2011 Rose & Bay Awards Followup Report & Discussion

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

The 2011 Rose and Bay Awards for excellence in cyberfunded creativity have now concluded.  Winners have been announced for Art, Fiction, Poetry, Webcomic, Other Project, and Patron.  We are currently working on the certificates for winners.  You can read more about this project on the 2011 Rose & Bay Awards landing page.


Special Thanks To...

These folks helped make the Rose and Bay Awards a success.  Please give them a round of applause!

eseme for managing the Fiction category.
xjenavivex for managing the Poetry, Other Project, and Patron categories.
itew for helping with the Art category.
karen_wehrstein for updating the Nominee badges.

Continued thanks to haikujaguar for the original logo art and to karen_wehrstein for the general icon, button, and banner art.

Also, thanks to all the folks who made nominations, to everyone who linked and talked about the awards, to the nominees whose projects appeared in our polls, and to the voters.  Participation has been enthusiastic all around.  Given that Fiction and Webcomic both had well over two hundred votes, and the other categories also had substantial numbers, we probably had 500 or more participants even allowing for some overlap from people voting in multiple categories.


What was new this year?

The Rose & Bay Awards launched in 2010. After the voting period ended, we held a discussion about possible improvements. Here's what we managed...

• Split off "Webcomics" as a separate category from "Other Project."  (This worked beautifully.  It gave Webcomics a chance to compete only against each other, had enthusiastic participation, and left Other Project free for things like music and movies.)


• Assign a different manager for each category. (We didn't get all the way to one manager/one category, but we did start with 4 managers for 6 categories. If this is still important to you folks, think about volunteering to manage a category next year. All we really need to meet this goal fully is personnel.)


• The Fiction category had non-transparent polling, based on that manager's preference.

What would we like to change for next year?

Some goals requested last year did not make it to manifestation in 2011. We'd like to keep trying.

• 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. Lots of people want this, and we've been trying to do a hub site for several years now, so far with little progress.)


• Subdivide the "Fiction" category.  (One of our biggest categories, this is the only one whose poll had to be split across two questions and then required a runoff.  Any ideas for good ways to break this into smaller categories? The subcategories would have to be easy to determine AND reflect the actual nominations; starting arguments over what belongs where is counterproductive and just peeling off a few items won't help.)


• Offer cash and/or other prizes.  (This would certainly make the winners happy, and be good publicity for the sponsors.  It would require one or more volunteers, preferably people who already have some kind of fundraising experience.)

Further Discussion

What did you like about this year's Rose & Bay award season?
Did you encounter any problems, and if so, do you have ideas for fixing them?
What do you think would improve the Rose & Bay Awards?
Do you have any expertise to offer for making next year's season even better?
Are there any other issues relating to the Rose & Bay Awards that you'd like to discuss?

Please refer other interested folks back to this discussion. The more input and ideas we get, the better our chances of making next year even better than this year.

Comments

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

*applause* A lot of work went into this, and congratulations to all the winners.

I have many thoughts...

I would like to see all non-transparent voting. I find it very awkward to vote publicly when I know so many of the nominees.

I suggest long and short fiction as the breaks in those categories. I further suggest that short fiction should encompass both short stories and poetry - there were only 4 nominations in poetry, which isn't comparable to the other categories. Long fiction can cover serials and novels.

I'd like to see discussion of divination as a category - I know a lot of people who do that.

Organization - it was very awkward having the final polls split up over several posts over several days. I honestly don't see any reason that one person can't post one poll that covers all the categories. I don't see any conflict of interest in a person who is nominated creating a poll that they can't manipulate after posting.

Please, please when creating the poll(s), have a link to the nominations, preferably individually, or copy-paste in the information from the nomination. alexandraerin's round-up post (http://community.livejournal.com/crowdfunding/263676.html) was very useful, and I'd like to see the poll (singular) laid out something like that.

Repeats - do we have anything in place to keep someone from winning year after year after year? Do we want something?

Could we get a forward-dated entry at the top of the crowdfunding community that links to the various entries? At the least, update the 'landing page' with links to the nomination and poll entries when they are added. It was not a useful landing page for actually getting to those places.

Better streamlining of the information presented in the voting and nomination posts would be very useful. It was a pretty off-putting block of text in each one - I got serious eye-glazing.

