We are working on a series of posts that will address a lot of these questions. The posts will be out in a few weeks. So far we are drafting posts on Reader Retention (how it works and why we use it), the Grading Rubric and a post with tips for how to improve your chances of success on the platform this will apply to contests generally and also more broadly to the platform as a whole.
The reason this will take a few weeks is because some of the questions you have asked touch on issues of account privacy and proprietary data - these posts will need to go through a review process as a result. I hope you all can be patient while we try and get you the answers you are asking for.