Awards Volunteers Needed for the Awards! - And your Overseer is...

It's that time of year again... Awards!

As stated in the State of the Fanfic Address from awhile back, things are going to be a little bit different this year.

Bri and Mav have enjoyed doing the awards the past few years, but it's hard and very time consuming to do with just two people. We'll still be involved in minor capacities and available to help, but for the most part, we are throwing it back to the users. Below is the list of volunteers we need. Not only will the volunteers be hosting the awards, they'll be the governing body on how the awards will be run (with input from all users and previous awards surveys) this year.

Below is a list of volunteers we need, based off the way previous awards were done. We've decided to stick with this method for now because it's known and we have to start somewhere. Info on how to volunteer is below the list.

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Overseer (1 Person)
This is the person who is in charge of running the awards. You are the last stop for decisions, general procedures, and all the details. You will be helped by your fellow volunteers, (and the mods as needed) but it is your job to make sure that everything is running the way it should be. You need to be someone who is willing to devote a lot of time during the actual running of the awards because you will be double-checking nominations and votes for every era. You will be helping to decide the hosts for each era.

During the planning phase, you'll be the one running the discussion on how these awards should go and you'll be the one to ultimately decide if something should be decided by the volunteers or via vote with all of fanfic.

This person should be someone who has successfully hosted at least one resource thread (or hosted awards in the past) and is willing to herd wild banthas.

Unfortunately, this person will not be eligible for any awards, nor allowed to nominate or vote since you will have a hand in every decision and vote counting. You will get the praise and many thank yous, and colors and a title through the entire process.

The Overseer will be chosen by the mods.

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Hosts (3 People)
These are the people who will be running the awards for each era (right now we are going to have three hosts since most people wanted Before to have it's own awards again. This will be discussed amongst all volunteers). You get to organize a schedule for when your volunteers do their assigned tasks, how they do their tasks, and how you want those results sent to you. You also have to send those results in turn to the overseer, who may want you to use a particular format. It's a lot of counting, double-checking, and hair-pulling. You also need to be on the lookout for submission goofs. But don't worry, there's a light at the end - you get to plan the ceremony for your era!

You are also part of the team who gets to decide how the awards will run this year. You get to help pick your volunteers. We prefer someone with thread hosting experience, but it is not necessary.

You are not eligible for awards in the era you host. You are eligible to nominate in your era, but must do so on the first day of nominations. You can not vote in your era.

Hosts will be chosen by the overseer with advice from the mods.

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Award Assistants (6-9 people)
You are the evil, but much-appreciated minions. Your job is to do pretty much anything the Overseer and Host ask you to do, mostly count nominations and votes, and making sure stories are within the eligibility period. You will also be part of the team who decides how the awards will run this year.

No experience is necessary though counting helps.

You are not eligible for awards in the era you volunteer. You may nominate and vote in your era but another volunteer must count your votes. You may volunteer for more than one era if you are glutton for punishment.



Award Assistants will be chosen by the Overseer and Hosts.



How to Volunteer:

So you've read through all of that and still want to be a part of the awards? Ahhahaha Suckers! Awesome!

Please let us know either here in this thread or via PM that you would like to volunteer with:
1) What position(s) you would like to fulfill
2) What era(s) you are willing to volunteer in.

You may volunteer to be considered for more than one position and era.

Example: I would be willing to be a Host for Before or Saga, or a Volunteer for Before or Saga


Anyone who wants to volunteer should do so by 11:59pm PST, Tuesday, March 1st





FAQ:
When will the awards actually start?
We can't say for sure as it depends on how fast those running them get things situated. We're hoping by the end of March, but we can't promise that.

Is the eligibility time going to be longer than last year since the awards are starting later?
Again, that's something that's up to the awards team. If they want to put the cut off at December 31st they can, or they can make it through February, or some other timeline.

What happens if there aren't enough volunteers?
Well, we aren't entirely sure yet. It depends on what type of volunteers we still need. We're kinda taking a 'we'll cross that bridge if we come to it' approach, though we do have some thoughts.

How will the choices for volunteers be made?
The mods will choose the Overseer and PM that person with the selection of Hosts. The Overseer then will consult the Hosts via PM regarding their choices for their Awards Assistants. After this, all discussion/organizing for the awards will take place in the super secret private forum to which all the volunteers will be given access.