I would be willing to donate prizes and hosting for a private site.

I want to see other, more specific categories, including: best webpage, most creative crowdfunding method. Also, possibly best one-time fundraiser (as opposed to on-going projects) or best 'new' project.

Those are my copious thoughts for now. I may have more.

[aldersprig.livejournal.com]

You covered most of my thoughts already.

*Repeats, yes, please, as said by Bovidae below,

*Non-transparent voting, yes, please; I didn't vote in categories where there was transparent voting and I was friends with more than one nominee.

*Off-LJ site, yes, please x100; I heard the most complaint about this of anything

*Less wall-of-text voting polls; the rules were lost in the text.

*More categories, I agree.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> Repeats, yes, please, as said by Bovidae below, <<

I'll try to set a poll for this after the discussion. Meanwhile, what kind of changes would you like to see here? That should be discussed to determine what kind of options should go into the poll.

>> Non-transparent voting <<

Also headed for a poll.

>> Off-LJ site, yes, please x100; I heard the most complaint about this of anything <<

I'd be utterly thrilled by this. We have an offer of hosting space. I have site design notes for features that people want. What we do not have is a site developer who can write the necessary code. That's been the sticking point for years.

>> Less wall-of-text voting polls; the rules were lost in the text. <<

Other folks are welcome to make a try at streamlining the text.

>> More categories, I agree. <<

More categories = more work. We have yet to find enough volunteers to cover the categories we already have; people still had to double up. The place where it makes the most sense to add categories is where one is so large that subdividing it would make the material easier to handle. So for instance, we're trying to figure out if there's a way to do that for Fiction.

Re: Thoughts

[zeeth_kyrah]

What we do not have is a site developer who can write the necessary code. That's been the sticking point for years.

Perhaps just shop around for quotes, and put it on Kickstarter once we get a firm idea of the cost -- and then hire the developer once we get funded.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

That's a possibility, although it would require a knowledgeable person to gather the quotes. We do have one person, ellenmillion, potentially willing to code the site on a crowdfunded basis.

It might be preferable to use IndieGoGo, which allows partial fundraising, rather than Kickstarter which only pays off if the goal is met. With IndieGoGo, we could stack goals; frex, $XXX would fund the core of the site, $YYY would add a forum, and so on with other features. We could prioritize from the most vital features to bells & whistles that people had requested, and see how much folks are actually willing to pony up for.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> I would like to see all non-transparent voting. <<

Enough people have asked about this that I'm willing to put it to a poll.

>> I suggest long and short fiction as the breaks in those categories.<<

If I have time, I'll try to check the fiction nominees and see if this would have made an appreciable difference. I suspect they're almost all webserials though (which would count as long). Or if someone else has time to check this, that would be very helpful.

>> I further suggest that short fiction should encompass both short stories and poetry <<

I'm not keen on this, as poetry is very different from fiction. Also there are more poetry projects emerging as more people get inspired -- I've seen a couple new ones this year already. Bear in mind that we have 2 huge categories (Fiction and Webcomics) and then everything else which is much lower traffic.

>> I'd like to see discussion of divination as a category - I know a lot of people who do that. <<

Regarding category subdivision, I prefer to keep the number of categories as small as possible for sake of low workload. Divisions are primarily justified by a current category overflowing to the point where a break would make the material easier to manage.

>> Organization - it was very awkward having the final polls split up over several posts over several days. I honestly don't see any reason that one person can't post one poll that covers all the categories.<<

Two reasons off the top of my head:

1) Such a post would be large to the point of unweildy, thus more likely to crash and more likely to scare people away.

2) It would also be a massive amount of work.

>> Please, please when creating the poll(s), have a link to the nominations, preferably individually, or copy-paste in the information from the nomination. <<

I found the concept useful, so if a volunteer is interested in organizing such a post, that would be welcome.

This year's version, alas, drew many complaints about tone (not all of those directed to me; other category managers got them too and told me about them).

>> Repeats - do we have anything in place to keep someone from winning year after year after year? Do we want something? <<

This can be referred to a poll also, as it's come up a few times. At this stage, discussion of possible options would be welcome. Two that leap readily to mind are:

* A project that wins one year may not run the following year in the same category.

* A project that wins two years consecutively may not run the following year in the same category.

