Yahoo Forum Archive

Here's the topic that some of you have been waiting for! At least we
know that RabidSamFan has ;-) - and it's a natural next topic after
nominations. In short, how should we categorise stories?

With fewer nominations per nominator, there will probably be less
nominations to categorise. This naturally means that one of two things
needs to happen:

1. We have fewer categories of roughly (with roughly the same number of
nominations per category).
2. We do not decrease the number of categories and have to deal with
more pieces being moved to their second- and third-choice categories
because their first-choices weren't viable.

I have heard lots of comments about how the number of categories, and
specifically the three "divisions" (Books/Time, Genres, and
Races/Places), was confusing. For this reason I'd rather see us
decrease the number of categories so that more stories end up in their
first-choice categories. To that end, I suggest that we have the main
categories to be *either* Books/Time *or* Genres *or* Races/Places. The
other two become potential subcategories.

As an example - let's say we say "Genres" will be the main categories.
Then we would have the following main categories:

1. Adventure
2. Alternative Universe
3. Crossover
4. Drama
5. Horror
6. Humour
7. Movieverse
8. Mystery
9. Nonfiction
10. Romance

We could then potentially have subcategories like "Romance: Gondor" or
"Drama: The Silmarillion". Neither Gondor or The Silmarillion would be
*main* categories.

I emphasise that this is just an example. It could just easily be done
with Books/Time or Races/Places as the main category, and the other two
being potential sub-categories. We'll decide what should be the "main"
categories if we decide to go with this.

I see several advantages: fewer categories of course, but it also would
make things simpler on the authors who have to pick their category
choices. And it would eliminate subcategories like "Rohan: Romance" and
"Romance: Rohan"; I had several comments asking what the difference
was. While I think there is a difference, it's really a trivial one and
having these sub-categories causes unnecessary confusion.

Anyway... what do you guys think? Do you like this, or not? Does anyone
else have alternate suggestions?

Marta

Well, I'm game to jump in...with a word of caution. Now, I should
preface this by saying I'm a worst-case-scenario kind of person.
(Hey, every group needs one!) And so, I just want to point out that
assuming a membership of 300 or so, if everyone nominated their
maximum allotment, even if that were only 20, we're looking at 6,000
stories.

Do I think that's likely? Naw, even *I'm* not *that* alarmist! But
neither do I think any decisions should be made based on the
assumption that we will probably have fewer stories nominated next
year, for at least two reasons:

1. Awareness of the MEFAs is increasing. Last year, I had never
heard of the MEFAs until after they were over. This year, I sort of
got my feet wet. But next year, I'll be off and running...including,
most likely, nominating more than the five stories I did this year.
So I imagine membership will keep growing, even allowing for
dissatisfied members who drop out. (Marta, do you have any
recollection of how many members there were the first year?)

2. I don't think you can assume the same nominating patterns among
the current membership. As several have already suggested, they will
nominate more if their favorite stories are not already nominated.
The current Yahoo group membership is 324. If each of those members
nominates only four stories, which seems quite plausible, that's 1296
stories.

So, I would go slow on the idea of reducing the number of categories…

Do I have any alternative suggestions? Ummm...no, at least not yet. I
do think that clarity and simplicity are worthy goals, and that many
of the category distinctions this year seemed rather arbitrary. Are
there ways to simplify things without reducing the overall number of
categories?

Kathy (Inkling)

