Writing Challenge Statistics -- the Second Decade!

[The Judge]

Well, who would have thought that our Writing Challenges would still be going strong after 10 years each!

With the new decade, it's time to start everything again, not least with a new thread. The old thread is still around, but no longer stickied, so will gradually fall out of sight, but if anyone wants it, to refresh memories (or revisit old glories!) here's the link Writing Challenge Statistics

And while I'll undoubtedly refer to past honours/wins/whatevers, particularly in the first couple of years as I make comparisons with what has gone before, the tables themselves will start afresh, so we should be seeing new names appear on the leaderboards.

It bears repeating that these statistics are a matter of fun, nothing more – they perhaps add a frisson of (unspoken!) friendly rivalry for those of us who are competitive, but as Moonbat rightly said back in 2012 after producing some wonderful graphs:

I hope that people find these as interesting as I do, it is not my intention to upset anyone, and I hope that those of us that have not been as sucessful as Harebrain are not disheartened by any of these. I think it is a testament to the enjoyment that we all receive from partaking in these comps that they have been so sucessful. ​

I can only echo that. The real success in the Challenges is to take part and meet the challenge to produce a story.

And with that, on with the show!

 

[The Judge]

And we start with

75 worder – Year 11 – April 2020 to March 2021


Attached is the table for Year 11 of the 75 Worders, showing just the entrants for that year as we’re starting afresh.

And we start the second decade of the 75s with some mixed results. We had 124 entrants for the year, well up on the 106 for 2019-20 and the 115 of the year before, which is excellent news, and that included 50 newcomers to the Challenges, again a big increase on the 32 and 38 respectively of the previous years, though we had one month when no new entrants took part.

Unfortunately, the increase in entrants didn’t bring an increase in stories, and we ended with 496 entries compared to 497 of 2019-20, which was itself well down on the previous year’s 521. April was our best month with 46 entries, down from a high of 47, but we missed the magic score of 42 five times, though our lowest month in August of 36 was up on the disappointing lowest of 33 for 2019-20.

Some 16 members completed all 12 Challenges during the year, with 1 person missing only one Challenge, and 2 missing 2, and 2 more missing 3. We still had too many people who entered only once, though – 40, so a third of all entrants for the year.

We ended with a total of 570 votes which sounds good when set next to the previous year’s 499, but for April we had 3 votes apiece in the Challenge, which artificially inflated the figures compared to 2019-20, and we actually had only 484 voters for the year – which would otherwise have been the number of votes, of course – that is, 12 fewer than the number of stories we had, which isn’t good news.

We had seven months with more entrants than voters, up from four in 2019-20, and although we had some 61 extra votes from 30 members who hadn’t entered on a particular month, which was up on the 52 extra votes of the year before, that rise was overshadowed by the 73 missing votes from 45 entrants who failed to vote, a big increase on the 50 missing votes from 39 entrants of the year before.

While missing a vote occasionally is understandable, it is worrying that one person managed to miss 6 challenges he’d entered, another missed 5, and several missed the voting 2 or 3 times.

Old timers will know that for some time now I’ve created a Thank You list, naming those who voted without entering, but rather than a separate attachment, in order to make it more visible I’ve set it out below. As usual, everyone deserves our thanks, but with extra applause is due for TheDustyZebra who voted 4 times, Ian Fortytwo, Mad Alice and nixie who did so five times each, and sule who managed a magnificent 6 times.

	THANKS LIST	​
		​
1​	Abernovo	1​
2​	Ambrose	1​
3​	Danny McG	1​
4​	elvet	2​
5​	farntfar	2​
6​	HareBrain	1​
7​	Ian Fortytwo	5​
8​	Iwroteathing	1​
9​	Joshua Jones	1​
10​	JS Wiig	1​
11​	Kharn	1​
12​	Land Under Wave	1​
13​	LittleStar	2​
14​	Mad Alice	5​
15​	Margaret Note Spelling	1​
16​	Mouse	1​
17​	Mr Orange	1​
18​	nixie	5​
19​	Perpetual Man	1​
20​	Peter V	2​
21​	Phyrebrat	3​
22​	Pyan	3​
23​	scarpelius	1​
24​	Starbeast	3​
25​	StilLearning	2​
26​	sule	6​
27​	The Scribbling Man	1​
28​	TheDustyZebra	4​
29​	TheEndIsNigh	1​
30​	therapist	1​
​		​
​		61​
​		​

And starting as she means to go on – and as she's done so often before! – the year was once again dominated by Victoria Silverwolf who achieved two wins and a second place, but this time she shared the honour jointly with paranoid marvin who had two second places and a win – both got an excellent 34 votes over the 12 Challenges, just ahead of Hugh on 32 with one win (his first ever!) and one second place.

