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You know the poll says 5 votes for needs more discussion, but I
haven't seen any discussion here. What I'd hope for is enough
discussion to completely eliminate that third choice so we're only
left with Public or Private.

Now, I posted a post some time ago to start the disucssion. Let's
start discussing it. I think, I'm going to be changing some dates on
the polls as they are just out too far and I'm too impatient. ;-)

--Ainaechoiriel

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...> wrote:

> You know the poll says 5 votes for needs more discussion, but I
> haven't seen any discussion here. What I'd hope for is enough
> discussion to completely eliminate that third choice so we're only
> left with Public or Private.
>
> Now, I posted a post some time ago to start the disucssion. Let's
> start discussing it. I think, I'm going to be changing some dates on
> the polls as they are just out too far and I'm too impatient. ;-)
>
> --Ainaechoiriel

I say nominations should be public.

As I understand it, one of the main things that is supposed to
distinguish this contest from Mithrils is that this is a purely
democratic contest. This means: no individual or group of judges is
privileged (other than the minimal requirement that they join this
list) and the number of nominations for a story is irrelevant. every
voice counts, and all operations are transparent, i.e., there is no
anonymity because all voices count equally and no negative comments
are permitted (well, they are, but you'll help your least favorite
story win, which is counterproductive).

A contest that completely eliminates the notion of a privileged set of
judges and readers must, to be legitimate, be open--secrecy and
insularity at major stages of the contest undermine the credibility of
the awards in the eyes of readers. It'll still be great for authors,
one suspects, but if this contest is to be for readers as well, then
it must stand under the public gaze at all major stages, including
nominations. Readers and would-be participants must see what is going on.

Now, there are some other, slightly less weighty philosophical
concerns as well that hinge on publicity. If the point is that number
of nominations has been rendered irrelevent (every voice counts
equally), then avoiding duplication of nominations could potentially
lead to a much more diverse set of fics, all being judged by whatever
reader cares to leave a comment. I believe that was also a latent
point of Ainae's, that selection will be broader than for most other
awards, and there's more scope for unusual fics to win some feedback
and official recognition, since all feedback is 'official' in the MEFAs.

And from a purely practical standpoint, since nominations are not
limited to just the best fics you can think of, it might be nice to
have an official tally of what has been nominated already, so that, as
the awards go on, people will (probably) submit fewer nominations,
since the fics they would've nominated have been nominated already and
posted publicly for all to see. This might cut down, later, on some of
the work that the MEFA staff has to do. This could be a very good thing.

Finally, if the point of the awards is to give authors some
encouragement, then assuming they didn't nominate their own stories,
then just the fact that someone nominated the story and that everyone
knows this ought to give that person a little boost. Somebody liked
the story enough to nominate it, even if no comments were forthcoming.

Such would be my arguments for publicity at all levels, not just the
nomination stage.

Dwim

>
> And from a purely practical standpoint, since nominations are not
> limited to just the best fics you can think of,

Addendum, because that may sound insulting by implication. The point
there was that you aren't forced to choose among several good fics
because you may only nominate one fic per category.

>>
> Such would be my arguments for publicity at all levels, not just the
> nomination stage.
>
> Dwim

Well said, I can't add anything to this opinion as it hits every
point I can think of. I agree with all of it, one of the things that
will distingish this set of awards is the openness of them and the
fact that the winners are derived from the comments of the readers.

Stella

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stella [mailto:lasselanta02@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 11:41 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Nominations: Public or Private.
> Discussion needed.
>
> >>
> > Such would be my arguments for publicity at all levels, not
> just the
> > nomination stage.
> >
> > Dwim
>
>
> Well said, I can't add anything to this opinion as it hits
> every point I can think of. I agree with all of it, one of
> the things that will distingish this set of awards is the
> openness of them and the fact that the winners are derived
> from the comments of the readers.
>
> Stella

Yep. And I think I'm going to add this to the FAQ:

The Purpose of these Awards:

To:

Encourage feedback
Encourage others to read
And to recognize excellence in Middle-Earth (not to exclude Numenor and
Valinor) fanfiction.


Surely, that can be worded better, but I think makingthe nominations public
serves the second, encouraging new readers to check out these stories. And
if the authors themselves can go and see the nominations, they also might
be encouraged to join the group and nominate and vote with the rest of us.

And then there is the topic of public or private archiving of the comments.
Next post.

--Ainaechoiriel

There are two sides to the public list of nominees.

One: Everyone knows what's been entered, and can nominate accordingly.