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> Here's the topic that some of you have been waiting for! At least
we
> know that RabidSamFan has ;-) - and it's a natural next topic after
> nominations. In short, how should we categorise stories?
>
> With fewer nominations per nominator, there will probably be less
> nominations to categorise. This naturally means that one of two
things
> needs to happen:
>
> 1. We have fewer categories of roughly (with roughly the same
number of
> nominations per category).
> 2. We do not decrease the number of categories and have to deal
with
> more pieces being moved to their second- and third-choice
categories
> because their first-choices weren't viable.
>
> I have heard lots of comments about how the number of categories,
and
> specifically the three "divisions" (Books/Time, Genres, and
> Races/Places), was confusing. For this reason I'd rather see us
> decrease the number of categories so that more stories end up in
their
> first-choice categories. To that end, I suggest that we have the
main
> categories to be *either* Books/Time *or* Genres *or* Races/Places.
The
> other two become potential subcategories.
>
> As an example - let's say we say "Genres" will be the main
categories.
> Then we would have the following main categories:
>
> 1. Adventure
> 2. Alternative Universe
> 3. Crossover
> 4. Drama
> 5. Horror
> 6. Humour
> 7. Movieverse
> 8. Mystery
> 9. Nonfiction
> 10. Romance
>
> We could then potentially have subcategories like "Romance: Gondor"
or
> "Drama: The Silmarillion". Neither Gondor or The Silmarillion would
be
> *main* categories.
>
> I emphasise that this is just an example. It could just easily be
done
> with Books/Time or Races/Places as the main category, and the other
two
> being potential sub-categories. We'll decide what should be
the "main"
> categories if we decide to go with this.
>
> I see several advantages: fewer categories of course, but it also
would
> make things simpler on the authors who have to pick their category
> choices. And it would eliminate subcategories like "Rohan: Romance"
and
> "Romance: Rohan"; I had several comments asking what the difference
> was. While I think there is a difference, it's really a trivial one
and
> having these sub-categories causes unnecessary confusion.
>
> Anyway... what do you guys think? Do you like this, or not? Does
anyone
> else have alternate suggestions?
>
> Marta
>

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:

>
> Here's the topic that some of you have been waiting for! At least we
> know that RabidSamFan has ;-) - and it's a natural next topic after
> nominations. In short, how should we categorise stories?
>
> With fewer nominations per nominator, there will probably be less
> nominations to categorise. This naturally means that one of two
> things needs to happen:

Well, the goal of the awards this year that we tried to let folks win
as much as possible. So even with lesser nominations, I do hope the
goal will remain the same.

> 1. We have fewer categories of roughly (with roughly the same number
> of nominations per category).

I am not sure if this analogy works. Right now, it doesn't.

> 2. We do not decrease the number of categories and have to deal with
> more pieces being moved to their second- and third-choice categories
> because their first-choices weren't viable.

It all depends on what makes a category valid or not before the
categorisers are forced to move a piece to a second choice. As a
categoriser we aimed to remain close to the author's wishes.

> I have heard lots of comments about how the number of categories,
> and specifically the three "divisions" (Books/Time, Genres, and
> Races/Places), was confusing. For this reason I'd rather see us
> decrease the number of categories so that more stories end up in
> their first-choice categories. To that end, I suggest that we have
> the main categories to be *either* Books/Time *or* Genres *or*
> Races/Places. The other two become potential subcategories.

I would like to keep the Books/Time categories, because you have pure
Silmarillion writers who achieve to write to stick to Silmarillion
canon as much as they can. You also have writers who are great in
writing in a genre or who write great stories just featuring one race.
So, no, I would keep the main categories, it suits the way people like
to read and write their stories. As I said above: define how many
stories make a category valid to run with. I have the feeling that
this is not the reason why it felt so confusing.

I think the confusion lies in the fact that quite quickly new main
categories were formed before the rest of the categorisers could
finish theirs. Also, the categorisers got their category's assigned
with hardly any instruction and did their best to make reasonable sub
categories with the information and explicit wishes the author gave them.

At the staff list it was suggested to make a standard list of sub
categories where an author/nominator could choose from. The benefits
are that it is clear to all and that you don't run into trouble where
one person says: The Shire and another nominator said Shire (or for
example Post-Ring War or Post Ring War). If we took our time (which we
didn't had at all and most of us felt overwhelmed), many subcategories
could have been grouped and made a main category. For example we have
genre: Romance: Rohan... but also Races/Places: Rohan: romance (coming
from the initial category Races/Places: Men with as subcategory rohan
(I am not even sure if romance was mentioned, because I didn't tackle
that main category)). Neither was it offered to move those stories to
the Romance category at all stages. The main category was formed and
dealt with.

