Hello there! Welcome to our digital spaceship castle.
![spaceshipcastle.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmP1tHZKcGB3BRZpw4nZzCuf1QV8zCQ1f4qujHuH5Gt5rR/spaceshipcastle.jpg)
Artwork credit - @jimramones on steemit

Hi there. Hope things are going well for you!
We're getting down there! Only a couple rounds left. :)

Last night I was thinking about next season and.. I had two ideas. One is that.. We have 4 new words for our IFC cultures language, maybe after we do another round to create more new words we could do some kind of challenge where we put the new words to use to try to make some kind of short story or something like that with using as many of the words as possible in it? That might be fun and interesting!

My other idea was to offer a USD cash prize for the grand prize winner since the value of steem is so low and I want to pull people from other social media like Facebook and I don't think they understand the value of steem and that a steem prize doesn't really mean much to them.. 

So.. I'm rather poor at the moment but I just got a new job and if I start making some money I'd like to make a $50 or even a $100 USD prize for next season as I think that will help bring people from other social media to play!

We'll see how it goes, but I'm pretty excited about that.. I'd like to bring more people to play our game and I think a prize that they can relate to or want is a great way to do that.

Anyways.. I think that's it for now. Onto the next quest!

![quest.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQma55SDZ8B7p8m44Af7fYK1fgyY59Jb3eRmYea74fQW8tC/quest.png)

The subject of our eighteenth quest is.. "Travel Guide".
This is an idea that @bashadow came up with last season and I think it should be fun!

The object is to create a blog post about traveling somewhere, it might be your own home town or it could be somewhere you've been or you could get extra creative and make it fictional about somewhere you've never been, like another planet or something like that.. Heh.. As usual it's up to you how you wanna go about it, just needs to be about the subject of "Travel Guide".

This is a catch up round by the way, so.. You can only enter if you have not won a round yet.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with! And remember, this is one of the last chances you'll get to make it into the finals as there's only a couple rounds left.
Good luck!

![sponsors.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQ8PJbNDqk9nSbtRgxMhcYruTPFhPqfmMd2E4eF9HX8Yt/sponsors.png)

We have received assistance and 165 steem from @curie and 10steem from @underground and I have confirmed that @ats-david @krnel @timcliff and @ura-soul will also be supporting us this season.

Curie, underground, ats-david, krnel, timcliff, and ura-soul are all witnesses, so if you support what we are doing here at the IFC please look into them and give them a vote for witness as well. By the way to vote for ats-david you should vote for his @ats-witness account.

Also it looks like @ecoinstar will donate 100 shares of steembasicincome to the winners, with 60 SBI going to the grand prizer winner, 25 SBI to second place and 15 SBI to third place.
And thanks to @bengy for delegating 25 steem. :)
A special thanks as well to @davemccoy and @newbiegames and @newbieresteemday who are not technically sponsors but we have worked with them in the past. Looks like newbiegames and newbieresteemday have been inactive for months though we still use their tags for the time being. 

![IFC2.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTnmXi8C5NTQqu5X8WcCtQyvYmYC73qppiYgQGhrCh4hZ/IFC2.jpg)

![rules.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPrkSHkXT4LgiwBZn4oHhouSnf7JXbBxVCbY5DZZ3Qk6k/rules.png)

The challenge will finish after 7 days when the post ends and provides its payout cycle or when all entries have been submitted.

25% of the post payout goes to curation and after that what's left will now be split up 75% to the winner of the round and 25% to put towards building up the @ifc account.

For those who play via email.. This will be recorded and saved for you, and.. If you're unwilling to make your own steem account we will at some point be willing to convert it for you to whichever currency however.. Not for small amounts, you must earn at least 10 steem for us to take the time to do this for you.

<hr>
<h3>Rules</h3>
1. Round 18 of season 2 starts now and the subject is "Travel Guide". 

2. Create a blog post on steem for the contest or send an email if you are playing via email.

3. Title of blog post or subject of email must contain, "IFC S2R18" 

4. Leave a link to your post in the comments below unless you are playing via email in which case myself or someone else will do so. (This part is important and a lot of people forget this, please put the blog link in the right place so our judges can find it)

5. And you also have to use the #ifc tag in your blog post as well unless you are playing via email.<br>

6. You must accept that if you somehow get hurt doing any of our quests you can not reasonably hold us accountable. You must take responsibility for your own choices and actions in life. This is a voluntary game where you choose to play. Only you can make such decisions for yourself. 

7. You are responsible for paying the appropriate government taxes, fees, and service charges resulting from any transactions with the IFC or Marketplace. We are not responsible for collecting, reporting, paying, or remitting to you any such taxes, fees, or service charges, except as may otherwise be required by law.

<h2>Acceptable content</h2>
A. A blog post or email about the subject of "Travel Guide"<br>
B. Language is primarily in English and if you would like to participate from elsewhere in the world it is up to you to translate your message into English so we can understand you.
C. Do your best to make sure everything is properly sourced.
D. We also encourage role playing for those who enjoy doing that. :)

Also we now have judges guidelines so you can see what the main judges generally look for in an entry, links to those will be below. 

https://steemit.com/contest/@apolymask/my-judges-guidelines-for-the-ifc
https://steemit.com/informationfinding/@xomegax/guidlines-ifc
https://steemit.com/ifc/@charisma777/the-ifc-is-baaaack-you-won-t-want-to-miss-this-season-check-us-out
Good luck in the contest!!

<div class=pull-left>

<a href=https://discord.gg/gFyv4AV><img src="https://steemitimages.com/300x200/![spaceshipcastle icon.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWz9vFMwsg1UNMvV5Nx6Vcpq1ebBFpnH36eMRLrJSmiAU/spaceshipcastle%20icon.jpg)"></a></a> 
Click to enter the Discord chat room. 
</div>
<div class="pull-right">
<a href="https://steemit.com/contest/@ifc/rules-for-season-2-of-the-ifc"><img src="https://cdn.steemitimages.com/300x200/![U5dt5MDXGNsE4CqAEQhEsD8CFW7pEuh_1680x8400.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV99kUBefXHDHyJ6akhzte8Jtj64ncUdEx68RHZ3Siud8/U5dt5MDXGNsE4CqAEQhEsD8CFW7pEuh_1680x8400.jpg)"></a>
<p>Click to go to the rules page.</p>
</div>

![20180421_151139_0001.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZz4p8kLwLTRPay8htVZqMavaUts8jGaVNxUDBmz58epK/20180421_151139_0001.png)Original by @yeszuzia and modified by @charisma777

PS.. If you'd like to be a part of the community in some way but don't want to play in the game, we're still looking for a few regular judges and always looking for guest judges and sponsors.

If you would like to help out, please feel free to resteem or share this blog post on any social media to help get the word out to more people who might want to play! <3 Thank you.

Also if you want to play via email or be notified of each round or get updates then please send an email to informationfindingchampionship@gmail.com 
with the subject "Add to IFC mailing list".

Plus here's a YouTube video I made on the subject of the IFC that I'm going to include with each round post. 
https://youtu.be/T79mfgUOX70

Due to a suggestion from one of the players I'm also going to start tagging all the current players here to remind them of a new round, if you don't want to be reminded let me know and I'll take you off the list. 

@nmcdougal94    
@bengy          
@ayushjalan     
@leaky20         
@bashadow      
@jbreheny       
@ecoinstant     
@shaheerbari    
@quotes-haven
@mistakili
@the.seeker
@simplymike
@wholeself-in
@tryp
@mattifer
@plushzilla
@owietus
@sassypuffin
@bloggerkrunal

If I missed anyone or you'd like to be added to the list, lemme know.