to encourage some of those single-posters to return!

And the One True Leader of the Challenges remains HAREBRAIN!

He’s increased his lead, too, as he’s now on a grand total of 150 votes from only 56 entries. In second place, leaping over me and galloping away strongly is Cul with 142 votes to my 139 (*sounds of booing and hissing from an anonymous source *). In fourth place with 116 votes is alchemist, just nudging ahead of Teresa who has 115 (from 52 and 44 Challenges respectively), and Teresa is herself just a hair’s breadth ahead of TDZ who has 114 votes. With 106 votes, mosaix is now in 7th place, Hex is still 8th with 102 (from only 43 Challenges), Tim (ex-Perp) is still 9th, now with 88 votes, but Victoria is threatening his position with her 87 votes in 10th place, and from only 40 Challenges!

Chris p comes in 11th with 76 votes, Jo has leapt up to 12th place with 67 votes from 52 entries, reiver is now 13th with 60 votes (51 entries), and Moonbat and paranoid marvin share 14th place with 59 votes (in 48 and 45 Challenges respectively). Then comes Phyrebrat at 16th place with 58 votes (in 48 entries), and in 17th place is Boneman with 54 votes, despite not having entered at all this year. Ursa has emerged onto the leader board with his 48 votes, and he’s joint 18th with Stormfeather who hasn’t entered for 3 years now, the same as digs, who comes in at 20th with 47 votes.

Last year Ashleyne created a new record for a one-person-one-vote month with 13 votes, but she now shares the glory of leading the best-score board with Cul who also got 13 in April. Hex is now 3rd with her 12 votes in one month, Cat’s Cradle has now joined mosaix in 4th place with 11, and DG Jones joins Cul in 6th place with 10. (HareBrain and digs still share the honours for the highest ever, 14 votes, but that was in a three-vote month.) As I think I mentioned when it happened in September, Cul was the first person to get a 6th win, but HB didn’t let him bask on the heights alone for long, achieving his own 6th win in December.

Also attached is the updated table showing the winners and runners-up over the 6 years, which might be of interest (at least to those who appear on it...).


Just to repeat my usual comment, although I do double check, it's all too easy to make a mistake when juggling so many entrants and figures, so if you think something's wrong, let me knowl!

 

[Venusian Broon]

ooh stats and numbers lovely.

If I may be so bold I have a graph that goes with your 75 Worder - years 1 to 6 inclusive - showing number of entrants over time:

To my trained physicist eye that basically is flat (and playing about with trend lines confirms it), with a rough periodic uptick every spring or so. The 'oh numbers are down from the past' meme stems from what looks like a very abnormal year in 2012 that had a glut of people appear for about 6 months. So I would suggest ignoring that as an outlier and instead saying everything is hunky dory and running along normally . This appears in the 300 worder data too. (Which if you are posting stats for that, I'll post the graphs afterwards.)

mmmm... feeling a bit off colour and ill today, the thought of procrastinating and working on weirder stats for the data is very appealing...

 

[Phyrebrat]

Geek

Yours enviously, (numbers above 8 scare me)

pH