I just thought we needed a little break in the mundane. We've had a few new
members join and they've probably been very confused by what has been going
on of late. So I'll briefly explain.
We had Nomination Season from May 1-June 15 with 573 stories being
nominated. All of which had to be approved by all of their authors. We've
gotten most of them approved so far, but we're giving authors until June
30th to approve so there's still hope for the few others.
From June 16, the categorizers (Staff volunteers who tracked nominations for
their set of assigned Categories) then worked behind the scenes trying to
weed out non-viable categories and put the "orphaned" stories into viable
ones (or create viable ones with them). Once all that was done, I gathered
all their work into one giant spreadsheet from which all data flows..
Sorry, got a bit melodramatic there for a moment. Anyway, from the
spreadsheet, using mail merge, I create the web pages that contain all the
nomination information and the Check Ballots. Which are basically
rehearsals for the official ballot which will come out later. Then, you've
seen just a flood of edits filling your inboxes or digests as we try to find
and fix all the errors in the Check Ballots so that the final ballot will be
as error-free as we can make it. Thus, we are presently in Check Ballot
Season, which runs until June 30th.
Reading Season will start July 1st, which means this list will probably get
rather quiet as we'll all be away reading the nominated stories. (Remember
my tip: Vote early! Write up your comments as you read and save them in a
file on your hard drive so that you can just paste them in when Voting
Season comes.) Reading Season lasts 2 1/2 months. I figure we'll all need
some time to read these stories before we vote.
Following that will be Voting Season, from September 16th through October
30th, giving us about 1 1/2 months to get all our votes in.
While we Vote Counters (also Staff volunteers) are counting characters in
all your comments to determine points for the stories (and authors), it will
be FanArt Season in which there will be many polls. Many, many polls. As
that's where you will vote for the best banner to represent each Award
Title. That starts November 1st. So you've got until November to make your
banners. We still have some under-represented Awards Titles, so get your
creative caps on and help us out.
And finally, the 2004 Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards Winners are scheduled
to be announced (with their banners) by November 15th.
Wow, that wasn't all that brief, was it?
Oh well. In the meantime, just sit back, relax, and try not to let your eyes
get too crossed. ;-)
--Ainaechoiriel
MEFA Admin and Founder
"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://home.earthlink.net/~ainae/mefa The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards
Blog:
http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com
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