So what will the mods be doing?
Mostly, we're giving the people who volunteer the information needed to hold the awards and answer any questions they may have. We'll also be responsible for checking IP addresses for any suspicious or unknown users, and generally doing our normal mod job. We do have ultimate veto power, but would only use in circumstances that we feel are unfair or against the rules of the forums, not that we think those things would happen.

Will the mods be eligible to be nominated, and will they nom or vote?
In the past, mods have been eligible and have nominated and voted since they had no access to the master lists of nominations/votes. While that hopefully will still be the case, this is the first time in awhile the awards have gone back to volunteers so the mods have decided they will not be eligible to be nominated, nor will the nominate or vote for this year just so we can ensure that things run smoothly this first time.


Any other questions, feel free to ask in this thread or via PM.
(Forewarning: If your question is about how the awards will be run, the answer most likely will be, we don't know, it's up to the volunteers, but feel free to ask!)

 

A looooooooooooong time ago in galaxy hosted by another site, I wrote a piece of awards entertainment. Is this still part of the show?

 

That will depend on how the volunteers decide to do the actual giving of the awards. The past few years Bri and I didn't have entertainment because people said they wanted shorter ceremonies, but that was asked a few years ago. I'm sure if they do want entertainment, they'll put out an announcement closer to the ceremony.

 

I have a feeling I will be saying this a lot, but, it's all up to the volunteers if they want to do entertainment or have outside submissions for entertainment.

Edit: ninja'd by mav

 

Do volunteers get to nominate fics and vote, including in the era for which they are volunteering?

 

In the past, the answer was no for the Overseer and Hosts, but yes for the Awards Assistants. But since there haven't been as many nominations in the past few years we've decided to change that.

Overseer - Is not eligible to nominate, vote or be nominated since they oversee everything.
Hosts - May nominate in their era on the first day only (so it is easier to track their nomination). They can not vote in their era, they are not eligible to be nominated in their era.
Award Assistants - May nominate and vote in their era, but their noms/votes must be counted by someone else. They are not eligible to be nominated in their eras.

This has been added to the first post.

 

So 1, plus 3, plus 6 to 9. That's 10 to 13 people. Can we really get that many people willing to forgo award eligibility? Stay tuned on As the Fanfic Turns!

 

OK, some input. Abort, retry, fail?

Questions:

1. Mods, can the 2015 fics that are not in the Fanfic Index for various reasons be added to the index for this purpose? If I understand it well, the index is used for awards this time, which is handy given that the search function is missing, but the reasons they were not added may vary, and all.

2. What happens to TFA stories or anything explicitly set in the new canon? Say, you have a story taking place in 10 ABE / 15 ABY and in your understanding, it's Saga (OT/ST inter-trilogy era) and not Beyond.

3. Who is responsible for number and names of categories? Does the whole group of volunteers handle that?

4. Can the overseer outright reject a volunteer? Can you?

5. What is "entertainment" in this case?


Feedback/opinion:

1. I think the hosts and assistants should be allowed to be nominated in their eras, or they could be picked to host eras they have not written anything in. This way, the Overseer can practically bar three people from being nominated and that's...awkward. Another issue I see with this is that the same group of people is likely most active in the subforum and most prolific at the same time and that the number of such people matches the number of people needed to run this, which could result in many, many omissions. I can see that jcgoble3 noticed the same problem and there's got to be a way to solve this.

EDIT, after having seen @Briannakin's reply below: I just realised something: three volunteers for Before may be too many.

2. December 31st/January 01st as the cut date is good and shouldn't be changed.

3. We should totally spread the word, so there are at least 30 people eventually voting or something. An announcement thread, something written in the banner space we never got, just...something. Writing never gets the kind of praise that fanart does, and it totally should.

4. The Overseer should be somebody on good terms with everybody, or somebody pretty neutral overall.

 

Well. Really, it's only 1 person completely forgoing all award eligibility. Hosts and assistants are eligible for awards outside of their era, so, if you mainly write in 1 or 2 eras, you can still volunteer for an era in which you know you aren't getting any noms anyways (which, we hope people do).

And, yeah, we had to compromise on numbers because we know participation levels still are not what they used to.

And, well, if it all comes crumbling down because not enough people are willing to participate, it means I don't have to deal with any awards drama, which is okay by me!

 

1. All fics should be in the master index. Chyntuck would be the person to contact if it is missing anything.

2. This will be up to the overseer/other volunteers to decide.

3. Everyone who volunteers will have a say, but the overseer will be the last decision maker (if the overseer becomes mad with power, however, that would be a case where Mav and I would shut it down).