Two: Everyone knows what's been entered, and can quickly see who made
the loser's list.

There's a reason that the Oscars don't give out the list of nominees: to spare
feelings. The whole idea of this is to make people feel good. The last thing we
need to do is to make it clear that, in the words of Rodney Dangerfield,
"You may already be a loser!"

just my .02 worth..from someone who's been in the trenches, as it were...

khazar

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Dawn Martinez-Byrne"
<dlmbyrne@g...> wrote:

> There are two sides to the public list of nominees.
>
> One: Everyone knows what's been entered, and can nominate

accordingly.

>
> Two: Everyone knows what's been entered, and can quickly see who

made

> the loser's list.

Well not really, just being nominated should make people feel good
already. All of what is being nominated is already out there in a
public forum as the rules state, and is open for praise or critique
through those venues.

Stella

But what if you aren't nominated? Or what if you force your mother to
nominate you -- just on the wild hope that people will read your
story and actually like it and suddenly you'll achieve the respect of
your peers -- and then your story gets into the pool and gets a total
of 6 words (all from close friends and family members). How
humiliating.

My experience has been that, typically, very good writers advocate
complete transparency in these kinds of competitions. Those folks
don't have anything to worry about; no one is going to inadvertently
hurt them.

I will say right here that one of my stories was nominated for a
popularity-contest sort of award, and the results were tracked real-
time and publicly. It was somwhat painful, and I submit manuscripts
to editors all the time, so my skin is fairly thick.

Just my opinion/experience.

viv

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Stella" <lasselanta02@y...> wrote:
> Well not really, just being nominated should make people feel good
> already. All of what is being nominated is already out there in a
> public forum as the rules state, and is open for praise or critique
> through those venues.
>
> Stella

I'll second this.

Consider the days before answering machines. I remember being newly
divorced and coming home after being gone for three days to NO
messages. I was *really* alone for the first time in my life and it
was a heartstopping reminder that no one had thought about me being
home alone and lonely. Webcounters on our fics are the same.
Without a counter, you don't really know. But when you SSPs over the
internet and get a grand total of 6 hits, it is a sinking
feeling. ... what if you get 120 hits and not one single comment....
does that mean that no one at all liked it?

Now before anyone starts a pity-party, let me say that I am somewhat
thick skinned. I've stood in front of a city council meeting in a
full room (100+ people) and explained to the city manager that I
didn't appreciate him telling the state rep that I was leading a
bunch of crazy rabble-rousers when I had put a full stop to plans
such as dumping bags of garbage on his front lawn.

-none of which has anything to do with fics except to say that even
from my perspective I understand how damaging a 'no comment' can be
to a fragile writer ... and I don't think any of us are so tough
that we don't understand that at least a flame or a ripping critique
means that someone cared enough to read it.

I don't really have an opinion as to the nominations being public or
not, but please don't pretend that people are going to be all warm
and fuzzy about being nominated and getting a minimal response.


--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Viv" <spacellamaprincess@y...>
rote:> But what if you aren't nominated? Or what if you force
yourmother to > nominate you -- just on the wild hope that people
will read your > story and actually like it and suddenly you'll
achieve the respect of > your peers -- and then your story gets into
the pool and gets a total > of 6 words (all from close friends and
family members). How > humiliating.

>
> My experience has been that, typically, very good writers advocate

complete transparency in these kinds of competitions. Those folks >
don't have anything to worry about; no one is going to inadvertently

> hurt them.
>
> I will say right here that one of my stories was nominated for a >

popularity-contest sort of award, and the results were tracked real->
time and publicly. It was somwhat painful, and I submit manuscripts >
to editors all the time, so my skin is fairly thick.

>
> Just my opinion/experience.
>
> viv
>
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Stella" <lasselanta02@y...>

wrote:> > Well not really, just being nominated should make people
feel good > > already. All of what is being nominated is already out
there in a > > public forum as the rules state, and is open for
praise or critique > > through those venues.

> > > > Stella

(Disclaimer: the "you" in this post, is a general "you", not anyone
in particular.)

Remember that I am not coming up with this out of the blue. I am
basing it off of a tried-and-true awards program that has been going
on over at alt.startrek.creative for at least 8 years. (My first dose
of it was 1996, but I think it started in 1995).

Now, I am not telling anyone how to feel about being nominated or
about getting comments or not getting comments. Firstly, I can't
predict the future to know if they will or will not get comments, and
secondly, no one can *make* anyone feel good or bad. That is a
choice on the part if the feeler.

