Awards Post-Awards Discussion -- closing Friday

Thank you to all of you who participated in the awards survey. Based on the survey results, the following rules will be included in future awards:

Campaigning

According to the results of the survey, campaigning will be defined as:

• Saying 'vote for this story' in its thread


• Saying 'vote for this story' in your signature for your story


• Saying 'vote for this story' in your signature for your friend's story


• Saying 'vote for this story' in your thread as support for your story


• Saying 'vote for this story' in your thread as support for your friend's nominated story

Additionally, sending unsolicited PMs to people seeking votes or posting in Resource threads will also be defined as campaigning.

Campaigning in any form is not allowed.


Parodies

Parodies will not be eligible to be nominated as songfics or poems. Songfics are eligible to be nominated for crossover only if a character from another fandom plays a part in the parody. They can, however, be nominated for other categories such as, humor, vignette, response to a challenge, short story, etc...


Volunteers

Volunteers cannot have stories nominated in the era in which they are working. They can, however, nominate stories and vote, as long as they do not count their own votes.


Nominations

Due to the close percentages of the votes in the survey, we have decided for consistency sake and ease for the volunteers, that for the winter awards the number of nominations needed for a story to qualify will be three for all eras. If needed, this issue can be readdressed at the end of the winter awards.



Now is the opportunity for you to give your thoughts on the awards and bring up any issues that you encountered, as well as to point out the things you thought were done right. You may only post once, so make sure that your post is comprehensive. Edits and quotes are not allowed. Furthermore, we request that you post here rather than PMing the overseer or mods your opinions. PM'd comments will not be considered part of the discussion.
Please keep posts TOS compliant. Baiting and flaming will not be tolerated and such posts will be edited accordingly. If you have a complaint about the behavior or actions of the moderating team, you need to follow the Moderator Complaint and Resolution Process.

Thank you for taking the time to reply and share your thoughts with us.

 

The one issue I'd like to bring up wasn't something mentioned in the survey.

The last awards took almost four months from beginning to end and they seem to be getting longer and longer every time they're done.

With two awards "shows" per year, that's eight months out of twelve in which the awards are taking place in some form or another.

IMO, that's going overboard. When these things started way back when it was a 2-3 week affair. For that time allotment to more than quadruple seems excessive.

If we're going to have the awards twice per year, there has to be some sort of limitation to how long they can take.

 

Gods YES.

Fan fiction has become more about the awards than the writing.


It's acinine to limit 'discussion' to one post on this thread.

Serioulsy, it's not a discussion if we can't 'discuss'.

 

I tend to agree. I greatly appreciate the time and effort of all of the volunteers. I managed to attend the Beyond ceremony this time, and was impressed with the organization. But Herman makes an excellent point that the awards are taking longer and longer lately, and that it's getting excessive. Breezy's right; we're here for the writing and reading. The awards are fun, but they shouldn't be such a focal point. I know that the community has grown since its inception, but if it really takes eight months out of the twelve to run semiannual awards, then something's out of whack.

 

My question might be bit of a hot topic but it is one that I have wondered from the time I first came in here just a few short months ago.

I have a problem with moderators being able to have their works nominated at all in the eras they are moderating for. They have so much influence it what goes on from the fact that their names are in bold and right at the top. New comers will automatically look at their fics and also the fics that they are responding to. If volunteers are excluded from having their work nominated then how come moderators are allowed. It just seems strange to me that people in power can have their works up for votes. It makes the nominations very top heavy.

This is not to say that their work is not good or worthy it just seems to be an "unoffical" way to campain for your work.

 

Regarding the issue of campaigning, I'm going to say my bit here that I think when readers can't even support authors who have no control over what their readers post and it's considered campaigning, that these awards are taken too seriously. Authors do not have control over what their readers may post in a thread and they should not be punished for it or looked down on as campaigning.

Also, I don't think seeing the colors of a moderator automatically makes everyone vote for their fics and I think the moderators fics should be allowed. The mods do a darn, hard job and if they can't even participate in awards without someone yelling about campaigning, I can't see that it would be much fun to be a moderator.

On the length of awards, I think Herman's post was spot on. The awards are taking longer every season and awards aren't our focal point.

