Me and @Terminal, in an ongoing effort to maximize your contest awesomeness, want your inputs on how you'd like TTL and RPGC to interact, time-wise. There are essentially, as we see it, two options (though if you can think of a third, we're interested!)

Option One -- as we did the first time around, RPGC goes through its cycles (submission period, voting period), and then when we declare winners, TTL kicks off at/around the same time.

Option Two -- Whenever RPGC's entry cycle ends (so for instance, May 17th at midnight), we roll right into a TTL submission period while RPGC votes/reviews are still ongoing.

Each option has its ups and downs -- with option one, no one has to split their attention, so the TTL contestants (as well as the RPGC reviewers) can focus on one thing at a time. With option two, there's always a contest accepting submissions, so it's right from one to the other, no waiting around.

What do YOU think about it, and how would you like us to schedule things going forwards? Feel free to bring up any other scheduling concerns, if you've got em. Anything we can do to make the sub more appealing.

Well, I might as well give my thoughts. They aren't quite robustly supported at this point—we've only had one of each contest, so I'll be doing a lot of conjecture based off minimal data.

So far, RPGC has been shown to get a ton of entries. This particular instance is probably in large part due to it being the first go for a long time, but I'm fairly confident that RPGC will get more entries on average. Why? Because it is far easier to get in, and the restrictions feel more casual. It also has a longer submission period, though not by much.

In addition, the review style is different between the two. Whereas RPGC relies on the community to review entries, TTL has guaranteed "moderator" reviews. Because of this, it seems to me that RPGC needs a dedicated review period, or there is too much of a risk of the entrants not getting any constructive feedback for their entries. TTL does not seem to have this problem.

For these reasons, I prefer the first option. As someone who likes the challenge posed by TTL, I would like to be able to focus on writing my entry without having to sacrifice RPGC reviews.

As individuals not taking part in TTL, we would logically have as little time between RPGCs as possible. They aren't really related to each other, so logic would dictate that they do not need to follow each others' schedules. However, with considerable overlap between the managers of the two, that cannot be avoided completely.

As individuals not taking part in TTL, we would logically have as little time between RPGCs as possible. They aren't really related to each other, so logic would dictate that they do not need to follow each others' schedules. However, with considerable overlap between the managers of the two, that cannot be avoided completely.

Technically speaking, I could manage and operate TTL on my own. The assistance of volunteer judges is extremely helpful and appreciated, both for the purposes of dividing a potentially large workload and in order to bypass the biases of a single unchanging judge. However, I have considered refreshing the Judge tally for each new challenge. The judges of the previous challenge would be allowed to volunteer again, although new volunteers might be chosen preferentially in order to keep the roster fresh. While this is unfair to the judges themselves, I had been hoping it would be more fair to the contestants that way.

So there may or may not be overlap between the contest staffs for any particular challenge. If the predominant concern in your decision is for permitting the staffs to have a clear schedule, then the arrangements for our respective staffs can be pre-arranged to avoid conflict.

Indeed. Similarly RPGC staff is fluid too -- hasn't happened much yet, but we're very much designed to have sort of a 'revolving-door' staff situation, where people can come and go as they please -- point being, if we needed to, we could easily support people taking a break to volunteer as TTL judges.

All that to say, staffing isn't an obstacle. We can handle whatever the community's preference is, have no fear.

We have no fear on that front. We were speaking realistically, as the sort of people most willing to judge one, are likely to be willing to judge in the other.

Our opinion is as follows:
Primarily, whatever works best for you.
Secondarily, as few connections as is (conveniently) possible between the two, both to cater more easily to the ones who participate in one but not the other, and to promote others to start up contests of their own. If the two existing contests are too closely bound together, others might be afraid to launch their own contests.