README: Mapping Challenge Rules

[Robbie]

Note: These rules are subject to change at any time.

The Cartographers Guild Mapping Challenge is a monthly contest that will allow you the opportunity to exercise your mapping skills in order to win prestige amongst your fellow cartographers. Occasionally, special additional prizes may be offered, but the standard prize consists of a special rank that will appear under your name.

Each month a mapping topic or concept will be announced and entries must be received 5 days before the end of the month. Judging will take place during those last 5 days, and a winner will be announced within that time frame.

The following procedures must be followed in order to join the mapping challenge.

• Entry deadline - Entries for each Challenge must be posted prior to the last five days of that particular Challenges month.***see edit below***
• Entry Posting Thread Subject - You must create a thread with the subject title formatted as follows (replacing May with the current month and year): May 2011 Entry: Entry title or description
• Entry Posting Thread Contents - Your thread must have an attached image in the first post upon creation. You may post your thread early with a Work in Progress (WIP) picture, and work in progress pictures and updates are strongly encouraged but not required.
  Each map image you post must be preceded with the words: ### LATEST WIP ###. This means it will be be picked up by the thumbnail scraper.
• Judging - Judging will be handled by public vote through the forums voting system during the last 5 days of the month.
• Judging Criteria - Entries will be judged based on the following criteria in no specific order: originality, artistic merit, adherence to challenge guidelines, technical excellence.
• Entry Creation - Entries must be submitted as an image attachment, but the image could be from any software, such as Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, Fractal Mapper, Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, etc. to include scans of hand drawn paper maps if applicable. No matter what mapping method you use, you're still a cartographer in our eyes.
• Legal Rules - You must follow copyright rules, and may not use any map resources that are copyrighted to the point of preventing you from posting them to the public. All submitted entries must be your own work. All posted content is the sole property of the poster and may not be reused without permission. By submitting an entry to the Mapping Challenge you automatically grant permission to the Cartographers Guild to have your entry featured on the site as a contest winner.
• Original work - The map must be made within the time frame of the challenge. Therefore it is not allowed to use a previously made map or continue work on a map begun before the challenge commenced. This to make sure that all have the same chances in the competition.
• Additional Rules - More rules may be added and the process may be streamlined as the concept evolves.

This challenge will not work without participation. Tell your friends, post to other forums, spread the word!

Upon completion of a monthly challenge, all entry threads will be locked, and the announcement will be unstickied and locked. This will prevent old entry's from cluttering up the forums.

Feel free to use this thread to discuss the rules of the challenge.



EDIT:
This comment is well over ten years old, and the Entry Deadline rules have evolved somewhat over the years. Generally speaking, the Regular Challenge closes on the last day of the month, and the Lite Challenge ends on the 14th of the month. (These dates are a little flexible depending on the time commitments of the Community Leader running the challenge - check the individual challenge thread for more specific info.) Entries can be submitted any time until the challenge closes. There is no longer a five day restriction. If in doubt, ask a question in the main challenge thread. Voting starts once the challenge ends, and usually runs for three days.