Jedi Council Forums - 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion

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Author	Topic: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
amidalachick Registered: Aug '03	Date Posted: 8/19/08 10:26am Subject: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	I tried to think of something witty to say here, but I could not. So we'll just get started with a few guidelines... 1) Be polite! Constructive criticism is fine. The purpose of this thread, after all, is to talk about ways to improve the awards process. However, make sure that what you're saying is constructive and furthers the discussion. Please be respectful to your fellow posters and remember that everyone's entitled to their own opinion. 2) In order to wrap up this year's awards process before next summer ( ), this thread will be open until August 27. You may post as much as you like during this time. 3) To give us a starting point for discussion, here is the survey. Some of the topics I thought we could address are: -ardavenport's idea of creating a list of all eligible stories and posting it in a pre-nomination thread to help people make their noms -Automating the nomination & voting process -Increasing participation, especially among new users and people who don't visit the Resource forum Again, these are just some ideas to get us started. Feel free to bring up anything you'd like to address. I will be following this discussion and am also always available through PM if you have any questions or comments about this year's awards process that you'd rather not bring up in public. -----signature----- "Special day? What have I forgot now? Don't panic...is it Bacon Day? No, that's crazy talk! She's getting impatient - take a stab at it! Happy...Valentine's Day?"
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Valairy_Scot Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 8/19/08 10:50am Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	A pre-nom thread is great, but I'm not sure how many might make use of it - but it's a great idea. Automating the process sounds wonderful but I could never get Lazy's tool to work for me - luckily, I had bookmarked all the wonderful stories I was considering nominating over the course of the year. What I thought was lacking this year was a sticky in each forum announcing the upcoming awards. It would be wondeful if one was posted, say, a month ahead of time to look for announcements, think of nominees, etc. as I agree with one poster in the survey that the awards "seem" aimed at regular readers of Resource. Every year I read posts of folks who go "what awards?" This year, especially, little advance notice was to be found. Then some stories started to show up with a "nommed for _" in their titles before noms had barely started. I'd like to hear what others think on this subject - I added "thanks for noms" so I wouldn't get overlooked, but felt weird about it while doing it. Sure, it's self-promotion, but all or none should self-promote, perhaps? Must go...a customer is here, so sorry that I can't "proof" this post. -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/fan_fiction_resource/b10304/25405090/p3/?52 Prolific Author thread: list & links there. Muse fueled by coffee. Often AWOL despite frequent sipping. Writes on inspiration, not a schedule. 2007-2008 the quality years
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NYCitygurl Title: Manager of SFFBC, C&G, NSWFF, and Icons Registered: Jul '02	Date Posted: 8/19/08 11:07am Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	I think there were stickies (I remember one in beyond at some point). They just tend to get overlooked. -ardavenport's idea of creating a list of all eligible stories and posting it in a pre-nomination thread to help people make their noms Good in theory, but think about how many stories that would be and how much work it would take to compile them. Much easier to just keep a list yourself as hte year goes. -Automating the nomination & voting process Again, good idea, but we've talked about this for a couple years and it's never been done. And most of us don't have hte technical know-how to do it. It would take someone like lazy to decide to and then do it. I think that's all I've got for the moment. -----signature----- I agree with RJ Officially Idri's Muse I approve of Qui-Gon_Reborn's sig
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JadeSolo Title: Manager Emeritus Registered: Sep '02	Date Posted: 8/19/08 11:51am Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	Automation process We tried this once - I think it was last year, maybe the year before. Didn't really go anywhere, though ophelia had a great template that could easily be used for both entering noms and clicking radio buttons for voting. The biggest hurdles I see: 1) Webspace - someone has to host the whole shebang. More problems if this person disappears over the next year - you'd have to find new space. 2) Someone has to program the whole shebang. It's easy enough to read "HTML For Dummies" to make a nice webpage for people to look at, but something has to happen with the noms and votes once you hit "Submit." 