I recently submitted a contest proposal for the first time. The proposal section and Mike's blog are pretty clear about the process. You send your proposal, the CF coordinators comment and give you feedback, maybe ask for some changes, and if it looks good, they work with you to get it hosted.

However, there were some things I had absolutely no idea about. Such as how long it usually takes to get a response, how likely it is to actually get a response, how long it would take to host it, would they only listen if I had a high rating, how much work I would have to do, etc.

There's contests written by new authors all the time, which means there's a lot of success cases. However, most of them don't talk about how it went when they proposed it. I only found this exception. On the other hand, there's also failed cases where the contest proposer is ignored and ends up being upset with the coordinators, such as this one.

I think it would be nice to have more information about the contest proposal experience. And it should be unbiased information, which considers everyone's point of view, not only users with a negative experience. I think the best way to accomplish this is to give everyone the chance to tell their story. That's why I created a very simple form where people can tell how their first proposal went. Please share your experience! It would be super useful and encouraging for users who are submitting for the first time.

Consider the following:

• The form is 100% anonymous.
• This form is for anyone who has proposed a contest, even if it wasn't hosted.
• If you've proposed more than one contest, please answer the questions regarding your first one.
• This is a good faith initiative for the CF community, please don't ruin it with fake answers or spam.

Contest Proposal Form

If this blog isn't ignored, I'll update it later with information regarding the results of the form. In such case, I'd represent the information in charts and statistics to make it very clear what one should expect after submitting their first proposal.

The more people fill it, the better the resulting information. If you have a story to tell, please share it! The form is short and doesn't take longer than 2 minutes to answer.

If you think of another question that might be useful, let me know and I'll include it in the form.