And we're back!
Sadly, not with our founding organizer Robert Fowkes back at the helm, and this year's challenge is named and held in his memory. RIP, RAF.
On a brighter note, I am pleased to be able to announce that our owner Adam has again kindly agreed to sort out a prize for the winner, so many thanks to him and the sponsors!
Now onto the Rules, which are mostly the same as before:-
The "Rules":
When the number of contestants is whittled down to the Final 12, entries will officially open. At that time you will be asked to submit a list of the order in which these top ten entrants will finish. Entries will close when the "Final 12" start to perform (at 8pm EST on Wednesday, March 7, 2012). Only ONE entry per member.
- List your top ten in numerical order (1-10). Please use the names as listed on the roster below (when posted).
- Your list must be unique. No duplicate lists allowed. For duplicate lists, first submission gets that list.
- Once you submit a list, it is FINAL. No edited lists are allowed (unless your original list is invalid due to a mistake or a duplication.)
- Scoring is as follows: You are assigned 1 point for each position that your prediction is away from the final position of each contestant. For example, if you predict a contestant to come in 3rd and he or she comes in 7th you get 4 points. If that contestant comes in 12th you get 9 points. A 2nd place finish gets you 1 point. And so forth.
- Lowest total points wins (with a score of 0 points being the best possible score.)
- In the event of a tie the contest winner will be the entrant who was the fewest spots away from picking the winner. If it's still a tie, then we'll move down the list and determine who was closest to predicting the second spot, and so on, until the tie is eventually broken.
- Members of the HTF staff and their significant others are eligible to participate, but only for glory and not for the prize package. All other members of the HTF community in good standing may enter and compete for the prize.
Entries close at 8:00p.m. EST on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. No exceptions please.
Here are a couple of words of explanation regarding this particular contest and the rationale behind the setup.
- American Idol, as many of these reality shows, is known for its unpredictability so it is quite possible that an ousted "survivor" might return. This is quite possible, with the Judge's Save rule being in force, and having been used previously. One season, two contestants were voted off the same night so instead of a "5th" and "6th" position we decided to assign two "5.5" positions for the purposes of scoring. That's why the rules clearly specify the "final" position of ouster for each contestant. It's not over until it's over, and who knows what twists this season will bring? Or if it's a Final 13 (or whatever), entries open when that Final xx is confirmed and close when they start performing. And if there are unforeseen circumstances we will make a determination that will be fair to all entrants as much as possible. (Otherwise we will return your entry fee
).
There are probably other things that we haven't thought of but we can deal with them as the show progresses. The one thing that I ask of all entrants (other than making sure that their list is unique) is that you follow the following format when submitting your entry:
01. Contestant
02. Contestant
03. Contestant
04. Contestant
05. Contestant
06. Contestant
07. Contestant
08. Contestant
09. Contestant
10. Contestant
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Some specific caveats because I'm organising and not RAF as in years past:-
1. As is obvious from my "location", I don't live in the US; my timezone is 13 hrs ahead of EST, and AI is broadcast "the next day" at prime time here, in effect during the morning after each show has already been aired in the US. So as not to spoil my enjoyment of the show (such as it is), I trust you will not begrudge allowing me to view the shows spoiler-free in my timezone, but this means I cannot compile results until the next day after I have viewed the results show. So unless you do your own calculations, you won't get an updated leaderboard immediately.
2. I am clueless with Excel, so can't provide spreadsheets as Robert did and I just compile results manually. As an aside, I would be most grateful if participants could please check your own results for any math errors on my part, just in case: I do my best, but I'm not an accountant... 
3. I am not a moderator so I can't 'acknowledge' receipt of your predictions by editing your post to mark them as having been submitted (since I can't edit other members' posts). What I'll do instead is keep a list of participants in the next post, which I will edit as we go along once entries have been recorded by me, by noting that the participant's entry has already been entered.
As before, please submit a PLACEHOLDER in this thread so we can see what sort of response we're getting to this year's challenge; hopefully it'll match last year's participation. Once you reach the point of submitting your entry, you can modify the "placeholder" post to submit your entry, but note that it's still first-come first-serve insofar as entries are concerned and an earlier-posted placeholder has no effect.
I think that covers it, but if there's anything I'm sure we can reach a consensus as to how to deal with unforeseen issues. And if we can't, HTF moderators have the final say.
Edited by Yee-Ming - 2/23/12 at 8:40am
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