Wiktionary:Easter Competition 2007

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Intro

This is to announce this year's Easter competition, which is open to ALL contributors.

The object is to construct an acrostic of adjectives describing a noun - as in the following example.

The initial letters running down must spell out a noun (or the equivalent of a noun). Each word running across must be an adjective that describes that noun (in a non-metaphysical sense). No words used in an acrostic may be repeated.

Words (which must be wikified) must be from a single language, but may be in any language or script. Each word used MUST all have a proper entry in this Wiktionary including at least a decent definition. The initial word may be of any length.

Scoring: Each entry will be scored as follows: Count the number of words (the number of letters in the noun) and mutliply by the average number of letters in the adjectives (rounded down). In the example above, there are three (3) words times an average of seven (7) letters in each adjective. This gives a total score of 21. For ideographic languages (such as Japanese or Mandarin), the score will use the number of letters in the English pinyin.

The prize (a feeling of smug self-satisfaction and superiority) will go to the contributor of the series with the greatest number of words. Other prizes may be awarded as I think fit. The results will be awarded after Easter (8 April 2007).

Small print. You must not alter or delete another person's entry, but you may copy and extend it. Each entry should finish with a note of its score, and be signed with four tildes. You are allowed to treat uppercase and lowercase letters as if they were the same, and similarly may add or remove diacritical marks at will.

Entries

Back to English. How bland.

Don't have much hope for victory in this competition, but here we go...

22*int(284/22)=264, if my counting is correct... \Mike 16:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Int(281/16) * 16 = 272 SemperBlotto 10:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is just in case Torgo's entry gets the thumbs down. Red links will be fixed before the closing date anyway.

Well, if we're going to open *that* sort of gaping loophole...

Total 340, count 22, average 15.45, score 330 (if I have counted right), and I shall be back for the red links before the weekend is out. Dvortygirl 20:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting (Semper and Dvorty), but I'm not sure all these adjectives could be said to describe the referent. And Dvortygirl, lead down the garden path is not an adjective! --EncycloPetey 01:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Results

  1. Celestianpower wins the first prize with a score of 308. Nice job, and you may now parade around the internet in a shiny hat with tassles.
  2. Mike also wins a prize for the highest scoring entry with no spaces.
  3. Atelaes earns honorable mention for the only entry not in the Roman alphabet.
  • Congratulations to everyone who posted any entry. We have many new and interesting entries now. --EncycloPetey 17:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Addendum: If someone has a good idea for the next Christmas competition, there's still some time left for planning!

Talk

  • Feel free to ask questions about the rules, or raise disputes here.

Two questions: Firstly, why isn't the score simply the total number of letters in all the adjectives? The rounding down strikes me as strange. Secondly, do I understand correctly that the scores don't actually determine the winner? —RuakhTALK 03:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Using the total number of letters in the adjectives would overweight the adjectives above the noun; I wanted to encourage long nouns as well. A higher score is better, but "winning" doesn't really gain anything material. I wanted a score for this competition just to make it a bit more objective this time around. --EncycloPetey 03:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't follow. If N is the length of the noun and ΣA is the sum of the lengths of the adjectives, then the score is greater than ΣA−N and not greater than ΣA; so if two entries have the same ΣA, then the one with the shorter noun has the advantage (since it has the same upper bound and a greater lower bound). Or am I missing something? —RuakhTALK 16:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In your example with ΣA being the same for two entries, the one using a shorter noun must use correspondingly longer adjectives to achieve the same score. But this boundary is a quadratic surface rather than a planar one. There is also an anti-"cheating" reason for the more complicated scoring formula I've employed (I'd rather not elaborate unless the need arises). But in short, the formula is designed to promote more personal creativity, since (among other things) it means that the entrant must think about more than simply using the longest words. The extra thinking will hopefully lead to additional Wiktionary entries. --EncycloPetey 17:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can I confirm that it has to be a noun and that a noun phrase would be unacceptable? SemperBlotto 09:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We don't use "Noun phrase" as a POS header anymore. The rules specifically allow for any noun or the equivalent of a noun. If there is an entry for the word, and it meets CFI, and it's labelled "Noun", then it's fair game for this contest. --EncycloPetey 17:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is a crap rule. Single word entries are way more interesting and fair. --Connel MacKenzie 17:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This still open? --Connel MacKenzie 16:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I'm not in charge here, but Easter is still just over a week away, so I believe it should be open. You gonna wow us Connel? Atelaes 18:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Christmas_Competition_2006#Talk
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