Last Updated/Changed: 04.22.07

RULES

1. Before submitting a story be sure that you have READ ALL THE RULES. Those whom do not comply with even but one rule will have their submission(s) deleted.
2. Stories may be nominated by anyone as long as permission from the author is granted. If no response is received from the author by the time the contest starts, the nomination will be disregarded and the next nomination will take its place in line.
3. Any given author may have a maximum of three (3) stories per category.
4. Any one story can compete in a maximum of three (3) different categories.
5. No single person may nominate more than nine (9) stories total. Any nominations afterwards will be deleted.
6. There is a maximum of twenty (20) stories per category. Slots in a category will be decided by the order in which nominations are received. If at any time a story is removed from a category for any reason, the next nomination will take its place in line.
7. When nominating a story you MUST include the following: Name of story, name of author, name of nominator (if different from author), e-mail address of author, e-mail address of nominator (if different from author), category, and URL of the story. If any of one of these are missing, the submission will be deleted.
8. A previously nominated story may not be nominated again.
9. No judge will be given a category in which they have a story in.
10. As of right now, only URLs are being excepted. DO NOT paste a story into the e-mail or send a .txt, .htm, .html, etc. files in an attachment.
11. If a link is given for a story, it must be DIRECT and ACTIVE, otherwise the entry will be deleted and replaced with the next submission.
12. Do not submit incomplete stories, multipart or not, otherwise it will not be accepted. My advice would be to enter it when it's completed; remember this contest will be held every year.
13. If the story contains Lemon scenes you MUST include that information in your submission. All stories containing Lemons will be marked accordingly: [LEMON]. Remember if you are under 18 you should not be viewing stories that are stamped with Lemon.
14. There must be at least five (5) nominations in a category for it to be run.
15. Once a nomination is received, a confirmation e-mail will be sent to the author. If the confirmation e-mail bounces or the author does not reply before the beginning of the contest, the nomination will be disregarded and deleted.
16. Nominees have the right to deny nomination of any of their works without questioning. Do not pester or attempt to convince the author to approve their nomination; this IS a form of flaming and is completely unacceptable.
17. If a story is deemed to be in an inappropriate category by two or more judges, it will be removed from that category and will not be judged
18. The nominee page will include the title of the story, the author, and the name of the nominator (if different). Unless specifically requested to do otherwise by the author, no e-mail address will be publicized.
19. All corrections or alterations to the nominee list must be in to the webmistress by the list deadline as it will not be altered afterwards.
20. Any stories by the contest supervisor (Chibi Chocopaws) cannot be nominated.
21. There is a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If any entry is found to be involved in the illegal act of plagiarizing, the story will be removed and the offending author or nominator will be permanently banned from the contest.
22. The judges have final say. No complaining.

1. The winner of the category will be decided by the average scoring of each judge in that category.
2. In order for scoring to be completed in any given category, at least three (3) judges must have reported grades in. The webmistress will be one of the three judges for all categories.
3. The major award of the contest, Best Overall, will be selected from the top 10% (rounded up) of scoring stories in the contest. Once all judges have reported in, the scores will be examined, and the highest stories will be placed into the Best Overall category. Each judge will then be given three (3) votes to cast on these entries. A judge may not cast votes in that category if they have a story in it.
4. Stories will be scored by the following criteria:
   
   • Grammar and Spelling: 15%
   • Flow: 20%
   • Characterization: 25%
   • Interest: 10%
   • Gut Reaction: 30%
   
   Also: Music Fics will be judged on use of lyrics and comedy on weirdness/insanity.
   
   • Grammar and Spelling: 20%
   • Coherency: 20%
   • Accuracy: 20%
   • Entertainment Factor: 20%
5. All scoring will be recorded on an Excel Spreadsheet, which will be kept by the webmistress for record purposes.
6. All scoring by judges is anonymous; only the webmistress has access to judge/category listings and scores.
7. The winning story will be determined by the highest average score. If two or more stories have the same score, they will all be considered winners.
8. Honorable mentions are stories that fall within five tenths of a point (.5) of the winning story.

1. Please make sure that your work is nice and neat before submitting it. Be sure to check URL errors, punctuation, grammar, line breaks and/or word wrap and spelling. In other words be sure to proofread and revise all your work.
2. Before you nominate something be sure to check both previous and current nomination lists for the story in each category to make sure it has not already been nominated in that category, has not reached its limit of category or author submission or has not been nominated in a previous year.

NOTE: This set of rules is subject to change at any time so please be sure to check back regularly.