The goal of the Little Dragon Castle Web Site Competition is to have fun while on a quest through the five levels of competition to earn gifts at each level. The ultimate goal is to reach the Royal Court and win the Seat of Honor. To defend the Seat of Honor for three consecutive weeks places the site and its owner on a special Honor Roll among those sites recognized as "special" within the Little Dragon Castle
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To establish and maintain a fair competition, even a friendly, for fun, competition, we need rules. We have minimized the rules as much as possible. But, nonetheless we still have some rules. Please keep in mind that the individuals who make sure we have a competition that is fun for all, spend their private time to make it fun. All they ask is that you obey the rules, participate, and above all have fun !!!!!!

Now for the Rules

Voting Times

All voting times are given in Central Time Zone.  A link to a clock is given on each voting page so you may check the time if you are in doubt.

Voting begins at one minute after midnight Monday morning and ends at midnight on Friday night.

All Votes received after midnight Friday night through Sunday at midnight will be discarded because the polls are closed to enable the Staff to tally final scores, make and present the awards and gifts and to prepare the sites to be advanced to their next level of competition.

Votes are counted each day after the polls close at midnight and points are awarded. Team Guides and Level Managers post the daily scores as soon as possible in keeping with their family lives and work schedules.

Voting Point Awards

Points are awarded daily on a scale of 0 to 10 with the site receiving the greatest number of votes awarded ten points, second greatest number awarded nine point, etc., until all the points have been awarded in rank order. Sites with zero votes received will earn zero points.

At the end of each week's competition the daily points are totaled and the high point sites are advanced to the next level of competition.

Sites who do not successfully advance return to their Team Level to start the quest once again.

Voting Rules

General:  The site competition does not employ judges to do precisely that, judge. We do not use checklists or other measures of site quality. The quality of your site is measured by votes from your fellow competitors and visitors to the competition through your invitations and the links. The only measure of excellence by which you are judged are those of friendship, admiration, and regard of your site visitors. What better measure is there?

Therefore:

E-mail Votes:  An e-mail address is required for each vote to assure it is a valid vote. (E-mail addresses shall not be retained by the Little Dragon Castle and shall not be distributed outside the Staff of Little Dragon Castle for any reason.)

What this means is that you can vote once a day per Initiating Point (IP), meaning you can vote for each site only once a day from the same computer. If you are unsure of what this means, please feel free to contact the Team Guide.

When votes are cast the Little Dragon Castle automatically records the remote address of the computer that was used to cast the vote. Changing e-mail names does NOT change the remote address recorded since it is the electronic address of your particular computer and its connection to the Internet.

If you have family members who wish to vote using your computer you may submit the email address of no more than three additional family members to your Team Guide. These addresses will be added to the official roster and the family members will be allowed to cast votes within the Little Dragon Castle voting system.  Without authorization by your Team Guide any additional votes coming from your computer and voting for your personal web site will be considered duplicates and will be discarded.

PARTICIPATION: Each site owner is asked to vote for themselves once per voting day to verify that the Little Dragon Castle voting links are working properly. In addition, it also lets the Team Guide or Level Manager know that the site owner is not having connection problems and that the site owner is participating. It is the site owners responsibility to notify their Team Guide if they will be absent and not able to vote.

Site Owner Not Voting

Sites in which the site owner does not vote on a voting day shall be considered as not participating.  Three consecutive days of site owner non-participation shall result in suspension from the competition for the remainder of the competition week.  Suspended sites shall be returned to the competition, at Team Level, the following Monday to start the new voting week.

Sites in which the site owner has not voted during the entire competition week shall NOT advance to the next level of competition regardless of the number of points awarded during the week. A formal notice to the site owner is not required.

Three consecutive weeks of suspension shall constitute a lack of participation by the site owner and shall result in an automatic disqualification from the competition. Formal notice will be sent to the site owner by the Team Guide.

Zero Votes Received

When a site receives zero votes on any voting day the earned points awarded shall be zero. A formal notice to the site owner is not required.

Three consecutive days of zero votes shall result in suspension from the competition for the remainder of the competition week.  Suspended sites shall be returned to the competition, at Team Level, the following Monday to start the new voting week.  A formal notice to the site owner is not required.

Three consecutive weeks of suspension shall constitute a lack of participation by the site owner and shall result in an automatic disqualification from the competition. Formal notice will be sent to the site owner by the Team Guide.

Vote Exchanging:  Vote exchanging is not allowed. Votes are gathered through judgment of the sites quality by your visitors and not upon the ability of the site owner to contract with others for votes.

As of March 31, 2002, personal vote reminders are the recommended manner of gaining support for your site. It is not the only method you might use, however, any method you do use must conform to the intent to the following guidance.

The formally approved method is for the site owner to personally contact individuals they wish to invite to their pages. The Little Dragon Castle site URLs are copyright information and Shall Not be used in the communication.

The contact communication should provide the URL of your personal web site asking contacts to look at the site content and consider if the visitor thinks the quality of the web site deserves their support. Further, the visitor should be asked that if they feel the site is deserving of a vote for quality, to move to the Vote Button that is linked from the site owners web pages to the voting table in the competition.

Placement of the vote button is at the discretion of the site owner. It is recommended that the vote button be placed on the entrance page of the site for ease of location. The vote button may be linked directly to the appropriate Little Dragon Castle voting table.

Linking directly to a site's vote banner page is not recommended. When a vote banner page is being used the site owner should advise potential visitors that the vote button is contained on a separate page.

Vote Boards, "Quilts" or Clubs may be used however, prior to joining a Board, Quilt or Club, verify that the Board, Quilt or Club is acceptable in that it does not violate the vote exchanging rules.

Review the rules of the particular Vote Board, Quilt or Club. If their rules require that listed site owners vote for all the sites listed, even if text is entered to say the site is listed as a non-vote exchange site, the Board, Quilt or Club is a Vote Exchanging site and Shall Not be used.

The Little Dragon Castle vote table URLs are copyright and Shall Not be used in the Board, Quilt or Club listing. Should a site owner join a Board, Quilt or Club, a link to the site owners pages, and only the site owners pages, should be provided. DO NOT provide a direct link to the Little Dragon Castle voting table.

Should you need guidance or assistance in determining if a Board, Quilt or Club is acceptable contact your Team Guide.

Site owners who may have entered into vote exchanging, that would now be in violation of this revised rule, shall be given the opportunity to revise their listing with the vote exchanging site.

All votes received from the vote exchangers shall be discarded and not counted. Continued violation of this rule, after a request to refrain from vote exchanging by a member of the Competition Staff, will result in the site being disqualified from the competition.

Ballot Stuffing:  Ballot stuffing is not allowed. To repeatedly enter votes for your own site, or to have others do it for you simply to increase your vote count, is not a measure of site quality. Also, and most important, it is not within the spirit and intent of the competition.

SPAM:  SPAM to other sites or to other areas is not allowed. You are encouraged to contact your friends and others to come visit the site competition and recognize your site or others for quality by voting. In your invitation you, as the site owner, must also provide a disclaimer to indicate that the invitation is your personal contact and not a function of the site competition.

The Competition Guardian is always available to you through the e-mail link button below or through the many other e-mail links you will find in the copyright statement. Should you ever feel the need to contact me feel free to do so. My armor is ready to don, my mount is saddled, the lance is prepared to do battle as Guardian of the Competition.

Original Web Sets by:  The Unicorns