While voters can apply their own standards, here's why I object to the cavalier use of & in acros.

The basic premise (and challenge) of the game is:

Write something that matches the letters, word for word. One letter, one word.

Not "write something that matches the letters, and throw in some convenient words, too, if need be".

You can't skip over any letters, and you shouldn't add any extras, either.

& is just a shorthand for "and".

So if the letters are E I L L T I,
then writing, Essentially, I'd leave AND let tourists invade. is not ok.

and therefore, Essentially, I'd leave & let tourists invade. is not ok, either.

(& is only accepted because the program allows punctuation, including standalone punctuation such as ellipsis.)

A simple rewording avoids the problem altogether:
Essentially, I'd leave, letting tourists invade.

The only time I will vote for one of these is if there is no other choice: because the others are even worse, or if the acro is extraordinarily good.

Usually as soon as I see the &, I don't even finish reading them, because I know they won't gmv.

Given the time constraints, even the best players are sometimes hard pressed to write the perfect acro.

But when it comes to VOTING, there are no excuses.

Here are criteria I apply. (Which I myself occasionally violate in writing acros, but try to apply assiduously in voting.)

• One thought or phrase rather than two or three.
• Avoid crutch words:
  

  Don't start with "Ah" or "Oh".
  Don't tack adverbs or exclamations on the end, either,
  such as "obviously" and other adverbs or "indeed", "Ick!" or "Eww!".

• Avoid using arbitrary names out of nowhere.

  Example: Watercooler gossip / ABC /
  Bad: Asked Bob's cooperation. [Who the heck is "Bob"?]
  Good: Alerted boss's companion.

• No split words ("mail box" is one word not two).
• No mashed-together words, such as "Whitehouse" - that's two words.
• No extra words added via punctuation such as & or @ or numbers such as 2, 4, or 8.
  That's just writing an (n+1)-word acro on an (n)-letter round.
• Or worse, just adding extra words by tacking them onto other words, as in this "three" word acro:
  Always buy....Wheaties cereal.
• While it can sometimes have good humorous effect, or make a good pun,
  changing words to fit the letters is a usually just a sign of weakness. (It's "canoe", not "kanoe".)
• A "lotta" acros which use things which are "kinda" words, just "ain't" "gonna" get my vote.
• Be specific rather than general:

  Example: Favorite City / MLCP /
  Mediocre acro: Most Loved City: Paris!
  That could just as well be Prague, or Peoria, or Podunk.
  Better acro: Magnificent Louvre charms Paris ... now it's actually about Paris

A + B = C is one of the most common topics for 3-letter rounds, but many players misplay it.

It's supposed to be "taking two things, which when put together become a third".
The A and B should both be the same part of speech, either both nouns (most commonly), or both adjectives or verbs, with the result being a third of the same kind.

The canonical example often given is:
Dog + Cat = Fight
Take two sworn enemies, put them together, and a fight ensues.

It should NOT be a two-word phrase with a plus sign stuck in the middle of it. Or worse, a three word phrase with both punctuation marks just added.

A good test is:
If it works just as well WITHOUT the plus sign, it's not a 'real' A+B=C acro.

Here are some examples, showing not-so-good acros, followed by improvements to them:

Flawed Acro	Reason	Improved
Dirty + Dog = Mud	Most Adjective + Noun acros fail the "you don't need the plus sign" test.	Dirt + Dog = Mess
Cold + Day = Shivering	Make it two adjectives rather than just "cold day".	Cold + Disrobed = Shivering.
Foreign + trip = Romania.	You can't "add" 'foreign' to a trip, it's a 'foreign trip'.	France + Trip = Romance
Spill + Porridge = Mess	Verb + Noun acros are still just two-word phrases.	Sofa + Porridge = Mess
Observe + Fossils = Paleontologist	SO close .... just make both parts nouns.	Observer + Fossils = Paleontology
Broken + Head = Headache	Again, this doesn't need the plus sign; use a noun instead of an adjective.	Brick + Head = Headache
Donald + Lies = Always	Here, all the punctuation is simply inserted, since lies can be read as a verb.	Donald + Lie = Alibi

Duplicate acros (or near dups) are fairly common. But as the number of letters increases, the frequency DEcreases.

