Awards 2008 Post-Fanfic Awards Discussion

can someone explain that to me? I was under the impression that any and all wips were eligible unless they won already.
what's this about dates?

btw, which story doesn't have two characters? If it's not a drabble, chances are it has two characters or more in it. So by your definition, every single novel sized fic could qualify, what's the point?

The ensemble should have the big 3 (if any one of them is not in it, there should be a compelling reason), and any and all support characters. If your fic is an OC or non big 3 driven one, at least one should be present.

 

The eligibility dates are the range of time a WIP has to have at least one update to make it eligible for any catergory. For example: A story needs at least one update between July 1, 2008 and June 1, 2009 to eligible for next years' awards.

The ensemble catergory more or less is designed for fics that have a group of protagonists or antagonists (or both), within which all are receiving equal story line importance.

 

I'm in relative agreement with most (not all) of the points (especially regarding changing the banners and adding the scroll then leave the rest up to the readers) - but I would really like to see if there is a consensus regarding the appropriateness of the permitted not-compaigning but posting "Thanks for noms" in the title thread.

We all seem to agree it is within the rules and not compaigning.

We've discussed it in general, but I'm not sure I have a handle on the emotional reaction of most of you to the practice.

This is purely subjective, of course, since it is permitted - but is it generally considered bad form? Tacky? A skirt-the-rules way of drawing attention to oneself?

While we cannot and should not make such mandatory and obviously are not banning it - should it be discouraged or should the "rules" be neutral on the subject?

If the rules are amended as suggested here:

Saying 'Nom/Vote for this story!" in story threads/signatures/bios/PMs, whether it's your own story or someone else's, is considered campaigning. Saying "Thank you for the noms!" is not campaigning. Examples:
user's signature says "Vote for Story A!" - campaigning
user's signature says "Story A nommed for Best Humor! Thank you!" - not campaigning

User posts in their story thread: "The Awards are here! Go vote for Story A!" - campaigning
User posts in their story thread: "The Awards are here! See this thread(link to awards thread) for details on how to participate!" - not campaigning
etc.
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If something like this was included in the rules next year...

Should there be an additional disclaimer saying the permitted is not encouraged but allowed?

I'd like to think we're encouraged to all do so, or generally discouraged from doing so with the understanding that some always will and some always won't.

This is really for my own personal edification - I'd rather do the "right" thing than just the "allowed" thing.

 

Actually, while it's true that the chances are low, it's possible to have even an epic story with only one character present -- you just have to isolate them. Could be an interesting challenge, actually.

Anyway, the ensemble category is designed to recognize stories with excellent characterization of multiple characters and their interactions, as opposed to the awards specifically recognizing one exceptionally well-characterized character.

It isn't just for stories that represent as much as possible of the movie cast well. Even expanding the "big three" to refer either to Luke, Han, and Leia or Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan, your definition would eliminate, say, all the KOTOR-era fics no matter how many characters were brilliantly represented.

 

My 2 creds:

Pre-nom list: It's a great idea if someone wants to try and figure something out. It wouldn't have to be the "official" or "mandatory" list from which to pick noms, but it could be a very useful tool. Ardavenport has some good ideas, so I'd say go for it and see if it can work. Doesn't hurt to try.

Taking any part of the Awards process off site: The general census seems to be that this would be a bad idea and, for the record, I agree.

Self-nomming: I think the disallowed rule should stand.

Self-voting: Can't say I have strong feelings one way or the other. It's not something I would do personally, but if someone truly feels that they are better than everyone else... *shrug* It's their opinion and vote.

Ensemble character count: I never realized that we didn't have a designated number, LOL. Thinking back to my high school band Solo & Ensemble competition days, we defined it thus: Solo = one player, Duet = two players, Ensemble = three or more players. To me, it seems like an Ensemble Cast should be defined as three or more characters, in the spirit of the word "ensemble," but making it mandatory would be more work for the volunteers and they already do a helluva lot of work as it is.


