Iron Noder 2008: The Results
The month is over, the panicked noding has stopped, or at least paused, and the results are in. This is the list of who's who - the winners, the not-quite-so-winners, and the almost-rans. This is where the wreckage is picked through and statistics salvaged. Finally, this is where everyone gets some kind of award, title, or mention (no matter how far I have to stretch to do it...)
THE UBERNODER
Reward: bragging rights
OK, so I didn't say in advance that there would be a title for writing the most nodes, but I feel it's worth commemorating. After a battle that dramatically ended less than a minute before midnight, dichotomyboi and The Custodian ended up tied for the title of Ubernoder, with 42 writeups each in the month of November. However, shamefaced at his own underhanded tactics (posting a 4-line daylog at the last possible moment), The Custodian gamely conceded the battle, leaving dichotomyboi, who actually completed the challenge in 15 days, the winner of this coveted title!
THE CAST IRON NODERS
Reward: awe and fear
These terrifying individuals have maintained iron noder speed over their last 60 writeups. Actually, forget that. Glowing Fish has been on a 1-node-per-day average for his last 80 writeups, and mauler for his last 90. I don't know. You talk to them.
THE IRON NODERS
Reward: 2000 GP
What do we need to say? We are noders. We are Iron. We are now quite tired and may not be seen again for some time. False modesty prevents me from waxing too lyrical about the achievements of this group, but I know from experience how difficult it will have been for almost everyone who managed it. I know a couple of people who nearly gave up, and they deserve great credit for carrying on. This wasn't an easy challenge, and the Iron Noders deserve the pride they hopefully feel.
THE BRONZE NODERS
Reward: The Bitter, Metallic Taste Of Near-Victory
This award is for those who reached between 25 and 29 writeups. As it happens, we have two of them: Windrider (25) and Aerobe (27), who, however, reached their final totals in slightly different ways. Windrider put on a late spurt, managing 8 nodes on the final day, including 3 in the last 10 minutes, earning himself some nice goodies as a result! Aerobe, on the other hand, started very fast and looked all set to cruise home to victory but foolishly allowed so-called "real life" to interfere on her final day and so missed out on her fully-deserved Iron Noder title by 3 writeups, which she probably could have knocked out in about 20 minutes each! So it goes.
THE BRASS NODERS
Reward: A grotesque antique brass doorknocker
This award is for those who reached between 15 and 24 writeups. This in itself is no mean achievement - it means an average of 1 node every 2 days for a month, which is more than most people achieve in their noding careers. In the case of Spifficus Rex, he almost tripled his previous writeup total.
THE PEWTER NODERS
Reward: A battered pewter tankard full of warm beer
For those who managed between 5 and 15 writeups. Don't look down on these folks. Their writeups made up 1/4 of the total quest nodes, and among their number are many noders who exceeded their entire output for large amounts of past time (in some cases, years). Some deserving of a special mention: Palpz, whose last writeup before the quest was 2 years ago; kalen, who exceeded his entire output for the last 2 years; and Tricia McMillan who made her first noding appearance for 2 years. Let's not forget Noung, who made a valiant attempt at a personal challenge (to become an Iron Noder with an average of 1000 words per writeup) but ran out of steam. I hope the process of singling people out doesn't make anyone else feel like their contribution wasn't valued — I just like drawing attention to particularly notable stories!
I do want to single out two Pewter Noders for a very special mention: grundoon and wertperch. grundoon has a serious illness and is going through some pretty rough times with chemotherapy, and wertperch is going through some testing times himself as her carer. It's a minor miracle that either of them have managed to write anything at all this month, and I'm very grateful that they supported the Iron Noder cause.
THE LEAD NODERS
Reward: A Star Wars figure of Boba Fett missing his head
For those who managed fewer than 5 writeups (but at least 1). They showed up, they tested the noding waters, their toes got cold — but they still participated! Even here, there are some stories worth mentioning. For example, rivenwanderer, who noded more this November than in the previous 3 years.
THE UNOBTAINIUM NODERS
Reward: A bemused look and a fizzy cola bottle sweet
These are the noders who showed up but never participated, probably because that "real life" thing intervened. They swelled our ranks, made us feel better about ourselves, and even in some cases may have made an ironic comment on the nature of competition itself.
THE HUMBUG NODER
Reward: A bag of butterscotch sweets and a dirty look
A special category for Senso, who dropped out of the challenge publicly as a statement of protest against the recent changes to the XP/Levelling System, which resulted in the promised XP rewards being changed to GP. His repeated statements of discouragement and scorn provided a much-needed counterbalance to the otherwise relentless tide of positive energy we suffered under.
Some Statistics!
51 noders signed up to the Iron Noder challenge, of whom 46 wrote at least 1 node. 686 writeups in total were produced for the quest, which bumped up the number of total writeups on E2 in the month of November to 889, more than twice as much as the previous month, and more than any month since mid-2004. Less than 1/4 of the participants, the Iron Noders, created 402 of those 686 writeups. Very few (4) people produced between 15 and 29 writeups, indicating perhaps that once a noder committed themselves with a certain number of nodes, they felt bound to finish; or, conversely, that most noders who saw in advance that they would not be able to reach 30 gave up prematurely, preferring not to waste effort on a near-miss.
The highest-reputation writeup contributed to the Quest is dichotomyboi's An Open Letter to the Supporters of Proposition 8: Rational Discourse in Modern America, followed by History of the E2 Voting/Experience system by SharQ and grundoon's November 10, 2008. The most C!s also went to An Open Letter to the Supporters of Proposition 8: Rational Discourse in Modern America, with 17 at the last count. I won't detail the lowest-rep nodes, out of discretion!
More detailed statistics would require a lot of data-gathering and hard work on my part, so that's all you get for now. GP rewards are being given out right now: 2000 GP for each of the Iron Noders, and 200 GP for every 5 nodes for everyone who participated. Plus - out of the goodness of my heart - 100 GP for everyone, whether they contributed or not. Just for showing up. There may be other goodies on the way, and there will definitely be a steady trickle of C!s and votes from people (like me) going through the considerable back catalogue to be found in the main quest node. So the only thing left to say is:
WELL DONE EVERYONE!