The late-2002/early-2003 Fanfiction Awards Ceremony --- Discussion in progress.

a_g - I don't exactly 'hate' him - I could just live without the whine! - but that, I'm afraid, is George's fault, not Anakin's.

As for this subject - I've said my piece, and I'm not likely to back off from it, so it's time to get busy elsewhere. Like writing the vignette that's tormenting me - or getting back to one of my woefully neglected fics. (OK, Aunecah?)

And - like Mr. Jefferson - I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. All I ask - is the same in return.

CYN

I kinda feel like you guys are the Pink Ladies of the boards and I'm that chick in the thick glasses with two seconds screen time. I can't imagine how a newbie feels in that light.


Try...

The fact that it's become the dominating factor and there has been a case where 'membership' has affected 'disciplinary' issues means that there is a BIG problem.
Yes this is OT but as the awards show brought it up...

DarthBreezy - The confusion has happened before with my user name and I'm sure it will happen again.

I think its good to have different social groups on the boards and I think we'll always have them and I think the handmaidens are a large and currently prominent one of those. Other groups have been as prominent in the post, but this is the current one.

I also don't think that moderators should have to disown their own social groups just because they are moderators. If you percieve a bias then go to another moderator about the issue.

Kithera

The fact that it's become the dominating factor and there has been a case where 'membership' has affected 'disciplinary' issues means that there is a BIG problem.


If you or anyone else perceives a problem with disciplinary action, please feel free to take it to an administrator (like myself, Gandolf or Sapient). We'll take a look at things and provide as objective a viewpoint as we can.

I would like to note that "dominating groups" have been a part of Jedi Council Forum life for a very long time, and accusations of domination or otherwise negative results have been made on numerous groups and people over time. Be it the Refuge, Slacker Council, Handmaidens, or any other social group, groups/cliques have been a way of JC life. People naturally congregate toward like-minded people with whom they feel they can relate with. This is human nature, and like just about anything people do, it can be taken to extremes. In moderation, there is little to nothing wrong with it, and it would help people's credibility a great deal if it was remembered that social groups have long existed on the JC, and that for the most part, people usually have the best of intentions. If something isn't coming across in a good way, or appears threatening, the other person or people might not even be aware of it. Keep that in mind before talking about groups dominating awards, bias in moderating or anything of that sort.

Aanix made some great points about social dynamics on the JC and elsewhere.

I still say that the 'handmaiden' thing is rather inappropriate... As for "examples"... it's old news and I thought it set a bad precedent. (Ie, I'm not rehashing it) and has decidedly tainted my views on the way things are around here at times.

As for Cliques and what not.. yes it's part of human nature but when it interfears with the overall scheme of things its time to step in and have a closer look...

I still say that the 'handmaiden' thing is rather inappropriate

How so, and what would your solution to it be?

As for Cliques and what not.. yes it's part of human nature but when it interfears with the overall scheme of things its time to step in and have a closer look...

Overall scheme of things? Examples, please. If you want to take a look, there has to be something to go on.

I'll take it off the board... I don't want to make this into a bigger mess than it already is...

This really isn't going to come out as some of you might expect!

As for the "handmaidens" (I obviously being one of them *shrug*), I think it has started to be a bigger deal than when I joined, or was accepted, or whatever. I remember looking at Am's story, Crystal Tiera, and thinking she seemed like a cool person to get to know, me being relatively anti-social on the boards (I think I just didn't have much motivation other than writing). At the time her aol ID was listed and I thought, why not try to talk to her? I'd seen the thing about the handmaidens in her profile, but back then there were like 5 of them and Am wasn't in the public eye as much (AKA she wasn't a mod). Anyways, I thought nothing of it other than what do you need handmaidens to do on a JC board? ?

I got around to talking to her and suddenly they all invited me to be a handmaiden. It was simply three of them deciding I was silly/crazy enough that they could deal with me.

