Judging the Practices and Ceremonies of Worship Prompt

by Terry Cassis visit my world Arrhynsia!

Introduction to the Prompt

This prompt asks you to describe practices and ceremonies of worship in your world. And what is worship? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, worship is "the reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, idol or sacred object." I would include a spirit or concept of morality in that too.
Humans irl have an impulse to religion - to find meaning in our lives that transcends our physical existance through belief. It is a universal impulse, found across all races and cultures - all societies. Without meaning, it is well documented that we founder psychologically and fall into depression and an inability to have resilience in the face of the catastrophes that will inevitably come to every one of us - after all - if nothing else touches you, death is real, it is catastrophic, and it will touch you one day.
So the question arises - how do the people in your world find meaning that transcends their physical existance? What is the belief structure that gives them hope and stregnth in the face of adversity? Or perhaps more darkly, how do their beliefs keep them in bondage to hopelessness and fear? How do those beliefs express themselves in action and ritual and ceremony? Are they rituals of fear? Of love? Of sacrifice? What are the forms of those rituals? What is the cost of those practices of worship? How do they reflect the belief system that they express? What is the meaning, the significance of those rituals to the worshipper and to others around them? Who are those others? Are they insiders, close to the worshipper, or are they outsiders?
Those are the things I want to know, and what I am going to looking for when I read your entries.
So on to what you came to read... how to win :-)
Summer Camp is supposed to be about your world building - it doesn't have to be competitive, it can just be fun. But, if you want to compete for the prize I am offering for impressing the socks off me in this category, you can. It is a cool prize (I think) - a 2 year subscription to Inkarta which should help you build great maps for your world - worth about $50.
So by now you know I hate it when I play a game and I don't know the rules or how to score. In theory, you're trying to impress me, and you probably don't know much about me and have no idea what is likely to blow my socks off. So it only seems fair to me to tell you what I am going to look for when August rolls around and I get to reading all these articles.

The Groundrules (How to Play)

First, if you want to compete for this prize, there are three non-negotiable things you have to do: 1: publish your article and make it public. If I get Hobbits, you lose. 2 - Enable Competitor mode on your Features menu for your account - I will only be reviewing articles if you have enabled competitor mode. 3 - Make sure you credit your artwork. This is a requirement to get awarded a prize, it is checked, and it is ethical. If you use art or quote out of world copyrighted material, make sure you credit it properly.
Second, if you use AI for art, I am ok with that if it's properly acknowledged as such. If I read your writing and I can tell it's AI you won't win period - actually, I guarentee that it won't be anywhere near good enough to win. If you want to know my position on AI, check it out here: AI use in Arrhynsia
Third, I totally don't care about popularity. There are lots of great articles written by people who have very few followers. Great work deserves to be read and enjoyed, so how many reads an article gets is not relevant when I judge.
Fourth, I read every article submitted by a competitor. I do not pick on the basis of random choice, I care about how good an article is.
Fifth, only one person will officially win and get acknowledged at the close of Summer Camp (that's not my rule it's a WA rule), but I plan to award a second prize in the "non-premier" group of submissions this time, assuming that premier members are most likely to win the category overall as they have polished their skills through many contests and article creations - So probably 2 winners and if you aren't a premier league member, don't let that deter you from putting your best foot forward, because your competition is not the premier league members, but others like you who have not won a major prize before. In addition, I will do an article in August that points you to the top contenders in this category (but it won't give away the winner). If you want to know what a great article looks like, and which were the best ones in this category, I'll give you a lowdown on what I liked best and WHY I liked it. I'll link that article into this article once my judging is complete, post it on my home page and X, and publish it out to the general WA stream.
Sixth, I'm sorry, but I can't evaluate articles that are not done in english. However, if you choose to do your article in english, and it is not your native language, please put a line at the top of your article saying so (something like "ESL Author" works) and I will not count minor problems with language skills against your article in judging.

