Rose and Bay Awards Followup Report
Mar. 4th, 2010 08:23 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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crowdfundingThe 2010 Rose and Bay Awards for excellence in cyberfunded creativity have now concluded. Winners have been announced for Art, Fiction, Other Project and Poetry, Patron. We are currently working on the blog badges for the winners, and have plans for physical manifestations of the awards.
Special Thanks To...
These folks helped make the Rose and Bay Awards a success. Please give them a round of applause!
Also, thanks to all the folks who made nominations, to the nominees whose projects appeared in our polls, and to the voters. Participation has been enthusiastic all around. Given that Fiction and Other Project both had well over a hundred votes, and the other categories also had substantial numbers, we probably had several hundred participants even allowing for some overlap from people voting in multiple categories.jenny_evergreen for proposing the Patron category and the hardcopy certificates
Dave Kirby of Ace Awards for offering to create and donate plaques for the category winners ... ooo, shiny!
What Next?
We plan to run the Rose and Bay Awards in years to come. Some suggestions were made that we weren't able to implement this year, so we have room to grow. These include...
- Move the Rose and Bay Awards off LiveJournal to increase accessibility. (This would require having a crowdfunding hub site and/or a separate award website. It seems very useful, if such can be manifested.)
- Split off "Webcomics" as a separate category from "Other Project." (This is relatively easy to do, and would probably benefit both the webcomics and the miscellaneous projects. All it needs is a volunteer to manage it.)
- Subdivide the "Fiction" category. (Our biggest category, this is the only one whose poll had to be split across two questions. Any ideas for good ways to break this into smaller categories? Volunteers to manage them?)
- Assign a different manager for each category. (Again, easy to go, given sufficient volunteers who are not eligible for the category they wish to handle. I'll probably keep Art.)
- Offer cash and/or other prizes. (This would certainly make the winners happy, and be good publicity for the sponsors. With more time to work on this, and preferably a team of volunteers, we might manage to pull this together for next year.)
Do you have other ideas for improvements? Comment below!
You can read more about the Rose and Bay Award on the landing page.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 02:57 am (UTC)Some thoughts on the "what next" above:
Fiction was the largest category but splitting it up could be tricky. If you do it by genre you could end up with potentially ever-proliferating categories. One possibly easy split to contemplate... finished/static projects versus ones that are still ongoing? Maybe? Just a thought.
As for cash prizes, as a previous winner and in the 'crowdfunding' spirit, I'll gladly auction off a 'cameo' appearance in Daron's Guitar Chronicles (http://daron.ceciliatan.com) and donate the proceeds to the prize fund? Minimum bid $25?
As for moving off Livejournal, a dedicated site wouldn't be badd, but more than moving "off" LJ, it would be good to see Rose and Bay sprout branches on other social networking sites, like have a Facebook page, a twitter feed, etc. It's relatively easy, though, if you were to set up a dedicated word press site, to have plugins set up so every post to that site gets mirrored on Facebook, in this LJ comm, and tweeted. I'm not in a position to be able to volunteer to host such a thing, but someone out there must...?
Just some thoughts. I have no doubt next year's awards will be even more awesome!
Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-05 07:18 am (UTC)I definitely want to avoid infinite subdivision.
>> One possibly easy split to contemplate... finished/static projects versus ones that are still ongoing? Maybe? Just a thought.<<
Okay, that has potential.
>> As for cash prizes, as a previous winner and in the 'crowdfunding' spirit, I'll gladly auction off a 'cameo' appearance <<
Thank you! I'll have to find a place to track volunteer/sponsor offers.
>> As for moving off Livejournal, a dedicated site wouldn't be badd, but more than moving "off" LJ, it would be good to see Rose and Bay sprout branches on other social networking sites, like have a Facebook page, a twitter feed, etc.<<
Okay, branching out to promote the award on multiple social networks would be good. We'd need a volunteer for that, or even one per network.
>> It's relatively easy, though, if you were to set up a dedicated word press site, to have plugins set up so every post to that site gets mirrored on Facebook, in this LJ comm, and tweeted. <<
Wordpress is a possibility. A recent discussion of a crowdfunding hub site included the idea of starting with Wordpress because it's easier than hand-coding a whole site from scratch. It wouldn't do everything we'd need, but would be a step in the right direction.