What I can say is that the nominations are public because that is the
nature of these awards. The nominations are open and unlimited. The
reader/voting pool is open and unlimited. The process is open and
not subjected to the likes or dislikes of any one person or group of
people other than the voters. Dwim put it best. Find her post on
this discussion. It's what finally prompted me not to hem and haw
about making the nominations public. It's a public awards program.
Even the archives here are public. Anyone can come to Yahoo and read
them without joining the group. They just can't participate without
membership, and that is mainly to keep down vote-stacking and to
borrow Yahoo's technology so I don't have to become a programmer and
figure it out on my own.

I can tell you what these awards are NOT.

They are not a popularity contest. Though selfish individuals could
make it so, which is why I have made rules that are quite harsh. If
anyone is found to be signing up two memberships to vote-stack, or
encouraging members to join ONLY to vote on their stories
(encouraging members to join is fine, but it should be for the whole
awards, not just for your own stories), there is no warning, no trial
by jury, just instant disqualification of votes, stories, and/or
authors, depening on exactly how that rule was transgressed. (That
is in the FAQ). People shouldn't vote on their friend's story just
because they are friends. Vote on a story because the story
deservers the vote. Remember also that votes can be weighted. Like a
story a lot? Write a lot. Like it but not as much as the one you
liked a lot? Write less.

They are not a forum for negative reviews. Negative reviews are
counterproductive. If you leave a 100 character negative review, we
only count the characters. So it counts the same as a 100 character
positive review. The story you hate could win. If you don't like a
story, don't write anything.

They are not a forum for constructive criticism either, for the same
reason. If you need to "constructively criticize" for 4000
characters, that is the same as raving on and on about a wonderful
story. The story that needed "construction" might win. If you thought
a story was good but still needed work: make a short-comment vote,
perhaps, but leave the constructive stuff to a private e-mail to the
author--outside of the awards.

They are not a forum for ego-boos. Yes, you will most likely get
feedback. And yes, this does boost your ego. However, if you feel
will be hurt if you get no feedback or not as much as the next
person, you should consider carefully whether you want your stories
to participate. This is why we ask for Author Approval. No story
goes into these awards without it.

So what are the Awards for?

They are primarily for encouragement.

Encouragement of reading. There are presently 95 members, and that
number has grown quickly since Nomination Season opened. That number
will likely go up as authors are nominated and decide to
participate. Maybe 90 of those members haven't heard of your story
because it was at HASA and they've never been to HASA. But maybe now
they see it nominated. Now you potentially have 90 new readers.

Encouragement of feedback. That's the basis of the awards. The only
voting method is feedback. Feedback in the form of review or
recommendation. And since negative feedback is counter-productive,
the most likely outcome is positive.

Encouragement of writing. In my book (your mileage may vary) any
positive feedback is encouraging. Admittedly, the juicy, meaty
feedback is more encouragement than "I loved it!". And getting
recognition is encouraging, whether by being nominated by someone
else or winning the award. And when I am encouraged, my imagination
tends to work better.

(At a.s.c. there were no nominations because there was a built-in
pool of stories--those posted to a.s.c during the year). We must
build the pool, and we do that through open, unlimited nominations.)

Encouragement of participation. As the first three days of
Nomination Season has shown, getting nominated is encouraging many to
become members, increasing the reader/voter pool.

These awards are not meant to engender negative feelings. They can't
promise positive ones though. Have I been discouraged when my
stories didn't win at a.s.c. Yeah, somewhat. This year especially.
I started feeling like a has-been. Then Meghan sent her votes to me
one day too late. At first, it was worse than not having her votes.
I was obsessed with "would I have won if those were counted?" Yes in
one aspect: 3rd for Best MIS Combined). No, still, for Overall
Author. Sigh. But then I actually read the votes, word for word,
and her praise meant more to me than the awards. I posted those to
votes here to show how someone can vote for a story and vote for an
author without repeating the vote. She said "Oswiecim" never lets
her go. That--THAT--means more to me than money! Some awful hacks
get paid for writing pro-fiction, and some wonderful writers never
get a cent for writing fanfiction. But if I got "I learned more
about the Holocaust for reading your story," I felt I could die a
satisfied writer. Even if only one person said it. (Several did.)
So I didn't get an award. I still have that satisfaction, that
achievement. I wrote a story, a sci-fi/historical Star Trek
fanfiction story, that actually changed lives. It just wasn't this
years' story.

Sorry, I think I got off a tangent there.