I would still prefer to record nominations and let the project have the Nominee badge for that year, to avoid stifling audience expression -- but I'd let the nominator make another nomination since that one couldn't go into the voting.

>> Could we get a forward-dated entry at the top of the crowdfunding community that links to the various entries? <<

I hate those things. They drive me nuts.

>> At the least, update the 'landing page' with links to the nomination and poll entries when they are added. It was not a useful landing page for actually getting to those places. <<

I will try to find time for this. If someone else wants to volunteer to run the landing page next year, that would be spiffy.

>>Better streamlining of the information presented in the voting and nomination posts would be very useful.<<

Someone else would definitely have to draft an alternative there. I've already done my best at it, and while I keep tweaking various award documents, they're getting longer not shorter.

>> I would be willing to donate prizes and hosting for a private site. <<

W00T! This will be awesome if we can find people to handle prize management and site coding.

Re: Thoughts

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

W00T! This will be awesome if we can find people to handle prize management and site coding.

I would actually be willing to do the site coding, but not for free. I would be willing to crowdfund it like I have the Sketch Fest site. It would come after the commission-control site, but I would definitely be able to get to it (if the funds are raised!) before next year's awards. It would solve a lot of the issues I've raised.

I'm not keen on this, as poetry is very different from fiction.

I could argue that we see a wider difference within the art category and definitely within the other category... but I won't. :P

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I would actually be willing to do the site coding, but not for free. I would be willing to crowdfund it like I have the Sketch Fest site. It would come after the commission-control site, but I would definitely be able to get to it (if the funds are raised!) before next year's awards.<<

Yay! I'd be happy to discuss this as an option. I had previously thought about crowdfunding a hub site but, again, a webcoder was the missing ingredient. I'll email you my noted collated from previous discussions; that might help you estimate a crowdfunding target.

>> It would solve a lot of the issues I've raised. <<

A separate crowdfunding hub site would solve issues that many people have raised!

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I don't think that moving the poll off of LiveJournal is a good idea unless it's moving to a crowdfunding hub site (which is a popular idea, just challenging to achieve). Our core audience is on LJ. Driving cross-site traffic is HARD.

>>I like the idea of preventing projects from winning twice in a row, as well.<<

This is intended for a poll. Detailed discussion of proposed changes is encouraged meanwhile, to determine what options should be offered in the poll.

Re: Thoughts

[eseme]

Wait, our core audience is on LJ?

In the Fiction category alone, our audience is spread out between the following:

Top Web Fiction - a voting site

Web Fiction Guide - a review site

EpiGuide - a forum

ScifiMatter.com - a general science fiction and fantasy link site, with a section for online writing

Muse's Success - a web fiction wiki

Blog Fiction Forums - a forum

Ergofiction - an e-zine for webfiction

Digital Novelists - a site that hosts web fiction by multiple authors


As well as Twitter, Facebook, Dreamwidth, and each author's individual site. Most of the nominated projects in fiction were hosted off of LJ, and of the authors who had LJ accounts, the accounts were typically used rarely.

I would say that LJ is but one part of our audience.

[bovidae.livejournal.com]

One suggestion off the top of my head: is there a rule yet that a given year's winner cannot be re-nominated the next year? (For one year or maybe two-three years, depending on what people think). Now that we know the R&Bs are here to stay, I think such a rule would help some of the lesser known projects and/or new projects have a fighting chance against long-established popular ones. Nothing wrong with being popular! I just don't want to see the same one or two projects winning their category year after year without a break for new stuff.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

This has been requested repeatedly and I'll try to post a poll on it after the initial discussion. Right now I'd like to hear refinements on this issue. What specific options would people like to consider?

Re: Well...

[aldersprig.livejournal.com]

My thought -

A one- or two-year "break:" if you won in X category in 2011, you cannot win that category in 2012 [or 2013, possibly].

Re: Well...

[bovidae.livejournal.com]

I think a set but not infinite/unlimited time period where a previous winner cannot be reconsidered would be the best compromise. After all, if a project does continue over many years anad continues to be popular over that timespan - yes, we should be able to vote for them again to acknowledge that! I think a simple one-year disbarring after a project wins would be the easiest way to do that, and then in the future it could be re-visited if needed.