In the past few months it has certainly grown! I don't even know all the handmaidens anymore. Although its "popularity" has sky-rocketed, I'm not sure about its level of influence. I certainly don't go around saying look at me, I'm a handmaiden now do what I want. Personally, I hope any respect I gain will come from the stories that I write and feedback I give, not from some "society" that I'm part of. *giggle*

Anywho... I'm glad you are discussing these types of things! People's opinions have to come out somewhere. And as far as I'm concerned, you all have good points.

Cheers,
PSK

PS: Anyone interested in "outreach" ect. might want to check out the "reachout" thread. We'd love to have you, and no it's not an offical handmaiden thing!

EDIT: Awww!! But this was so fun to share... I suppose I'll leave it up so people can read. Someone might find it interesting...

I've been reading through the posts on this thread and also over at the 'other site' for the past few days now, and I just wanted to put in my two cents on this issue.

1) Fanfic awards - To start with I would like to thank Ams for all her hard work doing the fanfic awards. If I recall properly, at the time the discussions were going on about the awards (back in the Dark Ages of last November) it seemed nobody wanted to touch the awards with a ten foot pole. Ams spoke up and volunteered to do it and we were all pretty grateful then.

Yes, it's too bad the awards took such a long time. As an author, I was also a bit impatient to see the awards come off, and also privately wondered if they would ever happen, but I also understood this is a virtual award and it certainly wouldn't affect whether or not I continued to write. I agree that in the future the awards should have a set time period from nominations to show.

I can also understand there were some reservations about the counting system, but having witnessed (although not counted) I think it is a disservice to the volunteers who did spend a lot of time wading through tons of posts to count up the awards to accuse them of not counting fairly or of there being excessive favoritism in the counting process. This is NOT the Academy Awards and people should not be asking for Price Waterhouse to be tabulating votes. And that having been said, I think the actual counters should receive at least one thank you from a fanfic member for their hard work.

2) Handmaidens - I think this is an issue that is ENTIRELY unrelated to the fanfic awards. (LP falls back from volume of gasps of astonishment from certain readers on the board...) However, I would like to make my case as to why I think these are two seperate issues:

I understand there may be some antagonism toward this group as a whole, as I wondered about it quite a bit before I joined. However, all the threads above critising the awards ceremony for being ruined by the excessive chatter of the Handmaidens and how the Handmaidens made the awards ceremony so much longer than it should have been are going completely off topic. It's certainly not Ams fault if a lot of Handmaidens showed up for the ceremony. And, sorry if people thought there were too many insider jokes, but I think it's natural when a lot of people who recognize each other get together. In any large gathering it's inevitable and natural that people who know each other will gravitate toward each other. I'm sorry if this made other people feel left out, but this was not the intent. I think others of the group were just very excited and exuberant about the awards ceremony. This could have happened no matter who was hosting the awards, but was honestly not meant to upset other members of the boards.

...and what if there was a bit of silliness (I understand the Burkie/Oba proposal got a lot of people's backs up--but honestly no one thought two people who've never met in real life and live an ocean apart were going to get married, did they? It was really a bit of harmless silliness. And I believe that NO one would have objected in the least if the proposal had occurred between two board members who were less well-known (notorious?)...so all this flak about the disgustingness of the proposal and how it ruined the awards is actually personal flaming and has nothing to do with the actual handling of the awards. It could have happened no matter who was hosting the awards).

As for the Handmaidens themselves, we are not a bunch of Ams molded Zombies being programmed to take over the boards, contrary to what seems to be popular belief. It just happens to be a group of people who have a lot of interests in common and who get along well together. I certainly didn't join the group with any ulterior motive...it was just that I was a bit of a newbie when I joined and thought this would be a great opportunity to meet other members of the boards and make friends, which is what has happened in my case.

Oh, and two last things: I'm old enough to be Am

PadmeSolo: I've known Ams for awhile and I've liked her. She was a regular reader on my fanfic and a supporter of it, and I've enjoyed chatting with her. I never had a problem with the handmaidens until Ams became a mod and one of the handmaidens, who not only has a personal vendetta against me but also against a friend of mine (whom she told to "Go **** someone, get AIDS, and die" in a chat but yet pretends to be a choir girl here on the boards), got Ams to ban me for defending myself after she essentially told me to shut up. As I feel like I've told this story several times today already, if you want further detail, PM me.

