Terms & Conditions

1. Introduction

AGREEMENT TO OUR LEGAL TERMS

We are WritingPeers (“Company,” “we,” “us,” “our”), with postal address: PO Box A6788, Amsterdam 1069 CD, The Netherlands.

We operate the website http://www.writingpeers.com (the “Site”), the April Flash Fiction competition as well as any other related products and services that refer or link to these legal terms (the “Legal Terms”) (collectively, the “Services”).

You can contact us by email at admin@writingpeers.com.

These Legal Terms constitute a legally binding agreement made between you, whether personally or on behalf of an entity (“you”), and WritingPeers, concerning your access to and use of the Services. You agree that by accessing the Services, you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by all of these Legal Terms.

We will provide you with prior notice of any scheduled changes to the Services you are using. The modified Legal Terms will become effective upon posting or notifying you by admin@writingpeers.com, as stated in the email message. By continuing to use the Services after the effective date of any changes, you agree to be bound by the modified terms.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use our Services. There are no location restrictions, but you must comply with your local laws regarding online competitions and prize money. WritingPeers is not responsible for any taxes or other obligations that may arise from your participation in the competitions.

3. Competitions

3.1 Contest Timeline

The April Flash Fiction competition is held in a Swiss-style tournament format with the following timeline:

Event	Date	Description
Deadline	April 14, 2024	Registration deadline
Reveal	April 15, 2024	Your genre/theme is revealed and you choose between a list of writing prompts
Submission	April 20, 2024	Story Submission Deadline
Round 1	April 25, 2024 – April 28, 2024	Round 1: Participants receive two stories from the other genre, provide feedback, and vote for the winner
Round 2	May 01, 2024 – May 04, 2024	Round 2: Participants receive two stories from the other genre, provide feedback, and vote for the winner
Round 3	May 07, 2024 – May 10, 2024	Round 3: Participants receive two stories from the other genre, provide feedback, and vote for the winner
Round 4	May 13, 2024 – May 16, 2024	Round 4: Participants receive two stories from the other genre, provide feedback, and vote for the winner
Round 5	May 19, 2024 – May 22, 2024	Round 5: Participants receive two stories from the other genre, provide feedback, and vote for the winner
Winner Announcement	May 27, 2024	Winner announcement and all feedback shared

3.2 Rights to the story

All participants will maintain all rights to their submission. WritingPeers will only be permitted to post the story publicly on the Site if the participant’s entry is one of the two winners of the competition.

3.3 Genre & Prompts

All participants will be assigned one of the themes/genres at random.
All participants will also receive a short list of writing prompts from which they can choose one.

3.4 Scoring system

In every round, your story is paired off against another story and sent to two other participants (whose own stories are competing in the other genre).

Each participant has one vote, so in every round, your story can gain a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 2 points.

In every subsequent round, your story will be paired with another story that has the same amount of points so far and will again be sent to two other participants for review.

For example:

In round 1 your story (Story A) is paired with Story B and sent to participants X and Y. Participant X votes for your story while participant Y votes for Story B. You receive 1 point in this round (and so does Story B).

In round 2 your story is paired with Story G (which also received 1 point so far) and is again sent to two other participants. This time both participants vote for your story. You receive two points for this round and now have a total of 3 points so far.

In round 3 your story is paired with Story K (which also received 3 points so far) and so on.

3.5 Tie-breaking

If at the end of the five rounds there are multiple stories with the most amount of points, we will use the following tie-breaking rules in this order to determine the winner:

Results between players: If two or more players are tied for first place, we will check if their stories were matched directly against each other in any of the rounds. The story that received the most points in that round will win. If this does not break the tie then we move to the Modified Median.
Modified Median: The total amount of points of the opponents of the tied participants are counted and the lowest scoring opponent is discarded. The player that beat the opponents with the most amount of points will win. If this system does not break the tie we move to the Solkoff system.
Solkoff: Again the total amount of points of their opponents are counted, but this time the lowest scoring opponent is not discarded. If this system does not break the tie. We move to a final round.
Final Round: Five participants will be picked at random from the list of participants that have stated they are willing to be a tie-breaking judge. Since five points will be given in this final round there cannot be a tie.

The below is an example:

If four stories (A,B,C and D) are tied for first place with 8 points each, we move through the tie-breaking rules:

Stories A and B did not meet each other nor did they meet C or D directly in any of the rounds. Story C and D were paired directly in round 3. In this round story D received 2 out of the 2 points. Since story C lost directly to story D, we can conclude that it cannot be the winning story. Therefore it is discarded and Stories A,B and D move on to the next tie-breaking rule.
Modified Median: For the modified median we look at the points that the opponents of stories A,B and D received. Below are their contest tables and the opponents they played against. The total point of their opponents are counted and the lowest-scoring opponent is discarded (so for story A, opponent X is discarded; for story B, opponent H is discarded; for story D, opponent J is discarded). Story D has faced off against the less strong opponents (totaling 18 points) and is taken out. Story A and B have faced off against opponents with the same amount of points (23) and move to the next tie-breaking rule:
Solkoff: Look again at the tables above. This time we take the sum, without discarding the lowest-scoring opponent. So the total amount of points of the opponents of Story A comes to a total of 26 (now including opponent X’s total), while for Story B the total comes to 24 (now including opponent H’s total). So Story A is declared the winner of the competition and we do not move on to the final tie-breaking rule.

