PRJs have been told that every entrant in the category they judge will be required to follow them (regardless of whether they are judging a given entry or not).  This is very important to many of the judges.  Some have indicated that they will not furnish me with their scorecards until this requirement has been met.  Thus, here is the way it's going to be:

1) One more time, I am going to tag every entrant [below] next to the line of the PRJs that they still have not followed.  Shortly, I will send each of these entrants a message on Wattpad that they need to read this chapter update.

2) If you have been tagged here, take some responsibility and don't ask stupid questions. 

-I will not explain to anyone why I have done so again, who any given, single entrant needs to follow again, or why each person has to follow the PRJs listed (again).  I do not have the time for lengthy correspondence via messaging.  You must read the contest book and garner the answers you seek in that fashion, as they are easily available in plain language. 

-Anyone who is the slightest bit rude, passive aggressive, or frankly anything less than glad to be given what amounts to a third chance, will be disqualified and muted.  Anyone who is abusive will be reported as well.

3) In a few days (projected to be Sunday, the 22nd of October [2 days after my birthday- yay]), I will check on each of the entrants that has been tagged here.  If they still have not followed ALL of their PRJs for every category they have entered, every entry they have in the contest will be disqualified.

4) I will not bother with contacting entrants who have failed to obey the rules that they are no longer entered in the contest.  I will notify the judges who were assigned any works that have been disqualified that they no longer need to read/score the work/s concerned.  I will remove the disqualified works from the final list of entries.

5) Judges (of any kind) that have entries in the contest must also follow their PRJs.  Judges can and will also be disqualified for failing to adhere to the rules.  Though this will be a huge, huge pain to deal with, it is the only way to be fair. 

-Any judge that is disqualified may continue to act as a judge, just as they have agreed to.  If they refuse, I would like to be notified promptly, as I'll need to dig up yet another person to read the newly unaccounted for entries. 

6) No, no one has to follow anyone else.  If you do not want to follow your PRJs, just let me know that you no longer wish to have entries in the contest.  The requirement has always been listed in the rules, since the day I first posted the contest.

7) None of the above open for negotiation.  While an exception would (of course) be made for an entrant that had been consistently (since close of entries, 9/30) hospitalized or dealing with an emergency, that would not be an acceptable excuse if that entrant had otherwise been active on Wattpad.

moodyxblue (yes, this is her correct username)

The_Changeling_Child

Kellyrages

KaylorCaKeStylinson

Jijixx

ninabinabobeena

ughimlazyy

Bvbgirl1344

Phantom_Fireside

PJOloverforever

allthelovelylights

InTheDarkWeWrite

trashfortoomuch

YouAreAWriter

AliciaMirza

Peter_pan_0

MuniyaPyne

*It is perfectly acceptable for you to disagree with the way this contest is run.  However, I am running this particular contest, not anyone else. As the sole administrative entity, I make the rules. I have decided that I won't tolerate abuse, nor even poor manners, given the massive commitment of time and effort this has been. 

*If you think that entrants should make the rules, are entitled to constant babysitting, regardless of their behavior, and that contest admins should embrace constant criticism and insults, while still investing hundreds of hours into an endeavor from which they gain nothing themselves- I invite you to create your own contest, just so.  Have a blast.

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•Updated part•

I just recently had a fit of 'word vomit' when responding to a question. I thought I'd post it here as it might be helpful to some (?) [I did edit it a little. You can see the originals as comments on this page]:

Thanks for being nice! No, following all 30 judges would be insane! Each entrant needs to follow the PRJs for any categories they have entered. It would be nice if they followed the RcuJs judging their categories too, but it's not required. PRJs [top], RcuJs [middle], and RsvJs [bottom] are listed in the 'Judging spots available' chapter. The Wattpad users that used to be judges, but are not any longer, for a variety of reasons (and thus do not need to be followed for the contest), are listed in the chapter 'A note to entrants.'