The awards are such a headache every year, due to the tightening of the rules, that we have to ask ourselves is it really fun anymore if we have to do all this extra stuff? I mean we don't get anything out of these awards, so why are we taking it so darn seriously? It's just an award on a message board. Not only that, but they tend to divide our community even more than it already is. If we have to have an overseer, voter registration, and a post awards discussion every single season, then it's no wonder some people are getting tired of it.

I'm all for abolishing the awards altogether. They're a great way to meet new people and socialize with new folks, yes that's true, and I've met some great friends I wouldn't have met but for working on awards, but it's a lot of headache for everybody involved and I think our forum would be better off without them. We have a social thread and other social groups that would fulfill this purpose rather than having awards every season.

If we don't do away with it altogether, I propose we cut back or allow user run awards instead of these full-fledged "Fanfiction Oscars" for lack of a better term, like Ish's Angst awards or the Drabble King/Queen Zonoma mentioned in the fanfiction update.

 

I also agree that four months per awards ceremony is too long. Instead of, ?Yay! It?s time for the Awards again!? we could end up with, ?Oh no. Is it time for those again??


I think the Awards were handled exceptionally well this time around and having the Survey prior to the Discussion is a stroke of genius.



My only suggestion for next time would be to put editable offenses in a set of Rules at the beginning of the ceremonies. Someone new to TFN and to the Awards would have no way of knowing about rules such as ?no alcohol? since they were not posted in the Awards thread itself.

Sure, we know to check the planning threads or the Etiquette thread or the Creche thread for things like that, but someone coming to the boards specifically for the Awards would not know to go to various other threads for ceremony Dos and Don?ts.

 

Can a crossover story be nominated for Best Story or Best Action or any character award?

 

Regarding the awards:

1) The timetable does seem to me to be outrageously long. Perhaps there could just be a set time table bi-annually for the awards each year and volunteers should just sign up or otherwise based on when they are available to help out. For instance:

First week of December/June open nominations
Second week of December/June nominations close and nominees are notified their fics are eligible.
Last week of December/June excerpts go up
First week of January/July voting begins
Third week of January/July voting ends
First week of February/August awards ceremonies start.

This is just a suggestion, but I think if there was a timeline that was known to all, the nominations could be done in a shorter time frame because people who knew they might be busy or whatever during the nominations time could get their nominations ready ahead of time. Also, this timeline does not stagger the awards, although a more complicated, staggered awards schedule could be set up if people really want to continue to have a staggered awards schedule. (Perhaps just the ceremonies could be staggered, and the other process could be run simultaneously)

2) Volunteers

"Volunteers cannot have stories nominated in the era in which they are working. They can, however, nominate stories and vote, as long as they do not count their own votes."

- What does it mean that volunteers do not count their own votes? Does this mean the vote counters can?t count just their own votes when they?re counting the total tally of votes? First of all, this seems to me to make vote counting a far more confusing and complicated process than it needs to be, and secondly, it seems to me to be a smack in the face of the volunteers. I think that it?s gotten WAY too serious. Are we saying that we can?t trust the volunteers to count their own votes fairly or properly? I counted votes for the awards one year, and I triple counted all the votes to make sure my tallies were correct. My own votes were among the ones counted. As a vote counter, I?d be very insulted if it was implied that I couldn?t be trusted to be fair about my own votes or anyone else?s for that matter.

3) Mods should most definitely be allowed to have their stories eligible in the fanfic awards. Moderating is already a hard enough and thankless enough job without further penalizing mods by saying their stories shouldn?t be eligible for the awards. To say that mods shouldn?t be allowed to participate because their name is on the bar is to insult the entire fanfic community by saying that its members are so stupid and shallow that they only vote for the first name they see. Maybe that?s the way we are but I?d like to give fanfic the benefit of the doubt that they actually vote on stories that have merit.

4) I had some questions regarding the poll that was placed. Who decided what questions should be put in the poll? Or the wording of the questions and options? In some cases, I didn?t like any of the options but I chose the best available. (e.g. the volunteers question) I would have liked to have been able to make suggestions on what issues were discussed before hand, but that?s my own opinion.

