Awards Post-Awards Discussion -- closing Friday

I'm pretty sure it would be spring next year at the earliest, then you'd do for the year, but that's nothing official and should be worked out here, when the time comes. And now, I'm asking that you PM me and Sape for anymore questions and let those who want to post their opinions on these last awards do that. Thanks.

 

I strayed pretty far away from the awards the past two times. Its not worth the stress. I think that more people want to win than write. Its taking away from the board. They cause WAY more drama than necessary. Too many people bicker about it and then its talked about for months. I think they should just be done away with. Innocent bystanders are effected by it. They are pounded with all the nominated stories and people who want to win its turns people away. Its gotten to the point where I dread award time. The time it takes is also WAY too long. If there will be an awards, once a year is sufficiant. Are we here to write or win an award? The awards are taking over the board. This is a fan fiction board, not awards board. A year and a half ago, the awards were fun. People weren't so rude. Something that creates this much tension and fighting just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I will give my 2 cents for some issues that had arose.

Campaigning- I really don't see the big deal in posting a link in your sig or fic. If you are proud that you are in it, you should be able to show it. PMs should be not be allowed, however. That is just rude.


Volunteers- I think volunteers should be allowd to be nominated. They put in a lot of work in this whole ordeal. If anything, have someone else count the votes for said volunteer's fic.

 

Note: If I say anything in this post that seems negative or offends you, I?m probably joking. That or offending you.*

*This, for example, is a joke.*

*Or is it?

Well, like several others, I wasn?t actually going to use my one post, so I thought I?d spend it being helpful. But Leona?s been so kind as to mind-trick me (), I should use my opportunity.

My credentials: None. I?ve never been a volunteer or worked in any way on the awards. So I can?t claim to know much of what goes on to make them happen, though I do know it?s a lot, so I always try to thank whichever helper happens to read my PM when sending in noms, votes, excerpts, etc. In that area, a few of these posts have been quite informative to me in how it all goes down, and I thank them for expanding my mind.

Personally, I have been nominated for the past who-knows-how-many seasons, and voted in Beyond, Saga, or both over that period of time. I haven?t won one. Does that bother me? Meh. Actually, what I really take joy in is the other stuff, like nominations. My readers let me know in a different way what they?re enjoying about my fic. They liked a character well enough to nom him/her for an award, for example. I even have some fun picking out excerpts. I enjoyed the cheezball movie a fellow user made for authors who got ?cheated? so much, I?m quite glad I didn?t win or I wouldn?t have seen it.

So maybe my growing apathy toward how the awards come out (though I still participate and love my readers for any support I get there) means my opinion has less worth. Maybe it means I have some sense of perspective. But either way, I?m a member of the fanfic community, so I?ll take any excuse to compose a lengthy manifesto.*

*See opening note.

Frequency: Once a year has its problems. Twice a year has its problems. I?ll take the former?s. Been decided, no need for debate now, so ?nuff said.

Length: The length has been getting worse, but the once-a-year will help with that. I?d agree with some of the ideas that have been presented already for shortening it, such as submitting excerpts immediately after qualifying. Providing, of course, that would be practical for volunteers.

Ceremony: I?ve tried to attend once or twice. I don?t have the time/internet speed for that. All I ask is that there be a comprehensive list of winners somewhere where I can find it afterwards, and this usually happens, so I?m happy. See?

Mod participation: Let them be users. They have some great stuff on their own right, and deserve to be recognized in awards just as much as anybody.

As for more direct involvement with the awards, I see neither harm nor foul with what they?ve done before (i.e. very little). The Overseer/Volunteer Army should be taking the brunt of the responsibilities, but there are some things they need mods for. Sock checks, I guess, and what-have-you. I?m tired of seeing mods attacked when they can?t win one way or the other. Just relax, and for Pete?s sake, CHECK FACTS. Don?t make your grandiose closing speech without some evidence to back you up. If you take that time, you?ll see it?s probably not nearly as bad as you think, and cool down in the interim.

