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est. 2005
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Rules & Instructions

(For scoring rules, please see the scoring page.)

How to put together an AO Deadpool list in four easyish steps:

1. Pick 40 notable and eligible[1a] people that you think will die and get an obituary[1b] from a reputable news source[1c] written about them in the coming year.

This is the alt.obituaries deadpool, and obituaries are the final scoring criterion. Picks that don't get an obituary from a reputable news source may not be scored. No legit obit, no hit.

[1a] Picks may be considered ineligible and rejected for any or all of the following reasons:
[1b] Not a paid death notice. Not a sentence saying "So-and-so died" at the end of an article about something else.

[1c] We recognize that this is a giant gray area, but think Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN . . . ESPN for athletes, Bloomberg for businesspeople, Billboard or Rolling Stone for musicians. Le Monde for the French, the Sydney Morning Herald for the Australians, Yomiuri Shimbun for the Japanese. That kind of thing. Not some random blog, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, whatevr. Not some clickbait content-farm site that any idiot can "write" for (the list of these gets longer every year . . . I'm looking at you, Daily Mail Online, International Business Times, Newsweek after they sold out to the Unification Church . . .). Local TV/radio station websites don't cut it. Wikipedia doesn't count as a primary source.

2. Put those 40 names in alphabetical order by last name, followed by a brief description, and number them from 1 to 40.

Check your spelling. (For simplicity's sake, the default spelling source will be Wikipedia. If your pick doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, that's probably a sign that you should consider picking someone else.)

Order them last name first, then first name, followed by a brief (fewer than 10 words) description in parentheses. Then number your list from 1 to 40. If you have more or fewer than 40 names, you're doin' it wrong.

A properly prepared list should look something like this:

1. Bush, George W. (43rd U.S. President)
2. Bush, Jeb (former governor of Florida)
3. Bush, Reggie (NFL running back)
4. Cheney, Dick (former U.S. Vice President)
. . . etc.

3. Put your completed, correctly formatted list in the body of an email as text[3a], with your real name, player name, and contact email address, and send it to aodeadpool@gmail.com, with the subject line "[Your Player Name]'s [year] Deadpool List."

List submissions must include, ideally at the beginning of the email, your real name, your player name (the name you want to be listed as on the website), and an email address where you can be reached. Your list submission email should look something like this:

Subject: LittleRocketMan's 2024 Deadpool List

Real Name: Kim Jong-un
Player Name: LittleRocketMan
Email: littlerocketman@yahoo.kp

1. Bush, George W. (43rd U.S. President)
2. Obama, Barack (44th U.S. President)
3. Trump, Donald (45th U.S. President)
. . . etc.

Only one list per player, please.

[3a] Not as an attachment or a spreadsheet, or copied and pasted from a spreadsheet.

4. Submit your list by 7 P.M. Eastern time (4 P.M. Pacific time) on December 31.

All submitted lists will receive a response, either acknowledging that the list is good to go or requesting replacement pick(s). If for some reason you don't get a response within a day of list submission, please contact aodeadpool@gmail.com.

All content (c) 2005-2024 alt.obituaries Deadpool. All rights reserved.