I've always questioned the exact timing of contests. When we started hosting contests I realised there was an unnecessary exclusion on Friday evening participation, and an unnecessarily strict 'final submissions by midnight' deadline.Fred76 wrote:I've seen that contest is open from friday evening, so there is a chance that I can participate.Fred
Therefore, I started contests at 9pm Friday UK local time, and ended them at 3am Monday.
These are reasonably arbitrary, as you can imagine, so I'm open to suggestions for what timings should be permitted, especially to encourage global participation. LMI have partly followed this lead, permitting anyone who starts before Sunday/Monday midnight time to finish.
My thoughts are to start at 8pm Friday (to allow last minute checks here after the working week is finished) until Monday 8am (all times UK local). That's a 60 hour window, and should satisfy most potential participants. (I haven't done a timezone chart of participants, so not sure what windows are convenient/inconvenient.)
For example, I'm not completely averse to a midweek contest (8am Monday - 8pm Friday), since I (for one) am more likely to have a free evening during the week than at weekends.
Clearly reasonable limits have to be defined, since the contest is best monitored throughout.
Let me know how you'd like things to be, so we can improve the puzzling experience!
Alan