Campaigning:

I think so, yes. Good examples.


Something to consider is that the Mods cannot edit signatures. We can PM someone and ask them to change it, but we can't make them. Short of an Admin logging into someone's account to manually change it, sigs remain visible even if the person is banned.

I'm not suggesting that campaigning should be a bannable offense, but there really isn't a way to enforce the "no campaigning" rule as far as signatures are concerned.

Campaigning via PM = unsolicited PM = against the rules for a reason.

 

Re: campaigning.

Contemporary advertisements rarely resort to ?Buy Levi Jeans? or ?Buy Channel No. 4? but it does what marketing requires which is to bring the product to the public?s attention. So ethically:

?Eligible for Saga Awards? translates to ?Nominate this fic for Saga Awards? and is campaigning.

?Nominated for Best Canon Character in the Before the Saga Awards? translates to ?Vote this story for Best Canon Character in the Before the Saga Awards?.

?Eligible for? and ?Nominated for? are just more tactful ways of campaigning but they are still ways of marketing: They are publicizing and promoting their fics?s award potential both to their readers and casual visitors to the boards as effectively as any billboard on the street or ad poster in a bus-stop.

Consistency is required. If people are being warned off for thanking their readers for nominating stories within the story thread (which is a bit odd because unless the writer knows exactly who did nom their story, how else will they ever be able to thank them?), then people should be warned off from putting campaign notes (even subtle ones) in their story headers.

 

Wow, ardavenport, that is a great tool. And if it were to be implemented, I'd volunteer. I am good with mindless work.
I'd need some help with the whole spreadsheet-thingy, though. Or I can just do the eligibility check.
Or if you really want to test this out already, pm me, I'm all game.

Campaigning: I'll be happy as long as I can tell people in my threads to go an participate in the Awards. If they read a lot and get the invitation repeatedly, they'll either be peeved, or get interested, just in case they don't know about the Awards yet.

Self-nomming: No.

Self-voting: If you have to. So far, I have only been tempted once, but then, there was nobody else in that category. Anyway, I'm strange and an Awards wouldn't mean Sith to me, if it wasn't given by other people. I can tell myself I'm good all day long; see if anybody cares.

Ensemble Cast: I like the idea of adding 'x characters' as explanation. You get the idea, but if you don't keep to it, so what? As long as it is not chiselled in stone it's not much more work.


In general, if the checking of stuff is such a problem, I'll volunteer to do it. At work, I have about 7 hours of internet available for me each day. I'll do it. Just tell me about it.

 

I encourage you to check out some OC driven stories! While it was the movies that brought me to these boards, I have to admit that it's the OCs that keep me lurking. There are some truly brilliant writers out there who create entire casts of OCs and entwine them into canon and it makes sense -- which never ceases to amaze me. It would be a horrible thing to punish these authors because they chose to be so creative.

Zonoma

Edit: spelling is my friend

 

I would note that I don't think people are currently being warned off for thanking their readers, but it seems to have happened at least once and therefore there is confusion.

It's not that odd, I think, especially for story-noms as opposed to Best Author noms -- the author basically says "Squee, this was nominated, thank you whoever you are!" on the assumption that whoever nominated them must have visited the story thread at least once and might come back. *grin* I can see how this could be objected to -- it bumps the story (maybe not an issue if there are other replies, but it does) and it puts the idea in other readers' heads.

You did a very nice job of articulating why the "Eligible for" etc. thread-titles always struck me as more of an issue than the thanking.

 

Yes, "Eligible/Nommed for" is a subtle, but allowed, "form" of compaigning.

I guess if there's any consensus, it's that it is considered in bad form, and if a lot of others do it, keep the "moral high ground"?

I'd like to see consistancy encouragedthen, rather than the rules being silent on it. My $.02 worth.

 

To be honest, it's not a problem per se. We are just looking for ways to make it work efficiently for those who do volunteer their time.

But we have duly noted your offer to volunteer for next awards.