3) Coordinating possibly extensive offsite work with the Awards forum. All the information gets sent somewhere - maybe one email address, maybe several. Maybe the program converts it into a Word document, or into a format that you can copy and paste into a post here. I'll concede that this may not be a big issue if the process is properly set up, but it's still something to keep in mind. Eligibility Checks What I got out of the survey is that these are a problem for the volunteers more than the users. Possible solutions: 1) Have a handful of volunteers whose sole job is to check for eligibility once the nom PMs come in. I don't think this would work out that well, since you'd have to juggle their checking times with the other volunteers who are tallying noms, but maybe there's a way? 2) Use ardavenport's idea, but more as a backup. Users are still responsible for doing their own searches. And when the volunteers do their own eligibility checks, they can mark next to the story what it's been nommed for so far, so that any other volunteer who sees that story being nommed can first check the list. But, neither solution is perfect and may create more work than necessary. Increased Participation There are so many people who just never visit Resource, and all the stickies, scrolls, and banner changes in the world aren't going to bring them in. Maybe when the first call for volunteers goes out, you can put stickies in each forum to explain what's going on. Old-timers can put links in their sigs to the volunteer/info threads and can encourage readers in their story threads to visit Resource. -----signature----- "If you expect a kick in the balls and you get a slap in the face, it's a victory." "May God bless you and keep you always...I mean that in a civic deist way." -Prof. Siegel "No guaranteed money, but all guaranteed fun!"
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DARTH_MU Registered: Feb '05	Date Posted: 8/19/08 12:28pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion - Date Edited: 8/19/08 12:29pm (1 edits total) Edited By: DARTH_MU
	I really think that any and all eligible entries should be completed fics, drabble series, or series of vignettes with a completed sign on their post. They should all be finished within the publication (i.e. award season/year) time frame. This should keep the instances where a particular fic gets nominated and win straight five times in a row, yet it was never finished, down. Sometimes the stories are even abandoned. It's not fair to anybody, really. The winner would only get embrassed when and if he/she abandon the story due to Darth Reallife, and the losers would, well, become discouraged. Also, it should cut down confusion due to the ever present question: Does my story really qualify? If I remind people by posting in my story thread:" Good news everyone, Awards are coming two week from now, you guys are the best" does it qualify as campaigning? Is my story disqualified this way? Even if that doesn't disqualify my story, Is my campaigning in vain because my story was started a decade ago and would be automatically disqualified anyway? Another factor is that this policy would really encourage people to actually finish their stories. Point 2, I think campaigning should be allowed via PM, with a mandatory Campaigning for Noms in the subject matter. That way, people get a choice of actually reading a campaign ad or not, to decide to report it to a mod or not. I think this actually encourage people who nominate other people's works to actually finish reading them. -----signature----- In Nelani's myriad futures he could dimly glimpse good and kind acts, love, perhaps family and children. Oaths of the Sith coming Nov 2009 Gaius Kidanus Auctor Muianus BENRIINAQUEAPERPETUO
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Valairy_Scot Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 8/19/08 12:38pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	Back...the scroll from last year was very helpful and I sure didn't see one in Before or Saga this year, and the sticky didn't appear until the noms were already underway. I don't have a solution to the lack of participation, and let's face it, we can't force participation. We can and should "up" visibility, though; I don't know really know how - especially for the nomming process but perhaps also for the "reading before voting" - I know it's been said that there's already "too many colors" and issues with color-coding nominees or qualifiers, but it would be nice to have a visual of all contestants as well. I know that last isn't possible, and perhaps not even desired. With so many qualifiers only qualifying because of the need to drop the number needed, I wonder if this is the trend of the future or an anomoly. Out of curiosity, I would like to know the approximate/average number of votes - did a Best Drama in Saga only garner 7 votes - or 85? Do we have any rough idea of the number of readers who voted? With all due respect: I really think that any and all eligible entries should be completed fics, drabble series, or series of vignettes with a completed sign on their post. They should all be finished within the publication (i.e. award season/year) time frame. Is this really an issue? I am not aware of such situations, but that of course does not mean it is not an issue. WIP should continue to be eligible, because if the story isn't abandoned, it would not be eligible another year in a category it already won, right? Also, I think it wise to continue to ban self-nomination, but voting for oneself should be allowed. I would have voted against myself in a number of categories, quite frankly, for the other stories were far superior. -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/fan_fiction_resource/b10304/25405090/p3/?52 Prolific Author thread: list & links there. Muse fueled by coffee. Often AWOL despite frequent sipping. Writes on inspiration, not a schedule. 2007-2008 the quality years
