Awards Debriefing: The Post-Awards Discussion

Or film and EU. That way that ugly c word doesn't come up and no one goes on the offensive.

YubYub and TG- Protecting fangirls from hormonally gifted fanboys since 2002

 

I think the issue here is:

1. What is the purpose of the awards--a contest of writing ability or a contest of popularity? And I don't think the most well-written is always the most well-read, especially if the author is shy and isn't into shameless self-promoting actions.

2. Is stomping the vote ethical or should a story stand on its own merits?

If we're going to debate issues, these are the ones I see that have generated conflict.

If you don't want to debate them, fine. I don't care. You certainly know where I stand. I will not be told I'm wrong for expressing my opinion though, not when I haven't flamed anyone.

 

Fantastic ideas, PLJ. Here's my thoughts on them.

I don't think that splitting the categories by era (or films vs. EU) will necessarily solve anything. For all we know, next year it might not be Saga vs NJO blocs -- it might be PT (say, Anakin/Padme) vs OT (say, Han/Leia) blocs that leads to hurt feelings when, let's say, the OT stories win everything and PT gets shut out. From year to year it will vary, and we shouldn't "fight the last war" in designing the next awards.

I very much agree with nominations by PM -- it permits greater honesty in nominations, which is a good thing. I also agree with limiting the number of times you can nominate a single author or story, and that limit should correspond to the number of categories, perhaps one-fifth or one-sixth of the total, to require nominating voters to spread the wealth among authors.

I also really like the idea of limiting the number of categories in which an author can advance to the finals, and especially letting the author decide (when necessary) the categories in which the author feels the story most deserves recognition. I think that's a nice nod to each author's sense of why they're most proud of their story.

I do think you should be allowed to vote for yourself in the finals. I dunno; it just seems undemocratic to me to tell someone they can't think their own story is the best. (Even if it's not. )

I think there should not be a limit on voting for an author in the final round if we've capped the number of times an author can be eligible. If there are, say, 20 categories and the maximum number of entries per author is 4, then you have to vote for at least five different authors. I think the cap on eligibilty fixes the voting round.

Ultimately, though, I still believe the problem here -- to the extent there is one -- is what I mentioned in my earlier post. If we are going to have elections, then many voters will vote in an "uninformed" manner. This is unavoidable. Many Saga partisans probably voted for Saga stories without reading the NJO/EU nominees in the same categories (like AU or Action). I'm sure many NJO/EU partisans did the same. We can't make people read eras and stories they don't want to read, and we also can't make them do it to vote for awards.

And even if we were confident we knew in advance what the "blocs" will be, I personally don't like the divisiveness of setting up categories by bloc. "Best Saga Drama" and "Best EU Drama" only encourages people not to read outside what they already read. This time around, I didn't vote in either of the Pre-Saga categories for the simple reason that I don't read in that era and didn't have time to read the nominees (I allotted my limited time to categories in which I had greater interest and wanted to make an informed decision.) At least if we have eras compete with each other, some of us will take the time to check out lots of other stories we might not otherwise read -- and will find some gems we might stick with.

Finally, I will make a radical suggestion. WARNING: Radical suggestion ahead. Why not limit the number of categories in which a voter can vote? Yes, that's right. Say there are 20 categories. Why not say that each voter can only vote in, say, 5? In other words, make each voter choose the very few best stories or authors and vote only for those.

Admittedly it wouldn't solve the "blocs" problem. Then why do this? Because it would, by limiting the number of categories in which you can vote to a small -- intentionally too small -- number, preclude voting for all (or most) categories because you feel you should or because you can. It requires you to choose carefully. If someone is going to vote purely on partisan lines, it limits the effect greatly -- it would take 4 "bloc" voters to cast one vote in all 20 categories, instead of 1 "bloc" voter. And because your choice is so limited, I think it would provide a strong incentive to make an informed decision in those categories in which you c

 

I like limiting the number of nominations possible.

I don't think limiting the number of votes per user would work well. It would encourage people to step a bit outside their comfort zone if they exposed themselves to other categories, eras etc. through voting for the awards. Besides, that would just lead to people using every one of their votes on a select number of favorites.

YubYub and TG- Protecting fangirls from hormonally gifted fanboys since 2002

 

Alright- I made the Canon changes on my list- to prevent a war. I also removed the limiting the number of times you could vote at the end. (To see my previous post- click back a page.)