Criteria and Judging Process:

I will evaluate each article on the following factors in the following sequence:

The Filter Pass

Community Appreciation: I look at the percentage of people who liked an article as a function of the number of people who read it. If 20 people liked it, and 100 people read it, that was a 20% community appreciation metric. If 2 people liked it and only 10 read it, that was the exact same score - 20%.
First Impressions: I will read your articles, making notes and identifying the ones I want to go back and evaluate. If I decide I want to come back, the article will get a positive score on this criteria. BTW, my mom helps me do this. She's a sweet little old lady with a great sense of humor and as nice a person as you can possibly imagine. She's a therapist and has a masters in psychology - she's seen some dark stuff and she doesn't like it because she knows how terribly hurt people get irl when they run into malevolence. She does appreciate great writing and well written articles, so she'll definitely be fair, but I am providing this potentially relevant piece of information to you for your use. Just for a guage, she doesn't approve at all of my food myth article Virgins Are Tasty, but she does admit it's hysterically funny. I'm a much more open to horror elements, but fair warning - if it's very dark, it will have to be spectacular to win.
Style & Visual Impact: I score articles on their visual appeal, structure, and mechanics. Things that matter are:

• avoiding the dreaded "Wall of Text" (unlike THIS article),
• completeness (BTW I don't really care about the template, but it is a good guide to what might be of interest),
• including unique and relevant art for that article,
• world/background style, font style and legibility (I wear glasses, if you use 6 point font I guarentee you won't win),
• use of quotes and active links to other articles in the larger world,
• use of unique CSS to style the article (structure, scrollers, embedded pics etc),
• use of other WA features (maps, timelines, whiteboards etc),
• grammar (incomplete or incorrect (missing words) sentences, verb tenses, spelling etc)

Just a note - none of these things are requirements, they just help your work stand out from the pack.

The Deciding Factors - Good or Great?

World Building: This criteria evaluates how well the article answers the types of questions I asked above - I really like thoughtful articles that strengthen your world and give it definition and structure.
Consistency: I am an engineer by trade, so it is really important for me for a world to be logical, consistent, and feasible. I want to see that you have gone at least one level of thinking below the top level concept. What are the in-world implications or consequences of the religious practices you describe? There's a rule in writing fantasy - ask only one major leap of faith (your world premise) from your readers, and once having made that leap, be consistent in the framework you have created. I'm looking for that consistency.
Story and Writing: I love a well written story. A good story grabs the reader and takes us into a world. This criteria evaluates how compelling an article is - does it make people in your world and the world itself come alive through well used language? Can I see the seeds of a story in your article, perhaps how the religious practices being described inspire or resolve conflict or emotion for the people in the world? Even better, does your article perhaps even tell a compelling or amusing story itself?
Uniqueness: I definitely like unique articles, but this criteria is the lowest value compared to the other criteria because for me, unique is just not enough to make a great article - execution counts. But when you have a well written article, that builds your world, is consistent, AND is unique, you really have knocked it out of the park.
That's the criteria. And yes, I am massively AR and I totally have a spreadsheet to track all this stuff. But you already guessed that right?

On Getting Feedback

One of the most difficult things about world building is the sound of crickets. You work really hard on your world, and there's just no feedback at all most of the time. And understand, from a judges perspective, it's a lot harder to provide that feedback than it is to just judge, and there's a lot of articles to get through. If you desperately throw words into the template at 2am the night before Summer Camp ends in order to get your Diamond badge, I totally get that, and I'm cool with it. Please though realize, you aren't going to get feedback.
So, no promises on feedback. But if your article looks like you really spent time on it, and I think I have something that would help it be better, I might make a comment. It may just be encouraging, but it might also sound critical.
If I make a comment, and it hurts your feelings, that was not my intent. I am trying to be helpful. Paradoxically, the better your work is, the more likely the feedback may feel negative or (even be) nitpicky. But remember, world class gymnasts don't become olympic gold medal winners by only hearing how well they are doing. They get to be the best by hearing what they can improve. So if you get any input from me and if feels negative, take it as a sign that I totally believe in your work, I'm trying to help, and I'm rooting for your success.
And always, you are under NO obligation of any kind to agree with my feedback or use it. It's totally your imaginary world.

And in Closing...

I hope this helps you undertand my judging process. Every judge is different, but these are the things I look for. I hope you have a great Summer Camp - I'm looking forward to reading all your creative articles in August!
Now get out there, grab your keyboard, and GO WORLDBUILD!

Terry