LadyPadme:

And, sorry if people thought there were too many insider jokes, but I think it's natural when a lot of people who recognize each other get together. In any large gathering it's inevitable and natural that people who know each other will gravitate toward each other. I'm sorry if this made other people feel left out, but this was not the intent.

Somehow I don't think you'd be so nonchalant about it if you were one of the ones left out of the "insider jokes". Were the Awards for the handmaidens or for everybody in fanfic?

And I agree with you that it was not necessarily Ams' fault--in fact, I posted that earlier--however, in the middle of the Awards, Melyanna politely asked for a stop to all the spamming so we could get on with it, and was subsequently ignored.

And I believe that NO one would have objected in the least if the proposal had occurred between two board members who were less well-known (notorious?)...so all this flak about the disgustingness of the proposal and how it ruined the awards is actually personal flaming and has nothing to do with the actual handling of the awards.

Personal flaming? WHAT? This is a prime example of why I spend more time posting at other sites. I am sick and tired of not being able to express my opinion here about some goings on, especially when said opinion goes against the "status quo", without being accused of "flaming".

If you could see some of the things I call people when I really am angry, that is "flaming". Saying that I was disgusted by the sapfest dominating the awards, which should have been for the writers--and saying that I didn't know it was a joke (people have done stranger things than fall in love online and get married at 17)--is not flaming.

Lastly...I think Melyanna did a great job during last summer's FFA and I'm sure she'll do a great job this time. I also think it's unfair that she's getting flak about there being an ulterior motive.

Maybe the only thing I've agreed with you on yet.

Just for the record...
I did not participate in the "Awards" for a variety of reasons... I'm going by what I've read in the last few pages and from what I was told subsiquently. I'm sorry you don't see the handmaidens as a highschool type clique but that's how its percived by many of the "outsiders". As for "influance" ect... once again, I've decided that that is better handled "off board"...

I won't stop reading/posting to stories just because of an affilation but I could not just sit still and be silent anymore... It just bothers me too much.

*has the sudden urge to make an announcement*

I LOVE EACH AND EVERYONE ONE OF YOU!

*end of spaz*

_PSK_

Edit: I apologize. I'm trying to avoid doing homework and couldn't think of anything better.

Perhaps all the people who have such an issue with the handmaidens could do something constructive like...oh, say actually get to know us? I'm sure most of us have posted on a large portion of the threads on the boards as repliers. We don't go around biting the authors. We generally try to encourage all the authors on whose threads we reply.

Part of the reason I joined the group was because we support each others' writing and we get together to come up with solutions for writing problems that we have. I was never one of the cliquey in crowd at high school, and I certainly didn't join this group to be one on the boards. It seemed just a fun thing to do when I joined.

Lastly, this group profiling by certain members of the boards seems very dangerous to me. I know you're not crazy about us, but most of us have never done anything to offend you. If YOU have a bad image of us, you needn't poison the rest of the board members against us, when for the most part, you don't even KNOW us.

EDIT: Okay, I take back what I said in this space earlier. It's just that when I get mad I get VERY mad and then the first thing that comes off the top of my head goes into my keyboard. Sorry to offend.

WOAH!!!! Back down there LP, I think your allagory is WAY out of line there.

No one is trying to "group profile" or "poison the boards" against you ladies...

I have issues with the overall activites of certain members of the group that taint the image of the whole and post like that one don't do anything to remedy that opinion.

You say the handmaidens are a good thing? So show me...

There is no ill intent in this question, I genuinely want to know (as do others) the 'flip' side of the group... So far all I've seen is the negative.

Edit

On Second thought, forget the whole thing. To be honest, that post just soured me on this whole discussion... This is a message board... if you guys are happy in your group so be it, but leave me alone okay?

I feel this is really sad to see. Just because someone has a problem with how the awards were run, (I myself did have quite afew)but there's no reason to be passing such harsh judgements here. It's not fair.

