For week two or the second round of the challenge I would be happy to sponsor another slot for $5 in
BTC and +1 Merit if there are more than 25-Participants. It looks like this thread is getting a lot of attention, participants, reads and sponsors. I can see this picking up in a really nice way, wouldn't mind sponsoring an extra slot every time I can afford to do so and feel there are enough participants to wrestle for it fairly.
So to be clear, I will do my best to continually donate more seats as I can afford, if this becomes too complicated I will make a little table to keep track of how many seats I'll be sponsoring on any given week. I'll give notice before the round/week begins if I cannot sponsor or am going to change the sponsors I am willing to do, whether it be more or less.
I'm ready to sponsor a special award for guys that beat nullius for the first ..what the hell.... first, second, and third place.
So in case nullius finishes on 4th, I'll award 5$ (in BTC) to each competitor that makes the podium.
If nobody makes it this time it will go to the next round for the normal prizes
Nullius isn't infallible, they're just a person with access to the same resources of information as the rest of us. They put a good amount of effort, thought and creativity into their posts; granted, this is more than almost every other user on the forum, but it doesn't make their posts unbeatable.
I'm rooting for the underdogs, and I hope nullius gets one of
my prizes; since, that would mean the underdogs had their go at it.
To offer a solution for the "problem" I created: you could in the future exclude people who earned more than 1 Merit per day already (the "natural rate" to level up with Activity). Or limit winning to once per person, based on the assumption that someone who wins one week, will keep posting quality the next week anyway.
The "Natural rate" is much lower until the higher ranks, too, 10 merit for member is way less than 1 per day. The natural rate you've laid out only applies to Full-Members and above. Anyone below that is something closer to 1 merit per week; just giving my two-cents on this, since I was looking into it the other day.
That's a fair assumption, but it also doesn't address the likelihood that members continuing to participate that didn't win a prize will certainly do something to improve/adjust their posts, while the winner is likely to stagnate themselves in a position they believe to be "safe". This means there are tons of opportunities for the losers to over-take the winner in terms of quality, since they would (in theory) be the only users to make adjustments. Also, it would feel much more rewarding to win out over someone deemed to be the epitome of post quality. I'm fine with things either way, just giving a view from the other side; we shouldn't necessarily rule anyone out just because they are good at the game we are playing. Competition breeds success.