Best Ensemble:

I don't really see checking for eligibility based on a certain number required to be an issue. I myself usually deferred to the Summary in the first post or the title thread, since many list pairings and characters in it.

If neither appear it's a simple scanning of a post or two. And if the volunteer is not sure, they can relay that to the Host/Hostess. He/She could assign that verification to another volunteer or check it themselves.

There's many people who volunteer their time and if they work together as I have seen in both times I've worked the awards, it wouldn't take long to make a decision on any issue that comes up.

My only vice with Best Ensemble is that at the time of the awards, if you list the number of required characters, that at least that number of characters have been introduced in the story.

For example: Story A lists 6 characters in their Summary/Thread Title but to date when I nominate, only 2 characters have so far appeared, then it not be considered Best Ensemble, yet.

So if you change the category listing it would read : Best Ensemble (at least # of characters introduced)


Campaigning:

I just wanted to say about putting "Nommed for" in your story title, to me anyway, is more a statement of fact than campaigning.

ardanvenport:

That is some search system you came up with. Sheesh, I had to read it a couple of times before I could at least figure out if I agreed or not.

It's a not for me.

One) because a volunteer would be checking eligibility of a large number of fics that could possibly not get nominated, whereas if we keep our current system we only have to check a nomination once for eligibility and when fics are nominated again, we know we don't have to check those again.

Two) if the sole purpose is to list eligible fics for readers to choose from then it would be pointless to review them all if some readers are already using their own system to keep track of their potential nominations.

IMO anyway.

 

I guess this shows that I'm moving to Oldbie status. Never have I personally believed this to be campaigning. Whenever I put it in my story threads it was out of pride that my work was acknowledged. If I mentioned inside the story thread that I had been nommed, it was in a statement of gratitude to my readers who thought highly enough of me to think of me.

And maybe I'm reading this thread wrong, but I do not see a consensus in thinking that this is campaigning.

 

For what it's worth, this is what I think when I see aw*rd-related things in story threads (and this has no impact on whether these are against the rules or not as amidalachick has already posted what is/isn't) :

"Eligible for...": This would bug me because it's veiled campaigning for sure.

"Thanks for the nominations for blah blah blah!": This doesn't bother me at all. Since noms are anonymous ([Futon]anomynous[/Futon]), the story threads are the best bet to find your mystery nominaters to thank them for the kind gesture. I expect this much like I expect at least a brief "thanks for reading" in author replies. It's upping a thread purely to say that, or putting the nominations in the subject line that strike me as more campaign-y.

That's where my personal line is anyway. Despite my swear-word stars, the aw*rds don't have to be "They That Shall Not Be Named" around the story boards.

 

This is pretty much how I feel, too.

One thought I'd add - posting a thanks for nominations is especially innocuous, IMO, when it's done shortly after the nomination period is closed. Then there's not even an implication of hinting that you want more noms.

I suppose someone could choose to uncharitably construe it as a plea for votes in the voting round... But with intervening weeks for excerpt submission and posting, that really doesn't make sense to me. If someone wanted to campaign for votes, they'd do it during, or right before, the voting period.

Besides, it seems unfair to me to insist that authors not thank their reader for nominations until after the voting period is closed - especially because, in the vast majority of cases, the thanks are entirely genuine (just like "thanks for reading" appreciation) and not meant to campaign for votes.

 

"Hokey Day with the brisky morning munchies"-Jar Jar, I Think I've gone through the thread and see some intersting stuff.

Here is a few additions from someone who is a relative newb around here, maybe thus adding a slightly different perspective....or maybe not

Voting for Best or Popular?: How am I to determine the difference between the two? Whats a great story to one person might well be unenjoyed by another. The idea of judging on technical merit, punctuation and the like is fine if thats the route one wishes to go, but......
Vote for the story you like the best, if a punctuation is out of place I think we can let it slide.

