For those of us, counting myself, that aren't writers, or have a creative mind for a good story, are being placed in the same contest, and don't stand a chance at winning. Even with having a separate contest for fictional stories, with talented writers, like Onipar, Vkimo, etc. even if I did attempt a fictional story, it would be difficult to go up against them. 

So I guess maybe having different categories. Like judging at State Fairs, amateur, intermediate, expert. Lol. Also, to make it a little more fair, if somebody has won a contest, they are not eligible to enter for a period of time maybe? 

From what I've seen, VaporMan uses different judges from contest to contest, so there is no "favoritism".  I've seen it as the best article wins, so I personally don't think that there should be restrictions on who can enter contests.

Beside, someone like Onipar is really into Halloween, so may have more memories to draw from to write a great article that wins.  But someone like me is not so much into Halloween, but am over passionate about Christmas, so I think that gives me the edge, as an example.  Because someone wins one contest, doesn't always mean it's based on pure writing talent.  A lot of it comes down to the passion for the subject.  So whoever wins this contest may just have a "dry well" when it comes to the subject of the next contest.  But I'd love to see everyone who wants to write an article for a contest have the ability to do so everytime.