We did it! Despite the best efforts of MSU's villainous Server Un-Plugger, the Iron Noder Challenge was a smash hit. We outperformed all three previous incarnations of the quest, both in the total amount of Iron Nodes posted and in the number of users who successfully became Iron Noders. Be proud, noble miners — it was a magical month!
THE ÜBERNODER: The most writeups posted
Reward: 2000 GP (plus 2440 more for her 61 TOTAL NODES), bragging rights, and a diamond pick-axe
- moeyz
We have
never had an übernoder complete so many write-ups, making
moeyz the überübernoder. I'm promoting her to mine foreman.
THE FERROUS FIFTEEN, 2011'S CAST OF IRON NODERS: 30+ writeups
Reward: 2000 GP (plus 1200 more for 30+ nodes) and A Special Surprise Gift (check out the prize section!)
- Aerobe - 32
- DonJaime - 30
- Glowing Fish - 32
- Hazelnut - 30
- IWhoSawTheFace - 30
- jessicaj - 30
- mauler - 37
- moeyz - 61
- Pandeism Fish - 41
- synechdouche - 31
- Tem42 - 35
- The Custodian - 33
- wombat-socho - 30
- worn-out_shoe - 30
- Zephronias - 30
<Clockmaker> [T]his year's Iron
Noder is basically pristine, to be compared with last year's clambering
morass of alleged pomes.
The questers outdid themselves this year, not only in how many of them went iron (more than ever!) but in how good their contributions were. We few, we happy few, we band of noders. Congratulations to everyone who managed to successfully complete the challenge!
THE BRONZE BACONATORS®: 25-29 writeups
Reward: 40 GP per writeup and a totally zen attitude
- Auspice - 28
- Montag - 27
Montag, after reaching the almost-deadline with a puny eight nodes, had a heroic showing in the eleventh hour and nearly managing to hit thirty. Magnificent bastard! Auspice completed around twenty nodes within the first couple of days of the quest and seemed set to coast to the finish line. However, I must assume real life intervened. She brought her total up on the last day but stopped just short of the total thirty, as if to say I totally COULD do this, if I weren't so freakin' cool.
THE TYRANNOSAURUS TINS: 15-24 writeups
Reward: 40 GP per writeup and a sloppy wet kiss from Webster 1913
- aeschylean - 16
- lizardinlaw - 20
- raincomplex - 22
- RoboQuote - 18
Special accolades fall on
aeschylean, who began the quest with only one write-up to his name but summoned remarkable noding savvy once the game was afoot. An equally hearty congratulations goes to
lizardinlaw,
raincomplex and
RoboQuote, all of whom posted some excellent work.
Pandeism Fish has vowed to give everyone in this category or higher a full node audit, which should keep him busy until next November.
THE HEXALUMINUM NODERS: 5-14 writeups
Reward: 40 GP for every writeup and a white lily
- ChristineWinter - 9
- DTal - 5
- Evil Catullus - 10
- Evocatus - 6
- marku - 13
- Two Blue Lights - 13
Good job, guys! Thank you for your contribution!
THE GLASS NODERS: 1-4 writeups
Reward: 40 GP per writeup and the handkerchief of somebody else's high school sweetheart
- deny couches - 1
- e2reneta - 2
- graceness - 3
- kozmund - 4
- Mouq - 2
- OldMiner - 2
You may be a wallflower, but at least you came to prom! Of these six, however,
OldMiner deserves your esteem - although he didn't node much, he spent a great deal of time this month fixing E2 when its servers were on the fritz.
THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS: 0 writeups
Reward: A complimentary mint and a quizzically raised eyebrow
- BIII
- Domin
Users who signed up, but finished without a single writeup to their name. Presumably they only wanted to spy on the usergroup!
STATISTICS
36 noders signed up, with one dropping out mid-quest and making it 35. 33 out of these 35 noders produced at least one writeup for the quest. A grand total of 713 IRON NODES remained at the quest deadline. This is MORE IRON NODES than any past Iron Noder Challenge, so well done! Because we had to extend the deadline 48 hours due to the massive server troubles of the month, it's hard to say in retrospect what percentage of November's nodes were ferrous. But I'm going to guess it was at least 85%. Because of our extended deadline, 90 writeups were posted during the first three days of December.
Courtesy of raincomplex, detailed statistics for the contributions of all the participants (1 C! = 5 votes):
The writeup with the most Chings was root log: November 2011 by OldMiner, with 12 C!s, followed by a four-way tie between the following writeups 7 C!s: Notes from the Long Dark, Desiderata of Time and Elevation, The lawn was white with doctors, and The Battle of Olive Garden's Facebook Wall.
Expect to see many more votes and Chings in the days to come as Iron Voters and fans wade through their giant backlog of nodes-to-read.
PRIZES
And in a special surpise announcement...
- The magnaminous Halspal is sending ALL FIFTEEN IRON NODERS a ceramic fish made by our very own RACECAR. If you completed the quest, please /msg RACECAR your mailing address.
See you all next year!
...and remember to check out THE IRON NODER CHALLENGE 4: FERRASSIC PARK, where all the writeups posted for the quest may be found. Special thanks to the users who pledged to vote on all of them, namely Auspice, tentative, Tem42, raincomplex, Dr.Jimmy, NanceMuse and Pandeism Fish.