3.6 Fair play rules and grounds for disqualification

Any participant that fails to meet their obligations before the below deadlines may be disqualified at the discretion of WritingPeers:

Action to be completed	Deadline
Submit your story	April 20, 2024. 23:00 UTC
Round 1: Deliver feedback on two stories and vote for one	April 28, 2024. 23:00 UTC
Round 2: Deliver feedback on two stories and vote for one	May 04, 2024. 23:00 UTC
Round 3: Deliver feedback on two stories and vote for one	May 10, 2024. 23:00 UTC
Round 4: Read two stories and vote for one	May 16, 2024. 23:00 UTC
Round 5: Read two stories and vote for one	May 22, 2024. 23:00 UTC

Any submission that contains plagiarized or AI-generated content may be disqualified at the discretion of WritingPeers.

Any submission that does not adhere to the assigned genre or chosen writing prompt may be disqualified at the discretion of WritingPeers.

Any submission that does not meet the word limit of a maximum of 1000 words may be disqualified at the discretion of WritingPeers.

Any submission that has been previously published online or on paper may be disqualified at the discretion of WritingPeers.

Any participant sharing intimidating or insulting feedback given in a round to another participant’s story may be disqualified at the discretion of WritingPeers.

Any participants sharing AI-generated feedback or feedback from which it is unclear if the participant has actually read the story may be disqualified at the discretion of WritingPeers.

All decisions regarding the winners are final. WritingPeers will not engage in any discussions or arbitration about individual stories or the competition outcomes.

In the unlikely event of disqualification, the disqualified participant will no longer compete for the prize money nor will the participant be eligible for a refund.

4. Entry Fee

The entry fee for the competition is 14.99 USD. We accept Credit/Debit card payments, Google Pay and Apple Pay, processed through Stripe and payments processed through a Paypal account. Please find Stripe’s privacy policy here: www.stripe.com/privacy . The entrance fee can be refunded until the registration deadline of the contest: April 14, 2024.

5. Prizes

The total prize money for each competition is 1000 USD, split between two winners (500 USD each). The prize money will be paid out after the competition through PayPal in a currency of the winner’s choice at the exchange rate at the time of the winner announcement. WritingPeers is not responsible for any taxes or other obligations that may arise from your participation in the competitions.

6. Cancellation and Refunds

WritingPeers reserves the right to cancel a competition before the start date. In such cases, all participants who have already signed up will be refunded their entry fee. Refunds will be given to any participant who requests it before the start date of the competition.

7. Changes to Competition Rules

WritingPeers reserves the right to adjust the conditions of the competition at any time in the interest of a fair competition.

8. Prohibited Activities

You may not access or use the Services for any purpose other than that for which we make the Services available. The Services may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by us.

As a user of the Services, you agree not to:

Systematically retrieve data or other content from the Services to create or compile, directly or indirectly, a collection, compilation, database, or directory without written permission from us.
Trick, defraud, or mislead us and other users, especially in any attempt to learn sensitive account information such as user passwords.
Circumvent, disable, or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the Services, including features that prevent or restrict the use or copying of any Content or enforce limitations on the use of the Services and/or the Content contained therein.
Disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Services.
Use any information obtained from the Services in order to harass, abuse, or harm another person.
Make improper use of our support services or submit false reports of abuse or misconduct.
Use the Services in a manner inconsistent with any applicable laws or regulations.
Engage in unauthorized framing of or linking to the Services.
Upload or transmit (or attempt to upload or to transmit) viruses, Trojan horses, or other material, including excessive use of capital letters and spamming (continuous posting of repetitive text), that interferes with any party’s uninterrupted use and enjoyment of the Services or modifies, impairs, disrupts, alters, or interferes with the use, features, functions, operation, or maintenance of the Services.
Engage in any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to send comments or messages, or using any data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools.
Delete the copyright or other proprietary rights notice from any Content.
Attempt to impersonate another user or person or use the username of another user.
Upload or transmit (or attempt to upload or to transmit) any material that acts as a passive or active information collection or transmission mechanism, including without limitation, clear graphics interchange formats (“gifs”), 1×1 pixels, web bugs, cookies, or other similar devices (sometimes referred to as “spyware” or “passive collection mechanisms” or “pcms”).
Interfere with, disrupt, or create an undue burden on the Services or the networks or services connected to the Services.
Harass, annoy, intimidate, or threaten any of our employees or agents engaged in providing any portion of the Services to you.
Attempt to bypass any measures of the Services designed to prevent or restrict access to the Services, or any portion of the Services.
Copy or adapt the Services’ software, including but not limited to Flash, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, or other code.
Except as permitted by applicable law, decipher, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any of the software comprising or in any way making up a part of the Services.
Except as may be the result of standard search engine or Internet browser usage, use, launch, develop, or distribute any automated system, including without limitation, any spider, robot, cheat utility, scraper, or offline reader that accesses the Services, or use or launch any unauthorized script or other software.
Use a buying agent or purchasing agent to make purchases on the Services.
Make any unauthorized use of the Services, including collecting usernames and/or email addresses of users by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email, or creating user accounts by automated means or under false pretenses.
Use the Services as part of any effort to compete with us or otherwise use the Services and/or the Content for any revenue-generating endeavor or commercial enterprise.
Use the Services to advertise or offer to sell goods and services.
Sell or otherwise transfer your profile.

9. Governing Law

These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Netherlands.

10. Contact Information

Questions about the Terms of Service should be sent to us at admin@writingpeers.com.

11. Business Details

WritingPeers

PO BOX 1000

Amsterdam, 1234AB

The Netherlands