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I hope I have understood this correctly, if not I apologise in advance. :)
Basically one new super writer will be created every month regardless of the quality of work submitted into competition?

It could mean that we have 4 or 5 pieces that ordinarily would have been worthy of spotlight status, but only one will be chosen. It could make it a long, frustrating time for some very good writers as they try to achieve top billing.
Conversely, In a 'bad' month, an entry that wouldn't have been in the top 20 last month, could win for it's author this time round.
It was obviously easier in the past to get spotlighted as there were many more people reviewing. If I understand the system correctly, 14 reviews at 3 stars would have got anyone spotlighted.
Under the new system some may never reach super writer status, even though their work warrants it.
Who does the judging Sue? I'm not saying it will happen, but couldn't a little favouritism be shown towards writers who have been on here a long time and are known to the current 'super writers?
Whilst I know my opinion carries little weight, I am after all a newbie myself, I do think it would be fairer to rehash the Arena voting system, or even count marks given to blog posts.

Some very valid comments here Trevor. Let me start by saying whatever system we have in place will never suit everyone due to the huge diversity of the site. The versatility of the software driving the new site means we can experiment a little which is what I want to do with the new system.

Your point re a new Super Writer being created each month is correct and yes in theory, we could have someone who has written something inferior being promoted to Super Writer. However, in all the years we have been running Arena competitions this has not happened yet! (We do have Spotlight Writers under the current system submitting inferior work for Resource consideration!).

I have a list of writers who I know are proficient at their craft who act as judges for the Arena competitions and anyone can request that they be put on this list, provided they have the necessary skill level. They do of course see who has posted the submissions, but there has to be an element of trust when operating this kind of system and I have had no complaints so far!

If by any chance, the winning entry is not in the opinion of the judge worthy of promoting its author to Super Writer status, we would ask to see other samples of work. Should these not be up to a reasonable standard we would reserve the right not to make the upgrade, although the prize money would be paid.

Your point re other Challenge entries being worthy of Super Writer status is a valid one and I have to confess, one I hadn’t thought of! This is simple enough to fix though. The judge always creates a shortlist to arrive at the final results. He/she will be at liberty to recommend any or all of the shortlisted entries for Super Writer status.

Super Writer status is not only gained through the Challenge, but can be requested any time by the author providing proof of either a place in an open competition, a book published by a main stream publisher or articles etc published by the main stream press or the quality small press. (By the way, we get a lot of requests for upgrade from authors submitting to content providing sites, these are not acceptable as there is usually no proper editorial review).

In some cases, an author may be a good writer, but not have any publishing credits and keep missing out on Challenge wins. In this case he or she can submit samples of work and if thought of being an appropriate standard, will be upgraded.

I realise that none of this is ideal, but having run the site for 8 years under various systems, I’ve come to the conclusion that the fairest way is to use a mixture of manual discretion and automation through the site competitions.

As said in my earlier comments, I did try very hard to introduce a rating system for comments which was part of a larger system of reward for effort. This caused such a furore amongst some members who felt they didn’t need to be rewarded by stars and quills that to preserve my sanity I had the whole thing taken out and made the decision to move over to the blog site.

Thanks for that. :) My post wasn't meant as criticism of admin, nor of the way the site is run. I run a Nottingham Forest supporters Internet forum myself, with 2000 members, so I know how difficult a task it is to get even a small majority onside. Everyone has their own idea of the way things should be done.
Best of luck with it. It will be a good while before anything I produce is of the required standard anyway, so I won't be holding my breath wondering if I'm in the running for honours :) but I will say again, I did like the idea of Arena and the voting system it employed, maybe you could use that system on blog entries to give willing writers a little more encouragement. No cash prize needed. Just a blog article of the month or something?

It's good to have constructive comments and unless members speak up, I don't know if I'm providing what they want. Having said that, it is impossible to please everyone so I'm aiming for a happy medium.

You needn't worry about the Arena, that will be on the blogs and I'm doing some hard thinking on how to improve it.

A blog posting of the month is a good idea, or blogger of the month, certainly one to look into when we move over.

By the way, I've read some of your blog articles, they are well up to Super Writer standard. You really should try and get the Country park one published, the subtle turn of humour was a real joy.

:gobsmacked:

You've mangaed to shock me into silence. Congratulations, that is a first. :)

Many thanks for the kind words, I really am surprised by them though. Some of the pieces I've read on here and in Arena had left me wondering whether my idea of becoming a published writer was just a pipe dream. The standard of some of it seemed to be way above anything I could hope to achieve. Most of it was by unpublished writers, so the bar was set even higher when I took into account the published ones.
Now you've given me some hope again though. Thanks for that.