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DARTH_MU Registered: Feb '05	Date Posted: 8/19/08 1:21pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion - Date Edited: 8/19/08 1:26pm (1 edits total) Edited By: DARTH_MU
	Well, If a WIP already won one time, IMHO it should be disqualified. Until at least it gets completed. In the current situation, if a wip wins one time, and continue to be eligible, you're basically telling people to choose between an venerable veteran and some new talented blood. Frankly imho it hurts everyone involved. P.S. You have no idea how disappointing it is to arrive at the end of a 100 pages thread only to find out that the story isn't finished. What's worse, with a really good story, it 75 times out of a hundred you get a cliff hanger. Is this what we want for a winner of the award of best AU or best ensemble? I mean, if you want to get nominated and win an oscar, you don't release a trailer and call it a day. What we could do is get a new category: best unfinished work. -----signature----- In Nelani's myriad futures he could dimly glimpse good and kind acts, love, perhaps family and children. Oaths of the Sith coming Nov 2009 Gaius Kidanus Auctor Muianus BENRIINAQUEAPERPETUO
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SilSolo Registered: Mar '04	Date Posted: 8/19/08 1:42pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	1. Should OCs be eligible to win a category multiple times in different stories? a) Yes 2. Should a minimum character count be required for a story to be eligible for Best Ensemble? no 3. If you answered yes on question 2, what do you think the minimum number of characters should be? e) I didn't answer yes on question 2 4. Overall, how would you rate these awards on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being poor, 5 being good, and 10 being excellent)? 8 5. Why did you give that answer? It's good, but it just wasn't the same as before, with less art, humor, and audience involvement in the entertainment. 6. What is ONE thing you would change for next year's awards? Make it twice a year again. That way, stories written in July can have a chance. 7. Do you think that a discussion where users would not be limited to one post should take place after this survey? a) Yes stupid comp deleted my last long post on this subject. MOre coming up next time I'm on. Gotta go to work, so cya. -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/27517284/p1/?11 Like this quick sketch: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/32848083/ ? Then commission me. Prices are negotiable.
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The_Face Title: Ex-Manager Registered: Feb '03	Date Posted: 8/19/08 2:14pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	OCs winning multiple times: For it. Because OCs can grow or be written by different people. And because canon characters win multiple awrds all the time. And (the biggest thing) because I don’t want more work for the volunteers. Minimum character count for Best Ensemble: Against it. Because I don’t want more work for the volunteers. Now they’ll have to go check for yet another thing every time they check for eligibility of noms. I’d hope that people just wouldn’t nominate a fic if it’s not really an ensemble. Or at least that it wouldn’t qualify/win. What does 5+ characters even mean? Do they have to be major, or just there? How do you define a major character? It’s opening an ensemble of worms I wouldn’t want to deal with. New categories: Against it. I think we’re at a reasonable number right now. If anything, I’d rather see it lowered. I’m not going to name the ones I think we could stand to lose (unless someone else does ). If we want more categories or fun categories, let’s do a silly no-voting no-affiliation-with-other-awrds thread. We’ve done it before IIRC. Something where you just come in and post a made-up category like “Best Cigar-Chomping” and give it to your friend’s character. Put a time limit on it to make it an “event” rather than an ongoing thread, and there you go. Number of nominations needed to qualify: Lower it. The volunteers had to lower the number in nearly every category just to get qualifiers. The movies are over and the TV series haven’t started yet (CW movie notwithstanding). We’re not as active as we once were. Lower things by one. Pre-nom thread: Like my first three topics, I don’t wanna make more work for the volunteers. They could put in the time to make a list of potential nominees but would anyone use it? 19 times out of 20 I nominate fics I’ve read over the year. I sometimes find more fics to nominate through the nomination thread itself, but that’s it. Also, it would increase the lead-time for the awrds. They’re fun but we already think about them for like two months all told. Increasing participation: There were stickies in all the story forums. Their titles were updated to say “Now nominating”, “Now