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Hello, it's late, I've just supervised a
poodle breeding and my mind is being weird.

If I understand the voting correctly, then
the number of characters in comments is what
is required to reach a decision. Correct?

Now, please stay with me. I promise this is going
somewhere.

What do we do to ensure that a story is read by
an equal number of people?

Let's say Story A is about Legolas, and gets 76
reads/votes. Let's say the character count gives
it 150 pts.

Story B, OTOH, is in the same category, but is not
about Legolas. It gets 15 readers. With fewer readers
there are correspondingly fewer voters, so it ends
up with 70 pts.

Is that a reasonable description of the system thus far?

Now let's make this really tricky. Story A is inferior to
Story B (grammar, plot, etc). But since more people read
it & commented on it, it still wins--even though Story B
is the superior work.

If I am reading this correctly, then it is possible for a
lousy story to win.

Is there any way to guarantee, or require, that a certain
number of voters read all the stories in a specific category
to prevent this from becoming a simple popularity contest???

Just wondering

Khazar

> -----Original Message-----
> From: khazar_khum [mailto:dlmbyrne@gte.net]
> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 3:22 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] YASQ (Yet Another Stupid Question)
>
> Hello, it's late, I've just supervised a poodle breeding and
> my mind is being weird.
>
> If I understand the voting correctly, then the number of
> characters in comments is what is required to reach a
> decision. Correct?
>
> Now, please stay with me. I promise this is going somewhere.
>
> What do we do to ensure that a story is read by an equal
> number of people?

We don't. I'm basing this off the alt.startrek.creative awards and they
have worked well for 8 or 9 years now. Just give it a try.

> Let's say Story A is about Legolas, and gets 76 reads/votes.
> Let's say the character count gives it 150 pts.
>
> Story B, OTOH, is in the same category, but is not about
> Legolas. It gets 15 readers. With fewer readers there are
> correspondingly fewer voters, so it ends up with 70 pts.
>
> Is that a reasonable description of the system thus far?

It certainly could be. Though I think the second is more accurate. 76
reads/votes out of the 90-something membership is too high, I'd think. N
one is going to have the time or inclination to read every story, I'd bet.

> Now let's make this really tricky. Story A is inferior to
> Story B (grammar, plot, etc). But since more people read it &
> commented on it, it still wins--even though Story B is the
> superior work.

It can happen.

> If I am reading this correctly, then it is possible for a
> lousy story to win.

Done honestly, I'd say it's a fairly low chance that a lousy story can win.
For one thing, a lousy story won't get many comments, and certainy not long
ones. That said, the one thing that really could ruin it, is vote-stacking.
Read the FAQ and Q and A to find out what that is if you don't already know.

> Is there any way to guarantee, or require, that a certain
> number of voters read all the stories in a specific category
> to prevent this from becoming a simple popularity contest???
>
> Just wondering

No. I know I've gone over some of this in another post, but you may not
have been around then, and certainly there are members now who weren't.
This will not be a popularity contest, but it will be a popular vote. Here
in America, you can't promise the same number of voters will be educated
about the candidates. You can't even get all the eligible voters to vote.
How can you guarantee there will be as many Republicans and Democrats? What
about the Independents? You can't. It's a popular vote. Those who vote
decide. Plain and simple.

There are many factors that can determin why a story would not receive many
votes:

1) Few readers. This is why we have Reading Season, something ASC doesn't
have. They have a built-in pool of stories and so everyone knows which
stories are eligible (all of them) as they read throughout the year. We
don't have the built-in pool, so we noominate. There is a much larger
potential pool for us. We need some time to read the stories we haven't
already read. Thus Reading Season.

2) Length. Hopefully Reading Season will help that as well. When I was
getting ready for the DS9 awrds at ASC, I read up on the eligible stories
that I hadn't read thoughout the year. I only read the shorter ones. But
then I only had about two weeks before DS9 voting would be over. We have
Reading Season and I hope that will encourage people that they do have some
time to read the longer ones.

3) Length. My Voting Tips document will help with this one. Shorter stories
tend to get overlooked or forgotten at ASC unless someone read them right
before the awards. So my tip is to write your comments out ahead of time,
right when you read the story. Keep them on your hard drive until Voting
Season comes. Then you only need copy & paste.

