I was on troposphere when I had a brilliant (imho) idea. We should have an essay contest. I haven't worked out the details but here's what I have (btw its almost 6am here, I'm uber sleep deprived. Just thought you'd like to know):

The winner will be picked by a combination of judging and public voting. Don't know exactly how it will work yet (thx for the idea fuzzyshan).

tentative word limit is 500 words min 1000 words max.

On any subject relating to penspinning. It could be written to introduce someone to penspinning, or styles of psing, or about the pens themselves, or about why penspinning is or is not a sport, etc.

no copying + pasting from eso, who, by the way, will not be participating because he is a funny little man with pudding for brains.

The prize is adding something new to the penspinning community and making the world a better place.

The deadline is midnight on the last day of may.


So far the people who are interested in writing an essay are:

Petahpie
mats
holy
eburt
joshua
strat1227
sfsr
fuzzyshan
mwahaha91

To add your name to the list just post on this thread and say you want to write an essay.

Hmm. I'm not sure if this would be popular? I mean, do we really want to read a whole bunch of essays? I think this idea can only work if people submit essays that are really interesting.

thats a good point I suppose. in that case we could have a theme like "not boring" no but for real we could have a theme. I'm not sure what it would be but maybe something that would help develop penspinning in the future. Something that would encourage creativity and originality. I don't know. Ideas are welcome.

Some ideas for themes:
How pen spinning has evolved over time.
New school vs old school spinning.
Styles in pen spinning.
On pens used for spinning, the search for the perfect pen.
Pen spinning, art or sport?

Just a few ideas.

hehe, nice idea i think. It can help beginners to know the story of psing, some facts about it and a lot more other information can be write. My english not very good, but i really want to create some article (if this word is exist for this thing)

lol i think people have better things to do then type essay's for PSing but im not sure :lol:

I sure don't. Eso don't either! Nor does Petahpie apperently... :lol:

heh too much free time on your hands!!!

Wait, what?? :lol: I didn't know I was prolific enough for someone to plagiarize me.

Well, I think it's a pretty cool idea, but making a contest only brings out the worst. People will write just to win or something, but will probably stop. Look at the PS magazine. While lack of editing killed the project, are any of the writers writing anything?

Anyways, essays are good. Only people who care enough would read them. The learned will read! :lol:
Bad thing about essays is that most of you guys are still in high school. Unless you are awesome at writing, chances are that your essays will be unprofessional. It will be written in an informal tone and it will be hard for me to take those seriously. Maybe if you did a speech and recorded it, then yeah. But when it comes to writing, you have more time to proofread your stuff.

I will be reading them if this contest does happen but im not that great at typing things like eso said :lol:

If people make a poor essay, people will just stop reading it, and not vote for them. I don't see any problem with it being a contest. I am willing to write something for this if it goes ahead btw.

I'll write if this does get started. I'm new but I could think of something to write about.

its is a good idea but,
i dont have enough time to do it though

I was referring to the trick to getting tricks, which is like...sex. Anyway, that was kind of where the idea came from. I had reread that earlier yesterday and I was thinking about it later and how awesome it would be if there was more stuff like that. Then I remembered there was an essay writing contest on one of the yoyo boards I went to back when I yoyoed. I thought it would be a good idea. The goal is to make new spinners good spinners, good spinners great spinners, and great spinners into our new weises, phyas, and nhk_9s. I think a strong essay could definitely help with that. I know that the trick to getting tricks is absolutely amazing and has helped me more in penspinning than any other blurb of text.

Don't tell me no one has ever told you that about penspinning.

if I can win something I'll write... and win.

I will tear you apart like a lion. :)


Hahaha. Srsly though, I'd be down for this. I just need a deadline. I already have ideas. I mean, its pretty easy to find topics whose focus is something that you're already interested in. I haven't written competetively for awhile now as well. It should be fun.

you do have exactly 1000 posts... and thats like 8 in binary so you definately might (huray, oxymorons!) tear me apart like a lion. Of course this leads to the obvious question of the term "like a lion" and weather or not that refers to tearing me apart as if you were a lion or as if I were a lion being torn apart.

P.S. I would actually bother to spell-check my essay too...

Speel check ftw. :thumb:

so far we have

mats
holy
eburt
joshua
me
hopefully eso

That's enough for a competition. As for a theme I think it should be anything penspinning related, but mats' themes are nice so if themes are what people want I say go for it. Does anyone have any ideas for a good word range? Also what do you guys think about a prize? should we have one? if so what should it be?

NO WAIT, IM IN

i just didnt know we were actually doing it.

count me in.

Strat, if your essay is anything as awesome and clever as your sig then i look forward to reading it :P

oh, you have no idea ;)

I'm really not going to be motivated unless theres a prize... though something as simple as an HGG would totally do it for me :P Also there is no way I can write anything this week due to end-of-quarter rush, but over my spring break I'll have no problem. I also think words should be unlimited. This alows someone to be very concise or expand as much as they wish given their topic. I hate word limits for everything except things like college apps, since they do have to read thousands...

calm down man this hasn't actually started yet I was just saying who wants to do it so far. I'll edit my first post and put you all in. As for a prize I just got back from the store. Check my new thread in general pen discussion. What do you think of those five as prises? Maybe we could have the winner get 3 and 2nd place get 2. Whatev.

Nothing is of interest right now. Most material I could write about, everybody already knows. So no, I'm not joining. Sorry Petahpie.

And I vote for judges, not public voting.

edited first post for eso and strat.

so what do you guys think of the prize? good? bad? ugly?

The prize should differ for each country. If a person from the US wins, then Sunburst obviously won't make a very good prize.

thats true but its better then nothing

If I write, it'll probably be for the research group. I don't want to waste the information on small-time participants. Either way, I don't have time this month to write an essay.

well, if anyone has any extra comssas or somthing lying around that's cool but that's what I've got right now.

He's scared of losing! :lol:

I don't think there should be a prize. Or if a prize is really important to you, how about the prize of 1) adding something to the PSing community with a good essay and 2) pride of winning a competition against stiff opposition?

I agree. Who thinks there should be a prize? should I start a poll?

id write but im jes not sure if i know enough to write about, im fairly good at essays but im a noob when it comes to pen spinning. ill think about it, if i find something in pen spinning that i know enough about to actually write an essay on then yeah.
ps how long are they ment to be? and when is the deadline?
oh yeah a prize would be very nice indeed

there's no deadline yet and there's no word limit.

watch out, people are going to abuse it.

the basis of a good essay is a concise one.

take that Zombo!

What I mean some people write really good, but lengthy essays. Someone else can write the same amount of information with less words. Naturally, that person should be rated better. By imposing a hard cap, you give the message to people that you basically have X words to demonstrate as much as you can.

hmm...what you're saying makes sense. What would your recommendation be for a word limit? 750-1k sound good?

Nah, there's also the fact that PS is boring to talk about. Even if I had time this month, I'd find it far more interesting to write fiction or something I possess a genuine interest in. I've been posting so much about PS since 2003 and exhausted so much information that you can compile quite a few essays from it.