4. The overseer chooses the hosts with our input, the hosts then will then pick people they feel comfortable working with. I don't think anyone will outright be rejected, we are (mostly) adults here, but someone with more experience will probably be favored over someone with less.



5. Back when the awards were a really huge hoopla, people used to write commercials and funny little fics to post along with the awards then submit them to an "entertainment host". Mav and I got rid of this when we downgraded, but volunteers may want to bring it back.

1. I'm a bit confused. People will volunteer for the era in which they want. If they say "I only want to volunteer in Before so that all my Saga stuff will still be eligible" that is fine. An overseer isn't going to force someone to host or aid in an era they don't want to.

2. Again, up to the volunteers (though I agree).

3. We will announce it as much as we can, but fanfic awards rarely leaves our little area

4. We will try our hardest.

 

I will PM you over 1.1.

 

Okay, now that I slept over it, my question is, do we really need so many people? Given last year's stats (here), 10-13 sounds like an awful lot to me, even if participation were to double or triple this year. Can't this be done with only an overseer and three hosts? It seems to me that this is already enough people to double-check noms and votes (i.e. each host in their era and the overseer for the whole lot). My concern isn't so much eligibility (since hosts and assistants can choose an era in which they have no fics) as participation in the nomination and voting process.

I can answer this since I'm running the index. Unless I made any mistakes in the last update (and for that update I double-checked the whole year), the only fics not listed are those the author requested not to be listed, which is only one person. If the author changed their mind, all they have to do is PM the details to FanficIndex and the stories will be added.

As a side note, once we've decided the eligibility dates and how we handle ST fics (which are currently listed separately, regardless of their tag as Saga or Beyond), I'm going to need some advance warning to revamp the index a bit, especially if I have to add fics that were started/updated in 2016.

 

Just to make it clear, volunteers get to choose what era(s) they want to volunteer for, we don't force anyone to volunteer in an era they want to be considered for awards in.

So if you mostly write Saga and want to be eligible for Saga, you can say I'd be willing to be a Awards Assistant for Before or Beyond. Then when decisions are made that person would either be an Assistant for Before or Beyond, they wouldn't be stuck in Saga. Or if you want to be eligible for Before and Saga, you say you'd like to be Host or Assistant in Beyond... or whatever combination you are willing to volunteer for.



As for numbers of volunteers, that's just an estimate we put together. 1 Overseer, 3 Hosts and 2 -3 Assistants per era. And that doesn't mean that all era's will have the same. Before may not need 3 assistants, they might only want 2, that's up to the Overseer and the Host to decide.
The reason to have that many is so that no one person is overwhelmed with stuff to do. Even if there are still not a ton of noms/votes, it still can be a lot of work and we know people have lives. I'd rather too many people than not enough and people get overwhelmed and it become a chore rather than fun. (Also, if someone has a RL event and can't be around, there are enough people to cover.)

This is basically how the awards process started for years and years, and yes there were a lot more people (and a lot more volunteer slots), but it was a process that was evolved over time that worked pretty well. It might not work as well anymore, but we're trying to set the process in motion. It's going to be a little crazy, but things can be reevaluated as we go/for next time.

 

I'm happy to volunteer as an assistant for Before and/or Beyond.

 

I'd be happy to be an assistant for Beyond.

 

I'd be open to being anything for Before or Beyond. I probably don't qualify for a host, but I have solid experience in real-world campaigns and one of the current index threads was my suggestion, so I would be able to pull it off, yes.

Also open to providing an awards-for-dummies type of a guide, even an infographic, as there's got to be somebody who doesn't get how it works, like I didn't last year. Open to being a recruiter sock of sorts, to telling people about awards and blabla.

 

Just a reminder that you have a little less than a week to let us know if you want to help out with the awards!

 

Just a reminder, tomorrow is the last day to volunteer for the awards.

 

I can help with Before. Possibly saga. I can really count good on all 12 of my fingers.

 

Ee cha waa ma, you have twice as many fingers as I do.

 

I'm a double pawed space cat. Anyway, I can help you guys.

 

I'm happy to volunteer as an assistant for Before and/or Beyond.

 

I'd be willing to be an assistant for Before or Saga, if volunteers are still needed for those.

 

I think you need Saga people! I volunteer as tribute

 

PPSSSSST. Yeah, we need saga people and poor suckers Tributes volunteers for Hosts.​