4) Not a voter's cup of tea. I've said it before. Slash stories will not
get a vote from me. Slash isn't my cup of tea. Someone else may not give
my Legolas stories a look because they just don't like Legolas stories.
S'okay. To each his own.

5) Not a good summary. If the summary didn't catch the voter's attention
and interest, they might pass the story by without a read.

6) Quality. Keeping in mind that negative feedback is counter-productive
here, if the quality is low, the comments will be too.

7) Voter pool. Here, the more the merrier. The more readers we have, the
higher the chances of having fairly even coverage of stories.

8) Real Life. RL can smack people in the head at the most inconvenient
times. Like this year at the ASC Awards. I don't think I'd ever seen so
many apology posts by people saying they just didn't have the time to
comment/vote. If they had, I might have had an award this yaer. Sigh.

I realize that some of you are going to just have to trust me on this.
You've not seen these kinds of awrds before. You fear what can go wrong. I
brought this kinds of awards up in the discussions that lead to the
Mithril's. I think it scared some people. They went a different way.
Okay. To each his own. But I still believe in this method. I've seen it
work. I've felt the positive effects of it. Even when I didn't win. SO I
started them here. And this is precisely why I didn't start them with a
committee. A committee might have been scared.

Let's look at the positive side, and why there's really no reason to fear.
Let's just start with a hypothetical example:

Superior writes a wonderful story call The Incredible Story and it was
nominated. Some of those in the group see that nomination and think,
hmmm...that sounds interesting. They go and read The Incredible Story.

Reading Season comes. Voters look through the list, through the categories
that interest them, and let's say The Incredible Story is in LOTR, which
should be widely read, I'd think. They see The Incredible Story and read
it. They like it and are prepared to write a comment in Voting Season.

Voting Season comes. A really long 10-pointer vote comes out for The
Incredible Story. Other voters who hadn't read it see that vote and think,
"Hmmm...that must be a good story. I'd hate to miss it." So they go and
read. And get their vote in just before Voting Season is over. Or not. But
they love it and send the author feedback anyway.

The Awards are announced and The Incredible Story won The Two Towers Award.
2nd Place. Superior wonders why she didn't get first place. But she'd not
too upset, she has a lot of new readers and feedback that she might not have
had before.

And then, after Awards Season is over, someone is surfing for LOTR stories.
They see an Awards Banner on The Incredble Story and think..."Hmm, maybe
this is woth my time." Now Superior has a new reader and some more
feedback.

I can't guarantee "fairness" of the type your question seems to want. Even
if story A and Story B each had 10 readers, if they didn't have the SAME ten
readers, you still wouldn't get that kind of "fair". Because readers are
subjective, not objective. They write comments based on what they like.
They don't follow a checklist to figure out how many points a story
deserves. I can't guarantee that anymore than we can guarantee enough
educated voters go to the polls on Election Day.

And there is also a 10pt ceiling. If someone wants to try and stack a vote
by writing two pages worth of comments and gnerate 30 points for the story,
well, they still only get 10.

Just trust me, encourage more people to join (the more the merrier) and give
it a try. I think you'll like the results.

--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

Here's the way I see it Ainae, and Khazar. In many ways EVERYBODY
wins. The author gets FEEDBACK. And that is worth more than any award
or money or whatever in the fanfic stakes. In fact, it is the only
payment anybody is going to get for the work - the knowledge and
satisfaction that SOMEBODY read it and liked it.

Liked it enough to comment on it. THAT's a big deal. I mean, I love
when people tell me they like my work. Much of my stuff has been
pulled offline in recent months and its THEN I hear from people.
'Where's whats and such? I LOVED that?'

I so have to laugh because I am thinking, 'If you loved it so much,
why didn't you tell me back when it was posted?'

So - the nature of these awards requires feedback, which, as an
author, is worth far more than the award or the title or the whatever.

Somebody wants to play games with vote-stacking, its their preogative,
but in their hearts, they will know they obtained the awards because
they beat their friends out of the bushes to go typing for them.

