Rose and Bay Awards Followup Report

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

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!

jenny_evergreen for proposing the Patron category and the hardcopy certificates
siege for proposing the name "Rose and Bay"
haikujaguar for offering the black-and-white "Rose and Bay" logo
xjenavivex for handling the Poetry and Patron categories, and some other support stuff
valdary for offering several different versions of a full-color LJ icon
zyngasvryka for connecting with Dave Kirby of Ace Awards, and other promotional ideas
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.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I think splitting off webcomics might as well be considered done; there's just no reason not to.<<

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 zyngasvryka, and there wasn't enough time to pull together prize funding this year.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

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.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>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! <<

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

[jenny_evergreen]

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.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

It shouldn't be too bad, since sponsoring the award doesn't make anyone eligible for the Patron category. A pool would spread out the weight, especially if there are multiple sponsors.