Completed Fictions: Nah, with a but for me. Stories need more than one update in a year in my opinion to be considered(Viggies/songs and the like aside). Maybe not even the update situation so much as a word count or some such thing, though I have no idea how difficult this would be to enforce.
All's I'm saying is that the status quo is working OK, maybe with some tweeking needed if its possible.
Personally I went through the Nom list in Beyond very carefully. There was great stuff nommed, but no matter how well a story was written I was careful to check when updates had been made. If there were several updates within the Nom year I kept them as potentials on my list, but if there was only one update I simple crossed them off. Yeah, its subjective and personal but thats how I felt about it. I want to feel like the author is really interested in moving their story forward, with only one update I couldn't help but feel said authors had lost interest.

Campaigning by PM: No, thanks. Throwing a thank you for a nomination in the story thread seems fine to me. The boards should be about the stories, not the nominations.

Participation: Hard one. I honestly didn't even know I was nominated or that the awards existed until someone mentioned it to me in a PM. Having the stickies at the top of each board seems the best way to go. Maybe a FAQ's section could be attached so that one doesn't have to make their way over to resource to sort stuff out.

Voting for Me, Myself and I: Someone took the time to nominate you, saying to you "I like your story". I think the best way to return that favor and those warm fuzzies to the community is to find a work other than your own to vote for. I can not imagine ever voting for myself, perhaps abstaining(though highly unlikely) if I had some real issue and there was only one other nommed story in the category, but not flat out putting my own name down. This harkens back to my community rant
This fanfic board is about the stories. A little competion is fun but keep the community in mind as well. It seems to me the more fanficers we get, and give cudo's to, the better.

Amount of Nommed Stories up for Award: I'd like to see at least five stories up in each category, How to accomplish this I'm not sure. Would lowering the the amonut of nominations required from four to three help? Not for certain. Maybe accepting the five stories which recieved the most noms if five don't reach the prerequisit(or more if some are tied) could work. But then I've only been apart of this last ceremony and there wasn't really a problem in Beyond with the amount of Noms. I'm just thinking that I'd hate to see only two noms in each category, with the same author in each category. Variety is the spice of life

Awards for the Non Star Wars Fanfic Board: I'm torn on this because I really only wish to read Star Wars fictions, but also want everyone to have their own fun If there are enough volunteers to run the awards over in NSWFF, why not have an awards ceremony. If not then maybe not....I dunno

Ensemble Cast requiring Important Characters(Big Three, Anakin, Obi, etc..):This would elimante so many authors from consid

 

I'm not worried if anyone cares how I voted. I was simply voicing my opinion, as this thread was intended for us to do. That's all.

Basically, I don't think we need to vote for ourselves, we shouldn't campaign, and I have my own feelings on "winning." I'm not going to say anything more on that because I think my post said all I wanted to say. I'm absolutely fine with abiding by whatever the community decides. The awards belong to the fan fic community as a whole. So they should decide how they are run. My own opinions are just that, my own. Anyone is certainly free to disagree with me.

 

The campaigning has a downside, too... it can lead to a disqualification for the author.

 

I think what is trying to be clarified is those activities we agree is allowable. Those "thank you's" seem to appear as campaigning to some; that it is in principle a violation of the no-campaigning rule.

If this is a "spirit of the law" circumvention, it should be explicitly disallowed. If it is allowed, then readers should not treat it as campaigning.


No PMs, no "vote for me" is very clear. No one is in favor.

"Thank you for x" in threads seems perfectly acceptable to all, or at least, certainly acceptable to most.

"Thank you for x" in story titles seems a mixed bag - we know it is allowed but considered circumventing at least the spirit of the no-campaigning rule by many. This last point is what I'd like to see explicitly "banned" or specifically told "acceptable" and not just "allowed."

That may be just me, shrugs, but I'd like to see some consistancy strongly encouraged relating to titles.

Should that consistancy be made clear by a note encouraging, discouraging, or banning, I don't know. I do think it should be addressed in a one sentence way that makes it clear what is preferred vs what isn't so that one isn't penalized (by the readers themselves since we agree it is currently allowed) for "campaigning" or penalized by others "campaigning" when one doesn't.

