Rules of the ID-a-thon (May 2021)

Eligibility:

• Any user with below 400 identifications before the start date will be assigned a mentor. List of mentors.
• Anyone may join the project if they want updates on our progress.
• Joining the project does not enter you into the competition. To enter, you must have completed the sign-up form during the sign-up period. The sign-up period is now over, and no more users will be admitted to the competition.

Qualifying identifications:

• Identifications must be made May 22nd 2021 through May 30th 2021, including those days -- London Time (UTC+0).
• IDs do not have to be to species! Any new ID from Kingdom down is good.
• IDs will be tallied in specific categories.
• There will be a separate count and separate rankings for each category. Since each category is different, the counting method may differ for each one. If there is demand, we will share the exact parameters in a separate post.
• Custom identification URLs will be provided, or you can just do your regular thing.

Categories:

• Improvement: During the competition, try to beat your own daily average – the more you ID relative to your average, the higher your score! (to avoid this being too easy for beginners, the minimum to get a score is 20 IDs/day). We will post a list of each person's average (and baseline/goal) around the start of the event.
• Mystery: It’s a mystery! You’ll get three hints. This is technically three categories at once, so one hint per sub-category. At the end of the competition, the categories will be revealed and you’ll find out if you guessed correctly – or spent the whole time identifying something for no prize at all! (except the prize of knowledge…)
• Consistency: Try to identify every day of the event. If you miss one or two, that’s OK, but the more days you make an ID the better your prize!
• Old Observations: Identify observations which were added more than five years before the start of the competition. Find them here.
• Beginners’ Challenge: An exclusive event for the Beginner class. You’ll get prizes for various achievements, such as reaching your hundredth ID during the event, or making a high percentage of Improving IDs. The exact list will be added later.

Participation rules:

• If we think you’re trying to rig the system by e.g. just hitting Agree on Research Grade observations 10,000 times (why would you even?), we’ll send you one and only one warning before booting you from the list of participants.
• No spamming or harassment of any kind will be tolerated, including but not limited to: comments made on forum threads, project journal posts, observations, or in direct user-to-user communications.
• No wagering

Prizes:

• Prizes will be given out in the week following the event, but we will announce some winners/prizes in update posts as the event goes on.

If you have extra questions about the rules, leave a comment and I (Zachary) or one of the admins (Blue, Amy) will answer and update the rules.

And finally:

Be nice, and try to have fun!

Posted on May 18, 2021 05:13 PM by astra_the_dragon