 It's the end of the series as we know it and I feel fine Hi, I'm dr. Sumerian. Not a real doctor Gotta throw that in there and today we are going to talk about Contests on the sep wiki in general but also specifically the one that's going on right now or the type of contest that's going on right now an XK contest Let's get started. So At the end of a series and when we talk about the end of a series what we really mean is when there is one to two hundred Slots left in an SCP series and when we say series I have to define that too. We mean like 5,000 to 5,099 so there's a proximate well not approximately. There's exactly 1,000 articles article slots available in any particular series there's one through 1,000 1,000 and well one through 99 1,000 through 1,099 and so on and so forth and we call those series so series one is one through 999 series two is 1,000 through 1,999 series three is 2,000 to 2,099 and so on and so forth so When a series only has a few slots left the SCP wiki will open up a contest The contest winner gets to select first from the new series And this is important because of course if you just open it up It would just be whoever could reach most of the time anyway, whoever could reach the big number first right The six thousand in this particular instance, which is going to be the new series to be six thousand six ninety nine and other you know Attractive numbers. I imagine out of this one six thousand six hundred and sixty six will probably Be one of the first to go out of the contest of course six thousand and it's anywhere between six thousand six thousand and Ten tend to get taken because people like to pick up the first few numbers in a particular series And then there's other people who may have just their own concepts of what they want that they'll take but in order to do that they have to participate at the very least in the contest and The better you place in the contest the earlier on the list you get to select from so How does this work? and I'm speaking from I've never actually participated in an xk contest and As it stands now, I never will be able to but I have one two or three different contests on the scp wiki And so I have a little bit of experience with how contests work. I also helped run one in the one I ran Maybe this is colored my experiences a little bit because I was originally looking at the each of the contests has a theme You know you have science fiction. I believe was series three Urban legends, I think was series two Series one. I didn't have a theme because it was just when they started Although you could say that the theme of series one is probably creepypasta Paranormal sort of stuff and So on and so forth more recently though the themes have gotten more and more generic, I mean we get history and This time around it's nature These are so generic that you could literally create any article that would fit the theme If you just did a little bit of tweaking Not a lot of people are willing to do that though a lot of people believe that it when they write something It's got to be it is what it is it doesn't and doesn't change and that's perfectly valid writing process I don't agree with it personally. I'm willing to change literally any detail in an article So a theme like this that's so broadly interpreted. I could literally create any article to fit it The thing is though, and this is important I I ran a con well not ran. I helped run a contest Way way back. Oh gosh was it? 2017-16 I don't know but it was the short works contest which was basically to see How much you could create from a very limiting Set of rules and the set of rules was basically, you know The shorter the work the more likely are to win and the one that one is also I believe third or fourth most popular article on the side at this point because that's the truth of the matter when you when you're creating works With the high limitations. I believe it is it induces creativity and So I have a little bit of criticism and I give this some consideration because a lot of people have made some pretty good points that counter I should say counter points to what I'm saying here And I'll go over those in just a moment But I've always held to the idea that the more limiting the rules of particular contest are the more Because you get to I think of rules as something that you can push and explore, right? You just look at the rule set and then what can I do with this rule set, right? that's how I observe and interact with a contest of any kind or any kind of Let's say creative works give me a set of rules and I will push and Pull and tug until I find something that works really well However I'm not entirely sure that works for an xk contest now that I've given it some thought I had made a video last week in which I like talked about this and then I Literally like halfway through kind of went back on my own premise was like I understand where they're coming from And then I thought about it and I just stopped turned off the camera and did something else Because it was like you know what I don't think I have a fully formed opinion on this and I still don't but I'd like to Acknowledge that I think in an xk contest Maybe it is better. I mean because you're not gonna get Even in a contest with more limiting. I think in a contest with more limits. You're gonna get more Higher quality works. I think that is true emphasis on think however In a more broad contest, which