I asked them not to be off-topic in this thread. There's a difference :P
Ding ding ding, big message coming through. Read it or get kicked out of the tournament.
...now that I have your attention!
There are also another few memos I need to make, and will post them, repeatedly, over the next few weeks so I can be fairly sure everybody has read them. Furthermore I will also write some of them in bold.
Off-topic may be a feature of this section of the forums but for the purposes of the WoM it confuses people and makes the GM's job harder. If banter is heating up, please take it to a chat or over profiles. If another run of OT happens again and I happen to be in a bad mood (likely over the next fortnight due to exams)I will not hesitate to bar offending users from the rest of the tournament.
Please DO NOT write your entries in Word or WordPad. We can't read entries with excessive amounts of ?s in it. We strongly recommend you use notepad instead, and insert any fancy additions with BBCode, and submit your draft like that, because we're used to this. In other words, if you have too autoformatted symbols in your entry in future, we will reject it and you'll have to do it again.
Less urgent: Please take care to follow instructions. I notice that in the rush, some of you somehow managed to email and post on the thread without waiting for us to notify you. We use the email for a reason, and waiting for approval is one of the CARDINAL rules of this tournament. In my post on this thread telling people to submit, I did state that this only applied for those who had already submitted a draft and had been approved (most of whom would have been approved by Cen.) Since this round has been significantly delayed (and it's a fairly tangential round), I'm going to have to let it slide but later on, when the plot thickens, I can't allow any leeway due to more complicated logistics.
Speaking of which, this round was delayed significantly due to a number of factors:
1) NaNoWriMo
2) Cen and my exams (and everybody else's, for that matter).
3) The fact I was rather flexible on the deadline as a result.
Following the 8th of December, which is my last exam, and, I'm pretty darn sure, the last of any exams anybody is facing this year, I'll be wanting things to run ship-shape (with due allowances for Christmas and New Year). This is if you guys don't want the WoM to drag on until Easter of next year. Deadlines are going to be much tighter. Your own availability will largely determine how much of a role your characters will play. As stated at the start of this tournament, we require everybody to keep us updated on their status.
To kick you guys off, I'll tell you exactly what's going on from here:
* I've got enough entries and we will chase up the stragglers at our leisure.
* There will be awards as usual at the end of this round. Yes. You were being judged for your ability to make sexist jokes. Sort of. Not approvingly. Most of the time.
* The rest of the round, and subsequent events will be posted over the next two or three days. There is a LOT that is happening, so I don't expect people to follow it. But it would be wise to read the Archive when I update it. I will let everybody know here when that happens.
* The next round will begin as soon as is possible after that, which, unfortunately, is slightly uncertain due to exams and a LOT of material to cover. It is at this point that the plots will begin to diverge and I will be contacting you individually once more. Start expecting emails this weekend.
Okay, that's it from me. I'm going to finish the content now.