5) Lastly, while I participate in these discussions and I?d like the awards to run smoothly and fairly, it really does seem to me to be alarming how much overwhelming energy and seriousness is put into something that should just be fun. The amount of squabbling and distrust that goes on around here when awards rolls around is starting to verge on the psychotic. I?d just like to say once for the record that everyone should remember these awards are supposed to be fun. That?s it. It?s supposed to be about fun and getting to know other members and getting exposed to great works of fanfic. Even if some things end up falling in the cracks, let?s not lose focus on the fact that the awards are supposed to be a good time.

Just my two credits.

Edit: I just had to edit because I can't count properly.

 

RE: the suggestion about not staggering the awards. Have you seen how long the nominee lists are for just one board, Saga, Before, or Beyond? If the voting periods were all held at once for each board, how in Heaven's name could ppl who read on all three or even just two, possibly read all those stories in time to vote?

On other fronts, I know there is a lot of teeth-gnashing regarding awards. People get uptight. People take it seriously.

Perhaps this is a simple reflection of the fact that, for people like you and me, who love Star Wars, love to write these works, and pour blood, sweat, and tears into every word, there IS no other venue to recognize excellence. (Well, maybe the archive.) We can never be published, nobody but us will ever come in and see these, nothing we write here really matters a crap outside of here or ever will. Maybe that's why these awards matter so much to some people.

If we discontinued them, there would be no way for some of these fine works to stand out longer than a day or two, at all.

Just food for thought ...

 

I agree that it seems we've become the Fan Fic Awards forum more than the Fan Fiction forum, as far as the timing and scale goes. I haven't put as much thought into how that would be fixed as LP and others, but just off the top of my head, it seems most of the year is taken up with them.

 

make it simple then. Rather than having some arcane number of noms to get to the voting round, make it the top five fics with the most noms....

Frankly I have to wonder if when there's 15 or 20 fics in the voting round if people actually do read all the excerpts...i know I had to force myself to do so....

 

Just a thought, though I don't really participate here anymore...

If you don't trust counters to count their own votes, then how do you trust them to count others' votes accurately and not say "oh, I like such-and-such's fic; I think I'll just add one to its total" anyway? The option is there just as much as if they count their own votes. Besides... what harm can come of them counting their own votes? They're going to vote for what they like anyway... what are they going to do? Add two votes for each of their one? Count votes for multiple fics in the same category (that would be asinine anyway)?

And Breezy's right. I know how much you guys love your one-post threads, but it's not a discussion if there's no give-and-take, and this format severely limits that. Plus it puts people in the position of not being able to respond to some very good points that might be made after them. It is asinine and it severely hampers "discussion" to the point this really isn't a discussion thread at all.

Jes

 

People, ONE POST.

I know it's hard sometimes to gather all your thoughts at once, but that's the format we've established for this thread. Please follow it. The survey covered the most noticeable issues from the Awards, and now we're asking for your opinions on anything else. If we need more in-depth discussion, we'll start it.

What we don't want is to rehash issues over and over again every time we hold the Awards. As Herman pointed out, they already stretch out over several weeks. Partly that's because we staggered them, which I wholeheartedly support - it's a lot easier on the people reading excerpts and voting, and much easier on the overseer for checking votes. IMO The other reason is that - as the majority requested in the last survey - we have signup threads for all volunteer positions, and those are open for several days each. If time is becoming a problem, we'll look into it.

Yes, we're supposed to be having fun with these Awards. But this isn't a perfect world, so we're going to have issues here and there. If it's about just having fun, then I ask everyone to consider why we spend so much time twice a year discussing every last detail. If they were just fun, then we wouldn't need so many rules or etiquette. There is a LOT of work that goes into these Awards and a lot of questions that come up. Whether or not a parody should be eligible as a songfic might be just a simple matter, but it was big enough to become a question on the survey, and enough to spark discussion here and in PMs. Many of these recent changes have come directly from the users. Like it or not, people have different reasons for taking the Awards seriously.

I don't really like the Awards, but I do love finding new stories to read. I'd much rather cut the process off at the excerpts stage and simply have a Summer and Winter Showcase - basically list all the nominees and their excerpts, and that's it. No voting, less competition, less time usurped during the year.

