Five ways to ensure I'll never participate in your writing contest again

I'm a little frosted right now. Arguably, I am involved in many things--too many things--and understand the tendency to overcommit myself. Regardless, I try to deliver on my promises or implied promises.

But what about under-commitment? Under-commitment or not sufficiently caring about something you've already committed yourself to can be as serious a deficit. It can lead to really disappointing blog contests, like the one I just participated in.

Now, I haven't hosted hundreds of contests, but I can tell if you do the following things just as this blogger did recently, you'll never have to worry about my participating in your blog contest again.

1. Host a blog contest without posting a "results by" date.
2. Say nothing about your blog contest for five days after the deadline has come and gone and then post something like, "You weren't waiting for me, were you? Got too busy with real-life things to read and evaluate your entries" with no apology offered to contestants for the lack of communication.
3. Extend the deadline for another week--again, no "results by" date included.
4. At the last minute, bring in an outside reader to evaluate eleven (11) 150-word entries because you lacked the interest and enthusiasm to do it.
5. Announce that no one has won--that none of the entries was good enough, per the outside reader brought in at the last moment.

I'm a busy person. But if you give me a deadline, I'll try like hell to hit it. But if I do participate in a writing contest this time of year, it means that presents have gone unwrapped and lights unstrung and cookies unbaked just so that I could participate in your damn contest.

Yes, simply post those five guidelines for participation, and you'll never have to worry about receiving an entry from me.