So, to try to draw the attention away from all this wank, how about a nice, healthy challenge? Something we might try to win against each other? After all, competition brings out the BEST in everyone, right?!

RIGHT?

Right.

Here’s the deal.

Start: December 15th.

End: January 11th.

Challenge: Starting tomorrow, until January 4th, anyone who wants to participate in this challenge should submit a snark to me at jiggyface@gmail.com. You will include your username in this snark, which will be either pasted into the email, or put into an attached document. All bbcode must be entered already – I WILL NOT FORMAT THIS FOR YOU.

Now, this can’t be just any snark, mind you, this must be the best snark you feel you can muster. Do your absolute best on this: try to be as funny, as insightful, as what-have-you as possible in this one. Try to pick an appropriate fic – one that won’t just be fandom-specific wanking over stuff other people won’t understand; it has to be funny or outrageous to anyone, not just you.

And here’s why: Once I receive these snarks, I will start a new thread for each one in new releases. They will be labeled as a challenge snark and they will be given a number. In a thread in Challenges, I will create a poll wherein users will vote on each snark that he/she likes the best. At the end of the week-long voting/reading period, I will declare a winner and reveal the author of each snark.

The point of the anonymity is to rid ourselves of any sort of popularity contest. I know some snarks are going to be somewhat recognizable, because certain people have certain distinctive styles, but do your best to vote impartially when you vote.

Okay, here are some ground rules.

1. Do your best to be funny. No one wants to read some boring-ass snark.
2. Submit it with all formatting intact. Once again, I will not format this for you. It will be posted as is.
3. Make sure you include the link to the fanfic you are snarking.
4. Snark the fic, not the author.
5. Send it to jiggyface@gmail.com by January 4th.
6. This is not mandatory, but if you snark, please vote. It’s only courteous, and I’m counting on people participating in all stages of this for it to work.
7. Make sure you include your name in the email you send to me.
8. Do not reveal which snark is by you until the appropriate time. Do not discuss it with other people until the appropriate time. I don’t want any cheating, and besides, it’s just some dinky contest – don’t cheat. That’s lame.
9. Feel free to speculate on whose snark is whose, but please, like I said, do not reveal which one is yours.
10. No joint or group snarks. I know they're fun, but for my own purposes, and for the purposes of making sure people read it, let's keep it solo. I know there are a good bit of people who don't read any group snarks (due to eye-glazing problems).

Winners will get bragging rights, and I’ll talk to Nihilist about other possible rewards. The point is, have fun with this; I think it’ll be interesting to see if anyone can be picked out of the entries for having a distinctive style, etc.

Note: I will probably participate, but I will be anonymous as well, and I will not be voting so as not to have an unfair advantage. I wouldn’t cheat at something like this – it’s just dumb.

Please participate! I’m counting on some interest here. I think this could be neat.

Respond here if you think this would be a fun idea, and if you want to participate, go ahead and submit it as your answer.

I'm going to join, this sounds like real fun. Plus then I can break my WGW snark cherry.

I'll take a stab at it.

Sounds good, broski.

I approve of this!

It shall be a challenge to revert to my pre-cap days, but I SHALL PULL THROUGH

This sounds like fun.

Can we enter a co-written snark in this?

Ah, crap, I forgot to put that in the rules.

Sorry, rae, I'm going to have to say no, because that's just a little too complicated, and I'm trying to encourage people to do snarks on their own as well. Let me add that into the original rules.

I oughta give it the try. Will see what I can do.

Bumping this thread to remind you lazy bums I've got a challenge going, and I've only received one entry so far.

You've got until January 4th, people. I want to see some participation!

/motivating

Also, is there anyone who is thinking about participating in this but would be more willing to do so if I extended the contest deadline a bit? I realize this is a very busy time of year for some folks, and I'm wondering if I'm pushing too had since it's still New Years.

...I am actually away from keyboard from tomorrow evening until Jan 4th. Dunno if a longer deadline would get me to finish this snark or not, but could be worth a try :s

Ohhh, Knorg, that's a great idea. Thank you. As for the rest, the deadline has been extended, and I'm going to try to rally some more involvement with this thing.

Thank you so much for extending the deadline!