Now what is the difference here? Could the stories placed in
Races/Places Rohan: Romance better not have been placed in the Romance
category? Next year we need more time for Check Ballot season and also
limit the number of categorisers. Form a small group of them, who work
closely together and wait with forming or graduating subcategories to
full fledged main categories *after* you are done with everything.

If we do decided to make changes in the deliberately chosen main
categories by the author, don't be afraid to consult them. But don't
shut them out either by surprising them with changes *after* you urged
them to have a good look at the main categories and sub-categories to
run in (I mean, why the heck do you even ask them). I think a lot can
be done by standardising the subcategories and not let a main category
appear as a subcategory as well. A liaison can pay attention to this,
it surely makes it easier for a categoriser.

> As an example - let's say we say "Genres" will be the main
> categories. Then we would have the following main categories:
>
> 1. Adventure
> 2. Alternative Universe
> 3. Crossover
> 4. Drama
> 5. Horror
> 6. Humour
> 7. Movieverse
> 8. Mystery
> 9. Nonfiction
> 10. Romance

No, I am firmly against this. See above.

> We could then potentially have subcategories like "Romance: Gondor"
> or "Drama: The Silmarillion". Neither Gondor or The Silmarillion
> would be *main* categories.

Brrr please no.

<snip>

> I see several advantages: fewer categories of course, but it also
> would make things simpler on the authors who have to pick their
> category choices. And it would eliminate subcategories like "Rohan:
> Romance" and "Romance: Rohan"; I had several comments asking what
> the difference was. While I think there is a difference, it's
> really a trivial one and having these sub-categories causes
> unnecessary confusion.

No, see what I wrote above what happened during check ballot season.
This is masking the initial problem we ran into, ever categoriser was
left to their own and worked hard to come up with something. Every
category was passed along on the list, but there was no collaboration
at all (time pressure, feeling overwhelmed, announcing that a category
was done, giving the other categorisers the impression it's locked).
There are other ways to avoid a confusion like this.

Rhapsody

I really think Books/Time would be the best categories. There would be
fewer. So it would be:

The Silmarillion
The Hobbit
Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
Other (other could include Unfinished Tales, HoME, and other JRRT works,
Movie-verse and Crossover)

Then the other two categories, Genre and Races/Places would be subcategories

So, you'd have, as examples:

The Two Towers: Rohan
or
The Return of the King: Hobbits
or
Movie-verse: Helm's Deep
or
The Hobbit: Adventure
or
The Silmarillion: Angst
or
Crossover: Humor

I posted this at LJ, also.

Dreamflower

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marta Layton" <melayton@gmail.com>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:16 AM
Subject: [MEFAwards] New Topic: Categorisation


> Here's the topic that some of you have been waiting for! At least we
> know that RabidSamFan has ;-) - and it's a natural next topic after
> nominations. In short, how should we categorise stories?
>
> With fewer nominations per nominator, there will probably be less
> nominations to categorise. This naturally means that one of two things
> needs to happen:
>
> 1. We have fewer categories of roughly (with roughly the same number of
> nominations per category).
> 2. We do not decrease the number of categories and have to deal with
> more pieces being moved to their second- and third-choice categories
> because their first-choices weren't viable.
>
> I have heard lots of comments about how the number of categories, and
> specifically the three "divisions" (Books/Time, Genres, and
> Races/Places), was confusing. For this reason I'd rather see us
> decrease the number of categories so that more stories end up in their
> first-choice categories. To that end, I suggest that we have the main
> categories to be *either* Books/Time *or* Genres *or* Races/Places. The
> other two become potential subcategories.
>
> As an example - let's say we say "Genres" will be the main categories.
> Then we would have the following main categories:
>
> 1. Adventure
> 2. Alternative Universe
> 3. Crossover
> 4. Drama
> 5. Horror
> 6. Humour
> 7. Movieverse
> 8. Mystery
> 9. Nonfiction
> 10. Romance
>
> We could then potentially have subcategories like "Romance: Gondor" or
> "Drama: The Silmarillion". Neither Gondor or The Silmarillion would be
> *main* categories.
>
> I emphasise that this is just an example. It could just easily be done
> with Books/Time or Races/Places as the main category, and the other two
> being potential sub-categories. We'll decide what should be the "main"
> categories if we decide to go with this.
>
> I see several advantages: fewer categories of course, but it also would
> make things simpler on the authors who have to pick their category
> choices. And it would eliminate subcategories like "Rohan: Romance" and
> "Romance: Rohan"; I had several comments asking what the difference
> was. While I think there is a difference, it's really a trivial one and
> having these sub-categories causes unnecessary confusion.
>
> Anyway... what do you guys think? Do you like this, or not? Does anyone
> else have alternate suggestions?
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