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-05 09:00 am (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-05 05:49 pm (UTC)Actually, not all of it is free. There are some paid themes and crowdfunded plug-ins that are very well supported, so that if you want to pay for extra-fine service and quality, you can do that.
One of the earlier discussions about WP for our crowdfunding needs touched on that: a "hub" blog that would echo posts from all the individual project blogs connected to it. Thesis, one of the paid themes, is ideal for that. (We'd also need to be using Wordpress MU, the multi-user version.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 06:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 10:25 pm (UTC)Yes...
Date: 2010-03-06 04:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 03:58 am (UTC)In spite of that, I would be willing to pick up the project and make it when I have a bit more available time and have moved my website to its new home by the end of the semester. Likely everyone should hear back from me by mid-to-late May with a consulting questionnaire both on the part of creators and patrons.
Well...
Date: 2010-03-05 07:21 am (UTC)By all means, ping me in May. Summer is my busy season for writing, but I'll do my best to keep up with the crowdfunding stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 04:01 am (UTC)I would very much like to see another voting/judging method. I have never been a supporter of popular vote methods - they often just tell you who already HAS the fans, not the quality of the entries - and I was really appalled to see not only public results, but public results that tell who voted and for what. I actually stopped voting once I realized the results were public, and stopped asking for votes at that time, too.
I would like to see nominations lead to selection by a team of judges, personally.
Fiction could be broken into serials versus short fiction, maybe?
I'd be happy to donate a few prizes, and I can also provide hosting space, if we decide to go off-LJ.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 04:09 am (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 06:41 pm (UTC)However, I understand that not everyone is comfortable about this. I'm open to using a different voting tool next year. With luck we might have a crowdfunding hub site by then, and ideally that would be equipped with its own poll feature.
There is now a separate post for the discussion of a judged award, so anyone interested in that is encouraged to dig in.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-22 02:26 am (UTC)It also means that the nominees don't really dispute the results and the awards can't be accused of being "fixed" for the friends of the organizers, etc. if all the votes are visible. That kind of drama has damaged other awards where the results weren't transparent.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-23 10:26 pm (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 07:33 am (UTC)Popular vote is an easy place to start. I wanted something that 1) I could launch myself, and 2) would allow everyone to participate. I feel it's important at this stage of the crowdfunding movement to encourage people to get involved.
Depending on how the development of a hub site goes, if it goes, we may have other options for a voting method next year.
>> I would like to see nominations lead to selection by a team of judges, personally. <<
That would be a different kind of award. There are several variations in action, using nominations or judges hunting for stuff or a combination. To make this work, you need a handful of good judges who are experienced with the material, have time to read vast amounts of stuff, and won't degenerate into a screaming ball of hate during deliberations. It can be done, but it is not easy.
There is room in the crowdfunding field for more than one kind of award. Different awards meet different needs. Several folks raised the idea of judges, so if somebody wants to go this route, there is probably enough interest. I don't want to switch the Rose and Bay Awards to this model, though, because some people dislike judged awards. (There are pros and cons to every award model.)
>>Fiction could be broken into serials versus short fiction, maybe?<<
Ah, that's another good idea. We have two strong possibilities for fiction splits now, plus the "genre" option.
>>I'd be happy to donate a few prizes, and I can also provide hosting space, if we decide to go off-LJ.<<
Cool, thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 06:13 pm (UTC)The most important advantage to 'popular vote' is that it's easy, both for the participants and for the moderators. So it encourages people to come vote and look at the awards, and almost any other method would be more troublesome for the people tallying the results (which is already a time-consuming task, I expect). So I understand why the organizers want to stick with it.
But still: it does little to promote interest in the other nominees, and it rewards existing fanbase without commenting on the quality of unknown works.
I'm wondering if there's a way to preserve the 'anyone can participate' aspect without keeping the 'popular vote' aspect. Tossing an idea out: instead of a straight-up vote, have voters judge the nominees on a numerical scale, on several different qualities. (Qualities depending on category -- eg, for fiction: Plot, Style, Creativity, whatever). Each voter has to complete the ballot for each nominated work (or a significant fraction thereof), and each voter has to attest that they have reviewed the work.
