The Joys of Sandbagging

Ah, I can guess what you are envisioning: scores of people working in the pouring rain, filling burlap bags with sand and stacking them up on the levees to hold back the flood waters. Unfortunately, in the Survivor World at Literotica, the sandbaggers aren't considered the heroes like in days gone by. No, somehow the word sandbagging has, for some reason, inherited a negative connotation for some contestants.

Actually, when some knuckleheads begin to go on and on about sandbagging they actually could be talking about one of two different activities (both of which are perfectly legal in the Survivor rules). The first activity is based on the misconception that some writers save the stories they've written all year and then post them to Literotica during the last few weeks of the year. The second activity is merely a contestant not publishing their updated their scorecard.

Yeah, when you consider the first activity above, I do agree it is ludicrous to think someone would save up stories just to rush them in at the end. Someone might do it, but why go to the trouble? What really happens is that someone get's focused and writes the stories at the end of the contest and submits them before the contest deadline. It is funny how those screaming about sandbagging might consider writing thirty or forty stories in the months of April or May simply good competition, but writing that same amount in November or December is unscrupulous.

Apparently a writer who writes all those stories in November or December has some devious agenda, to undermine the truly deserving writers who submitted a lot of stories in April or May, or January or July. Of course this attitude does construct a wonderful platform for the person leading the points in say October, to claim the victory was stolen from them by cheaters and underhanded people. Apparently it is considered bad form for a writer to actually compete up until the end of the contest, to write and submit stories in an effort to catch up and surpass a leader.

Of course, the consideration that for some writers the last two months of the year are marked by a slowdown in business for their real jobs and suddenly, often for the first time in the year, they have the time to actually think about and write stories, is not mentioned. Those damned cheaters, such unscrupulous behavior! Funny, someone actually had the audacity to state that it was the consensus among Survivor Contestants that this was wrong. Wow, I guess I missed out on that survey.

Anyway, leaving the ludicrous behind we need to consider the other kind of sandbagging (evil sneer). Yeah, this is the scorecard thing, where the rules state that, first of all no scorecard is official until January 4th, and that the posting of the contestant's scores is purely optional. Now there is a thread in the forum where contestants may, if they want to have their scores listed. All they have to do is fill out their scorecard in the forum.

Except for immunities, which must be logged on the scorecards the week they are claimed for them to be valid, it is purely optional for the contestant to choose if they want to update their scorecards daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or just at the end of the year. Apparently some people read that to mean that if a contestant updates their scorecard on a daily basis they are acting in the "true spirit" of competition, actually acting better than the contestant who merely updates on a weekly basis.

Someone has even commented that they feel that failure to update scorecards on a timely basis is unethical and it is something he would never consider. Wow, what a fine upstanding competitor. Talk about sportsmanship... well, gamesmanship at least. He's scamming you folks. It's to his advantage that everyone shows him their scores, so he doesn't have to take the time and effort to actually research and calculate what the scores are.

You see, all he is doing is putting on this front of ethical behavior only to undermine a perfectly legal and ethical strategy, which is to simply not publish your scorecard. By assuming some sort of ethical higher ground here, he is trying to make the unwary suspect that not publishing a scorecard is somehow cheating. What a guy.

What's the next step after this? I can see it now... after everyone updates their scorecards they must, in order to remain ethical, contact their fellow contestants and tell them their future plans in the contest. "I plan to write a new story that will either go in the Erotic Horror or the Erotic Humor category. Is that alright with everyone?"

"Wait, you must tell us exactly which category, otherwise your actions are unethical."

Funny thing is that while this guy is picking your pocket while traveling the so called ethical high road here, whenever you submit a story and it is published at Literotica your scorecard has automatically been updated. I kid you not. Each day the newly published stories are listed with such information as the story title, the writer's name and the category it is published in. Wow, that's all the information you need to figure out a contestants score.

Now if you happen to miss a few days on the new story list, simply go to the contestant's page at Literotica and all the stories are listed there. All the information you need to calculate a score is there. If the list is long you can get fancy and copy the information and paste it into a spreadsheet program. You and then sort the stories however you want and guess what, you can calculate the score.

Yeah, back to our scammer, our ethical buddy. He's too lazy to do this, he wants you to hand deliver him your score, so he can sip his coffee or tea or whatever while he looks over his competition. Of course he magnanimously updates his score on a daily basis so it's only right you do the same, otherwise you are unethical. What a scam.

Quite frankly I think an effort like this is to purely undermine perfectly legal and ethical strategies in the contest. I find that unethical and it's something I'd never do, well except in this case which I just did... I mean, oh you know what I mean.

Long story short, Literotica Survivor is a contest with a set of rules. Any attempts to cloud the rules with some sort of standard of ethical behavior should be seen exactly for what it is, simply another form of strategy. If they try to tell you otherwise, they're scamming you. So hey, let's hear it for the sandbaggers and those of us who love them. And shame on you scammers, shame, shame.

Now for those of you who don't compete in Literotica's Survivor Contest, or who don't even know what it is... never mind (in my best Gilda Radner voice).