That was a bit of a digression, but I?m glad to have it out of my system.

Campaigning: Seems straight-forward. Just never suggest anyone vote for a story. And unsolicited PMs have always been a no-no.

Nominations: I don?t know, it seems to me, particularly with the awards being annual now, that (in Beyond and Saga anyway) three nominations will lead to a lot more stories to deal with for the volunteers. It does let more get showcased in the excerpt stage, but adds to the burden on the volunteers. And it seems to me, the more excerpts, the less likely people are to read through them all. Maybe I?m underestimating people, but this could actually lead to less reading of people.

I could be wrong in my logic, but as I understand th

 

I was not nominated. I didn't end up voting (kept extremely busy with paying attention to my area & other personal business). However, I was a Beyond volunteer. So, my two cents...

Awards Frequency- A big NO to the annual instead of biannuanl awards. A) i wouldn't be able to think back that far- what would happen to the superior writing that gets forgotten because it was posted at the beginning of the eligiblity period? Though I think that happens now too, it owuld happen far more frequently otherwise.

Campaigning- I do agree with the standards put forht by the story. I don't think its right to say to "VOTE FOR THiS< ITSTHe ubER BEST LOL!!!!!!!!!!!'. However, the friend thing is where it gets murky for me- I think that you could suggest fics to your readers by saying something like "Hey, my friend BladyBlah wrote this story, and its pretty similar to this one. It hought you guys might like it" and posting it in your story's thread. I don't think its wrong to say that a story was nominated in the title line or in the posts, because it keeps those who don't particpate in Resource in the loop. But campaigning is still one of the fuzzier areas.

Parodies- This happened in my era, and I was privy to some of what whent on. Basically, a story check was going on, and it was a parody. The volunteer wasn't sure if it should be eligible for the catagory, so they checked with our host. Our host wasn't sure either, so checked with our lovely Oversear. It was then checked with the mods, as no one was sure. The line had to be drawn quickly to make the decision- eligible or not? We didn't have time to ask users without causing even more drama. It caused enough on its own. Frankly, the line seems drawn very short to me- I don't personally agree with the new guideline. But its a fuzzy thing too.

Nominations- I know that three nominations in everything didn't win, but I thought the four system was better. I coded for excerpts and counted votes. If there had only been three noms needed, the lists would have been even bigger than they were when we got them, which had quite a few in a catagory anyway. i think the only one where three should be strongly considered is Before, as the readership just isn't as large, and neither are the amounts of stories.

Length- Ok. I put my name is as a volunteer 6/5. Luna nontified me I was a volunteer 6/11. I proably would have started working (other Steel-Blue Squadron- when did you nom counters start?) soon after to count noms. I started working 6/28. Our awards ceremony was 7/29. Somebody tell me how that is too long a timeframe. The actual process has been slimmed down to two months. Yes, we have post award discussion, which could be shortened. do I think it could happen even faster and better? Yes! Do I think it takes up way too much time now? Almost, but not quite.

Oh, and mods most definatly should have eligiblilty, as should volunteers. With all the counts that go on, it would be caught if a story got too many noms than actually happened.

My two cents.

 

Since I didn't nominate or vote in the last awards, I really wasn't sure if I wanted to add my 2 cents here. And I've never been involved as a volunteer, so I can't add any perspective there. Just keep that in mind. That said, and I'm going to be honest here, I'm more disgusted than ever with the awards. Or rather, with the drama that just keeps springing up.

Last time, I posted a much more kindly message in the post awards thread. But it's another season, and yes, things change. Back then, I felt that if people got something, some sort of validation from the awards, well, more power to them. It wasn't my place to remind them what they should already know, that this is only a message board, and there are no real Golden Yodas. And let's face it, it's nice to get some indication that something you wrote, that you created, reached people. That they got it, liked it, and showed that through nominating it.