voting”, “Ceremony coming up”, etc. They were there. We could* do a scrolling header notice next year. Come to think of it, I think we had one last year. But the thing is, Resource is where the larger community is. We all get to know each other some within our story threads, yes. But Resource is where you get to interact with all the people who read and write stories you’re not actively following, people from different eras and character interests, etcetera. It’s like the little clusters of friends are individual Fan Forces, and Resource is the Regional Board. If you want to get involved in the wide world of fanfic, this is the place to go. That may sound harsh, but I really just don’t understand forum hermitism. Self-voting: Less offensive than self-nomination, but I’m still not a supporter. Maybe I’m just bizarrely humble, but all the categories I won, I felt there was someone else more deserving of it. Am I biased against myself? I wouldn’t be surprised to find I am. But whether to their benefit or detriment, everyone’s going to be biased when it comes to voting on something where they’re a nominee. And, heck, I wouldn’t even feel as good about an aw*rd I won after voting for myself. The fact that it’s given by other people is what makes it special. If you really can’t find it in yourself to vote for someone else, just abstain. If your ego is so enormous you can’t bring yourself to even do that and leave it to everyone else to decide? Then maybe you – like Elan Sleazebaggano, need to go home and rethink your life. [The above are Face’s horrible opinions. They do not necessarily match the distinct horrible opinions of the moderators, TFN, Lucasfilm, NBC Universal, and its parent company the Shrivehart Wig Corporation. Also, he hasn't proof-read.] -----signature----- "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." - E.L. Doctorow
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Valairy_Scot Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 8/19/08 2:47pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion - Date Edited: 8/19/08 2:49pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Valairy_Scot
	[The above are Face’s horrible opinions. They do not necessarily match the distinct horrible opinions of the moderators, TFN, Lucasfilm, NBC Universal, and its parent company the Shrivehart Wig Corporation. Also, he hasn't proof-read.] Why, Face, a snark after my own heart. You made some darn fine points -now I'm going home to rethink my life - do note, I am counting on you to explain to my boss why I'm leaving before 5! (We need a smilie to show we appreciate sarcasm; this "we" certainly does and no keyboards were harmed in the writing of this response. ) -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/fan_fiction_resource/b10304/25405090/p3/?52 Prolific Author thread: list & links there. Muse fueled by coffee. Often AWOL despite frequent sipping. Writes on inspiration, not a schedule. 2007-2008 the quality years
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jmsbndgrl Registered: Dec '04	Date Posted: 8/19/08 3:11pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion - Date Edited: 8/19/08 3:49pm (1 edits total) Edited By: jmsbndgrl
	A List of Eligible Stories: This is a good idea, but not sure how practical it is because you are going to have completed stories and the WIP in the mix and just think about all the new stories we get in a day, that list is going to be huge. We could probably pull the new stories off of the story indexes, but then we would need someone to go in and capture the WIP because not everyone finishes the longer epics within a year. Automating nominations/ voting: Again, good idea, but not sure how practical it is. I know this has been thrown out there a couple times and nothing has come of it. Basically somone would need to come up with a user friendly template for us non-techy people to use. Another question would be compatibility and how are we sure that votes are getting recorded correctly etc. Self Voting: I'm not going to go back over my disertation on this one. I just don't like this rule, because it is illogical. I'm sorry, I'm an accountant, I like my rules to be logical. I'm not saying that someone should vote for themselves, but I think they should have the choice to vote for themself or someone else. Yes, they can abstain, but then I ask why we have this rule in the first place because it did not change anything. However, I'll concede this point this year if we can talk about award awareness.... I think this might be a bigger issue than my qualms about an illogical rule. Increasing Participation "Awareness": This was my suggestion, so here goes... I think there are actually several issues that come into play in this topic so I am going to outline them and then talk to them. 1) New users who do not actively participate in the resource forum are not always aware of the awards. This includes writers and readers (and I know for a fact there is a lot of them). 2) Announcements of said awards are not flashy enough to draw anyone's attention. 