 

Campaigning

I like this new set of rules. After all, the awards are supposed to be expressions of appreciation by the readers for the author and his/her work. This should not be something that is done under duress, where the author is expressing dissatisfaction with the fac that the story has not been honored. It is an honor in the first place to have readers and whatever the results of the awards, that is what is most important.

Parodies

What will parodies be eligible for? Best AU, best humorfic, interpretation awards, challenge response, underrated?

A note on parody: I think that there should be a clear-cut definition of this. I wrote a story that was a parody of a Star Wars fanfilm, but it was considered originally for Best Crossover. If we could separate the definitions of the two, it might help readers.

Volunteers

I'm personally glad that the volunteer rule is now going to be in place. I personally volunteered in the Before the Saga awards and it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that, while I was able to tally nominations, as soon as my three nominations qualified, I was not permitted to count votes. While there is an immense honor system going on in any aspect of the awards, there is a temptation. I think it's even a temptation on a level of nomming and voting with a sock. Cutting the volunteers out of the era that they are volunteering for altogether is a highly sensible thing to do.



Nominations

Thank heavens for the three-nom rule being put back into place. For one thing, it will give me fewer chest pains!

Overall, I think the awards went well. Of course there are the minor snags that will happen with any layman-run event, but I know that in my era of volunteering, the host was helpful, informative and well-organized.

Thanks for letting us put in our $.02

 

Okay, my 2 billion credits...

Yeah, the length of time is an issue. I don't see why they can't all run at once.

Campaigning... Honestly, I don't see a problem with it. Going into someone else's thread and doing a hijack? Yeah, that's bad. A little 'Pleasenominate/vote for me.' in your own thread? Where's the harm???

Volunteers not able to be nominated in the era they work in is a bad idea. If we can't trust the people, then that's bad. And it limits the amount of people who can work in certain areas.

I say, let them work in Before and be nominated in Before. And just not have them count their own stuff. Not like they can really get away with it.

I feel songfics and such should not be included in the crossover category.

I like these awards. They bring heartache to me, but I;m used to that. And they show me that I have to improve in order to win.

Because I want to win.

 

This is a perennial issue, and it will continue to be one until a simple, permanent awards format is established, but for what it's worth:

1. Cut it to one awards ceremony per year.

OR

2. Establish a set timetable and slash the number of categories to a third or a fourth per era. When every possible genre has to have its own award, not to mention aliens, villians, cannon characters, original characters, etc., etc., down to a distinction between vignettes and short stories and categories for poems and reposts of song lyrics, of course it's going to take months. Not only that, the most valuable purposes of an awards program (recognition in an unrecognized form and a showcase of stories for the vast majority of us who don't have the time to sift through even a small fraction of the stories here)are lost.

3. Take the five most nominated nominees in each category, if you dramatically reduce their number, or the three most nominated nominees if you don't. At least then we have a manageable number of stories to read before voting (I have yet to actually vote in the awards because I have yet to have the time to read all of the nominees).

4. Ditto on the vote counters. If they might tinker with their own votes, they can just as easily tinker with anybody else's. It makes absolutely no difference, except to make a complicated process all the more complicated.

5. No more awards surveys or formal awards discussions after the awards. Either give it over to users to come up with their own, more casual ways of recognizing one another or simply decide what the format will be and leave it at that. The Academy Awards are the Academy Awards because the Academy decides that's what they are. There isn't a national dialogue about changing their format after every single show. These are essentially Moderator Awards (and that's probably the best way to do them) so the Moderators should decide what they are, period. Once they have, the users can exercise their rights by: A. Nominating and voting for stories and B. Participating or not participating in what is a voluntary process that can simply be ignored by anybody who's dissatisfied by it. Just as you don't have to give a damn about the Oscars to be a movie lover, you don't have to give a damn about these awards to read and enjoy your favorite stories and authors. There will always be some percentage of people who don't like the format, the people in charge or the stories nominated, no matter how many surveys you do. Let them.