This makes a lot more work for the voters, so you'd wind up with many fewer of them. But most of them (except those lying about it) would be ones who'd looked at all the nominees, which would be a benefit, and it would encourage voters to judge on quality rather than checking the box for whomever had pointed them in the direction of the voting page.
There might be a better way of handling it, and you'd want some spiffy back-end coding to make tallying results easy. But it is something worth considering, at least.
Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 06:45 pm (UTC)We already lost people this year because they said they didn't have time to read all the nominees and thus didn't feel it was fair to vote. I've seen other awards crash and burn when people were expected to read all the entries. I want to increase participation, not decrease it.
You might want to check out the new thread regarding a judged award.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 04:06 am (UTC)Of course, I don't see this as a really big problem right now, since it's good to know what a creator produces; not everyone in the crowd will like all kinds of stuff, but they might like some of what that person produces and seek more works by that person even if the content isn't their usual fare. :)
Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 07:35 am (UTC)Hrm, it would help if someone rummaged through the Fiction nominees to see what divisions are visible. I don't really have time for that, alas.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 07:23 am (UTC)1) I'd like to see the Rose & Bays be juried rather than be voting at large. As things stand, it's a popularity contest. Note that this is not sour grapes on my part; coming in second to Cecilia Tan is no shame. Nevertheless, the award would mean more were it juried in some fashion.
2) It needs its own website. I agree with Cecilia that the R&Bs need to reach out via Facebook/Twitter/etc too. I would offer to host it (and could provide those capabilities) but I'm sure some might consider it a conflict of interest.
Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 07:41 am (UTC)All award models have their ups and downs. Scroll up to my reply to
>>It needs its own website. <<
I agree that this would be useful. We need to find someone who can set up the website, whether that means hand-coding a fully functional one or assembling a decent stepping stone from Wordpress or whatever.
>>I would offer to host it (and could provide those capabilities) but I'm sure some might consider it a conflict of interest.<<
Can you code a site, or assemble one from available materials?
I'm less worried about conflict of interest than I am about making things happen. I thought about that, but honestly, in a small community the people will mostly know each other and the most likely ones to DO things will be the most heavily involved already. If we cut out people for involvement due to conflict of interest, we'd lose most or all of our potential workforce and nothing would ever get done. I'd prefer to avoid direct conflicts of interest, which is why I asked for someone to cover the categories I was eligible for. But I'd have done it all myself if that's what it took to launch the award.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 07:55 am (UTC)I do it all the time. I do all the programming at my own sites and at the DigitalNovelists.com cluster of sites, which I host/run. Tell me what you need.
ETA: Examples of my work, besides my own and the DN cluster:
http://www.perfoom.com/
http://www.weblit.us/
http://www.loveinidleness.com/
http://www.writersdojo.org/
Second MeiLin's offer
Date: 2010-03-05 12:03 pm (UTC)My site at www.chevenga.com is another fine example of MeiLin's work (not that I didn't have a lot of input). These sites are easy to navigate, easy to follow multiple conversations on, easy to post on, easy to spot the newest content on, clean and attractive. There is another not-so-obvious benefit in a Drupal site (that being the content management system MeiLin uses): there are a bunch of us, many of us quite busy people, who are very familiar with it, know how to use it and, once it gets going, will tweet the heck out of it. (A Facebook page someone would have to take charge of, but Twitter, I'm sure, will mostly take care of itself). As I've mentioned elsewhere, there have been discussions over at weblit.us, which is a writer-oriented site, about a reader-oriented site, which could easily be expanded into a site for all forms of crowdfunded work, though I think prose writing would dominate as it did in the awards. All that is needed to tap into that talent and enthusiasm is a site. I for one would be interested in helping plan/run it.
Re subdividing the award categories, for the "non-realistic fiction" division I suggest the term "fantastical fiction" as it covers both sf and fantasy. I also suggest opening it up to completed works which are still available online whenever they were completed, with the codicil that if a work has won, it is not eligible again. In fact if you make that a rule, you have an obvious source of judges for a juried award: previous winners who are continuing their winning works and therefore don't have eligible pieces in the category they're judging. (Though how this could be made to work for the categories with repeated short works, I'm not sure.)