But to get commentary from people who are no more than acquaintances?
Or from people one has never heard from? Or from somebody who read one
because they stumbled upon one hear.

Worth far more, IMHO, than the award itself. The award are letters in
a summary, it is the feedback aspect of these awards that is so appealing.

There are a ton of things listed here from authors I've never heard of
and archives I've never visited.

(don't be insulted, anybody, I don't read much in the way of fanfic
and only hang out in two places. Also, I read short pieces, not long
pieces, so if I don't comment on your long piece, don't take it
personally, it is rare I read them.)

So - when reading season starts, I am going to have some fun
discovering some new people.

Any of you out there who are more than just acquaintances, if I fail
to make copious commentary, or ANY commentary -- it is because you
already know how much I love your work and I've told you already.

The feedback is what is important. Not the award.

Okay - back to my quiet little corner.

Ainae - what's the date of the last day for nominations?

Best to everybody,
Lindorien

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


>
> I realize that some of you are going to just have to trust me on this.
> You've not seen these kinds of awrds before. You fear what can go
wrong.

> What do we do to ensure that a story is read by an equal
> number of people?

We don't. I'm basing this off the alt.startrek.creative awards and they
have worked well for 8 or 9 years now. Just give it a try.

> Let's say Story A is about Legolas, and gets 76 reads/votes.
> Let's say the character count gives it 150 pts.
>
> Story B, OTOH, is in the same category, but is not about
> Legolas. It gets 15 readers. With fewer readers there are
> correspondingly fewer voters, so it ends up with 70 pts.
>
> Is that a reasonable description of the system thus far?

It certainly could be. Though I think the second is more accurate. 76
reads/votes out of the 90-something membership is too high, I'd think. N
one is going to have the time or inclination to read every story, I'd bet.

Well, that will depend on a variety of factors, none of which can
be easily predicted. There are always those who read everything that
comes their way.

But I would hope that people would read everything *within a category
that they intended to vote on*.

> Now let's make this really tricky. Story A is inferior to
> Story B (grammar, plot, etc). But since more people read it &
> commented on it, it still wins--even though Story B is the
> superior work.

It can happen.

> If I am reading this correctly, then it is possible for a
> lousy story to win.

Done honestly, I'd say it's a fairly low chance that a lousy story can win.
For one thing, a lousy story won't get many comments, and certainy not long
ones. That said, the one thing that really could ruin it, is vote-stacking.
Read the FAQ and Q and A to find out what that is if you don't already know.

Oh, I know what it is. People can be very "creative".

I also know what people will do to win. Knowing what goes on at dog & horse shows for a $2.00 ribbon
& maybe a $20 prize is enough to curdle your brain. People can get very uptight over a bunch of colored
pixels. :-/

> Is there any way to guarantee, or require, that a certain
> number of voters read all the stories in a specific category
> to prevent this from becoming a simple popularity contest???
>
> Just wondering

No. I know I've gone over some of this in another post, but you may not
have been around then, and certainly there are members now who weren't.
This will not be a popularity contest, but it will be a popular vote. Here
in America, you can't promise the same number of voters will be educated
about the candidates. You can't even get all the eligible voters to vote.
How can you guarantee there will be as many Republicans and Democrats? What
about the Independents? You can't. It's a popular vote. Those who vote
decide. Plain and simple.


Tell me about it. I work the polls. If you had to require people to show more live brain cells than is in
a head of lettuce, the electorate would be *way* smaller.

There are many factors that can determin why a story would not receive many
votes:

1) Few readers. This is why we have Reading Season, something ASC doesn't
have. They have a built-in pool of stories and so everyone knows which
stories are eligible (all of them) as they read throughout the year. We
don't have the built-in pool, so we noominate. There is a much larger
potential pool for us. We need some time to read the stories we haven't
already read. Thus Reading Season.

Good Idea.

2) Length. Hopefully Reading Season will help that as well. When I was
getting ready for the DS9 awrds at ASC, I read up on the eligible stories
that I hadn't read thoughout the year. I only read the shorter ones. But
then I only had about two weeks before DS9 voting would be over. We have
Reading Season and I hope that will encourage people that they do have some
time to read the longer ones.

