Writing Challenge Statistics

[The Judge]

300 Worders – Cumulative – 2011-2 to 2019-20

When I last posted stats here back in May 2021, I confirmed the next one up was the cumulative figures for the first 9 years of the 300 Worders.

For the sake of completeness, attached is that table up to March 2020 if anyone wants to look at it. However, I won’t go through the figures this time around, as I’ll be posting the table for the whole ten years up to March 2021 in the next few days, and I’ll go through the usual breakdown then.

I'll post the figures for Year 10 of the 300s (2020-2021) tomorrow.

.

 

[The Judge]

Having said I'd do it tomorrow, I've got the figures ready, so I might as well post now!

300 Worders – Year 10 – 2020-21

Attached is the table for Year 10 of the 300 Worders, showing just the entrants for that year.

Although not as good as we've seen in the past, these figures are better than those for year 9, ie 2019-2020 (which were themselves better than those of the year before -- so we were moving in the right direction!). We had 69 entrants over the four Challenges, up from 61 the year before, with 26 newcomers, up from 19, and this led to our having more great stories to read, with 144 entries, up from 134.

We had two months with 37 entries, just better than the year before which had a best of 36, and the worst month had a respectable 34 entries, better than the 31 of 2019-20.

And once again 18 of us completed all four Challenges during the year, but this time 6 members completed three Challenges, but only 9 members took part twice, and a very disappointing 36 entrants only entered one Challenge over the year (though 6 of those were newbies in the last Challenge in the January), up from 27 the year before.

Voting also increased compared to the 2019-20 figures, though only to 461 votes, up from 447, and there were 157 voters over the four Challenges, up on the previous 151.

Unfortunately, the increase in entrants led to an increase in “missing” votes, ie from those members who entered a Challenge but didn’t vote that quarter for some reason, and we had 9 missing votes from 9 voters (ie no one missed more than once, which is good, and 5 of those were first time entrants, unused to the process and the deadline), up from 4 votes/voters in 2019-20.

We had 22 extra votes, though, up from 21, coming from 14 non-entrants. Also attached is a Thank You list naming those members, all of whom deserve a pat on the back, but particular mention must go to the wonderful nixie who went above and beyond, voting in all 4 Challenges without taking part.


Year 10 was dominated by Cat’s Cradle, with two magnificent wins, giving him a total of 35 votes. Phyrebrat and Victoria Silverwolf came equal second with 30 votes, followed by Jo Zebedee with 26 votes in fourth place and me in fifth with 25 votes. M. Robert Gibson’s win brought him into sixth place with 15 votes, seventh was Luiglin with 14, Parson was eighth with 12, and in joint ninth place were Danny McG and Peter V with 11 votes each.

And once again we had noteworthy performances from some members who joined the 300 Worders for the first time in 2020-21, accumulating enviable scores with their very first entries, including Menolly with 9 votes (coming joint second that quarter!), Wayne Mack with 8, Edoc’sil with 6, and Astro Pen, Peeling, and Land Under Wave with 5 votes each. Well done and belated welcomes to them and all the other members who joined the Challenges for that year!


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[BT Jones]

Having said I'd do it tomorrow, I've got the figures ready, so I might as well post now!

300 Worders – Year 10 – 2020-21

Attached is the table for Year 10 of the 300 Worders, showing just the entrants for that year.

Although not as good as we've seen in the past, these figures are better than those for year 9, ie 2019-2020 (which were themselves better than those of the year before -- so we were moving in the right direction!). We had 69 entrants over the four Challenges, up from 61 the year before, with 26 newcomers, up from 19, and this led to our having more great stories to read, with 144 entries, up from 134.

We had two months with 37 entries, just better than the year before which had a best of 36, and the worst month had a respectable 34 entries, better than the 31 of 2019-20.

And once again 18 of us completed all four Challenges during the year, but this time 6 members completed three Challenges, but only 9 members took part twice, and a very disappointing 36 entrants only entered one Challenge over the year (though 6 of those were newbies in the last Challenge in the January), up from 27 the year before.

Voting also increased compared to the 2019-20 figures, though only to 461 votes, up from 447, and there were 157 voters over the four Challenges, up on the previous 151.

Unfortunately, the increase in entrants led to an increase in “missing” votes, ie from those members who entered a Challenge but didn’t vote that quarter for some reason, and we had 9 missing votes from 9 voters (ie no one missed more than once, which is good, and 5 of those were first time entrants, unused to the process and the deadline), up from 4 votes/voters in 2019-20.