What's important is to come up with the most reasonable, manageable format that best accomplishes the goals of the awards and stick with it. I think most people get drawn into these discussions and take the most minute details of the process so seriously simply because the discussions are here and everybody else is taking it so seriously. It's obviously important enough for yet another round of surveys and discussions, so it must be important. And that drags out the already interminable awards season all the longer. Once the awards have become the Awards, something that just happens every year or twice a year the same way it always has, I think the vast majority will simply accept and participate in it the way it is.

For what it's worth.

 

Well I?m going to throw my two cents in on the whole awards thing, even though I never participate. I have a few readers who nominate me every time, which I love them for, but isn?t necessary. And since I think it affects the entire fan fiction realm here, I want to weigh in on it. It just seems to be causing more and more discord every time.

The bottom line for me is I think the awards should be done away with.

Here?s the reason why. The awards started out to be fun but people try to take them too seriously. You can?t have both. When you have fun awards they end up as popularity contest. It can?t be helped really. That?s where the whole campaigning issue popped up. And though the mods and volunteers have worked hard to make it otherwise, it?s still a popularity contest. I?m going to say hardly anyone?when I could almost just say no one but I?m sure there is a handful out there?but hardly anyone actually takes the time to read all the excerpts.

And even if they do, do you really think they?ll compare them all and truly decide based on content, which is the best story with no bias? No, most people have favorites and support their favorite author. And that author may be their favorite because they always write mush or angst or drama, they may have a certain style a reader likes. Really that could be diced a million different ways.

I mean if you are a writer and you really think your story is being judged by its content in these award shows, I?m sorry, but wake up and smell the coffee. No matter how much you try to improve your writing in order to win, I doubt it will help unless you improve your popularity rating along with it.

The bottom line is that any awards show that is set up so that the reader?s judge is a popularity contest. So then you have half of these people wanting to be taken serious and by that I mean they want their fiction judge by it?s content, not how popular it is and half wanting to do the fun thing. And that situation breeds all the petty squabbling over every minor detail and finger pointing and all that.

The only way that I can see to get rid of all the squabbling that seems to arise would be to appoint a panel of judges and have them judge the fan fiction based on it?s actual content. But that would be way too convoluted in my opinion.

Sooo I think the awards should just be cancelled. There?s got to be some way we can acknowledge stories without changing it into a popularity contest. If the thinking caps are put on, I?m sure it could be done. Maybe just a showcase, like JadeSolo suggested. I?m just tired of all this award drama.


Oh and let me state for the record that I have no problems with the whole fun type of awards. It's just when you take the fun type of awards seriously, that's when problems come up. And as you've seen, some people do take them very seriously.

 

I'm just going to add my agreement with some other ideas that have already been thrown out here.

I think one awards show per year makes a lot of sense. That's just from the point that other people have made that it would proabably cut down on the time spent organising and talking about the whole thing.

Also, cutting down on the number of nominees per category and even the number of categories themselves is something I'd agree with. These were the first awards I participated in, and the thing that struck me the most was how bored I got during the actual ceremonies. That's no disrespect to those who provided entertainment or presented, but there's only so many hours I can spend clicking refresh on my browser before I start to lose interest. A smaller, tighter list of nominees and categories would, I think, make it seem like a real showcase for the best fics out there.

The number of fics nominated was so huge in these awards that I didn't come close to being able to read all the excerpts, and so I felt unqualified to vote. I really like the idea of the excerpt process, and I think it would work a lot better if only it were slimmed down a bit.

While there is an extent to which these awards do appear to be just a popularity contest, and can cause a considerable amount of drama, I'm not cynical enough yet to believe they should be done away with completely. All minor issues aside, the awards are still fun (especially to a relative newcomer, for whom the novelty hasn't yet worn off) and should in my humble opinion, be kept going.

 

1) I know that several people have suggested doing away with the awards or having it only once a year but we voted on this in March, 2006. See Fan Fiction Award Survey Discussion.
The overwhelming majority of the voters wanted the awards twice a year (65 out of 82 people or 79%).

The problem with this discussion thread is that most of the posters here (myself included) are very active and have strong opinions but the other readers/writers on the boards should also have a say in whether the awards are eliminated or not. Since they did so in the last survey, I think it needs to stand at this time.