3) The rules for "no promoting your own fic for the awards" are not consistently applied year over year. Now for my comments: 1) What to do about new users, or readers who don't use the resource forum. Once upon a time, 3+ years ago, I was a reader on the Saga forum. I read and replied to various authors, but I did not go to the writer resource forum, I had no reason to. I had no idea there was such a thing as the fanfiction awards until one of the writers told me about it. But even then there really was no advertising of said awards because the writers were not allowed to "promote" their fics. So in the end, I was lucky I found out about the awards, I would have never known had a writer never told me. And from my experience having been on these boards for a while now, there are a lot of readers who are just that readers who do not know about the awards. I started my writing on these boards a few months after being a reader. I read a ton of fic, so when I started writing I just posted in the appropriate saga thread and went from there. Again, I did not go to the resource forum. Maybe in some cases I should have, but I felt I had read enough fic to know how things worked on the boards and overall this technique has worked for me. Now, in my case, as a new writer, I knew about the awards from my time as a reader, but that was really an anomaly since I heard it as an off-hand comment. Had I been a new writer who did not go to resource, then I would never have heard about the awards, and I know this happens to this day. We get new writer's all the time who follow the same model I once did so unless someone tells them they aren't going to know about the awards. If we do not let this part of our population know about the awards then technically not everyone is getting a say and that causes some of the drama that these awards are infamous for. Yes, awareness might not change anything, but sometimes a perception that a vote was skewed one way can cause unnecessary drama. The fanfiction community at large should be getting told about the awards, not just those who religiously follow the resource forum. 2) Announements that do not draw attention are not really an announement. There needs to be a better way to reach the people who do not haunt the resource forum regularly. Today I do check resource a couple times a week just to see what is going on because I know useful stuff is sometimes posted there, but my main base of operation are my story threads in their respective Saga board like many other readers/writers. New writers, and readers do not always have a reason or know to go check the resource board. I know there were stickies in the respective saga threads, but there are always stickies in the various saga threads and there really is no way to distinguish that one sticky is new if you aren't paying attention. Most of us aren't reading the "rules" everyday and that is generally what those stickies are so its easy to brush them aside. If you've been on the boards for more than a week your eyes are almost trained to scroll away from those yellow stickies to the ever changing story threads. It would be better if when a sticky is first posted if it could be made a color other than "yellow" because at least it would catch the eye as something odd so someone will at least glance at the headline and get the notification that they need. A sticky could then resume the normal yellow color after a certain time period. Now I don't know if changing the sticky colors is possible. I do know that one year there was a flashing scroll that moved across the screen announcing the awards. However, the font might have been size 10-12 and it wasn't against a black background so it kind of blended into the screen. So this had the potential to be eye catching, but I don't think it was utilized to its potential. Personally what I think is better is to change our banners for a short period of time. So instead of the "Saga" banner, you would have something that says: "Saga Fanfiction Awards coming soon - see resource forum for details (or sticky thread, etc.)" I think a banner change is more noticable because we don't change banners in the fanfiction forums all that often. And I might add that when the shirtless Anakin banner goes up in resource the fangirls take notice. I think this is the best way to at least make a concerted effort at notifying non-resource people of the awards. It would be eye catching and be a quick way to notify everyone as to what is going on. 3) How do you define fic "promotion" 3 years ago when I was a noob, one of my WIPs was nominated for the fanfiction awards. So the next time I updated it I posted the update with my author replies, and in those replies I thanked those who nominated me. I was then told that I had to take that message off because it was "promoting" my fic. I did delete the message, everyone was happy, and I never did anything like that again. To this day, even when my fics are nominated, the thank you's do not go into my story subject headings, the story threads themselves, or my signature. However, what was made out to be a ban-able offense for me no longer seems to apply because this year there were plenty of threads that were thanking people for nominations and it was all over people's signatures as well. This is potentially a good way to advertise the awards as well to a writer's readers who don't use resource, but at the same time the rules need to be followed consistently. I was never notified of any change in the "promoting" rule so I think this needs to be addressed somewhere in the award rules of what is and what is not allowed. Promoting can get out of hand, so I