I think it's time for a new style of competition to hopefully bring some activity back to the forum. This is the Mad Marathon.

Competition Layout

The main part of the Mad Marathon will consist of 25 questions, activities and puzzles, ranging over all sorts of subjects including general knowledge, picture puzzles, word puzzles and more.
Each question will be open for varying amounts of time according to its complexity and could vary from a few days up to a couple of weeks.
Each topic of question or puzzle will be randomly placed in a sequence.
The final part of the Mad Marathon, called the Final Sprint, will be outlined later in the competition.

Awards

Awards can be earned for each question. The three awards that can be gained are:

Speedy Award - The forumite who answers the fastest, scoring at least half of the total maximum points in the question.
Brainy Award - The forumite(s) who score(s) the most points in the question.
Timing Award - The 3rd forumite to submit their first answer to the question.

All the available awards for each question will be displayed next to the question number and its title.
Not all awards are necessarily available for every question. Some questions may only have certain awards associated with them.

Credits

Upon entering the main part of the Mad Marathon, you will automatically earn 5 credits.
For every 5 questions of the main 25 questions that you answer, you will earn 3 credits.
Each acquisition of an award will earn you an additional 1 credit.
You may use your earned credits at any stage in the competition.

Hints

You can use your credits to give you a hint to some of the puzzles at any time while a question is open. 1 credit will entitle you to the hint for 1 question.
If a hint is available for a question, the nature of the hint will be determined in the question.
If you wish to receive a hint, simply PM the word "Hint", the question number and any other hint detail requirements to either Jen or myself, and the hint will be PM'ed to you as soon as possible.

Final Sprint

The Final Sprint will be the last part of this competition where you will be able to grab additional points.
This is the part of the competition where your amount of credits determines how long you stay in this round. ie. The more credits you have, the longer you will stay in the Final Sprint.
All of your remaining credits after the main part of the Mad Marathon has finished will automatically be used for the Final Sprint.
All the details as to the nature of the Final Sprint will be given nearer the end of the Mad Marathon competition.

Scoring and Entering

Each question will have its own explanation, scoring details and final submission date associated with it.
Each question is open as soon as it is set.
Any member of iSketchForum is permitted to enter the Mad Marathon with the exception of the organisers (jenni939706 and db1986).
All submissions to questions set by jenni939706 should be PMed to her, and all submissions to questions set by db1986 should be PMed to him.
After submitting your answers to a question, you may amend any part of your answer, provided that the question is still open.
If you wish to amend any part of your answer, simply PM the changes you wish to make and we will take the most recently submitted answers into consideration when the question has closed.
Edit: The Speedy Award is valid on all entries and amendments. Once the question has closed, all entries for the question will then be assessed, and the Speedy Award awarded appropriately.
The Timing Award is only valid for first time entries by forumites to each question. Any amendments will not count towards this award. ie. You cannot submit your first answer and then amend twice, in order to obtain this award.

Example Question

Here is an example question to clarify the general layout of all the questions.

Question 0 - Example Question Title - Speedy Award Brainy Award

This is where the question's explanation and rules will be located.

Scoring: You will receive the scoring system here (Max = ??)
Hint: If a hint is available, you will receive the nature of the hint here. (Any additional information required for the hint will be in brackets)

This question will close at 3:00pm on 32nd Sketchember UK and Ireland time (UTC)
According to www.timeanddate.com/worldclock, this equates to:

7:00am on 32nd Sketchember Western USA time (UTC-8:00)
9:00am on 32nd Sketchember Central USA time (UTC-6:00)
10:00am on 32nd Sketchember Eastern USA time (UTC-5:00)
3:00pm on 32nd Sketchember UK and Ireland time (UTC)
8:30pm on 32nd Sketchember India time (UTC+5:30)
11:00pm on 32nd Sketchember Western Australia time (UTC+8:00)
1:00am on 33rd Sketchember Eastern Australia time (UTC+10:00)

Honourable Mentions

There are 7 Honourable Mentions available in total.
3 of these Honourable Mentions are detailed in the relevant questions once they are open.
An Honourable Mention will be awarded to the forumite(s) who receive(s) the most of each of the 3 awards detailed above.
The final Honourable Mention will be awarded to the forumite(s) who score(s) the most points in the Final Sprint.

Additional Messages

The first question will come in a few days time.
The winner(s) of the Mad Marathon will be the forumite(s) with the most points at the end of the competition.
If you are thinking of taking part at any time in the competition, simply post after this message so we have a rough idea of how many players will be taking part.
If you have any questions about any part of the information above, or about any of the subsequent questions, feel free to send db1986 a PM, post on db1986's profile, or post in this thread, and, depending on the nature of the answer, either Jen or I will answer your question either in this thread or via PM.
Please do not post questions in the main thread once it is created, as we intend to keep that thread solely for the announcement of Mad Marathon questions.
By popular demand from the Valentine Competition last year, there will be no forum searching whatsoever in this competition.
All that is left to say now is good luck to all entrants, and may the best forumite win :)

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..................Question 1:............. NoHints ................................. Fox ..................................... Bellicimo

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I will be taking part.... and so if i understood right im supposed to be posting here...

also, RC: my timezone is not on there!!!! haha... i can figure it out though (i am Mountain time zone USA; UTC-7:00)

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Lol, I might update to include your timezone then Jmac, although I have to add it 25 times.
I have to include the time changes as this competition should last a good few months. It goes into all sorts of clock changes :P

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That was a lot of reading.. and somewhat confusing. Though I don't have any specific questions and I'm sure it will make more sense once it's started! Count me in :)

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Watch, with a bit of friction I'll be under your clothes.
With a bit of focus I'll be under your skin.