Let me further explain my stand on the authors voting for themselves thing.

Yes, this is an awards show to find the best story. Naturally, all of us who write, think our stories are the best- otherwise we wouldn't write so it is natural to want to pick your story when you're nominated.

I also know that in national elections, the press loves to show us the Presidential candidates coming out and saying they voted for themselves rather than their opponent. This is all fine and good when you have millions of votes being cast into a national election. However, this does not translate very well when you have catagories in these awards when there are at times maybe only a dozen or less votes being cast for each story in a particular catagory. The result is that the author's vote for his/her own story can swing the final vote and determine the winner of the catagory.

Example: if the winning author (A) voted for himself, and the one who came in second (B) did not vote for himself- then they would be off by one vote. If Author A did not vote for himself then they would've tied. Is that really fair to allow Author A's vote for himself to earn him the award? Personally, I don't think it is.

It may seem undemocratic to not allow authors to privately vote for themselves, but in the end, by not allowing them to vote for themselves, it really then leaves the vote ENTIRELY in the hands of the readers.

If you want your story to win- the best thing to do is not vote at all in that catagory.


Catagories and Votes

I actually think that by seperating out the eras Film/ EU that this will dramatically drop the number of votes being cast. Why? Although there are some who read off of all of the boards, many readers only stick to one section on the boards. If the votes are split, and say someone only reads Film stories- it's most likely that he/she will completely ignore the EU catagory film selections.

I think the split will cut down on the number of votes, rather than increase them.

I also understand that by making that distinction, it opens up a lot of other debate. This would pit Pre-Saga authors in the same ring as the NJO-era authors, and PT vs. OT in the Film catagories.

Unless we physically break it down to 3 completely different awards shows, this cannot be avoided- it's why I kept the In-Progress catagories active. This is however where the limiting the number of nominations will help to prevent mass nominations and one story dominating in either saga catagories.

To me, the era split is a great idea, because I would think that instead of it being viewed as a way of dividing the authors on the boards, it will help to broaden the selection process and allow even more authors exposure.

 

I was incommunicado during the actual voting (due to a vehicle breakdown during an inter-state move) but I know who I was going to vote for. And I'd like to throw in my two cents here

Darth_Lex made many good points. I especially agree that a cap on the number of times an author can be nominated or how many nominations make the finals. And saying the author can't vote for themselves seems strange. After all, who do you think presidentical candidates vote for

 

Just adding in my two cents here.

I agree that limiting the number of noms/votes that an author can have may be a good idea. I've seen it used in past fanfic awards. While a particular fic may be wonderful in many, many categories, I think by limiting the number of categories an author can have, it might encourage some more participation and variety in the wins.

I agree that noms and votes should all be PM'd to prevent any peer pressure on the voters.

I disagree about authors voting for themselves. While I think an author should not be allowed to nominate himself, I think he should definitely be allowed to vote for himself. Having been part of the counting process, I can tell you, PLJ, that the bit about close races being determined by that one vote were not so frequent that this should be a problem.

I do not think there should be a limit to the number of categories a person can vote for. Everyone should be encouraged to vote in every category. As things stand, there were already a very low number of votes in certain categories, such as Pre-Saga stories, and if people were limited in the number of categories in which they could vote, those categories would get almost no votes at all. Because I was able to vote in every category, I actually read the excerpts of stories that I'd never read before just to get an idea of what I should be voting for, and this has encouraged me to read more stories than I would otherwise.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Trying to think if anyone has mentioned this already--if anyone has, I apologize, but I am very tired and cranky right now...

How about two shows, one for the films and one for EU? That would eliminate the objectionable idea of a separate show for each forum (it would be one less show anyway).

 

Do we really need to separate out the EU though? I mean, when you get into AU and such, it's not all that different.

YubYub and TG- Protecting fangirls from hormonally gifted fanboys since 2002

 

Yeah, I write stories that are neither film nor EU compliant. I wouldn't know what to do about nominating the other OC stories I read, because they're certainly not following the films or the EU, strictly speaking. Are we to assume that all OC stories are outta luck except for the OC awards?

Jae Angel

 

Yeah, it is different. A lot of people don't believe the EU is really Star Wars. When you get into AU, you're taking characters and scenarios that Lucas created and giving them alternate destinies. Even all-OC fics (which I like all-OC fics, BTW--I think it takes a lot of imagination to create a character of your own and put it into a universe that Lucas created), when put into the Saga universe, are still part of the universe that Lucas created. Some people believe that the EU is nothing more than a spin-off franchise and does not deserve a substantial portion of the recognition-- and is definitely not a standard for fanfic, especially considering much of the fanfic I've seen in the Saga forum beats the hell out of published EU works.