In my mind, this would be one a per individual story/project/site/patron basis. Other works by an author, cartoonist, composer, etc. would be still be eligible. I.e. if Author X writes story A & story B, and story A wins, then it is specifically story A that is ineligible for the next year, but story B could still be nominated.

My thoughts on it, anyway.

[eseme]

I also did not vote in categories where I knew or had some contact with more than one nominee, other than fiction, which had anonymous voting. It is very awkward having your vote visible to anyone and everyone, and visible as long as the poll exists, which can be years.

I think more communication among the staff members would be helpful. Had I known when the artwork would be made available, I would have held off on my first email to all 18 fiction nominees. As it was, I sent out a huge number of emails and LJ messages, and then literally four hours later learned that I was supposed to do it all again to tell them about the Rose and Bay artwork. Needless to say, I didn't repeat the emails for a week.

I really hope the awards can move to another site next year. That was the comment I heard the most - I had one person email me their vote who also included a vote in another category. I had to reply that other categories required votes on LJ. Another person private LJ messaged me that they had trouble figuring out LJ and polls.

I can help with cutting down the poll-post text, although that would also be simplified next year if the awards move off LJ. We could have a main page for the awards with their history, and info about how people can help. Then each poll can simply have the four rules at the top of it. I will note, however, that removing the Wall 'O Text is still not effective at getting people to read the rules - I made the runoff poll post very short, and two creators still voted for themselves, in spite of the rules saying not to do so.

I am also hopeful that a move to another site will allow longer polls - this way we could have all the fiction nominees in one poll. I also agree with AlexandraErin's suggestion that popular voting (as in, vote for all the projects you like, the ones with the most total votes wins) be used.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> I also did not vote in categories where I knew or had some contact with more than one nominee, other than fiction, which had anonymous voting. <<

This topic is intended for a poll.

>>I think more communication among the staff members would be helpful. Had I known when the artwork would be made available, I would have held off on my first email to all 18 fiction nominees.<<

I agree that more communication would be helpful. I'm not sure how to achieve that, though. *I* didn't know when (or if) artwork was going to arrive -- it's strictly volunteer. (Hrm, we might consider crowdfunding that too.) I gave volunteers information as soon as I got it. *sigh* Not to mention the times I emailed all the managers, and then a few hours later had to do it all over because somebody found some other problem that needed to be fixed.

>> I really hope the awards can move to another site next year. <<

This is one of the leading requests, yes. We may be able to do it with crowdfunding.

>> I can help with cutting down the poll-post text, although that would also be simplified next year if the awards move off LJ. <<

Okay, this has potential.

>> I will note, however, that removing the Wall 'O Text is still not effective at getting people to read the rules <<

It's always hard to get people to read the rules, no matter what you do. Heh ... if we run the awards from a hub site, we might be able to code a rules page so it appears first, and you have to go through it and click a button that says "I have read the rules" before you can access the poll.

>>I am also hopeful that a move to another site will allow longer polls - this way we could have all the fiction nominees in one poll.<<

Agreed. LJ poll limits are maddening at times.

>>I also agree with AlexandraErin's suggestion that popular voting (as in, vote for all the projects you like, the ones with the most total votes wins) be used.<<

As a voter, I find that idea very appealing. As an award manager, I have to wonder if it might create a lot more ties requiring runoffs. I'm willing to consider this, but I think that further discussion of pros and cons might be prudent.

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

I agree that the R&B Awards needs its own website and resident coder who is paid to do the work. I also think it would encourage participation to offer prizes to the winners in each category. However, I'd like to know what everyone thinks about running both fundraising efforts at the same time. Or do we wish to fund the website coding for basic features first and stock the prize kitty later? Or vice-versa?

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I agree that the R&B Awards needs its own website and resident coder who is paid to do the work.<<

We're working on ideas for these.

>>I also think it would encourage participation to offer prizes to the winners in each category.<<

I think so too.

>>However, I'd like to know what everyone thinks about running both fundraising efforts at the same time. Or do we wish to fund the website coding for basic features first and stock the prize kitty later? Or vice-versa?<<

I would rather not have those two projects overlap completely although they made overlap partially due to timing concerns. For the prizes, I think it would be better to do the collecting shortly before the award season rather than way in advance; so maybe November-December rather than spring or summer. The less time the funds/goods have to be held, the less chance of something going wrong.