I suggest that we continue to have the awards twice a year and after the next awards, we have another survey to determine if people still want them with that frequency or not at all.

2) See the same survey above about the cutoff number of fics eligible. We've already discussed this and the survey, for better or worse, showed that people didn't want a fixed number of stories to choose from but rather 4 (now 3) noms for eligibility. I don't know why this needed to come up again. 80% said no fixed number of excerpts.

3) I read the excerpts most of the time (this year I was on vacation during some of that so I couldn't read all of them this time). In the categories where I did read the excerpts, I choose the story that was best, not what my friends wrote but what was best. Period.

4) I would have liked to find out if people still thought the excerpts were too long.

5) I would have liked to find out if people actually read the excerpts.

6) If it is decided at some future point to get rid of the awards, I'd say get rid of all of them, including the fun ones. Because people will get upset no matter what kind of awards they are?


Things to change or to remain the same for next time.

1) Can we have a thread afterwards for just the entertainment? I loved the ones I saw and would like them in a location where they could be easily seen again, rather than digging through all the other awards stuff. If we already do, I must have missed it somehow?

2) I thought the pacing of the awards was just right. Kudos to the volunteers on that one.

3) I liked having the awards ceremonies spread out a bit. Having all the ceremonies on one day or one weekend would be awful, imo.

4) Campaigning is not a good idea. Same with block voting. If you think that you need to push your friends to vote for you in order to win, what good is the win? It just means your friends voted for you, not that your story was the best in that category.

5) I must admit that it's taking too long for the whole awards process ? mainly because we always have a discussion afterwards. Haven't got a good idea of how to get around that, though.

6) I'm probably in the tiny minority but I like having a non-discussion one-post thread like this. Less arguing that way but I still get to give my opinion and maybe have some great ideas come out of it, too.

I'll probably think of more things later but oh well?

 

First off, I?d like to add my voice to those who think this is not a discussion. Cause they are right, this is NOT a discussion. I enjoy a good debate, that?s one reason I hang out here. Even heated debate is okay as long as people keep it professional and usually we?re pretty good about that here.

Second, I have to say I did not care for the poll last week. It only covered a few issues and it did not cover them well. I was always gritting my teeth trying to pick the answer that was least objectionable. The wording alone left a great deal to be desired. I noticed a number of folks edited their answers to try to get their point across because they didn?t like the limitations.

The mods should definitely be allowed to participate as authors. These awards are for the users, by the users and this is a chance for them to interact with the community as part of the community. They should not be penalized for having colors, especially since there are others that post in these forums that have colors. Colors come and go, the love of writing is forever.

Concerning volunteers counting their own votes, I?d have to say this is a very uncomplicated matter. I was very glad I was still allowed to participate while a volunteer, I probably would not?ve put my name out if I hadn?t been allowed to take part in one of my favorite eras. When it was time to nom and vote I simply made sure I sent in my PMs at an appropriate time to make sure a different volunteer counted them. We had systems to double check everything, making sure somebody else counted my PM covered everyone?s behind and kept everything accountable.

Volunteers not working in an era where they have something personal to lose/gain is perfectly reasonable to me. It's the best for all parties.

Campaigning. A story should not need trumping. That?s one reason we have the exerpt phase, if you story has merits then they will stand out. An author should be content to have a story win because it deserves to win, not because they got their friends to vote for their story. I?d like to point out though, saying ?go vote? or ?go participate, here?s the thread in the FFR!? is not campaigning. Campaigning is ?vote for me? or ?vote for this story?.

Finally, I?d like to say that I have always participated in the Awards but this is the first time I was a volunteer. I was very impressed with how much work the Awards are and think they were well done this year. I wouldn?t mind if they took less time but considering the amount of labor involved these days (from the sheer mass of stories) I don?t see how things could be cut down.

I question the folks who are new or who openly admit they don?t participate wanting to drastically change things. We do things the way we do because it has developed that way over history. That shouldn't be ignored.

Like dianethx, I?d like to point to the survey that we did earlier this year that had terrific participation. The vast majority of users want Awards, they want them twice per year, they don?t want the number of nominees limited and overall I think the greater part of users enjoyed this Awards season.