2010-08-05T14:08:00.001-07:00

why i did not win tao lin’s contest

i entered tao lin's contest

tao and i disagree what should be considered an entry to his contest.

i think an entry to his contest is counted at the time of the contest’s deadline.
tao thinks the entry is counted at the time of its submission.

the rules of the contest do not say what counts as an entry in this respect.
it says: “Motivated people can submit entries in each contest to receive 3 free books, but cannot submit more than one entry for each contest."

the rules of the competition do not mention allowing or disallowing edits or extensions.
the rules allow tao to be flexible in his judgment.
he judged my essay (at the deadline) invalid

information

tao did not take a word count of my entry at the time of its submission.
tao took wordcounts after the deadline was over.

important section of the rules:
“People I know or "are friends w/" can participate, as the judging seems "objective," to a large degree, I feel, for the above contests.”

Jordan castro won the contest.
the word count of his essay was less than mine at the time of the deadline.

Jordan castro is friends with tao lin.
i have relatively no relationship with tao lin.

Jordan catro asked tao lin is the alexa rank is int’l or the usa rank
tao replies that either is acceptable

when i suggest that the wordcount of my essay (at the time of submission) +50% from an ad i had arranged on an alexa ranked >20k (int’l) would be more than jordan's wordcount,
tao decides that my link is invalid
tao had not commented on the link w.r.t. +50% before this
at the same time, he also decides that dan who had previously been allowed 50% extra for links he had is no longer allowed the 50% extra.

my lonely journal posted a gchat.
my lonely journal later posted tao lin gchat version 2.0 asking “it has now succeeded?”
tao lin accepted this entry after the changes.

to me the above are all true statements
i tried to reason with tao lin that my submission was not two entries but i failed.
i accept that according to the rules he has judgment on what is valid.
i do think that the above shows potential bias in his judgments.

if you think there are important true statements that i am missing please comment

tao lin / richard yates