For the hub site, ellenmillion is potentially willing to do the coding but only after some other projects are done. If that means, say, summer or early fall then there will be little or no overlap. But if it's late fall or winter before she can clear her schedule for the hub site, that's likely to put it atop the prize gathering.

I'd also like to see those projects handled by different volunteers. That will help keep them from tangling up. Also consider that while some people may wish to contribute to both, others may only be interested in one.

The "Don't Vote For Yourself" rule

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

You know, in elections and in many other votes, you are not prohibited from voting for yourself.

Does this rule have widespread support? Does it actually accomplish something useful?

It certainly has been a repeated issue with people who are not already a part of the crowdfunding LJ community, and who miss that rule (and presumably also then miss the chance to vote for someone else because they didn't know that their vote for themselves would not be counted).

This rule also isn't as straightforward as you'd think because not all projects are the creation of a single creator.

I'm most familiar with Torn World, of course, where there are a few creators who are intensely active and a much larger number of people who are mostly readers, adding a story or piece of art only rarely. Torn World is set up to encourage reader involvement in the creative end of things. Should a reader who is inspired to submit a single piece of creative work be restricted from voting for Torn World? What about two or three? Or what about a theoretical someone who had a lot of stories published in 2010 on the site, and which remain published on the site, but who has none published in 2011--should that person be allowed to vote for that project in 2011?

Even if we came up with some detailed, arcane rule to cover all such circumstances, I suspect that trying to enforce it would be an unwelcome burden on the person administering the category in question due to the amount of investigation into the projects in question that would be required.

Re: The "Don't Vote For Yourself" rule

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, I had the same thought - most of the people who might have voted for Torn World were ineligible, even if they weren't part of the core active group.

Not nominating yourself, I can understand. Not voting for yourself... I wouldn't mind seeing that rule dropped. Particularly if we go with open voting where you can vote for more than one project.

Re: The "Don't Vote For Yourself" rule

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Good point about allowing voting for more than one project, which I definitely support.

Re: The "Don't Vote For Yourself" rule

[eseme]

Speaking as someone who had to scan through over 200 votes for the names of the creators to double-check and enforce this rule, I think it should go.

It was a real hassle.

Re: The "Don't Vote For Yourself" rule

[rowyn]

I did not understand the logic behind this rule either.

Categories

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Splitting off webcomics did more than give other "other" projects the chance to compete against each other, it also led to more webcomics being nominated. I think adding that category was a good decision.

I also would prefer to see poetry remain separate from fiction. Poetry has always been kind of an oddball item in the publishing world, with fewer people trying to make money at it than other types of creative efforts. Having it as a separate category at least shows we take it seriously, which I think is a good thing even if the number of projects remains small.

I'm also not at all sure that dividing fiction between short and long is workable, so long as serials are considered long--the poetry projects that were nominated were also mostly serial in nature, after all. Another thought is that if we move off of LJ for the polls, longer polls would quite likely be possible, eliminating something like this years' need for a runoff poll.

If we do want to divide fiction, we might want to distinguish between novel-length stories (whether serialized or not) and collections of short stories (again, serialized or not).

I would also like to see music split off from other. It's a well-defined art form that tends to inspire a large and enthusiastic fan base.

I really like the idea of most creative crowdfunding method. That fits right in with the purposes of this community, and will help us all to be aware of the variety of methods crowdfunding can take.

I also like the thought of honoring one-time efforts (though this category probably needs a better name).

Finally, I would really like to hear discussion on divination as a category. So far, the only comment on that issue was the fear that we don't have enough administrators.

If we do set up a separate site, my guess is that things can be set up to make the burden of administering the awards lighter, or, alternatively (if we can raise the funds), to provide some monetary compensation to someone who is not nominated in any category to administer all of them.

But in any case, I don't want to stop people talking about potential new categories just because the awards could use more staff.

I admit that staff is pertinent to whether and when the people doing the work will add a new category. However, if people feel strongly about one or more new categories, that might in and of itself inspire new volunteers, which isn't going to happen if people feel that the things they care about have already been rejected.

So, once the current poll is over, I'd love to see a poll and/or discussion about categories.

Re: Categories

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

If I have time -- or if someone else takes time -- it would be helpful to have a comparison of fiction and webcomic projects to see if there's a natural break that's easy to support with a category split.

