Below, I've summarized the proposals, the reason for them, possible unintended consequences, and my own judgment on the proposals. My thoughts may change over time.
Proposal 1: Shortening Competition Deadlines
Justification:
* Shorter deadlines encourage entrants to manage their time more carefully and reduce the number of dropouts due to not having enough time.
* Shorter deadlines encourage entrants to make smaller cases that can be actually finished in time, giving them extra motivation to enter and submit.
* Shorter deadlines signal to new users that they don't need to meet some unreasonable standard - a "quick and dirty" submission is fine.
* Shorter deadlines cause more activity in the Case Competition section, as there's a flurry at competition start and competition end.
Other Consequences:
* Shorter deadlines may discourage entrants from signing up in the first plac if they think they'd need more time.
* Shorter deadlines may disproportionately cut the crucial beta-testing phase, leading to buggier submissions, or decrease the crucial planning phase, leading to cases with major underlying problems.
* Shorter deadlines will give the authors less time, so this may actually increase the number of incomplete cases.
Enthalpy's Thoughts:
There are a lot of costs and benefits here, many of which counterbalance, and none of which I can estimate the effect of easily. DWaM cited the last competition as an example of the benefits of smaller deadlines. Maybe there's a benefit here, but I can't be sure. For the time being, I'm inclined to hold off on this until we see more of these short competitions.
Proposal 2: Trial Only Cases
Justification:
* Trial cases can be written quickly, relative to non-trial cases, due to the pre-established structure.
* Trial-only cases encourage entrants to submit, due to the pre-established structure.
* Trial cases can be written quickly, relative to non-trial cases, due to the reduced need for custom assets.
Other Consequences:
* This would have prohibit a lot of past competition entries.
Enthalpy's Thoughts:
Southern Corn didn't word this as a proposal for a rules change, but as a rule he wanted to see more competition hosts use. I am strongly against this becoming a general rule: this would have disqualified all three of my past entries! As a rule which competition hosts can employ as they see fit, I'm indifferent. The more the rule benefits you, the likelier you were to write a trial-only case in the first place. However, there may be some good competition theme using trial-only cases, so I don't want to ban them, either. I think that infrequent as this rule currently is, I don't need to do anything. But if "trial-only cases" becomes used highly frequently, I may discourage hosts from using the rule.
REJECTED
Proposal 3: Entrants Can Always Showcase at Completion Time
Justification:
* Having a set release day increases anticipation for the entries, and thus the attention they receive and discussion they generate on release.
Other Consequences:
* Judge reviews now receive less attention.
* Judges must now judge entries that are public, which some judges dislike.
Enthalpy's Thoughts:
When I originally introduced this rule almost three years ago, it was in response to a specific problem. Some users (who I won't name) were extremely concerned about public backlash if their judging deviated from public consensus. Since then, this rule has become common, and I'm not sure why. Is there some other reason for this rule that I'm not aware of? "Judge purity" should not be a pressing concern. The lack of attention case competition entries receive, on the other hand, is a pressing concern. Given this lack of addition, concerns about public backlash seem unfounded, so I'm inclined to reverse this rule and always allow entrants to showcase as soon as the deadline hits.
Proposal 4: Entries Can be from Any Casemaker
Justification:
* The pool of participants and spectators becomes larger, as users of other casemakers are welcomed in.
Other Consequences:
* We lose an incentive for people to use AAO.
Enthalpy's Thoughts:
This is another rule that I'm in favor of. I can't imagine anybody using AAO just for the case competitions, and the activity boost from allowing other casemakers, even if a small one, does seem quite useful!
And lastly, while DWaM brought up to me the importance of making the period between entry submission and end of the competition, this is already in the rules. The issue here is that I have not been enforcing this with a quite strong enough iron first. If I maintain the standard I set last competition, this should be fine.