We had 22 extra votes, though, up from 21, coming from 14 non-entrants. Also attached is a Thank You list naming those members, all of whom deserve a pat on the back, but particular mention must go to the wonderful nixie who went above and beyond, voting in all 4 Challenges without taking part.


Year 10 was dominated by Cat’s Cradle, with two magnificent wins, giving him a total of 35 votes. Phyrebrat and Victoria Silverwolf came equal second with 30 votes, followed by Jo Zebedee with 26 votes in fourth place and me in fifth with 25 votes. M. Robert Gibson’s win brought him into sixth place with 15 votes, seventh was Luiglin with 14, Parson was eighth with 12, and in joint ninth place were Danny McG and Peter V with 11 votes each.

And once again we had noteworthy performances from some members who joined the 300 Worders for the first time in 2020-21, accumulating enviable scores with their very first entries, including Menolly with 9 votes (coming joint second that quarter!), Wayne Mack with 8, Edoc’sil with 6, and Astro Pen, Peeling, and Land Under Wave with 5 votes each. Well done and belated welcomes to them and all the other members who joined the Challenges for that year!


.

Fantastic work, your majesty. Good job there isn't promotion and relegation in this competition!!!

 

[Wayne Mack]

Having said I'd do it tomorrow, I've got the figures ready, so I might as well post now!

300 Worders – Year 10 – 2020-21

Attached is the table for Year 10 of the 300 Worders, showing just the entrants for that year.

Although not as good as we've seen in the past, these figures are better than those for year 9, ie 2019-2020 (which were themselves better than those of the year before -- so we were moving in the right direction!). We had 69 entrants over the four Challenges, up from 61 the year before, with 26 newcomers, up from 19, and this led to our having more great stories to read, with 144 entries, up from 134.

We had two months with 37 entries, just better than the year before which had a best of 36, and the worst month had a respectable 34 entries, better than the 31 of 2019-20.

And once again 18 of us completed all four Challenges during the year, but this time 6 members completed three Challenges, but only 9 members took part twice, and a very disappointing 36 entrants only entered one Challenge over the year (though 6 of those were newbies in the last Challenge in the January), up from 27 the year before.

Voting also increased compared to the 2019-20 figures, though only to 461 votes, up from 447, and there were 157 voters over the four Challenges, up on the previous 151.

Unfortunately, the increase in entrants led to an increase in “missing” votes, ie from those members who entered a Challenge but didn’t vote that quarter for some reason, and we had 9 missing votes from 9 voters (ie no one missed more than once, which is good, and 5 of those were first time entrants, unused to the process and the deadline), up from 4 votes/voters in 2019-20.

We had 22 extra votes, though, up from 21, coming from 14 non-entrants. Also attached is a Thank You list naming those members, all of whom deserve a pat on the back, but particular mention must go to the wonderful nixie who went above and beyond, voting in all 4 Challenges without taking part.


Year 10 was dominated by Cat’s Cradle, with two magnificent wins, giving him a total of 35 votes. Phyrebrat and Victoria Silverwolf came equal second with 30 votes, followed by Jo Zebedee with 26 votes in fourth place and me in fifth with 25 votes. M. Robert Gibson’s win brought him into sixth place with 15 votes, seventh was Luiglin with 14, Parson was eighth with 12, and in joint ninth place were Danny McG and Peter V with 11 votes each.

And once again we had noteworthy performances from some members who joined the 300 Worders for the first time in 2020-21, accumulating enviable scores with their very first entries, including Menolly with 9 votes (coming joint second that quarter!), Wayne Mack with 8, Edoc’sil with 6, and Astro Pen, Peeling, and Land Under Wave with 5 votes each. Well done and belated welcomes to them and all the other members who joined the Challenges for that year!


.

Thanks for the statistics--I'm always a big fan of seeing numbers. I'm having an issue reading the Year 10 list, though. I'm just seeing one page with the table cutting off in the Ls.

 

[The Judge]

Thanks for the statistics--I'm always a big fan of seeing numbers. I'm having an issue reading the Year 10 list, though. I'm just seeing one page with the table cutting off in the Ls.

Glad you like them, as there are more coming soon!

I've no idea what's wrong with the Year 10 list -- I've just opened it myself and it seemed OK. I'll post it again here, though, in the hope this time it comes right for you!

