A Plea for Contest Sponsors - John Anderson's Blog

Please oh please, be less picky and pedantic in what you want
Sure you know what you like and want, 
but being a little freer would help the entr-ants
A couple of points.

• Most contests are judged from just the plain words, without seeing the adornments such as images, voice, videos. So why should these irrelevant things matter? They matter to the authors. Asking an author to not add the voice or image until after it is judged is being picky and onerous.
• Poems are written for the long term, not just for the competition, so please don't ask for strange letters or words in titles => not required to see the entries which are listed for you.
• Asking for very narrow word limits such as 130-150 words is too restrictive? Why does it matter so much => 100-200 is freer and of moderate length.
• If you like rhyme and verse, and you are going to reject free verse out of hand, or allocate tiny points for such poems, so they don't have a chance, then say you want rhyme or verse, please.