...and Ysabet's point re conflict of interest. If you want to get something done, ask someone busy, and that means hitting up the people in the field who are active. While we're this small, there's no way around it.
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.
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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.