Correct me if I'm wrong, [@BrokenPromise], but I think Calle wasn't talking about casting votes anonymously vs. publicly but rather whether the entries themselves should be PM'd then posted anonymously by the contest host.

I can't speak for other people, but I personally have no desire to enter a RPGC that does [i]not[/i] have anonymised entries. Indeed, it was actually quite a big draw of the few that I joined back in 2016 that you could get helpful critiques without feeling obligated to respond to it in public, as no-one would be able to mention you in it. The atmosphere of constructive criticism was much more relaxed (compared to whatever tf happened in [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/177559-rpgc-23-inglorious-discussion/ooc]RPGC#23[/url]...) while still maintaining a decent number of entrants.

Furthermore, I believe having anonymised entries PM'd in and collected may well encourage more entrants than the current format. Right now, it seems people who may want to join may feel like they have to wait until the very last second until posting their entries in the thread so that they can continue tweaking, ensuring that nobody reads an 'unfinished' version of their work. It is a lot easier to just... not post at the end of it all? On the other hand, if they are PM'd in, a writer can continue to tweak pretty much up until the deadline in private, and have the grand reveal in the voting thread when it comes out.

I can see a downside, that being that a pre-deadline thread may look a bit emptier, but I think with frequent mod interaction and perhaps some encouragement to report in on your progress in the OOC, this could be mitigated.

In other words, [@Calle], I think anonymous entries with public voting would be my preferred execution of the writing contests. So, Option 1.