[To use an MPC, go here]

To encourage mo' better critting, I've decided to try a weekly award for the Most Productive Critter.

There are two ways to earn an MPC award: The first is to earn the highest score in any given week; the second is to do more than a certain number of qualified critiques.

Path to glory #1... Earn the highest score in any given week...

Loosely, the winner is the Critter who did "the most" critiquing during the week, defined (still loosely) as lots of lengthy critiques. More specifically, the way I'll judge is this (done by a program, of course): Each critique of 300 or more words is eligible (thus trying to outwit the program with lots of short crits won't work). I'll run the program sometime Tuesday or Wednesday (note emphasis on getting crits in early, since you don't know when I'll run this). For each Critter, the program will multiply the number of eligible critiques by the total number of words in those eligible critiques. Note that this emphasizes number of critiques slightly more than it does total number of words written (but the 300 word cutoff prevents folks from cheating; the average critique is about 450, so 300 is a pretty typical size).

For example, if one Critter sends in four critiques of lengths, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 words, the eligible ones are the 400, 800, and 1600 (2800 words total) and their score will be 3*2800 = 8400. If another critter sent in one critique of 2800 words, their score is 1*2800. Highest score wins.

Path to glory #2... Do more than a certain number of qualified critiques

Sometimes we get folks who have, frankly, knocked the pants off winners from other weeks in terms of productivity and yet still don't win, and I think they deserve to be rewarded. Not to mention there's a certain uncertainty about what it takes to win an MPC -- "How many critiques is someone else doing? I'll feel lousy if I do 12 and someone else does 13," that kind of thing. No worries, mate!--

Anyone who submits MPC-award-qualifying critiques [300 words or more and received before I run the program sometime on Tuesday] on 10 or more of the stories in a given week wins an automatic MPC award. (For double-sized weeks, either 10 in the first week or 15 in both weeks; and for a triple-sized batch, also 20 done over all three weeks or 25 in four weeks. But you can't earn more than two in multi-week batches.)

(And no, the 'regular' winner does not get two MPCs if they're also above ten. :-)

What's the prize?

A free "jump to front of the queue Pass"! Sort of like a "get out of jail free card" in Monopoly. The winner can use the pass any time (but only one use each) to move a ms. to the next week's batch.

Note that dedicated novel reader points DO NOT count toward the MPC award (I don't track weekly reading on those -- and I don't want to!).

I hope this provides an incentive to write more critiques (and add content to those barely-passing 100 word crits). I'll keep an eye on things, and if it seems like this is just encouraging more fluff words, or lengthy recapitulations of plot, or other tricks, I'll amend the scheme or even drop it. (Hey, I've graded over a dozen years of class papers, remember? I'm wise to all that clever stuff. :-) I might consider other prizes, if I think of anything in the Critter spirit. (I considered "a month off", e.g., three free critique points, but that promotes _fewer_ not more crits...)

I'm also thinking about a monthly Most Helpful Critter award voted on by the authors, but no details or programs to handle the work yet, so stay tuned. One step at a time.

Anyway, Crit Early and Often!

[To use an MPC, go here]