November is here, and with it

THE IRON NODER CHALLENGE

Really, it's simple: Write 30 things worth reading in 30 days.

The mines are ferrous, dark and deep. Will you take up your pick and answer their call?

The Rewards

The pursuit of excellence is glorious in itself, but our litigious Union of Iron Noders has insisted we sweeten the deal.

  • Every noder will receive 40 GP per writeup remaining at the end of the month.
  • Every noder who attains IRON NODER status will receive an additional 2000 GP.
  • Among those who successfully complete the Iron Noder Challenge, one chosen at random will receive a $10 Amazon gift code.
  • misterfuffie has pledged to award a $10 Amazon gift code to "the user who posts the best factual writeup".
  • Halspal has pledged $50 US and an original RACECAR ceramic fish to "the Iron Noder who makes the greatest lasting contribution to our important work".
  • Auspice has pledged $50 Amazon gift code to the Iron Noder with node with the highest reputation at the end of the quest.

The Rules

  • The Iron Noder Challenge begins at 00:00 (server time) on November 1, 2011, and ends at 00:00 (server time) on December 1, 2011. Writeups submitted outside that timeframe will not be considered part of the quest.
  • You must submit 30 new writeups in 30 days. The IRON NODER IDEAL is 1 per day, but we must be flexible about that to allow for normal life circumstances, days away, illness, etc. Flooding New Writeups with 30 writeups in 1 day, while legal, would be frowned upon, and the E2 userbase would probably not react well.
  • Any topic, any form, anything goes.
  • There is no minimum or maximum length for writeups. They must simply survive. Nuked nodes will not count towards your total. For this reason, final rewards will not be dispensed until a couple of days after the 30 November deadline, to allow last-minute writeups to be voted on and pass muster with the editors.
  • You may write a maximum of 5 daylogs.
  • You may prepare material in advance. However if this stops you noding for, say, the entire month of October, this would also go against the IRON NODER IDEAL.
  • Yes, you can also do NaNoWriMo. Yes, this makes you completely insane. No, you can't have any more goodies for completing both.

If you would like to join, let me know via /msg, and I'll add you to the roster. There is nothing wrong with joining late; just don't forget to fill me in!

We'll be utilizing the ironnoders usergroup for any major communications; if you're in the group now and are not on my confirmed IRON NODER list as of November 1st, you'll automatically be dropped from the group.

If you'd like to see more accurate updates than I have posted here, check out iron noder progress. It even shows which ones you've voted on!

Whether or not you're attempting the challenge, you may volunteer to read and vote on every write-up submitted in the quest. Serving on this year's panel of Iron Voters are myself, Auspice, tentative, Tem42, raincomplex, Dr.Jimmy, NanceMuse and Pandeism Fish. If you get more than halfway to finishing the quest, Pandeism Fish has also pledged to vote on every writeup you've ever written.

Good luck and heigh ho!

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig
In a mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig
Is what we like to do

Need inspiration? Try Everything's Most Wanted, Random Nodeshells, The Custodian's Nodeshells I'd Like Filled, and the list of Iron Nodeshells on my homenode.


Iron Node(r)s

Number of participants:
35
Number of writeups:
713
Average number of writeups:
20.37
Number of IRON NODERS:
15

For up-to-the-minute standings, check out Iron Noder Progress!