Re the voting method, at the risk of sounding like I'm piling on, I think it's absolutely mandatory that it be changed. There are software methods to guarantee secret voting while simultaneously preventing repeat voting or other cheating. I know that I personally lost legitimate votes due to readers being unwilling to sign up to a LJ account or post their full names on the Internet, and I saw it with other works also. Shirley and I were at a particular disadvantage because we have many readers who like both our works but don't want to vote for one of us identifiably for fear of offending the other. Everyone who doesn't have a LiveJournal following was at an automatic disadvantage. I had one reader who was willing to vote but had to ask me for instructions and even so had a hard time--who knows how many others gave up and didn't bother. I didn't stop asking, but I was embarrassed to. To make voted awards a success we have to encourage rather than discourage voting, and that means making it easy and anonymous.
I think anonymous nomination, however, should be impossible, since even being nominated is an honour and a distinction (I plan to keep my nominee badge visible) and I suspect a person or two nominated themselves.
Having said all that, I think the first R&Bs were a resounding success. I congratulate and thank Ysabet for getting the ball rolling, as well as everyone else who contributed in some way, and anticipate a great future for the awards.
Re: Second MeiLin's offer
Date: 2010-03-07 12:46 am (UTC)That was actually one of my leading points: we need a code system that is popular, so more than one person can handle it if necessary.
>> once it gets going, will tweet the heck out of it.<<
That would be very helpful. So would a hashtag, maybe #crowdfundinghub or the like.
>>A Facebook page someone would have to take charge of<<
I checked that. A FB page requires an "official representative" of an organization to start it. A FB group can be started by anyone. I think this is a conversation of its own, which to have and what for.
>> In fact if you make that a rule, you have an obvious source of judges for a juried award: <<
Discussion for a judged award is here:
http://community.livejournal.com/crowdfunding/175923.html
>>Re the voting method, at the risk of sounding like I'm piling on, I think it's absolutely mandatory that it be changed.<<
MeiLin says Drupal comes with a polling feature. If the crowdfunding hub site manifests, then we can take a look at how its polling feature works, hopefully an improvement over the LJ polling feature.
>>To make voted awards a success we have to encourage rather than discourage voting, and that means making it easy and anonymous.<<
Easy, yes. Completely anonymous, no, because then there would be no way to keep people from voting multiple times. We could make the voter identity visible only to people managing the awards, though.
>>I think anonymous nomination, however, should be impossible, since even being nominated is an honour and a distinction (I plan to keep my nominee badge visible) and I suspect a person or two nominated themselves.<<
I agree. We need to know where the nominations are coming from. Yes, we had a very few people nominate themselves; we disqualified those nominations and reminded people that you can't nominate or vote for yourself in the R&B.
I hope that all the nominees will keep their badges! It shows that somebody really likes your stuff.
>>I think the first R&Bs were a resounding success. <<
I'm pleased too. I expected to have room for growth. I'm really enthused by how much happened just this first year!
>>I congratulate and thank Ysabet for getting the ball rolling, as well as everyone else who contributed in some way, and anticipate a great future for the awards.<<
*bow, flourish* Thank you. I had a lot of great help from people, and we should have more folks for future tasks now that we have a more detailed idea of what we need.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 03:23 pm (UTC)Ideally... I'd love to see a site where people are searchable by what they can do to help with collaboration. So, in a broad sense: writer, editor, lay-out design, reviewer, illustrator, artist. From there, you'd be able to specify genres you work in, or mediums as an artist. (Maybe genres there as well. You could also argue mediums for a writer: short fiction, flash fiction, novels, poetry.)
I'd love for the site to have a public side & a private side. The public side allows people to look for projects (& perhaps includes a home page that's magazine style for reviewing & featuring projects, as well as articles or interviews). This is the dream *I* have for a site.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 08:51 pm (UTC)Public/private: can do.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-06 07:51 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 07:04 pm (UTC)I'll see if I can find some notes from the several previous discussions of desired features. If not, I'll write it all out again and try to be more careful about saving it this time. I have a pretty thorough idea of what people have asked for. We can always ask for more input when ready for it.