However, this year we didn't have enough volunteers to cover everything that needed doing; we had to stack up. That makes it a bad idea to increase the categories. If people really feel strongly about the requests they've made, then we should be able to launch a crowdfunding hub site and get more volunteers next year. Then we can think about expanding. Otherwise it's liable to overreach and crash the whole project. That's not a risk I'm willing to take.

Re: Categories

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Do you really oppose inviting people to talk about categories?

As I said in my post above, whether we can staff everything is an important matter. But categories are important to people. (I note that you opposed eliminating poetry as a separate category. I don't want to see that category eliminated, even though the last time I looked at the polls, I remember it being the category with the fewest nominations and the fewest voters.)

I'm pretty sure that someone who feels a category they care about has been summarily rejected will not volunteer to run it, and also will not volunteer time--or money--for any other part of the award program.

I strongly encourage you to invite this discussion, and instead of saying: "I'm not willing to..." say something that invites participation, perhaps something like: "Implementing new categories will depend on getting a website with substantial automation to reduce the time our volunteers must spend administering the contest or on getting a volunteer to run each category."

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

First, I strongly suggest a category for music. There are more than enough crowdfunded musicians and musical projects to fill a category and then some, if only there were greater awareness of the award outside this immediate community. Musicians are also good promoters, by necessity. They've been doing crowdfunding since before crowdfunding was a thing. It would be good for the awards (in terms of awareness outside this immediate community) and for all the participants in other categories to have the benefit of musicians driving traffic to the award pages.

Second, I think the benefit of making each category's voting check box style instead of radio button/drop down style should be considered. What's the downside here? Only if every single person who votes voted for every single project would there be a negative impact. The results would be more egalitarian, less lop-sided, and if the awards stay on Livejournal or in a medium with a maximum number of items per poll, well... the grouping wouldn't matter. Two strong contenders wouldn't be weakened by being grouped with each other.

People would still only be able to vote once, but they would be able to vote for multiple items. Given the fact that most traffic to the award page is going to be generated by nominees referring their fans/patrons/readers/listeners to the voting page... well, telling people to check out all the nominees and then vote for the ones they like might go farther in spreading awareness of different projects than saying, "Hi, I know you love what I'm doing, but please go look at all these other people and then vote for the one you really like, even if it's not me."

And as others have mentioned, it really does need to be easier to find links to the nominees. Moving the awards off Livejournal could be a huge step in terms of better organizing. If it is run on Livejournal next year... and heck, even if it's not... you ought to imagine presenting someone who has no connection or familiarity with the awards with a link to the landing page and picture how many clicks and how long it takes for them to figure out 1) what's going on, 2) where the nominees' works are, and 3) how to vote. What's intuitive to someone who's been here since the beginning and/or had a hand in setting it up might seem hopelessly complicated to someone else. All too often when I went to promote the awards I found myself spending far longer explaining the thing than should have been necessary.

Third, and as a somewhat minor and tangential thing, the rule against voting for your own project? I'd think long and hard about what that does for the awards versus the amount of extra mental overhead it's creating. Okay, I get the "it's tacky" idea, but once you reach the point of getting thousands of votes in each category that vote's going to be a drop in the bucket.

Fourth... I have very mixed feelings about a "no repeats" rule, if only because I might have withdrawn myself from the running this year if I'd known that was on the table. Each year, the award is going to be bigger and better than the year before. More people will know about it. It will be organized and run with the benefit of one more year's experience. With or without prize money attached, next year's winner is going to get more out of winning than this year's winner. Next year's participants will get more out of it even if they're just nominated.

Restricting repeats is something to consider for the future, maybe, but I feel that if it is adopted it should be done in advance of the first nominating period in which it will take effect.

[eseme]

Hi, I think an email I sent you nearly two weeks ago has gone astray.

The award does include a certificate. As the person who ran the Fiction category, I sign the certificate and mail it to you.

I sent an email to your contact address on March 18. I am guessing that either the internet lost it, or you get tons of email ad it slipped through the cracks.

Could you email esemer AT gmail with a physical address to send it to?

Thanks.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your comments--you give nice, clear reasons for the things you advocate or oppose, and that's appreciated!

You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your support. You did a lot, too!