It may be advisable in some popular categories to divide Long & Short pieces. That way the long ones
won't get passed over by people worried about the amount of time needed to read them.

I realize that some of you are going to just have to trust me on this.
You've not seen these kinds of awrds before. You fear what can go wrong. I
brought this kinds of awards up in the discussions that lead to the
Mithril's. I think it scared some people. They went a different way.
Okay. To each his own. But I still believe in this method. I've seen it
work. I've felt the positive effects of it. Even when I didn't win. SO I
started them here. And this is precisely why I didn't start them with a
committee. A committee might have been scared.

Actually, I think this idea has quite a bit of merit. My primary concern, as I said last night/early this morning,
is what happens to the story in the category that, by its very nature, is less attractive to a wide range of readers.
The instance I am thinking about is what happens when a story about, say, Legolas, a popular elf, is entered against
one about, say, Erestor, who has a considerably smaller fan base. Poor Erestor's story will have a hard time
getting a fair shake.

But I do think that this can work--it will be valuable for the feedback alone, I think.

khazar


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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lindorien2000 [mailto:lindorien@cox.net]
> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 12:57 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: YASQ (Yet Another Stupid Question)
>
> Okay - back to my quiet little corner.
>
> Ainae - what's the date of the last day for nominations?

Thanks, Lindorien. The last day is June 15th. So we still have lots of
time.

--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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dawn Martinez-Byrne [mailto:dlmbyrne@gte.net]
> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 2:37 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] YASQ (Yet Another Stupid Question)

> Well, that will depend on a variety of factors, none of
> which can be easily predicted. There are always those who
> read everything that comes their way.

True. We might have someone who has a lot of time on their hands who can
read everything. But remember we've already got nearly 200 stories
nominated and there's still a month to go.

> But I would hope that people would read everything *within a
> category that they intended to vote on*.

That depends, too. I'm likely to read Elf stories, but not Elf slash or
romance. Or a story based around an Elf I don't care for. Like Feanor. I
think everyone who knows me knows I'm still mad about the Kinslaying. ;-)

I certainly did try to read all the DS9 General stories I could during
awards time as ASC. It's best to read as many as you can, but it's not
required that you read all.

> Oh, I know what it is. People can be very "creative".

Yes, they can.

>
> I also know what people will do to win. Knowing what goes on
> at dog & horse shows for a $2.00 ribbon & maybe a $20 prize
> is enough to curdle your brain. People can get very uptight
> over a bunch of colored pixels. :-/

Yeah, but if they get caught here, they face a tough penalty, their vote,
their story, or them disqualified. Or any combination thereof.

> Tell me about it. I work the polls. If you had to require
> people to show more live brain cells than is in a head of
> lettuce, the electorate would be *way* smaller.

;-) And yet somehow we keep pulling it off.

> 1) Few readers. ... Thus Reading Season.
>
> Good Idea.

Thanks. I know *I* have a gazillion stories I've not gotten around to
reading yet. Thesenominations may help me prioritize my reading.

> 2) Length. ...We have
> Reading Season and I hope that will encourage people that
> they do have some time to read the longer ones.
>
> It may be advisable in some popular categories to divide
> Long & Short pieces. That way the long ones won't get passed
> over by people worried about the amount of time needed to read them.

I know I've gone over that one in a separate post. They *may* get
subdivided by length. They *may* not.

>
> Actually, I think this idea has quite a bit of merit. My
> primary concern, as I said last night/early this morning, is
> what happens to the story in the category that, by its very
> nature, is less attractive to a wide range of readers.
> The instance I am thinking about is what happens when a story
> about, say, Legolas, a popular elf, is entered against one
> about, say, Erestor, who has a considerably smaller fan base.
> Poor Erestor's story will have a hard time getting a fair shake.

