Hugi Writing Compo
Introduction
Welcome to the Hugi Writing Compo. In this issue of the Hugi you can find the articles submitted to the compo. You can also find them on my home page. Now it's your time: the time to read and enjoy the articles and the time to fill in the votesheet and decide who wrote the best article! The writers took the time to write the articles for you, and you'll take the time to tell them what do you think about them. And now some history about the Hugi Writing Compo.
What?
Around February I (Dario Phong) had the idea of organizing a demoscene compo for article writers. You can read the initial text and ideas here. The idea was quite innovating. In fact as far as I know such a compo had only been held once before, the Takeover 1999 article compo, which unfortunately got only five entries. Due to the fact that no one is used to a writing compo there were some doubts about it, "I'm quite skeptical about it" said someone. But there were also some very positive points of view: "it's a good thing, this kind of competition. it's new, it's fun, it motivates your imagination - all things that I like in a compo. great idea you had!" said one of the competitors. Anyway I had already decided to make it, probably that's the best way of acting. In Adok's words: "if you want it you'll have to do it yourself."
Then the work started. Thinking about how would it be, making the rules and presentation, thinking again, and finally sending all of that to the writers. Then waiting.
The first days
In the beginning I was convinced that it would work, but the time was passing and I only had two entries! I felt really desperate. That's a feeling you can only know if you are an editor. Moreover, as a writer I felt a little bit disappointed because I couldn't write an article! The compo needs articles, but I can't write because I'm organizing it. I felt like in a jail. I tried to replace this emotion by reading the articles and giving my opinion to the writers. In fact they can ensure that I gave them feedback, and extensive on request. That made me feel a little bit more relaxed.
Then more reactions: "I'll write something", was the number one. Some people did, but some others didn't. That's the way demoscene and life work (and you should already know what I think about it, otherwise read my articles in previous issues ;-)). But I got more positive opinions: "my article is already done, so I almost can't wait you get this compo rolling on." Which made me recover my lost hope about the project. Then I got a few articles more. And many emails (compared to the emails with articles attached) asking me about how many entries I got so far.
Organizers' faults: a classic?
Then for my pain it happened what has to happen in all the compos. The organization did some faults! In that case the organization is me (Dario Phong) so I was twice ashamed. I got some problems with the server and as a result of this I sent the same advertisement message many times. "I assume you have some kind of script that went crazy :)", it seems that people understood that this was just a little "machine made" error, and thus they didn't blame me. And then the second error (which again has a logical explanation). But first let me explain my situation: I can only connect to inet once a week and only one hour. Ok. Now try to imagine how I can: get emails, send emails, upload my page, download compression information, take a look at the news forum about compression, and take care of the Hugi Writing Compo page. Not to mention the fact that I still wasn't used to using ftp with my own server: When I have to upload files first I must delete the old ones on the server if they have the same name. I did delete the file in the server but forgot (due to the lack of time, of course) to upload the new version. As a result the home page of the Writing Compo was down. Fortunately Adok managed it to put it up in another server for me.
But now all the problems are gone and I already got the articles. In fact more articles than expected. And enough to make a good compo. Most of the articles are of good quality, and there are some (in my opinion) which are really good. Again unfortunately I can't vote! E-) So the situation is that I wanted a Writing Compo, but because I'm making it myself, I can't compete! Bad luck mine! E-D Fortunately you can, and I hope you will. Want me to say please?
The future of the compo
It's so obvious: it only depends on you! I would like to make the writing compo in a regular basis. Quickly this question arises: how often? An article usually needs less time than any other demoscene form of art, so in theory we could do them more often than other compos (parties). But just look at the polls, there are just a few writers! So unless we do something imaginative or people are really interested in it, I'm afraid that we won't be able to have a writing compo often.
Again it's your turn. If you have participated, would you like to do so again? If you haven't maybe you learned that a writing compo is a nice event in the demoscene, and thus you want to compete next time. And if you are a writer you surely enjoyed the articles, in that case you must want to see more editions of this compo. In all these cases please let me know, and I'll try to make it possible again.
Last words
There's still the last part of this project to do (the voting), so I can't give you my last words yet, but I can give a lot of thanks especially to the writers, to the people who are interested in the compo, and to all the readers. I hope that you all keep that cool, and that you gain more enthusiasm about it, so next time we get twice the articles! Dario Phong looking forward to your comments.
Dario Phong^Hugi, Barcelona 20-April-2000
Let's make the scene we want!