I can't guarantee every single story will get a vote. The broader
our pool or reader/voters, the more likely that will be. A.s.c.
doesn't offer a Reading Season because they have the whole year to
read the built-in pool of stories as they are posted. We have 30,000
stores at fanfiction.net alone! We need time to read some of them.
We will get nearly two months. Heck, you can start now. See a story
nominated (check the website nominations if you want to know for sure
it's in. I only post there once the author's permission is in:
http://mefawards.com/agreatserver.com/2004noms.html I believe) that
you haven't read? Follow the link. Try it out. If it interests you,
keep reading. Go ahead and write your comment (just don't post it
until Voting season). You can read and vote on a hundred stories
between now and Voting Season. Some long, some short. If all of our
95 members did that (and remember they've all already read some),
that alone would be a possible 9500 stories voted on.

If anyone is worried they won't get nominated at all, don't. Nominate
your own stories. Check the first four nominations to this list. I
nominated all four of my own stories. If the *Founder* can do it, no
one else should worry that it would look bad or SSP-like. It's no
different than posting your Trek story to alt.startrek.creative. It
just goes into the pool. Nominations here are not weighted. It won't
matter any more if all 95 members wanted to nominate your story or if
you did yourself. Only one nomination per story goes in. All
stories are equal in that respect.

One of my LOTR stories had a few readers when it was first posted. It
has only 5 reviews on ff.net to this day. I'll bet most of you
haven't read it. It got rejected 5-4 at HASA. I nominated it
anyway. I might just get 95 new people to read it! And I might get
5 more people to comment on it. I might, who knows!, win an award for
it. Or I might not.

In the LOTR fandom ocean, I am a minnow. (In DS9, I *was* a whale
shark.) I'm certainly not the best known author out there. I can
name a few names that I, in my insecurity, am sure will get more
votes than me. But then, we don't know exactly what the reader/voter
pool looks like. We're not all HASA. We're not all ff.net. Some of
us have never been to Stories of Arda. Some are members of
YahooGroups and lists I've never heard of before now. That's great!
We may have fans here that just haven't discovered us yet!

So, I suppose my point in all of this is this: Give it a try. Stick
it out. This is the first time something like this has been done in
LOTR fic, as far as I know. But it has been done at a.s.c. If you
just don't think you can take the potential of no votes along with
the potential of many and anywhere in between, don't approve your
stories for nomination. But maybe still stick around. Be a
reader/voter/observer. See how it turns out this year. If this
works here and now, there will be MEFAs for 2005. And any story not
nominated this year (and still publicly posted, yadda yadda yadda)
will be eligible. You might nominate those same stories you said no
to this year.

And remember there are many reasons why any one story may not get a
vote. I hold up my infamous spreadsheet as an example. I can't tell
you how many stories I have read. I can't even promise I'll remember
all of them (consequences of stress) when the time comes to vote.
But I can tell you that, as of April 26, there are 612 unfinished
stories that looked interesting enough to me (mainly LOTR, ENT, DS9,
CSI) to keep up with their chapter updates. There are 279 completed
LOTR stories (ranging from 1 chapter to 35) that I am interested in
reading but haven't gotten to yet. Some of them have been nominated.

The main factor of getting no votes is simply that no one got around
to reading your story. I've 7 stories or so behind in reading
Cassia's stuff. I really enjoy those stories, but still haven't
managed to read 7 of them that are complete! We, as reader/voters, do
not need to read every nominated story. And that could be a factor,
too.

I won't read slash. So I won't vote for slash. If you're a slash
writer and your story is up, you can count on it right now, you'll
get no vote from me. But you might get votes from people who read
and like slash. I'm only going to read nominated stories that I'm
interested in by the summary. And then, if I have time, I might pick
up some more that were vaguely intriguing just to see if they are
good, too. Some of you out there might find my stories only vaguely
intriguing...or not at all. Maybe you just despise Legolas. No skin
off my nose. I know there are people that do.

Read the vote tips document in the Files section. I reccommend that
anyone only read stories that interest them. So you may not get all
95 members reading and voting for your story, just as you may not
read and vote on all the other stories nominated.

And then yes, there is the risk that, gulp, your story just isn't as
good as you think it is. That may be why my story got rejected by 5
reviewers at HASA. Or it may not. That is a risk. Maybe the
stories I've written after Oswiecim just aren't as good. Well, since
I consider it the masterpiece of my repertoire, I apparently think
that, too. But I've got a different brain now. I can't just wallow
in my yesterdays. I try my best with the brain I've got, and it just
might be that it's not good enough.