Sometimes readers can surprise you. I know I got surprised this year in the
DS9 awards by someone named Sisko2734 (or something like that). I had read
one of his stories before and didn't think too much of it. Because I *did*
set myself a goal of reading all the DS9 General stories I read two or three
other stories by this person. They didn't star Dr. Bashir. Some of them
didn't even have any canon characters. And they turned out to be excellent.
Guess who got the longest comments from me in the DS9 Author category?
Already Zimraphel got me reading stories of hers that might not have
interested me. But I had read one of her stories, so when I went looking
for Numenor stories to nominate, I thought maybe she'd have more. I read
nearly a dozen! And they weren't all Numenor. And only one of them, I
think, involved Legolas. When I go to fanfiction.net to look for LOTR
stories, I filter out all but Faramir and Legolas. These awards have
already broadened outlook.

> But I do think that this can work--it will be valuable for
> the feedback alone, I think.

:-) Good, and at ASC that's what they stress all along. The Awards are
secondary. The Feedback is the main thing!

--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

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

>
> It may be advisable in some popular categories to divide Long &

Short pieces. That way the long ones

> won't get passed over by people worried about the amount of time

needed to read them.

>

I was considering this point and also think it would be a good idea
to divide the stories up by length so people would know how much time
they needed to read the entries in each category. A heads-up so they
would be able to see which entries are long and which ones are short.
Even if you decide not to separate them into length, it would be good
to have some sort of note on the nominations of the longer stories so
the readers would be able to schedule enough time to accommodate for
them.

How much work would it take to grab word counts? I
know those are already listed on the ff.net ones, and
I think on HASA too. Categorizers could just add an
extra column on our spreadsheet doohickies...

Maybe we could even get some additional volunteers
willing to check on the word counts? :D

viv

--- Andreth/Anna <tawmt@cimtel.net> wrote:

> Even if you decide not to separate them into length,
> it would be good
> to have some sort of note on the nominations of the
> longer stories so
> the readers would be able to schedule enough time to
> accommodate for
> them.

=====
Spacellama Palace: http://spacellama.net




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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andreth/Anna [mailto:tawmt@cimtel.net]
> Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 9:09 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: YASQ (Yet Another Stupid Question)
>
> I was considering this point and also think it would be a
> good idea to divide the stories up by length so people would
> know how much time they needed to read the entries in each
> category. A heads-up so they would be able to see which
> entries are long and which ones are short.
> Even if you decide not to separate them into length, it would
> be good to have some sort of note on the nominations of the
> longer stories so the readers would be able to schedule
> enough time to accommodate for them.

As I answered in another post, long and short compete successfully together
in the ASC awards. On another note, over at the Mithrils, I noticed they
had a category for short story/vignette for up to 2500 words and one for
novels (50000 words or more), but nothing for in between.

Now, I have been marking down "vignette" and "short story" when I knew what
it was in my spreadsheets Subcategory field. As anything in that field is
only a suggestion, I *might* subdivide that category by vignettes and short
stories. I won't do it automatically. But as we get all the nominations we
will find many categories to have LOTS of stories. We will want to subdivide
them into viable subcategories. Length *might* be one way to do that.

--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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Viv [mailto:spacellamaprincess@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 10:26 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: YASQ (Yet Another Stupid Question)
>
> How much work would it take to grab word counts? I know those
> are already listed on the ff.net ones, and I think on HASA
> too. Categorizers could just add an extra column on our
> spreadsheet doohickies...
>
> Maybe we could even get some additional volunteers willing to
> check on the word counts? :D

I'm torn on this point. I don't want to discourage anyone to read long
stories. It might be a good excuse to skip over long stories if it's shown
that a story is long.

And there is still the point (which I forgot to bring up in reply to Anna's
post) of how long is long? *If* we made a break between long and short,
where would we break it? I, personally think 2500 words is far too small a
maximum for a short story. But there is always a debate about what
constitutes a short story, novella, and novel by word count. I've seen
novels as said to be 70,000. So what do you call my 170,000 word story,
Oswiecim? Epic? Giant novel? How long is long?

Personally, that's an option I don't want to get into in too much detail. I
figure a short story is told in one or two chapters. But that can be a bit
of subjective thing. A vignette is, by definition, one scene, and thefore
easily decided upon. As are Drabbles which should only be 100 words long.

Short story, novel, and everything in between are not so easy to define.

--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