Sue, it seems that one of the problems of spotlighting, these days, is that there are few reviews, and another is that people are rather overgenerous with stars. I think that the old spotlighting system could work very well if it were somehow incorporated into the blogs. I think that the reason for 'overstarring' is that the excellent guidelines on 'how to award stars' are not always seen by new members - they aren't in a very obvious place, and people are keen to start writing and reviewing before they have explored the whole site - I often send the link to people I feel are greatly over- or under-starring. Would it not be possible to have a system whereby people can only start reviewing once they've ticked a box to say they have read and understood the guidelines?

Another point following Trevor's comments: could the entries to resources and competitions not be 'anonymised'? (I haven't a clue about how this would technically work, so forgive me)

I've been trying to follow the various threads on this problem, and I can see the logic of anonymous writing for competitions (when I'm judging, I download the pieces without the author's name) but resources are PAID submissions and I don't see where the advantage would lie in having them anonymous.

What was your thinking Paola

Paola, you've raised some more good points here and on the face of it the one re ticking a box to say the member has read the rating guidelines seems a good one.

Unfortunately it doesn't work in practice! When someone joins Writelink either as a Reader or Writer they have to tick a Terms of Service box and I know from the emails I get that most do not actually read these.

Also, new members, both Readers & Writers get a site Tour which goes out daily for 6 days. This explains what the site is about and how to use each area. Again, it is obvious that some people don't read these properly.

The point you raised about hiding the author for competitions is a good one. We don't currently do this on the old Arena, but as we will probably have to have a special skin designed for the new Arena, I think this could be done. One to ask the programmer I think!

As said before, the blog software means we can experiment and change things we don't like without incurring too much cost, unlike the old site which is a nightmare to modify!

The main issue to address is the Arena. We need this to be busy, both with postings and comments and ensure that new writers who don't have publishing or competition credits can move into Super Writer status.

The idea I am thinking of at the moment is to appoint "cherry picking," editors to monitor the say, top 10 articles on the Arena.

There is another issue about spotlighting. Since around the end of June I have only seen one submission to Arena that was spotlighted.
It appears that the system is not transparent as there is no 'announcement' that someone has been spotlighted.
The only way I found out was by checking the spotlighted archive.
I understood from a forum comment that authors may remove their items from the archive.
Those of us who are new writers on the site are therefore not always able to learn from our spotlighted colleagues.
Incidentally the spotlighted author was the only one to receive 10 reviews.

The present system already has a box that has to be ticked before uploading posts in Arena - this is the one that states, among other things, that multiple posts are not allowed so clearly not everyone reads the 'small print'. :O

I like the idea of anonymous posting for competition entries.

I'm sure I read somewhere (and didn't actually dream it) that pieces destined for the Resources were to be 'voted on' by Super Writers. Maybe this is what Paola was referring to - or maybe we had the same dream!

Lots of interesting ideas here, it will be interesting to give them a try and see what happens.

Anonymous posting for competitions sounds a good idea. (Though I'd echo David's comment with regards judging, as when judging a contest I too already copy and paste entries without the authors' names.)

On the arena front, there always seem to have been 'issues' in that some people want fairly rigorous harsh feedback (but a more detailled reviews take more time), others a softer approach. It will be good to try some new ideas and approaches on this front but realistically I don't think we're ever going to please everyone all of the time, unless possibly if posters are asked to state/request fairly specifically in their standfirst what they're after. Of course, this doesn't solve the issue of reviewers' time to give that though...

Anonymous competition entries to judges makes real sense, so the judges don't have to find ways to do this themselves if they're so inclined.

On the rest of it, I reckon we have to 'suck it and see'. It's good that it will be much easier to make changes.

As someone who has published several peices onto the Arena, but has not been successful, my comment is about the lack of reviews. Not once have I ever got close to receiving 10 peices of feedback. Rather than a star system and a comments section I would like to see a simpler rating system, where reviewer gets 3 options - eg 'good enough', 'needs more work', 'back to the writing board'. Perhaps success could be measured by % of votes that are good enough. You could also include the super writers' views by saying a piece also needs X number of votes by them...

This isn't a bad idea. Having run the current Arena for two years and seen its limitations, I'm not keen on sticking to an automatic system, but using something along the lines of your suggestion would filter the better submissions for editorial review. Our programmer is in the middle of adding a better subscription management system to the site at the moment, but when this is finished, we'll be working on the new Arena skins so keep the ideas coming.