Huh. I thought that was the point of us not posting them anywhere else. Why would that be a rule if they're being privately judged?
I'm kinda curious. Why would the rule about not posting your fic anywhere else make one think that they would be publicly judged in one place? ._. Like, totally legit curious to better understand the system you're proposing. I mean, from my standpoint, one would think that the
opposite would be true if public judging was a thing. As in, if the contests were judged by way of a public voting system, it would make more sense to post your fic in as many places as possible and mention it's for this one contest, so people have the option of going to vote. Restricting the places where this can be posted just restricts your potential voting pool.
By contrast, a
private judging system necessitates privacy for fics in that preventing folks from seeing what was entered means only those judges can pass the entry around and base their decision on their own thoughts and opinions. (A judge's reviews are also kept private
between judges until it comes time to compile the results, afaik.) Allowing a contestant to post their entry allows that entry to become public, which allows other folks to chime in with their opinions, which could in turn disrupt the level of secrecy the judgment is going for. 'Course, having never been a judge, perhaps the reasoning is different, but it's definitely a thing that the judges' activities are kept
ridiculously under wraps, so it stands to reason that entries would be too until the results are posted. (That and it also keeps drama over the differences between public opinion and the judges' opinions to a minimum. Imagine a super-popular entry only getting third place, for example.)
There's also the fact that many entries are written
for the contest, which is relevant because the results give you some level of context. Posting a fic
after the results are made public allow people to go in and read the results
before reading the fic to get a better idea of context.
Soooo yep. Granted, keep in mind that I'm not saying all of this as a mod or an event runner. It's just me going, "Well, tbqh, it actually makes sense if you think of it like this," so judges past and present can totally weigh in on a more official explanation. But the point is, idk, to me, it makes more sense to use this system for Serebii contests because of both context and the level of secrecy involved.