Rose and Bay Awards Followup Report

The 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!

[info]jenny_evergreen for proposing the Patron category and the hardcopy certificates
[info]siege for proposing the name "Rose and Bay"
[info]haikujaguar for offering the black-and-white "Rose and Bay" logo
[info]xjenavivex for handling the Poetry and Patron categories, and some other support stuff
[info]valdary for offering several different versions of a full-color LJ icon
[info]zyngasvryka for connecting with Dave Kirby of Ace Awards, and other promotional ideas
[info]karen_wehrstein for connecting with Dave Kirby of Ace Awards, colorizing the black-and-white logo, and making the award badges
Dave Kirby of Ace Awards for offering to create and donate plaques for the category winners ... ooo, shiny!
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.


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.

jenny_evergreen: (Default)

[personal profile] jenny_evergreen 2010-03-05 02:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for the thank you! :) I'm glad to be involved.

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...
jenny_evergreen: (Default)

Re: Thoughts

[personal profile] jenny_evergreen 2010-03-05 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay, with that in mind, I am probably most familiar with art and poetry comes in second to that, so just let me know. I'm content not to be responsible for anything if someone else prefers to do it! :)

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.
jenny_evergreen: (Default)

Re: Thoughts

[personal profile] jenny_evergreen 2010-03-05 11:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sure! *laugh*

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.