I want to make a statement in favor of allowing us purists to have our awards show without being bombarded by EU. I may lose, but I still want to make the statement.

 

I would suggest still limiting the number of awards shows. Too many awards shows diminish the interest that the fanfic community will have in awards in general. Award shows complete with noms and voting for every genre (EU, non-EU-canon, Pre-Saga, Saga, Post-Saga, OC, Obidalas, H/Ls, L/Ms, A/As, NJO, etc, etc) would just become completely taxing, and I'm pretty sure that most people would end up getting fed up and not wanting to particpate in the main one.

 

Could we please not get into whether or not the EU is really Star Wars? Fanfic has always been the one forum where I haven't had to deal with that. Don't wreck that for me, please. [face_puppydog]

YubYub and TG- Protecting fangirls from hormonally gifted fanboys since 2002

 

You're free to disagree with me, Daughter_of_Yubyub. I just wanted a little understanding for my side. I felt like I got the EU shoved in my face last time, and I thought two separate ceremonies would be a good way to allow EU folks to have awards for their fics, but also allow us canon folks a fair shot minus EU.

If you enjoy EU, fine. I just don't want to have to see Mara, Jaina, Jag, Kyp, Jacen, Tahiri, Lowbacca, and a bunch of Dathomir witches every time I turn around.

 

EU is Star Wars ? from a certain point of view

Just not one the almighty GL sanctions

 

Can we please stop this canon debate? This isn't anywhere near an appropriate time and place for fighting about what's canon and what's not. Some people like it, some people don't. Please leave it at that.

The problem I see with splitting the awards into two shows based on EU-compliance is what you do with EU era fics that aren't EU-based, or film era fics that are EU-based. Where would those go, since they're neither strictly film nor strictly EU? I really don't want to split it along the lines of EU compliance. I'd much rather see a split among the three era boards, though I still don't want to have that.

 

Personally, I thought this series of awards was just right. The previous time there were too many catagories and it was too confusing. This time, there were clear distinction among the various award nominations. I liked the balance of having sets of era awards so that one era did not overwhelm the others in more general catagories. Plus there were lots of other awards to go around. It all made perfect sense to me.

Other comments. I understand that you may want to run the nominations by PM (maybe you could do it both ways for those who wish to remain anonymous) but, as a nominee that did not win, my greatest thrill was seeing my story being nominated. Some of the stories that I saw nominated once or twice did not get into the final judging catagories but since it was open, those people saw that at least someone thought their story was good enough to nominate in the first place...

So leave it the way it is now, please.

 

Film era fics that are EU-based?

If you mean, say, a fic that takes place during Empire but has one EU character in it, such as Mara, I'd say it could still go in canon.

I can't imagine someone taking all the EU characters and putting them in the middle of the OT. One EU character would not necessarily make a fic EU.

Or, for example, a fic that takes place post-ROTJ but still has canon characters, such as Lex's award-winning story, would still be canon because the characters are canon.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be based on what genre most of the characters fit into. Only Han, Luke, Leia and Chewie traverse both universes.

dianethx:

I liked the balance of having sets of era awards so that one era did not overwhelm the others in more general catagories.

No offense, but did we go to the same show?

Practically the only place the NJO did not dominate was in Pre-Saga and Saga.

 

What is so wrong w/splitting the awards into the appropriate genre? Or even the way they?re split now in fanfic? Narrow it down more so other stories have a reasonable chance.

PLJ ? Very insightful ideas.

I?m along the lines of not voting for yourself to garner an award. Maybe it?s just my line of thinking but if I were to be nominated in any way, I?d like for it to be earned and not because I voted or myself or shamed (even inadvertently) others into voting for me.

Maybe it?s old fashioned to think that the awards should go to the most deserving and not just the most popular. If you have both ? kudos to you.

Just my .02 worth

 

I meant stories that deal with film events but are about characters who only appear in the EU, like the Rogue Squadron pilots from the X-Wing series.