Now?

I've lurked through some of the discussions around this awards, whether about campaigning or I don't know what else, and if the awards were ended, right here, right now, or even put on what I'm beginning to think is a much needed hiatus, I would be relieved. I don't think this is going to happen, though.

I think making the awards an annual affair is good. I approve totally and entirely. No questions or compaints here. Only time will tell how much of a difference it will make.

Okay, the issues:

Campaigning:

This was such a foregone conclusion, I honestly do not know why a survey was needed to make a decision there. But people wanted a rule, and now they have it.

Even if it was a rule I think they all already knew.

I think it does tie into the larger issue of the fact people want their stories to stand out and be read amongst the hundreds and hundreds of stories that are posted, and they have limited ways to try to attract people. We all know that taking out the cane and the pink fuzzy hat and pimping one's story is not allowed. Of course, I hate publicity and have no talent for it, so I'm not even tempted. And if campaigning, and advertising, were allowed, it would be an unending, virtual roar of READ THIS! VOTE FOR THIS! READ THIS! PLZ READ THIS! I know that.

Nominations: So we're back to three, and I can see why. The problem with four nominations is that there just wasn't enough variety in the stories making it to the voting round. The popular stories will always win; that's just how it is, in real awards and virtual ones and fakes ones, and I have no illusions about that. But lesser read stories should at least have a chance to be voted for.

Parodies: If they're funny, they're humor. If they're short, they're vignettes. If they're not so short, they're short stories. Makes sense to me.

Other:

Personally, I wanted the excerpts to be shorter, and again, I'm not just saying that because I had the shortest excerpt in the Saga thread for the last Winter awards. I still think they should be shorter, but oh well.

The mods are users first, and there is just no reason they shouldn't participate in the awards. Really, for me this is a nonissue.

And that is all I have to say concerning this matter.

 

I'll make this brief since we're probably moving on from this soon.

First off, I don't think this really qualifies as a "discussion", nor do I see anything particularly hysterical about saying that? certainly not the point of misspellings punctuated by a lot of 1's and exclamation points.

Ceremony Pace: I thought it went really well in all three ceremonies this time.

Awards Length: Yes, the awards are taking too long and there are probably a lot of places we can trim time off, particularly in the beginning. Maybe it won't seem as bad now that the awards are going to be a once a year thing.

Excerpt Length: Seemed about right.

Survey: Questions didn't seem very well thought out, some of the answers didn't even correspond with them to make a coherrent statement. For instance, on question 6 it was possible to have your answer read "Song Parodies author's choice"? doesn't exactly make a lot of sense.

It also makes a lot more sense to do the survey after a discussion, since the survey didn't really seem to cover the areas that needed to be addressed.

Overseer: Should not be a mod, as was agreed on when the position was created. I was disappointed to see how quickly rules were disregarded.

Mod Eligibility: I can't think of any reason why the mods shouldn't be able to participate as they have. They're users first, of course. And I really doubt the people voting here are so simpleminded that they're somehow hypnotized into voting for moderators because their names are in colors.

About the only advantage I could imagine moderators having on the fanfic boards is that it might be slighly easier to get people to click on their stories because their names jump off the page at you? getting people to actually read the story though, is completely done by their writing itself. It's really just a minor perk to an otherwise thankless job, I think, and I can't imagine it has any impact on the outcome of the awards.

Parodies: I really can't tell the difference between a song or poem parody and a regular poem for the purposes of their display on these boards. How would someone even know it was a parody if they weren't told so by the author or didn't recognize the source being parodied?

If anyone knows, please PM me. I won't hold my breath on that though...

Nominations: I don't see any harm in acknowledging that there are simply fewer users/voters/writers/readers in Before the Saga than the two other eras and setting the number of qualifing nominations accordingly. It's not as if we couldn't change it again should there be a shift one way or another in the demographics. Setting the number of nominations to qualify to 3 in Before and 4 in Saga and Beyond, makes perfect sense to me.