I followed this thread along for about the first hour, and I'm sure I recall afew posts encouraging people to join in. No one really did. I never did because it did seemed to be "taken over", and I felt out of place in replying to anything.

I say we should stick with stating our feelings, and stop putting down our fellow users.

Dana: I read your posts, but I'm a K/Jer, so I guess it's natural. So you can rest assured that there's at least one K/J handmaiden. And I was disappointed you didn't win anything, I think you're an amazing writer.

Now, I'm done with warm and fuzzy and I'd like to complain for a moment. I won an award at the ceremony, and I was pretty surprised (I wasn't one of the handmaidens who helped with the vote counting ). But the handmaidens had nothing to do with it, considering that I wasn't even one when the votes came in. I'm a bit insulted that some people seem to think that I couldn't win on my own merit, but by the dishonesty of my friends.

I'm a bit insulted that some people seem to think that I couldn't win on my own merit, but by the dishonesty of my friends.

The_Standmaiden: No one was talking about you, and sorry if you felt like they were.

Personally, out of all of the awards, I only found one of them somewhat questionable--and that could be due to my own disappointment about who I wanted to win. Otherwise I was happy with it--I saw some good writers get the recognition they deserved.

My main beef was with the ceremony itself. PM me if you want to discuss it.

Just for the record - I frankly couldn't care less about handmaidens, insider jokes, assorted silliness; I found the format of the awards thread offputting, and annoying to try to navigate, in trying to separate the wheat from the chaff - but it's all relative - and anybody who chooses to have online cliques is within their rights to do so. However, to equate any dislike of this group to Hitler's policies toward the Jews is an incredibly insensitive attitude - comparing silly, juvenile conflicts to the greatest tragedy of our century.

I suggest it's time to rethink things - and let cooler heads prevail.

But I am dead serious in one respect. This will be my last participation in the awards process. There is no good, clean fun in this kind of infighting!

CYN

I think CYN needs an award for being the most sensible person here.

I think everyone needs to back away and calm down for a second. Comments and back biting from either side is not called for, and will only end up with more people being upset.

I'm tempted to lock this until calmer heads prevail - but I shall wait until I get back from my errands and see how it has panned out by then.

In the mean time. Discuss the awards and what improvements you think should be made. Lets try and get this back on topic and away from where it is currently going.

Kithera

Sends CYN: Roses, chocolate, more candy, and all her love.

Thank you for saying what needed to be said. Sadly, it couldn't come from the rest of us.

_PSK_

*nod* let's get back on track

* Backs up what PadmeSolo said in that last post, wholeheartedly *

Yes, please let's let cooler heads prevail and move on to constructive suggestions for the summer...

I definitely agree that a time limit should be set on the awards, i.e. 2 weeks for nominations, 1 week to count the nominations and notify the nominees, 1-2 weeks for the nominees to send in their representative works another 1 week for compilation, 2 weeks for voting and then 1 week for counting and setting up the awards.

That would be 7-8 weeks. Which is less than an entire summer season. This places an enormous burden on Mely, if she goes with something like that (for which I'd thank her in advance!), but I agree that if the process goes on too long people have notoriously short, fickle memories. (Stories that have long waiting periods between posts drive me nuts because I can't remember anything about most stories after 2 weeks)

Oh, and not to denigrate the people who worked so hard on entertainment for the last awards, but does there have to be entertainment? I HATE the singing and dancing at the Oscars. I just wish they'd get on with it and post awards. (Just another 2 cents of mine...)

Oh, and not to denigrate the people who worked so hard on entertainment for the last awards, but does there have to be entertainment? I HATE the singing and dancing at the Oscars. I just wish they'd get on with it and post awards. (Just another 2 cents of mine...)

I agree with you. I'm usually sitting impatiently at the Oscars too--"come on, don't build up the suspense, just tell me WHO FRIGGIN' WON". And I'm not saying the awards can't be lighthearted, as long as we keep them running as smoothly and efficiently as possible and keep in mind that they're there for the writers, not the audience.