The general feeling I've always gotten in fan fiction here is that if it's not something a fan fic writer made up, then it's considered canon by fan fic terms. Whether or not you like the idea of Isolder courting Leia or Jaina turning to the dark side is personal opinion, and you don't have to read EU-compliant fics if you don't want to. Since we have people here who want the EU as canon, don't want the EU as canon, or, like me, could care less, it's a lot more politic to call things EU-compliant or non-EU-compliant instead of canon or EU.

a_g, we established that yes, many of the awards went to NJO stories. I think what dianethx meant was that even if one era dominates, the era-specific awards make sure that stories from all eras are recognized.

Arriss, not sure what you mean by appropriate genre. Can you elaborate on that?

Yes, I'd like to see the awards go to the most deserving stories. But as long as there is some subjectivity and human element to this, it's never going to satisfy everyone. I'm not saying that authors should be browbeating their readers into voting for them, but there is a point where we have to look at what's realistic rather than what's ideal.

 

But there are so many gray areas. For instance, the beloved Wes Janson and Hobbie Klivian are considered EU characters for the most part, yet they appear in ESB, so are film characters in all technicality. This is opening a whole can of worms that we really don't want to get into. Can't we just leave well enough alone? [face_puppydog]

YubYub and TG- Protecting fangirls from hormonally gifted fanboys since 2002

 

I have a question actually, which came up as I was receiving votes: Would there be any way we could have a poll for voting, and the results would be closed, i.e. viewable only to those running the awards?

I think this might have been discussed before, and one of the issues that was raised was concern about sock voting, but I guess I don't see how PMing votes prevents sock voting any better.

I had counted about two-thirds of the votes before I had to go out of town unexpectedly, and I also know from talking to the other counters, that counting the votes was a massive endeavor. We're all happy to do it, but if a more efficient method could be found I think it would really help the process.

 

Well, Mely, you know my opinion on the EU--basically along the lines as the creator of the SOTJ site.

Yubyub: Wes and Hobbie weren't even mentioned by name in ESB unless I missed them in the numerous times I've watched it, so I think they're still EU characters.

The only problem I can see with splitting up the awards into movies and EU would be finding someone to put together and host both shows.

Mareid: I believe moderators can look at IPs and recognize whether or not a user is a sock.

 

I'm not saying that authors should be browbeating their readers into voting for them, but there is a point where we have to look at what's realistic rather than what's ideal.

I guess that?s where I differ then. As much as I?d love to vote for myself I wouldn?t because my code of conduct wouldn?t allow it. I don?t see that as being realistic or ideal ? just a fact for me.

As to the genre I was referring to this can be taken 2 ways and either would be fine:

The fanfic boards are split right now as such:

Before the Saga
The Saga
Beyond the Saga
And the Classic board

We also have the main eras (I apologize if I miss any)

AU
OT
PT
EU
NJO

I was suggesting having an awards show similar to PLJ?s suggestion. Each genre could be voted on its own w/in the same award show. A winner and runner up would be announced for each era. No domination of one era over another.


edit: opps

 

LM: I don't think that's possible with the current board software, which is kind of unfortunate - we also don't have an IP check for polls, just name checks. If you were to get a whole bunch of ballots that were all identical, that would be cause to go to a mod and have IPs checked.

a_g, I know your views on the EU, and I think you know that I don't particularly care whether or not it's canon. But for the purposes of fan fic, you're taking something that someone else has created, be it a movie character/event or EU character/event, and writing about it beyond the parameters of what's been published.

Finding someone to put on additional shows would be the other problem. You have to have people who are willing to put a lot of time and effort into putting the awards together, and suddenly you have to have enough for four to six shows a year. And by the time you're done with one show, it's time for another. The state of perpetual awards would probably turn people off from participating.

Arriss, I see what you're saying and I agree with it somewhat, but I just have to wonder if that's actually going to fix anything. Where would it stop? If a large enough (and loud enough) contingent popped up saying that Luke/Mara fics are being overshadowed by post-RotJ Han/Leia fics, do you split it then in the interest of "fairness to all"? The awards used to be that way - I remember RebelMom's Shackled Past winning the best Luke/Mara award in a summer awards show, not one of the more specific awards. The number of awards in that show was insane. That was why Gandolf streamlined the awards down to about fifteen categories. It was getting ridiculous to have all these incredibly specific awards. So we tuned it down to something more manageable and more meaningful, we hoped. The more specific awards, like character awards, are welcome to hold their own awards ceremonies where readers who are very familiar with that particular area are more likely to be the ones participating.