Rules and Story Eligibility: I don't think either of these should be changed/made-up as the awards are going along. It was happening quite a bit behind the scenes and I don't think it's appropriate.

Categories: Seems like we've got those right now.

Summation: Well, this thread is probably going to be put on the backburner for awhile now, but that's okay. If nothing else, it's given us a really good idea of what sort of leadership we have here in fan fiction, especially on page 2.

 

Please note, most of these opinions will be coming from a volunteer's point of view.

Volunteers: To not let volunteers be able to participate in an era in which they're nominated is going to dreadfully limit the people available to work. I had a hard enough time finding people to work in Saga without this restriction; to limit it further is going to make things quite difficult.

Nominations: Again, coming from a volunteer's standpoint here. It took me six hours to send out all the PM notifications to the nominated authors about what awards they were nominated for. Don't get me wrong, I know this was part of the job. But to add to that the greater number excerpts we have to deal with, it is going to be a lot more work. As a reader and voter, it was a chore to get through all the excerpts in order to see who I would vote for with those who only get three nominations. With four, it was much better on my eyes and brain. And I'm curious for those in Beyond and Saga as to why they would want to move it back to three. Were authors displeased that they did not get as many nominations as they had before? I sincerely hope that is not the case. Winter awards I had around ten nominations; this summer I had one. Was I offended? No. I realize there is better authors out there than me. Could I have had more nominations if the magic number was three instead of four? Possibly, but the users said I wasn't the best out there for that area. It's not an insult; it's a recognition of the talent we have around here.

Overseer: I was not comfortable with the fact that she did become a mod during the process. I was difficult to discern at times which hat she was wearing. I also would like to recommend that if a person knows they will be gone for a period of time when they are asked to be put into a place of leadership (overseer or host) that they decline the invitation, or don't even volunteer for that position at all.

Excerpt Length: Honestly I'm indifferent. If the community thinks it will be better to have them be shorter, then let them be shorter.

Mod Eligibility: The reason the mods have been winners is not because they have colors associated with their names; it is because they are talented at writing fanfiction. They are users and their stories should be allowed to participate in the awards.

Length of the Process: It's honestly shorter than you may think. The extended portion at the beginning is getting people in place to run the show. For the majority of the users around here, it does not involve them. The post-awards activities could have been moved along faster. To not have public threads open about the awards until two weeks after the last award show ended was much too long. But that's why we have this post-awards analysis--to improve.

Private Boards: As one who participated in them, I can assure nothing happened other than organizing who would count votes/noms when and questions about eligibility. Nothing more.

Survey: The questions were not well thought out and could have been better organized and phrased. It would have also been better to have input from everyone and not just the volunteers to see what issues need to be voted upon. The more perspectives you have on something, the better off you will be.






All in all, I am sickened and heart-broken with the way things have turned. Even as a host, I did not encounter the level of drama some people think is going on. And to see people be insulted and mocked for doing what they were asked to do with logic, rationale, and calm is infuriating and hurtful. As a result, the community's wishes are no longer in effect with regards of having the awards twice a year, which is a shame. I worked my butt off this summer, and it was worth the all-nighters and headaches from looking at a computer too long to showcase the best and the brightest we have to offer.

 

I thought the awards went well. Everything seemed to run smoothly which told me a lot of people were working their butts off to make it look that way. To those people I say thanks.

Most of the issues that were addressed in the last survey seemed to have worked, the only one being brought up again seems to be the number of nominations.

Personally I say that if you get enough people to question a topic only then would it need to be readressed. That's what was done here. And it was addressed via survey.

I see no need to have a discussion of what needs to go into the survey, then have the survey, and then discuss what was on it. That to me is defeats the purpose of the survey in the first place, which was created because of the inability to discuss amicably what we all thought was wrong with the awards process.