I'm the Founder of these awards and I might walk out of here with no
votes. It could happen. I know of at least half a dozen people who
read my lastest Trek story and didn't vote on it. Some may have
thought it wasn't good enough. That's why I didn't vote for two
friends' stories. Some may have been hurt that I didn't vote for
them, but I hope they're more mature than that. I do know that one
was homeless and didn't have a lot of access to the computer. That,
too, is a factor. RL gets in the way sometimes.

Our stories are a part of us. I know this. I feel it strongly. I had
60 pages of a story disappear after a computer error once. I cried.
It ripped a piece out of me. (I prayed, rebooted, and got it back,
thankfully!). Writing to me is magic, as close to God as a human can
get. Because we also are creators. We bring worlds to life. We
bring people to life. We can take what's going on in our imagination
and place it in someone else's imagination. That's amazing! It's
wonderful.

And it hurts when we feel these pieces are ignored or not
appreciated. It does. But it also feels absolutely wonderful when
they are noticed and loved. The whole range of possibilities exist.
But if we want them to be secure, to not be rejected, we can only
keep those stories to ourselves. Posting them out here, sharing, is a
risk. Our cup of tea may not be the other person's taste. But there
is the same risk that it will be accepted and loved.

These awards hold the same risk.

I'm only familiar with one other LOTR fanfic contest: The Mithrils.
And I don't hold out any hope of winning an award there (though I do
still hope I might at least get nominated without having to nominate
myself). I wrote four short stories. Against such bohemoth as
others write, how could my little drips in the ocean be remembered?
Well, here I have some hope. I can nominate them myself with no
weight on or off that nomination. They're in. Maybe someone will
read them. Maybe they'll be voted on. And there is the risk that I
might just get enough small votes to win, or I might get four 10-
pointers and win that way. Or I might fall somewhere in the middle.

It's a risk. But it's a risk I'm willing to take. I risk it every
year with a.s.c (except 2001, when alas, I had no story posted).
That's why I created these awards. Anyone who approves their story
being nominated can be eligible here and have just as much a chance
as I have.

I hope you'll take the risk. I can't guarantee you a vote. I can't
guarantee you'll be happy. But you just might.

Alright. I need to go back to pretending to be at work. Good thing my
supervisor is away at lunch.

--Ainaechoiriel

Wow! Can I claim the "you" and have this as a vote?!?


--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...>
wrote:>

> (Disclaimer: the "you" in this post, is a general "you", not anyone
> in particular.)
>
> Remember that I am not coming up with this out of the blue. I am
> basing it off of a tried-and-true awards program that has been

going > on over at alt.startrek.creative for at least 8 years. (My

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sulriel [mailto:Sulriel@htcomp.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 1:39 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Long post from the Founder (WAS: Re:
> Nominations: Public or Private...)
>
>
> Wow! Can I claim the "you" and have this as a vote?!?
>

;-) I have occasionally been said to be "wordy". But, alas, it is not yet
Voting Season!.

--Ainaechoiriel

"This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Elves," Elrond said, "for
it is Windows-compatible, and freeware at that." --H.F.

http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/lotr Land of Myth and Memory
Blog: http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com

Yes, all good. I think we just need to make it clear when we're
getting author permissions that some stories may not fare well and
that nomination on its own is no guarantee of success in this
contest. For some authors, the nomination itself may be reward
enough, but others may be expecting (or hoping for) more.

Thanks for the clarifications. I'm really glad you've done all this
before; it would be overwhelming for folks with no experience!

viv

One of my LOTR stories had a few readers when it was first
posted. It has only 5 reviews on ff.net to this day.  I'll bet most of
you haven't read it.  It got rejected 5-4 at HASA.  I nominated it
anyway.  I might just get 95 new people to read it!

I have a story I was somewhat too shy to nominate myself, but I
love it, and I know it is good, and I would like to share it with as
many people as possible. You really encourage me! BTW -
where do you still need help?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: beleg1cuthalion [mailto:beleg1cuthalion@yahoo.de]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 2:36 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Long post from the Founder (WAS: Re:
> Nominations: Public or Private...)
>
>
> I have a story I was somewhat too shy to nominate myself, but
> I love it, and I know it is good, and I would like to share
> it with as many people as possible. You really encourage me!
> BTW - where do you still need help?

I still need lots of vote counters for Voting Season. If you canhelp, sign
up on the poll.

--Ainaechoiriel

"This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Elves," Elrond said, "for
it is Windows-compatible, and freeware at that." --H.F.

http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/lotr Land of Myth and Memory
Blog: http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com