 

[Wayne Mack]

Glad you like them, as there are more coming soon!

I've no idea what's wrong with the Year 10 list -- I've just opened it myself and it seemed OK. I'll post it again here, though, in the hope this time it comes right for you!

Not sure what the issue is, but I am not the table is not rolling over to a second page for me. I've found a couple of work arounds to see the whole table. I'm using LibreOffice Writer to view the original file. To see the whole table, I clicked on the table, then from the men bar, I selected Table, Select, then Table. I then Copied the selection, opened a new text document, and pasted the selection. I got the table spread across two pages. An alternative, after selecting the table, I changed the font size to 4 pt and the table fit on a single page, but was barely readable. Note: I have opened other tables that used multiple pages without problem. It's just this one that isn't rolling over to multiple pages.

Bottom line: The whole table is there. It seems that it is the display software that I am using isn't paginating the table correctly.

 

[The Judge]

Sorry, Wayne, I've no idea how to help you out with that. Fingers crossed you can work around the problem, as here come more stats...


With the 2020-21 figures done, it's time for the cumulative figures.

300 Worders – Years 2011-12 to 2020-21 inclusive

Attached are the tables for the complete first decade of the 300s, together with a list of all the winners and runners-up.

The ten years produced an incredible total of 1491 stories receiving 4728 votes. It would have been perfect to have reached 300 entrants over that time, but we didn’t quite make it, finishing with a total of 291 entrants.

As at March 2021 we still had 4 of us with 100% records, having successfully completed all 40 Challenges (mosaix, Perpetual Man, me and Ursa major), with johnnyjet on 37, Phyrebrat 35, chrispenycate and Starbeast 34 each, Victoria Silverwolf 33, Luiglin 30, and Cat’s Cradle and Jo Zebedee 28 apiece. But some 142 members took part in only one Challenge, which is a shame.

At the end of the ten years, the top of the leaderboard remained much as it had for the previous couple of years, the only major change coming on the back of Cat’s Cradle’s incredible run of success which thrust him into seventh place. However, we still had three members in the top 15 who hadn’t taken part in the Challenges for at least three years!

​		entries​	votes​
​		​	​
​	The Judge	40​	316​
​	Victoria Silverwolf	33​	240​
​	mosaix	40​	201​
​	Phyrebrat	35​	193​
​	Jo Zebedee	28​	169​
​	Perpetual Man	40​	158​
​	Cat’s Cradle	28​	127​
​	Teresa Edgerton	16​	112​
​	Juliana	14​	103​
​	TheDustyZebra	21​	96​
​	alchemist	17​	92​
​	Luiglin	30​	92​
​	Culhwch	18​	90​
​	johnnyjet	37​	79​
​	chrispenycate	34​	77​
​		​	​

The decade ends with the top of the winner’s board looking like this:

​		wins​	outright​	on tiebreak​
​		​	​	​
​	The Judge	6​	6​	​
​	Victoria Silverwolf	4​	3​	1​
​	Cat’s Cradle	3​	3​	​
​	Juliana	3​	3​	​
​	Jo Zebedee	3​	3​	​
​	Phyrebrat	3​	3​	​
​	Mouse	2​	1​	1​
​	Teresa Edgerton	2​	2​	​
​		​	​	​

and the runners-up board (aka those who've worn the Principal Bridesmaid's dress, which has become increasingly tattered for some of us...):

​		second place​	(after tiebreak)​	(not after tiebreak)​
​		​	​	​
​	The Judge	9​	1​	8​
​	Victoria Silverwolf	5​	1​	4​
​	mosaix	4​	1​	3​
​	alchemist	3​	1​	2​
​	Cory Swanson	3​	​	3​
​	Jo Zebedee	3​	​	3​
​	Perpetual Man	3​	​	3​
​	Phyrebrat	3​	​	3​
​	David Evil Overlord	2​	1​	1​
​	Teresa Edgerton	2​	​	2​
​	The Spurring Platty	2​	1​	1​
​		​	​	​

We had only four tie-breaks over the 10 years, but nobody faced more than one, so no wooden spoons need to be handed out in the 300s, but TheDustyZebra retains the Tie-Break Crown for the 75s and 300s, since she's never yet lost a tie-break!


That brings us to the end of the first decade of the Challenges, an incredible acievement as when we started with the 75s, we thought we might keep it going only a few months! Well done to every single person who entered!

