Okay, I'm getting to the "oh, good grief" point here.
We've gone from how long should we hide reviews to now we should hide the
nominators and gee it's unfair that some stories get nominated early and
they might have an advantage over one that gets nominated late and known
authors have advantages over unknown authors and gee it would be so terrible
if advantages made it look like there were cliques so lets hide
information...
The only way you can avoid having any story have an advantage over every
other story is by identifying them solely by number. The minute you give us
the author, or the title, or the summary, or the category, the readers are
going to start making decisions based on the author, or the title, or the
summary or the category. So why the hell NOT make decisions based on the
nominator or the reviews? The list of nominated stories is huge. We've got
to whittle it down just to make it manageable.
I'd live perfectly happily with no reviews at all until the end of
nomination season, but once I start reading and voting, bring 'em on! Give
me data! I want nominator, reviews, word count, URLs showing on the list so
I can print it out and work even when the site is down, and more! In short I
want as much information as possible. And why?
More information means I read MORE STORIES. I review MORE STORIES, not
fewer. I am MORE likely to read a Silmarillion story because Marigold gave
it a good review, not less. I am MORE likely to branch out of my usual focus
because Dreamflower nominated a poem, not less. These past few months I read
nearly twice as much as I would have based on the barebones information of
title author and summary because once I'd worked my way through most of the
things that piqued my interest I went on to check out stories that had
nominators whose taste I respect and which had reviews that enticed me.
If someone wants to think that the awards are cliquey, they'll manufacture
all the evidence they require and *hiding* information will only *prove*
their point. Modifying the Awards to satisfy the requirements of people who
are looking for excuses not to play is like throwing out half the books in
the library because people who don't like to read are intimidated by full
shelves. All that happens is that the people who *do* like to read are less
likely to find the good stuff.
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