No one has to follow me (SmuttyPariah). I don't want anyone to read my works if they otherwise would not, either. [Personally, I would prefer that anyone following me just for the contest, but that doesn't read my work or is a buddy, unfollows me afterwards. I am uncomfortable being followed by people that don't like me and/or read anything of mine. But I don't mind it for the contest, I know it can be helpful for entrants/judges.]

[Also, no one has to follow any of the other participants or the RsvJs. But you are welcome to!]

The reason the following of judges is so important is because it's one of the main reasons many people agreed to judge. It's really hard to find judges, and a lot of them bail (you can see how many on the 'Note to entrants' chapter [I'm not 100% certain all of them are listed on that chapter, but I tried]). A lot of the RcuJs were disappointed that I didn't feel I could insist the entrants follow them, and I feel bad about it. [I'm trying to find away to make everyone happy. Clearly, it's not working.]

I had originally planned (long ago) to have no more than 4 judges per category. That way, it wouldn't [be] that many people for [entrants] to follow, but every entry would still get judged twice (and the score averaged) [which I thought would be more fair than other judging schemes, but would require twice as many judges]. I discovered quickly that almost no judges were willing or able to judge more than 10 entries (though there are some definite, major exceptions). This was especially a problem for a handful of judges that had signed up to judge more than one category, but were totally overwhelmed/panicked when I told them how many entries they had signed up to judge [some had very, very high numbers, but were generally still less than projected]. That's why I had to change the judging system to be so complicated (PRJs, RcuJs, and RsvJs). It wasn't because I wanted to at all. It has taken a lot more work from me and a crazy amount of coordination. [Also, a few judges have developed major health problems, and a few have not responded to any attempts I've made to contact them, even on their side/joint accounts.]

[The new, three-tier judging system] was the only thing I could come up with to prevent canceling the contest. The only alternative might have been for me to have [filled the position as] the second judge for about a hundred entries. [Which would have drawn things out a really long time, and lowered the scores of every entry I judged, because I am harsh.] (cont'd)

... also I've been getting so much hate for this contest, I really want it to be done. I started it because I wanted to be supportive of writers, [help] them take pride [& celebrate] in a generally shunned genre, and (for those who were interested), give a chance for feedback on their entries.

I wasn't at all prepared for the time commitment it would take to try and make things fair. I also wasn't expecting the incredible backlash I'd get whenever I had to modify something, as I learned along the way. Also, so many people didn't read even the most basic chapter on rules, much less anything else, I got frustrated

[And, of course, I wasn't expecting some of the often explosive rage, condescension, and insults whenever I did anything someone didn't like. I have a short fuse (I have something called c-PTSD, and it makes my impulses to react in anger more difficult to control. I also have dysthymia, which makes it more challenging to ignore insults.), and have not dealt well with the intense, surprisingly personal criticism. Though the book insulting me and the contest that someone wrote still takes the cake over all the emojis of a hand flipping me the bird. Heh. 😉 I also wasn't expecting angry, disqualified people to harass judges after I muted them.]

Right now, my life is about to take a major change for the busier, and I'm very worried about it. While I know that, once results are announced, entrants will start to get angry if they don't get their prizes right away, I hope that it won't be as bad as right now. I haven't been able to write any of my own work for over a month (both due to time and mental fog from high anxiety levels), and I'm getting very stressed by that. I'm just hoping that things will get better soon, and I will stop getting dozens of questions, angry people, and other stuff every time I update. I have tried to minimize the number of times I update, but it's harder than I thought. No one notices if you just edit previous chapters [and they get angry that things were changed without an update].

[This makes things difficult, because I don't want to spam participants with updates with titles like 'Must Read' all the time. I also never wanted the contest to have so many chapters. But I also sometimes have to change things, and everyone needs to be given notice that a change has occurred they should know about. Right now I'm trying unpublishing, then republishing chapters that have had an important or especially useful modification, and it seems to be going ok.]

Side note: instead of following me, if people put the contest in their library, I'm pretty sure they will still get notified when the contest book is updated