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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Awards 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction and Writing Resource' started by amidalachick, Aug 19, 2008.

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  1. amidalachick

    amidalachick FFoF Hostess Extraordinaire star 5 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Aug 3, 2003
    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 (:p), 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.
     
  2. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005
    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.

     
  3. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2002
    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.
     
  4. JadeSolo

    JadeSolo Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 20, 2002
    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.
     
  5. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2005
    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.




     
  6. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005
    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.

     
  7. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2005
    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.

     
  8. SilSolo

    SilSolo Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 5, 2004
    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.
     
  9. The_Face

    The_Face Ex-Manager star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Feb 22, 2003
    OCs winning multiple times: For it.

    Because OCs can grow or be written by different people. And because canon characters win multiple aw*rds 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-aw*rds 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 aw*rds. 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. :p


    [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 Corporatio
     
  10. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005
    [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.]
    [face_laugh]

    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. ;) )





     
  11. jmsbndgrl

    jmsbndgrl Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2004
    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 th
     
  12. jmsbndgrl

    jmsbndgrl Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2004
    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.
     
  13. Lola64

    Lola64 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 10, 2005
    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 :p) 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.
     
  14. amidalachick

    amidalachick FFoF Hostess Extraordinaire star 5 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Aug 3, 2003
    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. :p

    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. 8-}

    PRE-POSTING EDIT: jmsbndgrl, you must have posted while I was typing this up! Can you tell I'm a slow writer? :p

    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:
    [quote=Awa
     
  15. Persephone_Kore

    Persephone_Kore Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 19, 2006
    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.
     
  16. Myriad_Daydreams

    Myriad_Daydreams Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 22, 2007
    -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.
     
  17. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2005
    I don't get why people are anti completed fics only rule.
    It cuts down on the number of eligibility issues.
    Only those fics completed may compete. Sure, some authors don't complete fics every year, but if author A doesn't complete her epic, author B and C may have finished theirs. Author D might have not finished her vignette series, but Author E finished her drabble series.
    It cuts down on all the red tape and unnecessary confusion.
     
  18. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005

    I don't get why people are anti completed fics only rule. It cuts down on the number of eligibility issues.


    Why - I mean, really I want to know - why is this an issue? Was this a certain board specific (say Saga)issue you found?

    I'm just confused and trying to understand, because do you think some deserving stories were overlooked because of ongoing stories?

    Truly, I'm not being confrontational, I'm just trying to understand something I obviously don't understand.
     
  19. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2005
    only trying to help.

    people mentioned that it would be impossible for an automated process.
    Also impossible because of the work it would take for an efficient pre-nom list.
    But if we used this once only policy, the number of eligible fics would be manageable.

    I don't think it's fair (Am I alone?) that a great fic qualifies to win every single category until it does win every single category over 5 years to a decade long. For example, Draconarius' Shattered Mirror fic. It got nominated way back, and has had two authors, and I'm betting that if it qualifies for the next award, I'm sure someone would like it enough that it gets into one of the categories. Now, in my opinion, It should win AU, but it automatically takes away the slot for a new, alright, maybe worse AU story, but because I voted for Shattered Mirror, I can't vote for another AU, and maybe that was the reason this 'AU2' by Authorio didn't get nominated. Authorio never had a chance.

    Now, if Titanic won Best Picture a decade ago, and it is still in competition, for argument's sakes, it could win Best Make Up Artist for the 2008 Oscars. Now would that be fair for the new movies?

    It's not a issue of 'is it a reported problem', but rather is it fair?

    Okay, I get it that some authors may not finish their story, and still want to win, and can't under this proposed route. But this is exactly what I talked about when I say it encourage people to finish their story. You'll notice I didn't say all eligible fics had to be started and finished within one year. I said fics should only be eligible in the year that they post something like fIC completed August 19, 2008! YES! Now it could be a fic that was started back in 99.

    All in all, the current policy just doesn't make sense. None of the literary and cinematic awards such as Oscars, Hugos, Nebula, or Pulitzer, works the way we currently do.

    In the end, is this award about letting wips win awards so that the author could feel good about themselves or letting the authors have a real sense of achievement? As I said above, it tends to frustrate me greatly to read a good story and then suddenly found that although it's been nominated for good drama in 2005, it haven't been updated in a year and a half.

    P.S.
    Someone said something about participation, or lack there of, there's no surefire way of ensuring low participation by having the same old, same old fics going up every time.
    Hm, let's see...
    FicA won in Best Drama last year, it's now back in Best Ensemble, and best AU.
    FicB won blah blah blah, but it's back in Best Action this year.
    Fic C...
    Fic D...
    Aw geez, I already read them last year. Okay, Fic A and D went on Hiatus way back then, but now the author because of this award posted an update. Gosh darn it...

    Aw dang, what's the point? Why do I vote anyway, it's the same old stories. Oh wait, there was this Fic E that's a real good AU. Wait a minute, People love Fic A and B so much that Fic E isn't even on the nominated list in best AU?! Darn. I'll just go watch some Frasier's reruns.








     
  20. dianethx

    dianethx Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2002
    As far as I know, we've always allowed WIP to compete. I see no reason to change it.
     
  21. DARTH_MU

    DARTH_MU Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2005
    Diane, I thought the whole point of this polls and discussions was to improve the awards.
    I'm sure you have your reasons on this issue, but I love to hear your pro and cons.
    I listed mine, and I kind of edited my post above. I want to hear what you and others have to say about
    why this finished fic only rule proposal is so bad.
     
  22. JadeSolo

    JadeSolo Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 20, 2002
    Completed-Only Proposal

    Why I don't agree with it:

    1) A story may be nommed each year for several years, and in different categories. That doesn't guarantee that it will win, doesn't guarantee it will receive any votes, and doesn't require anyone to vote for it.

