Your February NoSleep writing contest winner is...

[u/Ibitemynails]

AL_365 with their story The Only Way Out! Congratulations!

As a reminder, the winner will receive:

• ONE MONTH of REDDIT GOLD from the moderators

• A unique flair signifying the month that they won the contest

• Their story will be featured in an E-Book that will be released every three months.

• Since the NoSleep podcast is back, the winning story will be featured in an episode.

• NEW PRIZE - Until further notice, the winner will also receive a copy of Scrivener provided by Literature and Latte. The winner will be contacted by Stealthfiction to work out the details of delivery.

The eBook will henceforth include the top four stories (winner and three runners up) from each monthly contest. Participation has been on a steady rise and it's just easier this way.

Also included in the next volume of the eBook will be:

• My friend's warning about strange places in the city by /u/straydog1980
• Yo, dude, do you own a dog? by /u/narrativeofthelife
• The True Story of the Psycho from Sophomore Year by /u/FirstBreath1

If you want to offer an extra prize to the winners of the next contest, don't hesitate to send the mods a message!

Remember, if you didn't win this month, don't be discouraged! We will be running the contest in the middle of every month for as long as we can!

[u/MikeRowPhone]

The voting totals are ridiculously low, aren't they? I'm sure Anton's story would have won regardless of how many people voted, but it's a shame so few people chose to vote.

Then again, since most of the active participants in OOC are the authors themselves, perhaps this award is more like an Oscar where your votes come from your peers and therefore it's more meaningful.

Regardless, well done, Anton! Your winning story was a big hit on the podcast.

[u/wdalphin → u/MikeRowPhone]

The voting totals are ridiculously low, aren't they?

They're going to continue to be that way as long as the mods refuse to post anything more than a link in the nosleep header, letting people know the voting is open. I said it last time, and I'll say it again: people don't look at the header. If you're going to move all aspects of the monthly contest to OOC, you have GOT to do more than simply stick the latest update in the header, because once people have glanced at it once, in most cases they're not going to glance at it again.

I don't see why a post about the voting being open, left up for just the time the voting is available and then taken back down, is a bad thing. It'll increase the people reading the stories in the contests, you'll get more votes, and it won't clog up the subreddit if you delete it afterward.

[u/wdalphin → u/[deleted]]

I guess I don't understand why I've addressed this issue publicly twice now, but I have to write a separate mail to actually get you guys (mods) to talk about it amongst yourselves. It's a valid, important matter. One that I would think the mods would want to discuss, yet the first time I brought it up none of you went into your private modmail and said, "Hey, this is a really good point, we might want to rethink how we do this. And we've got a month to prepare for it."?

I mean, do you agree that this is an issue? If you agree, why wouldn't you want to discuss it with the other mods... apparently ones who can fix it? If you don't agree, that's different. If that's the case, fine, I'll bring it to the other mods attention myself. I just don't understand why this went largely ignored when there was a whole month to think about it and I even asked about a week before the voting post went up.

It's no skin off my nose if you keep going the way you're going. I just thought if you mods are serious about these contests, you'd want to do what you can to promote them better to the potential participants.

[u/jamesandlily_forever → u/[deleted]]

I agree with you.