think these rules need to be clearly stated because obviously something has changed over the years. In closing.... I know that more awareness might not draw any more votes or participation into the awards. People can still choose not to participate. However, they should at least be notified of the awards so they can make that choice. Greater awarness lends the perception that the awards are encompassing all the votes of our community. The awards always have some drama to some extent, but making sure that everyone who would have wanted to vote was aware of the awards and voted would better ease some tension caused be potential misperceptions of fairness. -----signature----- "Even accountants have imagination." - Vesper Lynd - Casino Royale Angel #3 - An Obi-Wan fan lost in a world of Anakin fangirls! Blondes may have more fun, but Edward prefers brunettes!
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jmsbndgrl Registered: Dec '04	Date Posted: 8/19/08 4:08pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	The_Face posted: But the thing is, Resource is where the larger community is. We all get to know each other some within our story threads, yes. But Resource is where you get to interact with all the people who read and write stories you’re not actively following, people from different eras and character interests, etcetera. It’s like the little clusters of friends are individual Fan Forces, and Resource is the Regional Board. If you want to get involved in the wide world of fanfic, this is the place to go. That may sound harsh, but I really just don’t understand forum hermitism. The logic is right that resource should be the larger community, but in practice I'm not sure I agree. I know a lot of readers who do not go to the fanfiction "writer" resource, because they are not writers. That isn't saying that there aren't readers who participate in the resource forum, but I still think you are missing a significant portion of the population if you solely focus your energy in resource. We are not just a community of writers, we have people who are solely readers as well. And maybe board hermitism isn't the right thing to do, but personally, I've always liked the Saga board. That is where my stories are and that is where my friends are. To me I get my sense of community there and it is where I am the most comfortable. Yes, I do visit the other boards, but I will admit to being a creature of habit and I cannot believe that I am the only one. -----signature----- "Even accountants have imagination." - Vesper Lynd - Casino Royale Angel #3 - An Obi-Wan fan lost in a world of Anakin fangirls! Blondes may have more fun, but Edward prefers brunettes!
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Lola64 Registered: Mar '05	Date Posted: 8/19/08 4:43pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	Before I start though, just a note for DARTH_MU that the current policy does stipulate that a fic that wins a category is no longer eligible for that category in any future awards. Now my two cents.... ardavenport's idea of creating a list of all eligible stories and posting it in a pre-nomination thread to help people make their noms Personally I'm not a big fan of this idea because I don't see how it would be possible to distinguish posts during the eligibility as actual posts or responses. And while you may get a list of every story started, it doesn't really give you the categories it might be eligible in. I started to bookmark my favorite stories from last year to this, to help remind me of whom I would want to nominate. However, my laptop died and there was no way to retrieve that information. So what I did was go through my recent posts, by era, and see what stories I had responded to. Unfortunately that doesn't show what stories I lurked in (there were alot ) My next step was to dig through the new stories indices and while I liked that idea, found it time consuming because each month was in a different thread. Though they are linked, I still had to go through the links to each one. What I do suggest is that pre-awards, why not a sticky thread in each era that those indices could be combined? A one stop story shop, so to speak. Automating the nomination & voting process I don't believe in the automated nominations, especially if it works off this site. What I did suggest IMO makes it easier on the volunteers and that is no broken links. It just entails a little adjustment to how the spreadsheet is used and how the hosts prepare the Master Nomination thread. Increasing participation, especially among new users and people who don't visit the Resource forum I totally forgot about the scrolling link. I think that was done last year for the first time. It should be done again. I don't think that necessarily a sticky in each forum will help as I agree with jmsbndgrl about looking over them, unless there's some way to create a general award user ID that's all caps and groovy colors. Voting for yourself I'm against voting for oneself because I don't believe it's right. I'm old schooled and believe that it's an honor just to be nominated. That someone chose my story (back when I did try to write) to recognize over any other story they may have read is the biggest thrill. -----signature----- Kyp/Nurse Lola: the new ship I stalk people. It's a Lola thing. Been gone and is now back. Did you miss me?