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Wow, thanks so much for taking the time to put together these numbers, and the tables, TJ! This sort of work takes so much time, and it's truly appreciated.
I am amazed to have done so well over the years (and in particular in 2021) with the quality, and great number of writers who enter these Challenges. The 75 worders, to me, are for fun, while 300 worders are for stretching, and exploring new types of stories. I really love the 300 worder. Looking forward to seeing who else will move up on the leaderboards the next few years, CC

edit to fix typo

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Not sure what the issue is, but I am not the table is not rolling over to a second page for me. I've found a couple of work arounds to see the whole table. I'm using LibreOffice Writer to view the original file. To see the whole table, I clicked on the table, then from the men bar, I selected Table, Select, then Table. I then Copied the selection, opened a new text document, and pasted the selection. I got the table spread across two pages. An alternative, after selecting the table, I changed the font size to 4 pt and the table fit on a single page, but was barely readable. Note: I have opened other tables that used multiple pages without problem. It's just this one that isn't rolling over to multiple pages.

Bottom line: The whole table is there. It seems that it is the display software that I am using isn't paginating the table correctly.

Same problem for me. However, being the computer genius that I am, I solved it thusly: In LibreOffice on the top menu bar click 'View' and from the drop-down menu select 'Web', and lo and behold, the table in all its glory, and my solitary win. Hooray!

And cumulatively, in 12 attempts I've had one win and one second place - proves I can occasionally get it right

 

[The Judge]

I was just fiddling around with some other stats, and I realise I made a stupid typo in the 2020-21 300 stats. I doubt anyone but me will worry, but just to confirm the figure for the "entered, didn't vote" in the Jan 2021 column should be 2 not 1.

I do try and double check all figures, but typos happen, so if anyone thinks I've made other errors, please do point them out!

Looking forward to seeing who else will move up on the leaderboards the next few years, CC

As we've now done 10 years of both the 75s and 300s, it strikes me it's time to start afresh with the cumulative figures for both of them, so newcomers to the Challenges have a chance to make their mark. So there will be new leaderboards from now on -- no resting on our laurels for the oldtimers amongst us, we'll have to get out there and prove ourselves all over again!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I was just fiddling around with some other stats, and I realise I made a stupid typo in the 2020-21 300 stats. I doubt anyone but me will worry, but just to confirm the figure for the "entered, didn't vote" in the Jan 2021 column should be 2 not 1.

I do try and double check all figures, but typos happen, so if anyone thinks I've made other errors, please do point them out!



As we've now done 10 years of both the 75s and 300s, it strikes me it's time to start afresh with the cumulative figures for both of them, so newcomers to the Challenges have a chance to mark their mark. So there will be new leaderboards from now on -- no resting on our laurels for the oldtimers amongst us, we'll have to get out there and prove ourselves all over again!

Can you start from the last challenges then. Give some of us oldsters who haven't won a 75 word in 5 years a chance, eh?

 

[The Judge]

Can you start from the last challenges then. Give some of us oldsters who haven't won a 75 word in 5 years a chance, eh?

Well, your figures from the cumulative table for the 75s:

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​

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​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

2010-11​

2011-12​

2012-13​

2013-14​

2014-15​

2015-16​

2016-17​

2017-18​

2018-19​

2019-20​

total entries​

total votes​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

entries / votes​

0 / 0​

6 / 12​

12 / 14​

12 / 10​

11 / 17​

11 / 14​

5 / 4​

3 / 1​

2 / 3​

1 / 0​

63​

75​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

That is, in the 3 years 2017-8 to 2019-20 you only entered 6 times. Then in 2020-21 you didn't enter at all. I'll be doing the figures for 2021-2 next, but looking quickly I don't think you entered at all that year, either, nor again until Aug 22, and then you won in September. So if that's right, for the last half of those 5 years you're worried about you entered twice and won once. Not bad stats there!

 

[The Judge]

Above I've noted a typo which I belatedly noticed. Even more belatedly, getting all my tables together to put them to bed, I discovered two members changed their usernames and I hadn't realised as and when I noted them appearing again under the new name, so both of them ended up in the tables twice. So their stats are wrong, as they're split between two entries, and the figures for new members are out by 2. (I may be a perfectionist, but I'm not even contemplating producing new tables, though!)


But amendments aside, with the end of the first decade of the Challenges, here ends this thread -- I've started a new one for the next ten years which is here Writing Challenge Statistics -- the Second Decade!