In a message dated 11/15/2005 6:30:20 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
aelfwina@cableone.net writes:

The Silmarillion
The Hobbit
Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
Other (other could include Unfinished Tales, HoME, and other JRRT works,
Movie-verse and Crossover)

Then the other two categories, Genre and Races/Places would be subcategories

So, you'd have, as examples:

The Two Towers: Rohan
or
The Return of the King: Hobbits
or
Movie-verse: Helm's Deep
or
The Hobbit: Adventure
or
The Silmarillion: Angst
or
Crossover: Humor

I posted this at LJ, also.

Dreamflower




This is fine, but you're missing a few. Some people write Pre-LOTR stories
that aren't The Hobbit and some (raises hand here) write Post-LOTR stories.
You'd need categories for them as well.

I don't know that you'd have to subdivide LOTR by books, but it would
probably be the largest category, so that might be a very useful thing to do.

Isabeau


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

Woohoo! *cracks knuckles* *reaches for notes*
Okay. As an author, being asked to chose categories for the first time this
year, I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA of the breadth and depth of the categories
that were going to appear, nor the priority placements. And I had a lovely
idea, but no one else thought in those terms, so it fell by the wayside
because it wasn't "viable".
And then I had two stories that did very well in the "post-quest" category
-- except one was under Books/Time and the other was under something else
entirely... And reading along I knew that the definition of "post-Quest"
varied sharply from author to author.
Soooo. I'm going to suggest that we have authors choose from given lists,
with the option of "other, please describe" always given, in case we didn't
think of something. Each author should identify their work within each list,
and choose which aspect they think it is primarily. We can break things down
into viable categories from there.
The first list would be literary form.
Essay
Poetry
Short form (includes drabbles, drabble series, and other forms which have a
restricted word count, give word count -- if you use Word to do the
counting, you may subtract for dashes.)
Fiction (Give word count for text only, not including author notes, etc.
Don't sweat the dashes.)
(We may want word counts for essays and poetry as well, depending on
whether we need to break those categories down into subcategories.)
Fiction can be further subdivided by word counts once we have them into
vignette, short short story, short story, story, novel, and epic. Actual
word counts mean that it's not a subjective guess from one categoriser to
another. And yes, I know vignettes properly have only one setting, but
anything with a very low word count is likely to be just that.
The second list would give the author a chance to decide where their story
fits into the overall universe. It starts with three divisions:
Book
Movieverse (PJ or cartoon)
Alternate Universes
And then is subdivided further by Time, which we can give the author the
choice of doing in a couple three ways,
By the timeline: Age, year, month, date, as nearly as you can be accurate,
"So 3:3019:02:-- would mean February of that year. People should be free to
put start and end dates if they want, but the categories should generally
use start dates.
By approximate dates: "First Age, early centuries", "Third Age: Bilbo's
Adventure", "Lifespan of Aragorn" "Third Age - PreQuest" (Defined as period
from the end of The Hobbit until the day Frodo left Bag End.) Quest (Defined
as the time Frodo has left Bag End until Aragorn's coronation) Post Quest
(Defined as the day after Aragorn's coronation until the day that the
Ringbearers take ship and leave Middle Earth), etc. And of course "circa"
can be used. Dreamflower's way of breaking things down looks good to me too.
By lifespan of an individual.
Alternate universes should be identified by where they break away from the
original. Movieverse should go with movie, scene if the dates aren't clear
from Tolkien's timeline.
The next list would be genres including WIPs, and character studies.
Then places, with subcategories like "path of the Ring quest" to keep
authors from getting headaches.
Then races/peoples/groups/persons, which should actually encourage people
to be as specific as possible and to choose more than one, with priority
given to a main character if there is one. These get grouped upwards by
categorizers, who, if they have a lot of stories about Merry, can give him
his own category, but if not can include him in "hobbits" or "the
Fellowship" according to what they've garnered from the timeline and place
information.
And of course, you give the "not applicable" and "general" options in each
list
With all that information for each story, the category breakdowns should be
easier for the categorizers to do without having to read the works
themselves.
More later, after work (and when I see how y'all react to this much!)