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amidalachick Registered: Aug '03	Date Posted: 8/19/08 5:01pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion - Date Edited: 8/19/08 5:05pm (1 edits total) Edited By: amidalachick
	I was writing up a response, and then stopped to eat, and then Face posted and said some things that I was going to, only he put it better. Valairy_Scot: Out of curiosity, I would like to know the approximate/average number of votes - did a Best Drama in Saga only garner 7 votes - or 85? Do we have any rough idea of the number of readers who voted? Most of the Saga categories had about 30-40 votes, and I would say a lot of those were from people who visit Resource. DARTH_MU: Well, If a WIP already won one time, IMHO it should be disqualified. As Valairy mentioned, under the current system, if a WIP wins a category one year, it is not eligible to win that category again, no matter how many years it's in-progress. Now a few things that I've been thinking about... -For Best Ensemble, I would say the definition would be 5+ characters interacting. If a fic has Luke & Mara sparring, and Siri & Obi-Wan suddenly show up and have a chat about the state of the galaxy, and then Anakin shows up at the very end and trips Obi-Wan, I would say that qualifies. To use this year's Beyond and Saga nominees as an example, a quick look shows that all except one or two would be eligible. -I think the process as it is now works for the most part. I don't think we need to split or add any categories. But I would definitely say the required number of noms should be lowered back to 3 for all eras. For a pre-nominations list... -Create socks to set up era threads in the Awards forum. -At the end of each month, the New Story indexers would log into the appropriate sock and post a list of all the new stories from that month, for each month during the eligibility period. -Before nominations begin, transfer the threads to Resource. Possibly even sticky them in the era boards. It would still take a lot of work (maybe more than it's worth), and volunteers would still have to check for eligibility for categories like underrated or short story, but it's just an idea that I wanted to throw out there. -On a slightly different and yet related note...I'm pretty sure this has been done in the past, but maybe in each Resource era thread, post links to that era's New Story indexes for the eligibility period. lazy, Lily, and I all have links to the past indexes in the monthly threads, and personally, I would be happy to send the relevant Before index links to next year's host. -Promoting the awards. Stickies could be put up a little sooner, even during the volunteer sign-up period as someone above (sorry, I can't remember who) posted, and the scroll could probably be put up again. Masters can tell their Padawans about the awards, and once noms have begun, authors can put thank-you messages in their story threads, signatures, etc. But I think Face makes a good point about people coming to Resource, too. We absolutely can't, and I certainly wouldn't want to, force anyone to participate, but I think people could take a little initiative. Look at the stickies once in a while just to see if there's anything new. Check out the Resource forum. And this might tie in more to being aware of the awards in the first place, but anyone can always PM an overseer or another member of the Awards staff and say something like "Hey, what are these awards and how can I be part of them?" Hopefully some of this makes sense! I think this is the longest thing I've written in a while, so I'm going to stop now and turn off the computer for the night. PRE-POSTING EDIT: jmsbndgrl, you must have posted while I was typing this up! Can you tell I'm a slow writer? On the issue of fic promotion... Thanking your readers for nominations is not considered campaigning. You're allowed to put messages like "Thanks for the noms!" and things along those lines in your story thread, signature, bio, whatever. As per survey results from a couple years ago, campaigning is defined as asking people to nom/vote for a story. From the FAQ: Awards FAQ posted: The definition of campaigning for these awards includes: - saying "vote for this story" in your thread - saying "vote for this story" in your signature - saying "vote for this story" in your friend's thread - saying "vote for this story" in your thread in support of your story - saying "vote for this story" in your friend's thread in support of your friend's story -----signature----- "Special day? What have I forgot now? Don't panic...is it Bacon Day? No, that's crazy talk! She's getting impatient - take a stab at it! Happy...Valentine's Day?"