Tonight was one of those extremely unlikely cases.

For the topic of "Describe a perfect vacation", KLJ and MrPuzzle both wrote, word-for-word:

"Somewhere nice, good food, money's not used."

I put an exclamation point at the end, she used a period. That was the only difference.

Weird only begins to describe it.

Right!
Based on the letter distribution, the probability of this happening on a given round
is around 1 in 3708.

If the three-letter topic is always A+B=C,
with two 3-letter rounds per game, and 3 games per day,
playing every day, there would be 2190 chances for
it to happen each year. So it would be expected to
happen about once every year-and-a-half or so.

The topic was "Anyone famous" and this group really came through.
Everyone wrote a vote-worthy acro and it was hard to pick one:

The letters were: T W A I P

• bilbolives: -- Twain was America's inscrutable roue.
  
• gatyamgal: -- There's Waldo... always in reclusion.
  
• kittypower: -- Tiger Woods' affair is raunchy.
  
• klj: -- Tammy Wynette always I respected.
  
• MrPuzzle: -- Tennesse Williams always inspired readers.
  
• MysticEmerald: -- Taylor will always idolize Rihanna
  
• SLUGGO1969: -- Tom Wopat, actor is real.
  

I guess bilbolives was inspired by the T W A I .. letters,
as is often the case for many players.

Here the percentages for each letter showing up. The percentages are based on the frequency of English words which start with those letters.

Alphabetical		By Frequency    Occurrences in 10 Round Game
*	0.86%		T	8.12%	4.1
A	7.80%		A	7.80%	3.9
B	6.56%		S	7.77%	3.9
C	5.27%		H	7.34%	3.7
D	4.29%		W	7.32%	3.7
E	2.14%		B	6.56%	3.3
F	5.20%		M	6.08%	3.0
G	4.35%		C	5.27%	2.6
H	7.34%		F	5.20%	2.6
I	4.82%		I	4.82%	2.4
J	0.03%		O	4.82%	2.4
K	0.08%		P	4.36%	2.2
L	4.34%		G	4.35%	2.2
M	6.08%		L	4.34%	2.2
N	4.33%		N	4.33%	2.2
O	4.82%		D	4.29%	2.1
P	4.36%		R	2.38%	1.2
Q	0.03%		E	2.14%	1.1
R	2.38%		U	1.61%	0.8
S	7.77%		*	0.86%	0.4
T	8.12%		K	0.08%	0.04
U	1.61%		V	0.06%	0.03
V	0.06%		J	0.03%	0.02
W	7.32%		Q	0.03%	0.02
X	0.00%		Y	0.02%	0.01
Y	0.02%		Z	0.02%	0.01
Z	0.02%		X	0	0.00 (X is not used)

The sequence of letters ends in a vowel,
in percentage terms, the sum of the numbers
above for the 5 vowels:
a + e + i + o + u = 7.8 + 2.14 + 4.82 + 4.82 + 1.61 = 21.2%
For just i and o, it's 9.64% of the time.

All of these logins lasted less than a minute, with just a little more patience, there might have been a game:

17:34 T..... logged in
17:34 T..... logged out
17:35 S..... logged in
17:35 S..... logged out
17:39 k1.... logged in
17:39 k1.... logged out

These were a little farther apart, but might have joined a game the other 3 started.

18:02 k2.... logged in
18:03 k2.... logged out

18:17 a..... logged in
18:17 a..... logged out

18:35 r..... logged in
18:35 r..... logged out

Quite a few players - or potential players - visit the site and when they see no games going, leave right away.

The next person might do the same thing, possibly seconds later, each not knowing about the other.

Ships passing in the night.

To meet, they'd have to have split-second timing, and arrive at virtually the same time.

They want to join an ongoing game, or go find something else to do.

But think for a moment, How did that game get going?

Someone was the first to arrive, and found no one there. But instead of leaving, they waited a little while, and pretty soon another and another showed up and they could start.

BE THAT PERSON - and make it so others don't find that same empty lobby - they find YOU there!

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