Yahoo Forum Archive

>!) Author Comments: Keep? Change? Lose?

I have no strong opinion on Author comments.
I like them, I would leave them as before in their
respective categories. No changes needed for this person.

Suggestion: Poll

> 2) Honorable Mention
> The decision is Yes. But there is still a question: What
> qualifies? So
> far, the discussion has gone toward stories/authors receiving
> X points below
> 3rd place.
>
> So what would X be? 5, 10, 15? Any other options, or should
> I put those
> three numbers in a poll?

I think it should not be a number.
IMO those losing the tie break should get a mention
and the places 4 and 5 if there are more than
10 nominations in the segment.

>
> 3) Indicate size of story (by word count, or chapter stories
> vs. one-off
> stories)
> I'm okay with indicating the size, but how should we do it?
> Word-count may
> not be available at every archive.

The nominator should count the words or characters
via a program like Word.

>
> Do we use monakers such as vignette, short-story, novella,
> novel? If so, how
> do we define each? Vignette is easy enough. One scene
> generally. But what
> about short story? It could be 4 pages or 34 pages. What's a novella
> compared to a novel? Where do we draw the line?

As I wrote for me 500000 characters is definitely a novel.
250000 might be a novella.

>
> 4) Limiting the length of quotes used in votes
> The decision is yes, but to what do we limit it? Favorite
> line? No more
> than X characters?

I think, after my experiences as the offender,
the quote should not change the points
allotted to the story.
But this is difficult to administrate and to police.

So I would vote for "favourite lines"
with less than 200 characters
because 250 characters is
roughly the segmentation
between Points 5, 7, and 9

But I am in favour of quoting,
there might be persons who set the limit at
100 characters.

The voter should add the number of quoted characters
to facilitate policing via spot checks.

And quotes have to be included into quotation marks.
I didn't do it sometimes, because it was clear
through the formatting in the vote.
But the formatting got lost in the procedure.

> 6) WIPs: only the first few chapters considered
> Good idea, but logistically problematic. We don't archive
> stories, so how
> would we police that? The only thing I can think of is that we make a
> suggestion to voters that they don't have to read more than
> the first two
> chapters or some such.

Umh, I nominated a WIP of novel length
so that it should be read in whole.

And I have the feeling the whole WIP should be
taken into consideration for voting.
But this is my personal feeling.

Why ?
"Captain, my Captain" by Isabeau
in the first chapters
for me is gorgeous but I cannot follow
the heroine into the second part.

So if I had read only the first chapters
I would have written a 10 points comment.
But for my taste the story develops
into a direction I cannot follow,
so the 10 points comment is out.

Others might see it just in opposite
(in this or another fic),
they do not like the beginning but
are hooked after a few chapters.

>
> Well, I couldn't remember any others that weren't in the
> database. Thus,
> it's important to put them in the database.

Hmm, somehow I do not feel able to put
my thoughts into the database
(aside of the quotation memos).
My thoughts are too long and too many
of my opinions are aside of the mainstream ;-)
I believe I would inundate the database with my suggestions.

If you really want my suggestions in the database
please repeat your request
(the one tree categorization scheme would be one
of them though already nixed).

Until now I had the impression that only things
already discussed but still undecided by you
should go into the database.

Best wishes Elanor

-----Original Message-----
From: elanor of aquitania [mailto:elanor@codacode.net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 5:18 PM
To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
Subject: AW: [MEFAwards] Post Mortem recap

>!) Author Comments: Keep? Change? Lose?

>I have no strong opinion on Author comments.

I like them, I would leave them as before in their respective categories. No
changes needed for this person.

I like having them and have enjoyed receiving them for years from the ASC
awards. But I do recognize that they are harder to write, at least to write
well. And even at ASC there are less of them than there are story votes.

>Suggestion: Poll

Ah, but we don't yet have the different choices to put in the poll.

> 2) Honorable Mention
> The decision is Yes. But there is still a question: What qualifies?
> So far, the discussion has gone toward stories/authors receiving X
> points below 3rd place.
>
> So what would X be? 5, 10, 15? Any other options, or should I put
> those three numbers in a poll?

>I think it should not be a number.

IMO those losing the tie break should get a mention and the places 4 and 5
if there are more than 10 nominations in the segment.