is what an xk contest really is You want to have as many participants as possible or at least you don't want to be put turning people away from it, right? so Yeah, I think maybe a broader theme like nature I I keep saying it like in such a dismissive way, but to be honest with you. I mean it is whatever I I still like I Accept that maybe a broad theme is good, but I'm just still like man. I wish it was more narrow Because I would love to read what people could come up with with a more narrow thing or If you're gonna go broad, this is the other half of it I think if you're gonna go broad A genre is a better option than just paying lip service to a theme because that's all nature or I think history does It's just lip service like we have to have a theme here have a theme But when you do something like science fiction Or in a way urban legends, which is still a genre um, I think you inspire You you still have that same broad appeal and opportunity But you also Focus the writing in a particular way That's my own personal opinion on it though Not everyone agrees with that almost certainly Uh And I think that I think other people have some fair points like I said, uh, I'm not entirely sure Uh, like it's gotta happen. So it's not like something you can uh discuss and talk about for too long before it happens This is we're having these Yearly at this point. Maybe they'll slow down once the pandemic goes away I think a lot of people are staying home and writing someone mentioned that on um, one of the discord servers I was on we were talking about how frequent these are and how What's the best way to put this um That like I'm gonna use this as an example. Oh, oh ones don't mean much anymore There's too many of them for it to mean much and starting to feel the same way when it comes to these xk contests If they start to become more infrequent, maybe they'll become more important in my mind. Uh, but they're also Just because it's one of those things is like it's like religion A thing can have meaning because it has meaning, right? If people keep attaching Huge amounts of meaning to these xk contests and the entries that are being put in then they have importance and meaning regardless of if I think the frequency has kind of spoiled it I might personally think that oh ones don't really mean much in the grand scheme of things and aren't particularly important articles But the people who write them certainly do and some of the people that read them not some most of the people That read them. I think still think of an 001 is like the pinnacle of content on the scp wiki um And they're allowed to think that I'm also allowed to think that they're wrong But I can also, you know, accept that there's probably more than one opinion With a fairly valid argument to be made for it Anyway, that said I just wanted to talk a little bit about the contest the current contest It's ongoing if you want to participate in the contest go to the wiki and you know Take a look around be join the wiki, but do your postings do everything Put something up. It doesn't have to be great That's another thing when I tell people that like the scp wiki's content isn't generally all that high In comparison to you know to say traditional media, but that's not really fair um That doesn't mean anything everybody almost everybody on the wiki is not a professional writer like and the few that are are just doing it as a hobby anyway like Having an environment where the quality level is higher than Most places you can find on the internet Uh gives you an incentive to grow and to improve and the fact that the highest of quality stuff There's probably more high quality stuff on the scp wiki than there are in other collaborative writing You know environments The fact that there is a high Quality ceiling as well by the way, I don't think make that clear even though the average quality I think is pretty low the quality ceiling is high So you can become as good as a professional writer by constant Through constant writing on the scp wiki, but it's going to take some time It's going to take some experience and that's what writing is It's a skill you learn it like anything else practice practice practice And that's what the scp wiki can be And the feedback that you get from the scp wiki can help your practice become You need to practice less to become better because you understand what doesn't doesn't work with what you just did Instead of just writing and being like I think this looks good. I I mean, I don't know. What do you think dad? What do you think, you know best friend? What do you think girlfriend? Instead of that you have a whole group of people who are more than willing to tear your stuff apart And that's sort of comes back to the idea of the contests, right? so Contests are supposed to be like a display of the best the best and I don't think they always are But oftentimes they are so yeah, anyway That's it. Thank you very much for watching if you enjoyed the video Please hit the subscribe button and then hit the notification bell next to that So you're notified when I upload new videos and then head on over to patreon.com forward slash De-semerian and pledge at any level like everybody here on the screen already has including Dr. J redacted in syngeriki who have both pledged $100 and you can when I say you can pledge at any level I want to make that clear. 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