On 11/15/05, ejackamack@aol.com <ejackamack@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 11/15/2005 6:30:20 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> aelfwina@cableone.net writes:
>
> The Silmarillion
> The Hobbit
> Fellowship of the Ring
> The Two Towers
> The Return of the King
> Other (other could include Unfinished Tales, HoME, and other JRRT works,
> Movie-verse and Crossover)
>
> Then the other two categories, Genre and Races/Places would be
> subcategories
>
> So, you'd have, as examples:
>
> The Two Towers: Rohan
> or
> The Return of the King: Hobbits
> or
> Movie-verse: Helm's Deep
> or
> The Hobbit: Adventure
> or
> The Silmarillion: Angst
> or
> Crossover: Humor
>
> I posted this at LJ, also.
>
> Dreamflower
>
>
>
>
> This is fine, but you're missing a few. Some people write Pre-LOTR stories
>
> that aren't The Hobbit and some (raises hand here) write Post-LOTR
> stories.
> You'd need categories for them as well.
>
> I don't know that you'd have to subdivide LOTR by books, but it would
> probably be the largest category, so that might be a very useful thing to
> do.
>
> Isabeau
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> ------------------------------
> YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
>
>
> - Visit your group "MEFAwards<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards>"
> on the web.
> - To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> MEFAwards-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com<MEFAwards-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>
> - Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>


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

Oh, I do like this, RSF! A list to choose from not only makes things easier
for the author, but for the categorisers as well, and an "other, please
explain" would make it possible for something quirky, such as a fic based on
"Leaf by Niggle" or an otherwise indefinable humor piece.

I also like the different breakdowns you have come up with.

Dreamflower

----- Original Message -----
From: "C Dodd" <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 8:46 AM
Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] New Topic: Categorisation