I do like the idea of numbers. There was one tie broken by one character!
And some fourth places were very close even though there were less than 10
nominations. Hobbits/LOTR for example, the third place story had 21 points.
The fourth place had 18. There were only five nominations.

> 3) Indicate size of story (by word count, or chapter stories vs.
> one-off
> stories)
> I'm okay with indicating the size, but how should we do it?
> Word-count may
> not be available at every archive.

>The nominator should count the words or characters via a program like Word.

I think that would be too much work. And character counting should only be
for votes. It's not a normal way of counting stories. Word-count is what
publishers use. We only use it for vote counting to be more accurate, as
words can be different lengths.

>
> Do we use monakers such as vignette, short-story, novella, novel? If
> so, how do we define each? Vignette is easy enough. One scene
> generally. But what about short story? It could be 4 pages or 34
> pages. What's a novella compared to a novel? Where do we draw the
> line?

>As I wrote for me 500000 characters is definitely a novel.

250000 might be a novella.

Again, we need to look at word-count if we go that way.

> 4) Limiting the length of quotes used in votes The decision is yes,
> but to what do we limit it? Favorite line? No more than X
> characters?

>I think, after my experiences as the offender, the quote should not change

the points allotted to the story.
But this is difficult to administrate and to police.

It's hard to count the characters of the whole comment and then subtract out
the characters of the quotes. We need to make it as easy as possible for
vote counters. If we need vote counters at all. I'd love to have the count
be electronic. Then, it still couldn't discount the quote.

>So I would vote for "favourite lines"

with less than 200 characters
because 250 characters is
roughly the segmentation
between Points 5, 7, and 9

>But I am in favour of quoting,

there might be persons who set the limit at 100 characters.

>The voter should add the number of quoted characters to facilitate policing

via spot checks.

>And quotes have to be included into quotation marks.

I didn't do it sometimes, because it was clear through the formatting in the
vote.
But the formatting got lost in the procedure.

Formatting was really strange at times. You can't have a hard return in an
Excel spreadsheet. So my comments didn't. I copied them into the ballot and
then poof, the lines broke up. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm all for favorite line/lines with a limit on characters. Just not
sure where to set the limit.

> 6) WIPs: only the first few chapters considered Good idea, but
> logistically problematic. We don't archive stories, so how would we
> police that? The only thing I can think of is that we make a
> suggestion to voters that they don't have to read more than the first
> two chapters or some such.

>Umh, I nominated a WIP of novel length

so that it should be read in whole.

>And I have the feeling the whole WIP should be taken into consideration for

voting.
But this is my personal feeling.

>Why ?

"Captain, my Captain" by Isabeau
in the first chapters
for me is gorgeous but I cannot follow
the heroine into the second part.

>So if I had read only the first chapters I would have written a 10 points

comment.
But for my taste the story develops
into a direction I cannot follow,
so the 10 points comment is out.

>Others might see it just in opposite

(in this or another fic),
they do not like the beginning but
are hooked after a few chapters.

Well, the thing is that very large WIPs may not be read. I know that when I
had limitted time left for reading and voting, I had to choose which stories
I was going to try to squeeze in. There was one WIP I have been wanting to
read. But when I saw it had 24 chapters, I let it go, reasoning that I'll
have another chance when it runs as complete.

Large WIPs are daunting. And many people prefer not to read WIPs at all.
That's why a suggestion that the voter only needs to read the first one or
two chapters might encourage people to read at least those first two
chapters of a story they may have foregone if they had to read the first 24.
Then if they are hooked by those first two chapters, they can always read
more if they choose to.

> Well, I couldn't remember any others that weren't in the
> database. Thus,
> it's important to put them in the database.

>Hmm, somehow I do not feel able to put

my thoughts into the database
(aside of the quotation memos).
My thoughts are too long and too many
of my opinions are aside of the mainstream ;-)
I believe I would inundate the database with my suggestions.

>If you really want my suggestions in the database

please repeat your request
(the one tree categorization scheme would be one
of them though already nixed).

Yes, I do want them in the database (boil them down to a statement)

>Until now I had the impression that only things

already discussed but still undecided by you
should go into the database.

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. No, with my memory, if you don't want
it forgoten about, you should put it in the database. A piece of advice to
everyone when dealing with me: don't rely on my memory. It can be a great
memory. When it remembers anything.

--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://gabrielle.sytes.net/mefa The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards
Blog: http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com