Yahoo Forum Archive

Hi guys,

For the next few weeks in my ADMIN posts I will be talking about some
concepts related to categories. This is probably one of the least understood
aspects of the MEFAs. This week I want to explain the difference between
subcategories and main categories.

If you play individual sports, you're probably familiar with the concept of
"heats." Growing up I swam on a team that competed against teams from other
neighborhood pools. We each had certain races that we swam (mine was
fifty-meter backstroke), but as there were only so many lanes in the pools,
sometimes there were more competitors in a given race than could swim at
once. When that happened the races were broken down into "heats", so that
the first six people doing a particular race swam together, and then the
next six, and so on. If you won first place, that generally meant that you
won your *heat* - you weren't necessarily the best of all the people
swimming that stroke, but were rather the best of the people racing at once.

The MEFAs are set up on a fairly similar basis. It's probably no surprise to
you that some genres, races, and time periods are written more often than
others, so there are usually (e.g.) more stories about hobbits than dwarves.
At an archive this isn't such a big deal, but imagine in a competition, if
we let all the hobbit stories run against each other, and all the dwarves
stories run against each other. That wouldn't be fair - simply because there
are more hobbit stories than dwarf stories, there would be more competition
for the awards among hobbit stories. So instead we set up "heats," which in
MEFA-parlance are termed subcategories.

When a story is nominated, its author selects three main category choices.
We put the story in one of these choices. We then break the main category
down into subcategories, the groups the story is actually competing in.
Subcategories each have 6-12 entries, so there's no advantage or
disadvantage to being in an unpopular or popular category. If your main
category had sixty stories, we'd break it down to 5-10 *sub*categories; if
the main category had thirty stories, it would be broken down into 3-5
subcategories, and so on. And each of these subcategories is roughly the
same size. This lets us have a more fair competition.

Now, you may wonder how we sort stories into subcategories. The first step
is the main category selection. You can only compete against stories that
selected the same main category as you. We also look at story types
(drabbles, poetry, and so on), which I'll talk more about next week. But
even so, there may be more than twelve pieces in the same main category -
too much for a single subcategory. In that case, we look at how you
described your story. Authors can select:

--- two characters
--- two story locations
--- three subgenres

We look at those, and if there is a common item that appears in several
stories we may set up a subcategory around that. For instance, within the
Men main category, we might set up a subcategory for stories set in Rohan,
or involving Aragorn, or vignettes. What exactly we do varies based on the
types of stories nominated from year to year. We also occasionally look at
the source material, which is geared more toward readers but occasionally
lets us set up an interesting subcategory.

We do *not* try to look at story "quality" - pitting authors who have scored
high in the past together, or stories that the volunteers think will be
popular. It's up to the reviewers to determine what story they like best,
and if an author finds themselves in a "tough" subcategory, that's not by
design.

We also don't automatically separate out story lengths when setting up
subcategories. We do have two *main* categories that are based on length
(Ficlets and Longer Works), but we do not try to set up *sub*categories
based on length. For one thing, it's simply too complicated. It also doesn't
really work to the author's advantage. If past years are any indication,
longer and shorter stories get roughly the same amount of points on average.
(And longer stories get more readers when they're mixed in with shorter
stories, often.) So if an author only wants to compete against stories of a
similar length, they should select Ficlet or Longer Work as one of their
main category choices. That will ensure they are categorized based on
length.

Just as with my swimming example, the "winner" at the end of the awards will
have won a particular subcategory. There is no winner of "Hobbits" or
"Post-Ring War" etc. overall. In smaller categories, there may only be one
subcategory, but we will talk of someone winning that *sub*category, not the
whole category. So there may be a first-place winner of "Races: Dwarves:
General" (the "default" subcategory in each main category) but not of the
"Dwarves" main category. These "general" subcategories are no larger or
smaller than any other subcategory, and are governed by the same rules.

I hope this helps people understand the difference between subcategories and
main categories. For more information on this topic, please see:

--- What are main categories?
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2010/index.php?page=FAQcategories#cat_8

--- How do you use my category choices to decide which category my story
will compete in?
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2010/index.php?page=FAQcategories#cat_2

--- Do you categorize based on length?
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2010/index.php?page=FAQcategories#cat_10

--- Do you give awards for the winner of a whole main category?
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2010/index.php?page=FAQcategories#cat_7

Marta (MEFA Admin.)