I just got the shelf back 
Strange.
I have forwarded our questions to Liz in the Fantastical contest section as we have discussed. Please, support in that thread! Thank you! 
Dear @Liz,
I hope you are great. As you may know, I have created a thread specifically destined to find how to balance the chances of small authors to get noticed. (App: supporting small authors discussion) Many people offered their opinions, we had quite a productive discussion where both emerging writers as well as big moguls took part. Since so far contests are the main way for smaller authors to get noticed, most of the suggestions concerned these contests. However, we got stuck because we realised that we do not understand your judging criteria and system very clearly.
Here is the list of questions we have formulated for you. Please, note, that I am speaking not just for myself but on behalf of many people who commented on my thread and would like to know the answers as well.
Here is what we would like to clarify (credit to @EliseC for her great input)
Is every story being read? (At least one episode) Is every story is being assessed against the rubric or only those which reader retention is high enough? In the second case we would like to clarify what this high enough would mean in percentage, ie if you only read stories that rate high enough according to reader retention, how much in percent does a story need to score in reader engagement to qualify for being read and assessed against the rubric?
Reader retention: is thereâs a certain âcheckpointâ that a reader must get to for them to âcountâ? Like, if someone enters a story, sees that thereâs no CC and exits, does that automatically affect the reader retention? If someone enters a story and has it crash in a crowd scene every time so they canât progress, does that affect reader retention?
To the above point: would it be considered more âfairâ to track reader retention only from episode 2? So in this case, seeing who continues reading a story only if they already read the first episode? (That is a suggestion rather than a question)
Most of the participants in the threadâs discussion also agreed that we would like the contests and the judging system to be transparent, ie we would like to see all the results (engagement, rubric, theme fitting, accordance with the guidelines) However, since we do not quite understand how the judging works we would like to clarify that first so that we can work from that.Thank you very much for your reply. Kindest regards,
Alex and a lot of amazing people eager to know the answers
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Alex, are you entering the contest? If yes, Iâll be rooting for you, your enthusiasm is incredible 
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She is 
Check out her instagram! She posted the intro!
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Thank you very much, I never give up even if I see that the system has flaws or I believe that something may be done unfairly, as I believe that only strong spirits succeed! So, YES, I am! And I am preparing something TRULY FANTASTICAL this time I am just making some very advanced overlays animations. And I REALLY hope the story wonât glitch, so fingers crossed. I also took into consideration all the kind feedback given, so I am working on my mistakes. So I really hope my next story will make me and my readers proud.
I know you donât have IG but if you ever decide to set one up mine is @episode.alex.af, I post sneak-peaks there!
Thank you very much for your support!
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Yeah, I donât have Instagram, but please let me know the title when the deadline has passed and I will literally replay it five times 
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Well, arenât you the sweetest person ever? Thank you very much!
I think I have already decided on the title, itâs Fantastical: Black Shadow
I will let you know if I change it, but thatâs unlikely
.
And yes, Iâve had a really bad day today, but you brightened my mood, so THANK YOU!
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I hope your day gets better
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Thank you very much!
It will if we get a clear reply from Liz to our questions. I really hope she will get back to usâŚ
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Iâm sure she will. Iâve seen her answer other questions and it would hurt episode not answer the questions even if the answers are bad.
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@Alex_Af Iâll be supporting you too. The message is amazing and this thread has done so much already!
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Thank you very much!
@Langdon @Annieways @thesktales @EliseC @yazhin @FieryTenderness
Well, I have very interesting news: my post with our questions (see the reference a few posts above) was flagged and deleted from the Fantastical thread as it was, and I quote, âoff-topicâ.
It really makes me wonder how the questions about the contest judging system do not relate to the next contest thread.
Any ideas/suggestions?
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Well, itâs even more than I expected. I thought there will be ignore or something dodging⌠It means only two things: 1. we have already greatly touched Episode teamâs nerve; 2. we can consider all the worst suspicions confirmed. By the way, have you contacted moderators to find out more about the reasons why the post was deleted, as it was directly relating the topic and didnât violate any of the forum rules?
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Simple: create a new topic dedicated solely to our questions. Thatâs what they want, and itâs what always happens when someone posts something off-topic in a thread that is dedicated to something else. Like Jeremy pointed out somewhere above, make a nice little summary of our concerns (which you already did) and put it all together in a new topic. Episode isnât dodging us nor have we âstricken a nerveâ. Theyâre just very strict about the forum guidelines, which is respectable.
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The idea about creating a new topic is good itself. But the very fact of calling a question about contest judging details âoff-topicâ for the contest thread is a big matter of dispute. Why contest judging questions canât be discussed in the thread dedicated to the contest? Isnât it information interesting for all potential contestants? And where should people look for such information if not in the thread dedicated to contest?
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Probably because it is a thread dedicated to a contest announcement and not a thread to discuss matters like these. Itâs in the Announcement section and I can totally understand why they wouldnât want comments, arguments, opinions etc. under that thread like we have here. Besides, if you go to the Announcements > Contests section youâll see we arenât even able to create a topic there meaning they want that whole section to stay professional, neat and clean without everyone flocking the comment section and flooding it with these kind of messages as, again, itâs meant to announce things like contests.
Itâs related to contests, sure. But in my personal opinion (and I think Episodeâs too) this fits much better in the Site Feedback section as it relates to its organization, how it works and how they can improve it. A second option would be the Feature + Art Suggestions > Mobile App Features since weâre actually requesting something, aka more transparency which could be linked to the general idea of a feature.
I get why you would think that way but if you look at it from a more organizing perspective youâd see that the thread she commented it under is specifically dedicated to ONE of the many contests. This is of course because we simply do not have a section solely for âcontest-related topicsâ, not one where we can create topics anyway. Also, these issues do not just address the contest itself, its main purpose is to support small authors (incl. transparency in contests) like the title of this topic states. Thus, I hope you can understand why they might have deleted it because it had nothing to do with the Fantastical contest specifically.
Edit: I just wanted to quickly add that itâs not âjust a questionâ. Itâs addressing something that a lot of people in this community feel strongly about and cannot be solved by âjust answeringâ. Itâs like âasking for diversityâ is NOT just a question. Itâs putting something in motion to reach for something better, a process. Weâre not just asking them a question that is contest-related like âSo when is the deadline?â Thereâs a difference.
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Just seen thisâŚwtf, how is that off topic
But maybe send it in an email? Liz is unlikely to reply to this sort of thing on there anyway xx
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Your point is clear and you are making a lot of sense, but still I think that reaction of Episode was not very logical. They could have suggested to move the question to another section or to offer to create a specific topic dedicated to discussion of the asked question. Yet the question was simply flagged and deleted like âoff-topicâ, and I feel that this decision was more dictated by growing irritation than âprofessionalâ point of view. Deleting the post before many people are able to like it and comment on it is wise in order to prevent the discussion, but itâs completely unwise in order to take the problem off.
In this situation Episode is just treating us like children, waiting for us to get tired of regular requests and forget about the problem. And they are very encouraged by the fact that not so many people see the problem as it is.
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