> Woohoo! *cracks knuckles* *reaches for notes*
> Okay. As an author, being asked to chose categories for the first time
> this
> year, I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA of the breadth and depth of the categories
> that were going to appear, nor the priority placements. And I had a lovely
> idea, but no one else thought in those terms, so it fell by the wayside
> because it wasn't "viable".
> And then I had two stories that did very well in the "post-quest" category
> -- except one was under Books/Time and the other was under something else
> entirely... And reading along I knew that the definition of "post-Quest"
> varied sharply from author to author.
> Soooo. I'm going to suggest that we have authors choose from given lists,
> with the option of "other, please describe" always given, in case we
> didn't
> think of something. Each author should identify their work within each
> list,
> and choose which aspect they think it is primarily. We can break things
> down
> into viable categories from there.
> The first list would be literary form.
> Essay
> Poetry
> Short form (includes drabbles, drabble series, and other forms which have
> a
> restricted word count, give word count -- if you use Word to do the
> counting, you may subtract for dashes.)
> Fiction (Give word count for text only, not including author notes, etc.
> Don't sweat the dashes.)
> (We may want word counts for essays and poetry as well, depending on
> whether we need to break those categories down into subcategories.)
> Fiction can be further subdivided by word counts once we have them into
> vignette, short short story, short story, story, novel, and epic. Actual
> word counts mean that it's not a subjective guess from one categoriser to
> another. And yes, I know vignettes properly have only one setting, but
> anything with a very low word count is likely to be just that.
> The second list would give the author a chance to decide where their story
> fits into the overall universe. It starts with three divisions:
> Book
> Movieverse (PJ or cartoon)
> Alternate Universes
> And then is subdivided further by Time, which we can give the author the
> choice of doing in a couple three ways,
> By the timeline: Age, year, month, date, as nearly as you can be accurate,
> "So 3:3019:02:-- would mean February of that year. People should be free
> to
> put start and end dates if they want, but the categories should generally
> use start dates.
> By approximate dates: "First Age, early centuries", "Third Age: Bilbo's
> Adventure", "Lifespan of Aragorn" "Third Age - PreQuest" (Defined as
> period
> from the end of The Hobbit until the day Frodo left Bag End.) Quest
> (Defined
> as the time Frodo has left Bag End until Aragorn's coronation) Post Quest
> (Defined as the day after Aragorn's coronation until the day that the
> Ringbearers take ship and leave Middle Earth), etc. And of course "circa"
> can be used. Dreamflower's way of breaking things down looks good to me
> too.
> By lifespan of an individual.
> Alternate universes should be identified by where they break away from the
> original. Movieverse should go with movie, scene if the dates aren't clear
> from Tolkien's timeline.
> The next list would be genres including WIPs, and character studies.
> Then places, with subcategories like "path of the Ring quest" to keep
> authors from getting headaches.
> Then races/peoples/groups/persons, which should actually encourage people
> to be as specific as possible and to choose more than one, with priority
> given to a main character if there is one. These get grouped upwards by
> categorizers, who, if they have a lot of stories about Merry, can give him
> his own category, but if not can include him in "hobbits" or "the
> Fellowship" according to what they've garnered from the timeline and place
> information.
> And of course, you give the "not applicable" and "general" options in each
> list
> With all that information for each story, the category breakdowns should
> be
> easier for the categorizers to do without having to read the works
> themselves.
> More later, after work (and when I see how y'all react to this much!)
>
>
> On 11/15/05, ejackamack@aol.com <ejackamack@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> In a message dated 11/15/2005 6:30:20 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
>> aelfwina@cableone.net writes:
>>
>> The Silmarillion
>> The Hobbit
>> Fellowship of the Ring
>> The Two Towers
>> The Return of the King
>> Other (other could include Unfinished Tales, HoME, and other JRRT works,
>> Movie-verse and Crossover)
>>
>> Then the other two categories, Genre and Races/Places would be
>> subcategories
>>
>> So, you'd have, as examples:
>>
>> The Two Towers: Rohan
>> or
>> The Return of the King: Hobbits
>> or
>> Movie-verse: Helm's Deep
>> or
>> The Hobbit: Adventure
>> or
>> The Silmarillion: Angst
>> or
>> Crossover: Humor
>>
>> I posted this at LJ, also.
>>
>> Dreamflower
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> This is fine, but you're missing a few. Some people write Pre-LOTR
>> stories
>>
>> that aren't The Hobbit and some (raises hand here) write Post-LOTR
>> stories.
>> You'd need categories for them as well.
>>
>> I don't know that you'd have to subdivide LOTR by books, but it would
>> probably be the largest category, so that might be a very useful thing to
>> do.
>>
>> Isabeau
>>
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
>>
>>
>> - Visit your group
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--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, C Dodd <rabidsamfan@v...> wrote:

>
> Woohoo! *cracks knuckles* *reaches for notes*

Oh dear LOL

> Okay. As an author, being asked to chose categories for the first
> time this year, I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA of the breadth and depth of
> the categories that were going to appear, nor the priority
> placements. And I had a lovely idea, but no one else thought in
> those terms, so it fell by the wayside because it wasn't "viable".

I think that also depends on your liaison. I,as a liasion, often was
engaged in discussion with some of my authors because they felt free
to ask me questions or opinions. This way I could also find out what
they exactly wanted and explain to them how the categories were set
up. But I can imagine not every liaison having the time for that, also
for next year.

> And then I had two stories that did very well in the "post-quest"
> category -- except one was under Books/Time and the other was under
> something else entirely... And reading along I knew that the
> definition of "post-Quest" varied sharply from author to author.

Or from archive to archive, or from reader to reader.

> Soooo. I'm going to suggest that we have authors choose from given
> lists, with the option of "other, please describe" always given, in
> case we didn't think of something. Each author should identify their
> work within each list, and choose which aspect they think it is
> primarily. We can break things down into viable categories from
> there.

Basically, instead of the nominator, leaving the author making the
decisions for their stories. Right? An author knows their story the best.