Thanks everso!
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 11:37 pm (UTC)http://community.livejournal.com/crowdfunding/176355.html
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 02:53 pm (UTC)I think splitting off webcomics might as well be considered done; there's just no reason not to.
I agree that the voting needs to change from an LJ poll, which has a variety of limitations. I may make researching other voting methods a project for myself, but I'm not promising!
I do agree that we should keep Rose & Bay as a popular award rather than a juried one.
I think, assuming the award is going to continue to grow, fiction is ultimately going to end up subdivided by genre; I think sticking with your basic bookstore division is doable; Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mystery, and General would be an easy place to start. Sci-Fi & Fantasy might be a bit top heavy right now, but I think that's okay and that other genres will catch up eventually.
I may consider being responsible for a category next year; I'd take art, but since you want to keep that, maybe Webcomics? I hesitate because I don't know whether it would better if the person responsible for a category was involved in it or not; I read only a few webcomics and am actively limiting my reading because I simply don't have time. Do we want the people running categories to be well-versed in the field or ignorant of it? Or doesn't it matter?
I definitely couldn't do Patron or Other Project, as I AM a patron and I will be eligible for Other Project in the next couple of years. I hesitate to commit to Fiction or Poetry just in case I lose my mind and start writing again. :P
I think we need to be careful that the patron category, in particular, not be affected by fund raising for cash prizes, maybe keeping cash donations anonymous or something. Not that anyone involved currently would be unscrupulous, but with an eye to the long term...
Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 06:54 pm (UTC)That's likely to happen.
>>I agree that the voting needs to change from an LJ poll, which has a variety of limitations.<<
I'm open to using a different voting tool, if one becomes available. Discussions for a hub site are live again.
>> I may make researching other voting methods a project for myself, but I'm not promising! <<
I would be interested in such input, if you have time. I know that various websites have voting features, but not what the most popular ones are or how they work or what the feature options are. More information is often helpful in making good decisions.
>> I do agree that we should keep Rose & Bay as a popular award rather than a juried one.<<
There is now a thread for discussion of a judged award, if folks choose to pursue that.
>>I may consider being responsible for a category next year; I'd take art, but since you want to keep that, maybe Webcomics? I hesitate because I don't know whether it would better if the person responsible for a category was involved in it or not;<<
Ideally, I would like each category manager to be familiar with the material but not a creator of it. That's why I'm inclined to keep art for myself. But I'll look at our pool of volunteers and we can figure out who is the best fit where.
>>I think we need to be careful that the patron category, in particular, not be affected by fund raising for cash prizes, maybe keeping cash donations anonymous or something.<<
Hmm ... what problems do you foresee there? I was hoping that we could have a "wall of honor" for sponsors, although people could make anonymous donations if they wish. We could sure use an experienced money-handler, and more folks to help rustle up sponsors. So far it's just
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 07:11 pm (UTC)Mostly, I was thinking that a large donation to the prize fund from an individual could essentially buy them the Patron award, which would basically kill the award.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 08:11 pm (UTC)We'll see who we get, and who wants what. I am sure there will be plenty of work to go around!
>> Mostly, I was thinking that a large donation to the prize fund from an individual could essentially buy them the Patron award, which would basically kill the award.<<
Oh. No, donating to the R&B prize fund does not qualify you as a Patron. You have to donate to a crowdfunded project for that.
*ponder* I see two possible ways to avoid conflict of interest here. 1) Have all the sponsorships go into a general pool, which will be divided by the number of categories. This would allow everyone to donate if they wish, but would not offer control of what goes where. 2) Only allow people to donate toward categories where they are NOT eligible. This would grant control at the expense of possibly ruling out some contributions.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-05 11:26 pm (UTC)I'm sure there will be overlap!
I do think a general pool is the best option, though that still leaves the issue of affecting the patron award; however, an argument could be made that it is reasonable for it to be affected.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-03-06 04:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-10 08:12 pm (UTC)