Whether users write their words with the best intentions or to be snide, it doesn't matter. We can not control how others take what we've written on the screen. So many times I think that is the cause of hurt feelings or anger at replies on those threads. And sooner or later, but for sure, it will get ugly and the converstation/discussion/debate will have to be ended.

This survey plus a one post discussion (and I'm using that word until I can find another that comes close to what can be done together) is what will work best for the moment.

There's no saying that could ever change mind you.

I thought the survey addressed the issues that were brought up during the awards process. The Overseer and hosts should be made aware if there are any questions/issues. If they receive no PM's on a certain subject then they should presume that it's not an issue, therefore not including it in the survey.

Those issues in this survey I will state my comments as allowed:

Campaigning: Personally I wouldn't do it. But if some users are offended by it, then by all means ask everyone and let the majority's wants become a rule.

Parodies: This is an issue that I personally feel responsible for since last awards I was most likely the one to create the bandwagon that others jumped on and got a fic nominated and qualified, which I thought was a crossover and now see was actually a parody.

I couldn't change the past but understand that just because something that was wrong happened the last time, doesn't make it right to repeat the mistake. I think the hosts/overseer/mods did the right thing.

But I do admit that since a parody is similar to a crossover, bringing SW together with another Forum (is that the word?) another question could have been: Do we want to combine them to make the category Best Crossover/Parody. It would certainly bring more to the category, especially when in maybe a year there aren't that many of each.

It's just a thought.

Volunteers: I personally voted that they should be able to be nominated in the era they worked. There's probably checks and balances anyway to alleviate mistakes so if a volunteer tried to pull something with the noms/votes, it would be caught by another. But that's only my opinion and I'm not in the majority so it's not becoming a rule. Again, that is fine with me since I'm all for what is what everyone wants.

Items brought up here:

Timing of Awards: I am saddened to see that the awards are going to be once a year. It's a shame that something that is fun, can be fun for everyone if they just took it for what it was, a social function where we can hang out, watch some great entertainment, and see great stories get recognized, be slimmed back because we can't agree to disagree.

Letting people know that they were coming was a good thing. I for one used that time, mere minutes each day, to go back to the things I've read in hopes of choosing what I want to nominate. We only get one nomination/vote in each category. And that's not an easy thing to decide on.

Lenght of Awards: And I didn't think it took 4 months. At least it didn't feel like it. But then if you dread something, then it will feel like fore

 

Volunteers: I disagree with the new rule, from a former host perspective. There is such a system of checks and balances?the volunteers count, the host counts and recounts multiple times, the overseer recounts at the end?that a restriction that will only limit available volunteers seems redundant. It makes it unnecessarily difficult for the people actually doing the work.

Nominations: The awards are about showcasing pieces of fanfic and creating a better sense of community. They are not about volunteer workload or the length of time it takes to read excerpts. Participating in the awards should not be considered a dreaded chore. It is supposed to be enjoyable and community-building, and the only way to do that is to allow more people to feel recognized. I am keenly aware of how long it takes to go through those nominations, place those excerpts, read those excerpts, etc. However, placing more restrictions on how the whole community gets to enjoy the awards--especially those with a smaller reader base?for the sake of time seems to cheapen our supposed ideal of community building. I think the community is worth my time once a year in that capacity, if that is my only way of giving back.

End story: yay for 3 noms. It is all about recognition.


Overseer: On the rare occasions I actually spoke with our overseer, she only acted as overseer. She never used her modship out of context. It was, I suppose, an unavoidable and unfortunate situation, but I didn?t see it as bad as it sounds.

Mod Eligibility: The colors are not hypnotic. Mods win stories because they deserve to win. With all the things they must do for us, they should be able to enjoy themselves as part of this community they?re leading. They are part of the community. I think we forget that sometimes.