And the top ten of the leaderboard as we start our second decade is as follows:

​		entries​	Votes​
​		​	​
1=​	paranoid marvin	12​	34​
1=​	Victoria Silverwolf	12​	34​
3​	Hugh	12​	32​
4​	Parson	12​	26​
5​	Cat’s Cradle	12​	24​
6​	mosaix	12​	23​
7​	Luiglin	12​	18​
8​	Peter V	10​	17​
9=​	Danny McG	8​	16​
9=​	The Judge	7​	16​
​		​	​

Other noteworthy performances for the year:

• Mouse took part only once, but won, with 13 votes in the Three-Vote Challenge
• Parson’s 12 votes takes him into joint 5th place in the Highest Votes per One-Vote Challenge board
• Bren G won in only his fifth Challenge

Congratulations to them, and to everyone else who took part that year, and a belated Welcome to all the new entrants!

.

 

[Mouse]

I won in April 2020, is that right? Did I know I'd won?! I have no memory of this.

 

[The Judge]

You got 13 flaming votes, woman! How could you forget?! POLL -- April 2020 85-word Writing Challenge -- MOUSE WINS!

And yes, you knew at the time! DISCUSSION THREAD -- April 2020 -- 85-Word Writing Challenge

 

[The Judge]

Now for the stats for first of the new decade for the 300 Word Challenges:

300 Worder – Year 11 – April 2021 to March 2022

Attached is the table for Year 11 of the 300 Worders, showing the entrants for that year – and our second decade of 300s begins with a solid if not spectacular start, but fingers crossed we build on it in the coming years!

We had only 59 entrants that year, so well down on Year 10 which had 69, and only 18 newcomers to the Challenges, again down on the previous year where we saw 26. Nonetheless, the good news is there was only a small drop in the number of stories, to 140 entries from 144.

We again had a best month with 37 entries, and as in the year before, the worst months had respectable 34 entries.

And once again (the fourth year running, I think!) 18 of us completed all four Challenges during the year, but this time some 11 members completed three Challenges which is good, and though only 5 members took part twice, the better news is we’ve improved on the numbers who enter only once, which came to 25, down from the disappointing 36 entrants the year before. Let’s keep pushing at those figures, so that we get more people joining in more times. That means more great stories – and more votes to share among us!

And the best news is that despite fewer entrants and stories, we had more votes than the year before, 478 votes, up from 461, and there were 160 voters over the four Challenges, up on the previous 157.

The good news continues in that we had fewer “missing” votes, ie from those members who entered a Challenge but didn’t vote that quarter for some reason. In total we had 7 missing votes from 7 voters (ie once again no one missed more than once, which is good, and 4 of those were newcomers in their first Challenge), down from 9 votes/voters in 2020-21. Best of all, for only the fourth time we had a quarter where everyone who entered voted, which is excellent.

We also had an increase in “extra” votes, from members who hadn’t entered the Challenge that quarter, with 27 extra votes up from 22, coming from 21 non-entrants. Here is the Thank You list and again I have to heap praise on the one and only, incredible nixie who once more voted in all 4 Challenges without taking part.

​
​	THANK YOU LIST	no of times voted in unentered Challenges​
​
​	Abernovo	1​
​	chrispenycate	2​
​	Christine Wheelwright	1​
​	Dragonsnark	1​
​	elle telle	1​
​	elvet	1​
​	HareBrain	1​
​	Ian Fortytwo	1​
​	JS Wiig	1​
​	Lawrence Twiddy	1​
​	M. Robert Gibson	1​
​	Mad Alice	1​
​	Marvin	1​
​	Mouse	1​
​	nixie	4​
​	paranoid marvin	1​
​	Parson	2​
​	Pyan	1​
​	sule	1​
​	The Big Peat	1​
​	Wayne Mack	2​
​		​
​		27​
​		​

And we start our second decade with the following leaderboard:

​		entries​	votes​
​		​	​
1​	The Judge	4​	35​
2=​	Phyrebrat	4​	30​
​	Victoria Silverwolf	4​	30​
4​	Luiglin	4​	27​
5​	Cat’s Cradle	4​	25​
6​	Astro Pen	4​	24​
7​	Dan Jones	4​	20​
8=​	mosaix	4​	18​
​	paranoid marvin	3​	18​
10=​	Daysman	4​	16​
​	sule	3​	16​
​		​	​

We finally welcomed the 300th person to enter the 300s in 2021-2, when Lawrence Twiddy joined us!

As to notable performances over the year, Luiglin’s win was his first, and with 17 votes he’s now in joint 5th place of highest scorers since records began! And once again we had some stupendous vote-winning stories from newcomers entering their first 300 Word Challenge, most especially

• Betok_Haney with 10 votes and a joint runner-up placing
• AtLifeAStory and bedyak who picked up 5 votes on their first outing
• AnRoinnUltra who got 4 votes

Well done and Welcome to them, and to everyone else who joined the 300s in 2021-22!

.