So while I was away visiting with my niece, I discovered that a whole bunch of people in the Writing Forum -- the Writing Forum no less -- decided to toss the forum guidelines out the window and engage in a cross-thread flame war. And Nila brought the situation to the attention of staff. So I am posting this in both of these threads so that this message will be perfectly clear to all parties.
1) If you have a problem with another member's behavior, including staff members, you DO NOT start flame wars and violate the rules you agreed to follow as members. I don't care what the complaint is. You contact staff by Private Message or the feedback forum with your complaint, and we will decide if it needs fixing and how it will be fixed if so. Failure to understand this procedure and follow the forum rules can result in Strikes for members or further action, including banning from the forums.
2) If you are not happy with the forum, you are free to leave it and find another place you like better on the Net. You do not threaten staff in demands that they do what you want. You do not do this especially when what you are demanding is against the rules of the forum. You do not get to decide what threads stay or go. Staff are volunteers and are not here for you to abuse. Just because Nila happens to be a very kind and generous person does not mean you get to treat her like she's your maid, is that clear? Again, failure to cooperate with staff can result in Strikes and further action including banning.
3) A novelette and a novella are two different forms of story, the difference being the length of the piece. They are not interchangeable. A novelette is 7,500 words to 17,500 words and a novella is 17,500 words to 40,000 words. A novella essentially acts as a short novel. A novelette is essentially a long short story. If you are going to try these forms as an exercise or project, you should at least understand what they entail.
4) We can allow members to run as many writing challenges or exercises as they like, as long as everybody participating follows the rules of the forum. We can have ten novella experiments going at once, all with different parameters. Or we can have no challenges whatsoever, which is what will happen if members refuse to cooperate, flame each other, are abusive to staff, and disrupt the Writing Forum so that members cannot have conversations with each other. The idea of allowing the exercises, challenges and low stakes, friendly contests in the Writing Forum, is for writers to HELP each other, support each other, get inspiration, tackle and learn new skills. Members who cannot accept these parameters and refuse to follow the rules of the forum, again, can face Strikes and further action, including banning.
5) In this particular case, Wilson was uninterested in the contest for longer forms that Luka proposed in his thread. So he asked staff for permission to start a new thread with a different challenge that better fit what he and some other members wanted to try. And that permission was granted by staff, because there is no earthly reason why not.
Neither thread will be closed or deleted. Both writing challenges can proceed. Both threads will be closely monitored by staff. (Something I never usually have had to bother with for contests because it has never occurred to me that there would be flame wars in such events.) If members participating in those threads further break the rules of the forum that you all agreed to follow, individual members may receive Strikes or further action, and the thread may be closed down if members refuse to cooperate and flame each other.
So you want to have these contests in the Writing Forum, for fun, fellowship and personal writing development? Then follow the rules and procedures of the forums. If you are unclear on what those are, or again have a complaint about another member's behavior, contact staff. But what happened here because both Nila and I were away and other staff were busy is NOT going to happen again. Accept that all parties who irritated you had no malicious intent, move on and have fun writing your brains out.