With respect to myself, I'd prefer "all" or "no" authors use thank you's in the story title so all benefit positively or negatively - on an equal basis.

 

Re: "Campaigning" in title threads

It seems to me that when someone is looking for a new fic to read and they are perusing titles that they are more likely to pick one that says "Nommed for X,Y, & Z!! Thanks to all!" than one that doesn't.

If I follow this logic, then it isn't that titles are campaigning for votes, but sucking in potential new readers from other stories. After all, the titles are our first and best chance to pique someone's interest!

I don't think the title issue is a campaign issue at all. Not even a little bit. I think it's a readership issue - which has nothing to do with the awards.

Just my two cents. Even if I am right.

Zonoma

 

I will abide with however it is decided about the title headers. I think, however, thanking your readers for their support is acceptable but I can see how it might make it uncomfortable for those who were not nominated.

 

I would be fine with No Campaigning in thread titles. I will personally not change my thread title to include any thank you's. Giving thanks within the thread to your readers and for Noms seems the best way to go. I can't agree with an all author or nothing approach though, cause of my stubborn desire to have nothing there but the Story Name in the Thread Title, sorry.

Would an un-nomminated author be put off seeing all those "thank you for my noms" in the thread titles? I wouldn't, but everyone is different and some folks might be..

Abide by the rulings of the Mod Council I will , A great job they are doing. If something is allowed I have no problem with anyone following the rules, even if I would prefer to abstain myself.

 

If we can't say "nommed for" in story titles, I think we're going down a road we shouldn't. I agree with Zonoma, I defintely think it's more of a readership thing. It's not bothered me all that much. And I'm really concerned about the campaigning issue and the fact that people seemed to think there's so many things I never would have thought of as campaigning.

Really, remember we do not even get a real Golden Yoda for this award. And those who are nominated but do not win, don't even get the satisfaction of saying they won. Being nominated for something is an honor, so why shouldn't we let them post that they were nominated in their story title?

One day putting "nommed for" in a story title is bad, what's next? Listing awards you've won in your profile or signature is campaigning? I realize nobody has said that yet, but it seems to me that once we start making more rules, that might become an issue eventually to somebody.

I just do not think we need any more "campaigning" rules. These awards are supposed to be fun and worrying about what is or is not campaigning and adding additional rules can take the fun away, especially for new authors who may or may not be aware of what they've done.

 

Wouldn't it be easier to define campaigning as actively soliciting votes/noms for yourself or someone else and leave it at that?

 

Yes, it would, but it seems that to some readers whom I respect very much it is considered a form of actively campaigning to call attention to one's story by "Nommed for" in the story title.

I don't want to be seen as circumventing the rules should I do so, should I ever have the honor of being nommed again.

I don't want to see certain stories "bumped" after the noms are underway by readers curious to see what is so special about this story and they don't realize there are other stories worth reading - both nommed and not. I might be wrong, but I think this does happen.

At this point I think I have little else to offer on this subject, unless someone has a specific point not yet addressed.

I'm merely trying to avoid "foot in mouth syndrome" as relates to any perception that I may have "violated the spirit" of the rules. I do try to do the right thing, not just the allowable thing.

 

If you look at the Peeves thread people find all sort of things annoying about the Title bars, but there still aren't rules against that stuff (and I'm not implying there shoudl be)

First thing to consider is, other than irking some people's sensibilities does putting 'Nommed for...' in the title bar hurting anyone? It's not upping, and it's not spam. Comparatively, just seeing certain 'ships in a title bar annoy some people but that doesn't mean we go making rules about it.

Second thing is, are there any benefits? Helps readers find stories with things they like (ex: great Mara characterization, canon, etc). Let's the author express their excitement. Advertises the fact that there are awards.

Ultimately the author gets to weigh the benefits (getting a few new readers, expressing excitement) with the costs (possibly annoying someone, who probably wouldn't have voted for them anyway).