I'll probably take part, though I've got lots of work and whatnot just now so I may miss a few parts.

Hm I'll try tooo. :)

Thanks db and jen, you've put a lot of thought into this! Count me in please, although I may have to miss a few questions... I like the 'No forum searching guarantee', even though it was a novel idea xD

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Haha, yeah we figured that when people got annoyed last time :P
Perhaps one lot of searching would have been enough for the Valentines comp. Oh well, no forum searching this time xD

Don't worry about not being able to answer all the questions, you can enter as few or as many as you like.
Oh, and all of the above is just the technical stuff to get it started. Once the questions are posted, it should become clear.

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....i thought we were waiting till like..summer before we did this dbb XD why didnt u tell me you were posting thisss? :P


and seriously. he did ..like...99.999999% of the work .. XD

i think im just here when db's pm box gets spammed/full :)

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Just curious as it wasn't too clear in the first post. If you reply with an answer, and get the speediest person or whatever it was... Then send in an amendment, do you drop to where your amendment will put you? Will you still get that award? (Although of course that could lead to cheating loopholes of replying instantly just to get the award then amending later) So yeah.. this is what I'm wondering about. :)

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Count me in... timing should be my forte

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Good question Sors. I've just re-read it and it needs some clarification. I kinda skated around it. There is a lot of information there :s

The Speedy Award will be given to the first person who scores more than half the total points by the time the round ends.

So say, for example, question is out of 50 points..

Entry 1 = Sorsie: 22/50
Entry 2 = Capt_Sparrow: 26/50
Entry 3 = Bellicimo: 37/50
Entry 4 = Capt_Sparrow: 24/50
Entry 5 = Fox: 39/50

In the above case Bellicimo will receive the Speedy Award as Capt_Sparrow edited before the round has ended and his most recent answers were taken into consideration.

When you send an amendment you don't have to amend the whole question, just the bits you wish to amend.

Yeah, I figured because the forum needs a "lift" so to speak I thought I'd try it now :) I'm glad we have some interest, it's all about fun :)

Edit: Honestly, it will be a lot easier to understand once we start properly. :)

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haha dont worry, about adding it.

also, i believe since i was the first to post and got at least half of the possible points (the 2 points being, 1-if you are going to participate, 1-a question or concern about the competition) i won the Speedy Award for round 0!

Jmac with the lead....

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I'll join in, but I'm not sure how reliable I will end up being with it!

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Oh dear Jmac...
-patpat-

:P You're an eager beaver aren't you. :p

And thanks db I understand it a lot better now. :)

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I knew I shouldn't have amended that one! >.<

I need a bit of clarification on the Timing Award. Would you get this regardless of whether you got any points in the question and why is it the 3rd (rather than the 1st or 2nd) answerer who gets this award (is this the 'timing' aspect. You time your answer to be the 3rd one?)?

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because it's a MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD marathon!!!!!!

Yeah, aight. :) It seems complicated-ish with the credits etc but like you say it'll make itself clear as it goes along. :)

Haha, at least it was the example and not for real eh?

That is absolutely correct. To aim for this award you are allowed to just submit as little as you want (or even nothing if you really want) and then amend later. Please bear in mind that the Speedy Award accepts no amendments, so if you are first to submit with very little, you probably won't win either award.

The idea behind it is to time your entry carefully. It can't be 1st otherwise you could just submit nothing, earn the award very easily, then amend later. Also it clashes with the first place needed to acquire the Speedy Award. It's just 3rd because it's the first number that came to mind. As I say, it's all about timing your entry; it's just something a little different :)

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xD


Kays, count me in. I'm busy with uni so I probably won't be able to do the whole comp, but I'll do what I can :)

Haha!

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Lol, I should start looking straight away then

Here is the list so far:

Bellicimo
Capt_Sparrow
Casta_Diva
Fox
Jmac
Medea.
NoHints
Sorsie
storm
TempusFugit

If anyone else wishes to join in later, just send us an answer to a question and we'll add you in :)
You don't have to post here, but it would be helpful in counting number of people for Jen and I :)
Keep your eyes peeled, we could be starting soon...

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In question 5, it seems you've missed a block of 3 letters in the last grid. FSO or FST I guess.

And how comes there's no speedy award :o

Yes, I did miss a block, the grey FSO block. The image has been edited.

Thanks NH :)

The reason for the lack of Speedy Award in this question is because there are a total of 50 awards across the whole main part. Adding this one would make that figure not so round. Probably slight OCD there I think ;)

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