Private Boards: Nothing clandestine went on there. Asking us to do the awards without an easily-accessible-for-all secret forum is like asking us to run a conference without the benefit of a room. It is physically impossible. Things happen there that the general community does not need to know. They aren?t bad. It is just that discussions of which volunteer will be filling in for the one going out for dinner tonight is not something that the rest of the community really needs to see.

My final thoughts:

I feel that we are losing sight of the enjoyment of this process. It is truly a joy. If we can?t laugh at it and ourselves, we are taking it far too seriously. Even people on the red carpet of the Oscars laugh at the spectacle and the energy that comes both before and after them. I love the awards. I love the craziness at the awards shows, the rush of adrenaline I get seeing friends nominated, joy at seeing my name up there. I love the fact that some of my best friends here I would not have even met without the awards. I even enjoy seeing the community come together in post awards discussions. But I think that, especially in light of the recent events, we have shifted away from that joy into something? less fun, and this grieves me.

I am reservedly happy to see the awards once a year. That decision came from season after season of awards, and not because of a few posts. I commend them for making a hard decision that may help us restructure the process into something better for the community as a whole. While I wish we could continue to hold them twice a year, I feel that the community should only have to go through the turmoil of improving the awards once a year. We should spend the rest of the time enjoying what we actually came here for--writing.

I look forward to participating as a member of the community in the next round of awards, however they are formed.

 

Okay, here are my thoughts.

Things That Went Well

** The ceremonies had great pacing. Some of the best ever, IMO. Kudos to the hosts for carrying them off so smoothly.

** The list of categories has been working great.

** Excerpt length is good, too.


Things That Could Be Improved

** Have the survey after the discussion. Issues like campaigning could have been clarified quite a bit more before options for the survey were written.

** Compress the timeline a bit more by announcing the schedule well in advance. For example, if people have four weeks advance notice of when the nominating round will be, then the nomination period itself wouldn?t have to be as long because people could begin working on their noms for that time. This could also allow the excerpts to be up for longer before the voting round starts, but shorten the voting period itself.

** Don?t change rules, or make up new ones, in midstream. Nobody would think it makes any sense to change the word cutoff between short story and epic after nominations have already started. It doesn?t make sense to change the definition of poem or songfic, all around or vignette, or anything else that way, either.

Other Comments

** The survey showed pretty definitively that for stories to advance to the voting round, people wanted either 4 noms in all era or 3 Before / 4 Saga Beyond. I hope the overseer next summer has the sense to implement that rule.

** Of course the mods should be eligible for awards. They?re users like everyone else. They also should conform to ordinary expectations about conflicts of interest. Every day, organizations and businesses make sure that people who have a personal stake in the outcome of a decision don?t participate in making that decision. Not because any given person actually would act without integrity, but to prevent even the appearance of impropriety. Conflict of interest principles protect everyone involved ? the people affected by the decision don?t have to wonder if the process is actually fair, and the person excused from the decision doesn?t have to worry about being falsely accused of misconduct. Of course, the less the mods are involved in the day to day running of the awards, the less likely it is anything would come up they?d need to excuse themselves from anyway. But if the mods are going to be heavily involved in awards policies, then they have an obligation not to participate in making any decision in which they have a personal stake, such as eligibility criteria in a category they?re competing in or sock checks in an era they?re up in.

** I don?t think anyone suggested actually picking the next overseer now. The suggestion was to pick the time for selecting the next overseer. For example, if the next awards are going to be in August ?07, perhaps the overseer could be picked around June 1st. That would allow plenty of time for the overseer to select the hosts, and then the overseer and hosts to find all their volunteers and get the schedule and logistics arranged in plenty of time for noms to open around August 1st.