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Persephone_Kore Registered: Jan '06	Date Posted: 8/19/08 5:15pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion
	I think allowing PM-campaigning would be a very bad idea, honestly. Especially considering that you can never get rid of them once they've shown up. It's not a matter of deception; it's a matter of spam being annoying. :P Now, I do think a few, preferably SIMPLE reminders of what is permitted and what constitutes inappropriate campaigning might be in line. I remember being really confused by this my first year here. Obviously PMing people with advertisements would be as annoying during the awards as at any other time. Even more obviously, spamming random threads with posts begging people to nom/vote would be bad. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with thanking people for nominating you, especially if you have something else to reply to. For that matter, I'd see nothing wrong with mentioning a story is eligible or nominated in one's sig, which -- if I recall correctly -- is not currently allowed. (Or maybe you can say it as long as you say "eligible" or "nominated" instead of "Nom me!" or "Vote!") It appears that editing the subject line of your story to indicate eligibility is allowed, or at least I've seen it done quite a bit with no apparent objection from the mods; I was surprised by this. I realize there would be no way to cover every possible contingency, but probably some basic principles could be established. Perhaps something like this: 1. No posts specifically to promote stories. 2. No PM advertisements. 3. No imperatives. (You may mention; you may not demand or ask.) 4. Give an explicit yes or no on where eligibility may be mentioned. (The simplest is "never," but that doesn't appear to be the case at the moment.) -subject line of the relevant fic -response-to-feedback post -signature -profile -Prolific Writer's Thread post -fic index posts (should the indexer want to bother) 5. In relation to the last one, is it okay to remark on someone else's eligible/nominated fic in any of the other locations? Note that #2 is pretty much only enforceable if reported; therefore normal conversation among friends is not curtailed. Yes, there are people who will otherwise assume that during the awards they are suddenly forbidden to talk to friends about their favorite stories in case of it being seen as campaigning. -----signature----- Protégé: Chosen: http://boards.theforce.net/f/b1/28612428 Protégé: Padawans: http://boards.theforce.net/f/b1/29531610 A Rose in the Ashes: http://boards.theforce.net/f/b1/29028814 Lost Ones: http://boards.theforce.net/f/b1/29061459
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Myriad_Daydreams Registered: Jun '07	Date Posted: 8/19/08 6:04pm Subject: RE: 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion - Date Edited: 8/19/08 6:05pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Myriad_Daydreams
	-ardavenport's idea of creating a list of all eligible stories and posting it in a pre-nomination thread to help people make their noms Not to sound rude, but how would that even be possible? The amount of time it would take to compile EVERY story eligible for nomination seems absurd, not to mention we can't spoon feed everyone's nominations. It isn't so hard to search through your familiar indexes/recent posts for stories, is it? -Automating the nomination & voting process Like others have previously said, this has been discussed over the years and it has never happened. I would prefer a less complicated process, but not automated. There are too many ways it can go wrong. -Increasing participation, especially among new users and people who don't visit the Resource forum I am a believer that not matter how many stickies you put in a forum, it will not motivate people. Some may not notice, some may notice and not care, and it is overall not productive (IMHO). I actually think there is a large amount of participation and it is fairly good the way it is. -----signature----- The Shaak Ti icon is back Master to LittleMissNightsaber
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