I also like the timetable you set up, although I wasn't being too hard on Ams about the timing because I realize Real Life issues can take place--and I don't think her teachers would accept running a fanfic awards ceremony as an excuse for missing school. The idea is not to set the timetable in stone, but to have a guideline.

I agree with Kit' on the matter - we all need to step back and look at things a little more rationally. That's part of the reason why my posts in this thread have been sporadic - I've evidently already offended people offsite (or perhaps by my mere presence - it's been known to happen here before), and the last thing I want to do is contribute to the chaos by getting seriously off-topic.

That and the fact that I went off to teach a Bible class.

First of all, I want to apologize (again) for my comments offsite. Honestly, I didn't think anyone here would be watching the thread that closely, and it was just me venting. Talking about people behind their backs is not something I do with great regularity. This week has been rather stressful for me, so I hope you can all forgive me if I've offended you by making comments in haste and in poor judgment.

I suppose my philosophy on the awards comes from having gone through many, many situations where a "winner" was picked, since I have a long history in performing arts. When it came time for college auditions (I started as an opera performance major), those competitions were extremely important. So to me, fan fic awards just aren't something that, say, determine whether or not one gets into a college, or whether or not one gets a job. That's why I think the awards were taken way too seriously this last time - it's not a matter of making sure your family is going to be fed tomorrow, so why does it have to be "professional"? It's always been my opinion that while everything about the awards should be fair and honest and completely above the table, it should be fun too. I felt like the tone of the "rules, regulations, advisories, and repercussions" thread was just overkill in that department. It read like a tax code, and the whole thing was just too aloof - many read it as condescending, which is never good.

Having said that, there's something to be said about staying on topic during the ceremony. The thread really felt like it was being hijacked by totally unrelated stuff that, to those who weren't privy to the jokes, looked like sheer nonsense. I know that some of the people I was chatting with at the time felt like they couldn't participate because they didn't know what was being discussed in the thread. Congratulating the winners felt like an aside to the whole thing. I know you guys didn't mean it to happen that way, but for those of us on the "outside," so to speak, it came off that way.

I've been really averse to bringing up the way I ran things last year, because I don't want this to become a matter of my way v. anyone else's way. But since the matter of timing came up, I figured I'd throw in what I did last year as a possible schedule.

Nominations ran from 6 May to 20 May. On 21 May, I tallied the nominations, which were all public and available for others to check, and I contacted every nominated author about excerpts.

I asked that the excerpts be handed in by 24 May. In reality, they were in by 27 May, except for one person who never responded to my PM, and another who was out of town for about two months and missed the whole thing. I think she won something anyway, or got very close. I don't think three days was unreasonable - I was pretty sure it was going to take about a week to collect them all, but I figured that if I told people three days, they'd take a week, but if I told them a week, it'd take two. I started posting them on 24 May, and finished by 28 May.

Voting began on 28 May and ran through 3 June. The ceremony was originally set at 6 June, but for some reason I can't rightly recall now was pushed back to 15 June. I think there was some sort of family emergency or summat with Pallas.

So the whole process encompassed about five weeks total. It was originally planned to last less than a month, but due to unforeseeable circumstances, lasted a few days longer than that.

As for the entertainment... I think that was something I introduced last time - at least, I know it happened last time, but I don't

Are nominations and votes all going to be in-thread or by PM?

Sighs...we went through this the last time we discussed the WFFA...

This is just my two cents on this topic, and I won't whine if others don't agree, but I still think actual votes at least should be by PM. My reasoning is that it really is demoralizing if your fic gets a very very low vote count. It's bad enough to know that you didn't win but why also be beat up on the head that you barely got voted for? (Sort of related case in point, Dantana's post in this thread that she was nominated for several categories but barely placed in any of them--this was why I felt only winners should be announced. If eight other fics in a category beside your own didn't win, at least you could console yourself with 'maybe I was second place')

Anyway, again this is not a big deal in that as CYNICAL says you still have to dig into your pockets to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks even if you win. It's just that it can be really demoralizing for sensitive authors to see their beloved fic beat into the dirt, so I suggest at least votes by PM.