** For me, the issue isn?t that there were private boards for the awards volunteers. They need a place to discuss issues. What did trouble me, however, is the notion that these volunteers were affirmatively told that discussions were not to be talked about with anyone outside the awards process. This was the case both in the last WFFA and this SFFA; it was not the case in previous awards when emails and offsite boards were used for volunteer coordination. The idea that there should be a blue wall of silence, IMO, is just ridiculous. The awards volunteer boards aren?t the mod squad. There?s nothing like the same privacy and security considerations at stake. To be clear, I?m not saying that the volunteer?s discussions need to be automatically open for all to see. But intimidating volunteers into thinking that decisions about the awards process are Top Secret / Eyes Only simply goes to further the impression that there a

 

A lot has been said on most of the issues raised in this thread, so I'll just add a few thoughts.


Campaigning: An author shouldn't campaign in his own story thread. That's obvious. And I would hope that readers know better than to campaign for stories they like. It's nice to have a concrete rule though.

About the block voting: I was amused to see many people making a big deal about this, especially since it won't really solve anything because a lot of people do it anyway, even if they don't say so outright. Other than a select few, most people are lazy and don't want to read through all the noms (as so many people admitted during the last awards cycle), or they want their friends to win. It's what happens when people polarize on the boards. It's certainly not honest, but that's how it is in an election/nomination of any kind (and the awards are a type of election in a broad sense).

Sometimes, that can't be helped. Most authors don't have control over who their readers vote for, or in what manner they do so, but there are more flagrant examples of obvious block voting. It's not excusable even if it is human nature.

Though I appreciate the effort, I don't see how much can be accomplished in this matter since most campaigning is off site anyway.


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.

This made me scratch my head because if you can't trust a volunteer with his own votes, how can you trust him with the votes of his friends? If votes are double or triple checked or whatever, then what does it matter if a volunteer counts his own votes?


Nominations: I never was a big fan of four nominations because it would hurt the chances of less well-known stories to qualify, so I'm glad to see it go back down to three. Four noms was supposed to make excerpt reading easier, except it didn't.


Mod people: Of course they should participate. They're first and foremost fanfic writers and readers.


Private boards: Some issues during the awards don't need to be made public. It might cause more drama or dissention (such as if the volunteers make a decision on an issue that a writer might not like). I say keep them private.


And YAY!!! Awards only once a year (though I wouldn't have minded if they'd been cut entirely) is by far the best news I've heard on the boards for a long time. The process of writing should be the biggest reward and accomplishment - awards cheapen the process by putting a price on it, in my opinion.

 

I would prefer ditching the awards entirely, as has been mentioned by a few others, and instead having regular showcases of fics. Cut the number of categories drastically, and leave one "underrated" type ofcategory in. The top two, the two that got the most noms, in each category would then be showcased with excerpts and a few short reviews from other readers. Keep it simple. Once a fic is showcased, that particular fic can't be again, although sequels and prequels can.

That, IMHO, would make it easier, and take some of the "competition" out of it and bring it back to what it should be - recognizing good fics. Not so much the ones that happen to have a length or pairing or writer people like the best. That will affect the results, sure, but I think it would affect them less.

Campaigning is annoying, but it's true that a lot of it goes on elsewhere, so it's not like it's going to make a big difference if people can post it here or not.

I opted out this time, because it was just too much headache especially with me moving in July, and it makes me feel like I'm not contributing enough to the forums when the awards come around, because I'm not one of the top names that wins. I don't mind the not winning part so much (or I wouldn't have simply withdrawn) but I do mind the awards-are-everything attitude that I see a lot. No, it's not everything. It's about having fun, improving one's writing, and enjoying other fics. That's why I maintain a character index - not the same prestige as an award, but having a fic listed in a specific index does help people find it and might draw in more readers.

I'm all for recognition and reward, but popularity contests reminiscient of junior high (no offense to any of our writers/readers actually in middle school... but I think you'll agree that SOME people there can be rather immature) leads to junior-high behavior. And that's not good for the board and tends to make the fic forums less fun for others.

Edit: Grammar

 

Thank you to everyone who has participated. The new thread will be opening shortly, and it is more than one post. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in there or PM me