    2) A rule that "encourages" people to finish their stories leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. To me, that completely defeats the purpose of the Awards. I don't think people should be writing stories to make them eligible for the Awards, but if that's why they write, then that's their business. As for others, DRL happens, and while those authors may not give two shakes about the Awards, their readers may feel the stories deserve noms. Why deprive readers of that, and why deprive authors of that?

    3) Not everyone will include "[COMPLETED]" in their subject headers, and I don't think the Awards volunteers should have to skim through every single nominated story to look for yet another qualifier. And to penalize someone who forgot to do that is a little harsh.

    4) Comparisons to movies and literature awards doesn't really work. James Cameron didn't add anything new to "Titanic" - it was complete and over and done. "A New Hope" is complete and over and done, despite all the tinkering Lucas does with it, but ESB is eligible for the next awards because it's a sequel. And the major difference is that people get to see a movie or read a book only when it's complete - Matt Stover will release his new Caine novel only after it's finished, not bit by bit on his blog (plus, people pay money for his work, so they want that guarantee of a finished product; no one's paying for fanfic here).


    Automated Process

    This isn't actually impossible. It's just going to take a lot of work. If people are willing to try it, I think it will work out great - you just need to really iron out details and plan way in advance.
     
  23. dianethx

    dianethx Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2002
    I didn't say it was bad. I just didn't see any need to change it.

    Okay, I follow a lot of WIPs. Lately, I haven't been on the boards much lately due to some really Real life issues but in the past several years, I've followed and voted for many WIPs that were never finished. Does that mean that they weren't great stories? No, just that they weren't finished.

    If you are looking to reduce the number of total nominations, then it would work. Would it make people nominate other things in their stead? Maybe and maybe not. I sent in noms with a number of slots left blank.

    Would it make people complete their stories? I doubt it. Stories left unfinished are usually because of loss of interest or RL or writer's block or any other number of reasons. Besides, it sounds like a nomination is a bribe to make them finish. That doesn't sit well with me at all - makes me cringe, in fact.

    So I don't see how it helps the process.
     
  24. Lightsaber123

    Lightsaber123 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 31, 2007
    Darth Mu here.

    1) A story may be nommed each year for several years, and in different categories. That doesn't guarantee that it will win, doesn't guarantee it will receive any votes, and doesn't require anyone to vote for it.

    Then why is it in the nommed lists? It takes up a slot, and user A who nominated Fic A which have been in circulation for 2 years can't nom fic b in the same category.

    2) A rule that "encourages" people to finish their stories leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. To me, that completely defeats the purpose of the Awards. I don't think people should be writing stories to make them eligible for the Awards, but if that's why they write, then that's their business. As for others, DRL happens, and while those authors may not give two shakes about the Awards, their readers may feel the stories deserve noms. Why deprive readers of that, and why deprive authors of that?

    That's why there would be a 'best unfinished work' category.

    3) Not everyone will include "[COMPLETED]" in their subject headers, and I don't think the Awards volunteers should have to skim through every single nominated story to look for yet another qualifier. And to penalize someone who forgot to do that is a little harsh.

    But quite the opposite, it's very easy to spot a giant letter completed! The reason I wanted this proposal is that it's easy and simple. It would probably help if someone explained the eligibility guidelines. Right now, it's pretty arbitrary what qualifies or not, people get confused. Under the current system, the volunteer have to go inside the story, figure out if it has been nommed previously in the same category. Whereas if this proposal go through, the volunteer can say, hey here's a completed fic. the last post was only this past saturday, okay it's eligible. copy down the name and be done with it. Under the current system, they need to copy down the name, consult a database, and then... You made it sounds like under the current system a volunteer doesn't have to skim through posts, but they do. and I think this proposal would actually cut down the time. A prenom thread could actually work.

    As for punishing those who doesn't write completed, I think it's kind of rare these days to find an author who doesn't do that when his/her fic is actually completed. If so, have you ever considered that maybe some authors don' want the publicity? This could actually be a mechanism where an author who doesn't want the publicity to opt out.

    4) Comparisons to movies and literature awards doesn't really work. James Cameron didn't add anything new to "Titanic" - it was complete and over and done. "A New Hope" is complete and over and done, despite all the tinkering Lucas does with it, but ESB is eligible for the next awards because it's a sequel. And the major difference is that people get to see a movie or read a book only when it's complete - Matt Stover will release his new Caine novel only after it's finished, not bit by bit on his blog (plus, people pay money for his work, so they want that guarantee of a finished product; no one's paying for fanfic here).


    If Cameron were to write Titanic II, people would not put it to compete against Titanic. That has been known to happen in these awards where a completed fic went head to head against a wip by the same author.

    As for not paying for these fanfics, yes you're right, no one is payng for them in money. But how is that an issue regarding whether or not this proposal makes sense? From another POV, I refuse to waste my valuable time because I was enticed by a title of best AU, and then find out it's not complete. The Agony!
     
  25. dianethx

    dianethx Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 1, 2002
    Mu, the only thing the volunteers need to do is look on the list of winners in the Fanfic index to see if the story has won before. That's what I used when nominating a story.

    And as for your comment about people putting a complete in the header, I just checked some of mine and most of them do not have complete in the header even though they are finished. ::shrugs:: So not everyone puts complete in the header.

    It really depends what you want the awards to do. I like the noms because I can find stories that I might have missed, finished or not. If they aren't finished, then I get the enjoyment of the ride along with everyone else. If they are done, it's like walking into a party that is over; I feel vaguely let down by it, like I've missed something. But that's just me.
     
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