> The first list would be literary form.
> Essay
> Poetry
> Short form (includes drabbles, drabble series, and other forms which
> have a restricted word count, give word count -- if you use Word to
> do the counting, you may subtract for dashes.)
> Fiction (Give word count for text only, not including author notes,
> etc. Don't sweat the dashes.)
> (We may want word counts for essays and poetry as well, depending
> on whether we need to break those categories down into
> subcategories.)
> Fiction can be further subdivided by word counts once we have them
> into vignette, short short story, short story, story, novel, and
> epic. Actual word counts mean that it's not a subjective guess from
> one categoriser to another.

First, what makes you think it was a subjective guess from one
categoriser to another? Also, Ainae didn't wanted form to play a major
part in the awards or while making categories. I clearly remember that.

Second. I think the breakdown should start from: Non-fiction or
fiction. Now you put them at the same level as short form or poetry,
but basically it isn't.

From fiction on you can look at Short form, poetry, I assume long form
and so on. Actually, this is already covered by story type and should
absolutely not come into play while categorising. It is already
obvious, if you see what I am getting at. If you look at the
nomination form, that is already covered. What is for you the
difference between short short story (basically a ficlet), vignette
and short story?

> And yes, I know vignettes properly have only one setting, but
> anything with a very low word count is likely to be just that.

Why?

> The second list would give the author a chance to decide where their
> story fits into the overall universe. It starts with three
> divisions:
> Book
> Movieverse (PJ or cartoon)
> Alternate Universes
> And then is subdivided further by Time, which we can give the author
> the choice of doing in a couple three ways,
> By the timeline: Age, year, month, date, as nearly as you can be

accurate,

This cannot be done with the Silmarillion. The Lord of the Rings and
the Hobbit might have a splendid timeline, the dates (unless you know
the HoME series thoroughly and even then it is an estimated guess) are
basically absent. If someone writes, for example, a story on Maglor's
birth... good luck with that to find the exact date.

So leave that out. Yes one can assume for example that Maglor is born
in the years of the trees, but even that is, if I follow your
reasoning, an estimated guess and never good enough.

> By approximate dates: "First Age, early centuries",

This is too vague and will do stories injustice. Besides that, there
are ages before the First age, do you want them as well?

> "Third Age: Bilbo's Adventure", "Lifespan of Aragorn" "Third Age -
> PreQuest" (Defined as period from the end of The Hobbit until the
> day Frodo left Bag End.) Quest (Defined as the time Frodo has left
> Bag End until Aragorn's coronation) Post Quest (Defined as the day
> after Aragorn's coronation until the day that the Ringbearers take
> ship and leave Middle Earth), etc. And of course "circa" can be
> used. Dreamflower's way of breaking things down looks good to me
> too.

Eum, well, I rather see Ring War or War of the Ring her because you
too tightly focus it on Frodo. ;)

> By lifespan of an individual.
> Alternate universes should be identified by where they break away
> from the original.

And how do you suggest this to be happening? Especially if you want
dates, how much gives this kind of categorisation away from the story?

You can delve too deep you know.

> Movieverse should go with movie, scene if the dates aren't clear
> from Tolkien's timeline.
> The next list would be genres including WIPs, and character
> studies.

I can't see this, can you explain more? What about a movieverse WIP
or, an alternate universe WIP. What about crossovers?

> Then places, with subcategories like "path of the Ring quest" to
> keep authors from getting headaches.

How are you gonna deal with a whole lotta range of places?

> Then races/peoples/groups/persons, which should actually encourage
> people to be as specific as possible and to choose more than one,
> with priority given to a main character if there is one. These get
> grouped upwards by categorizers, who, if they have a lot of stories
> about Merry, can give him his own category, but if not can include
> him in "hobbits" or "the Fellowship" according to what they've
> garnered from the timeline and place information.

Well this should save the categoriser some time ;) What happened to
original characters?

> And of course, you give the "not applicable" and "general" options
> in each list With all that information for each story, the category
> breakdowns should be easier for the categorizers to do without
> having to read the works themselves.

Mwaw. It wasn't that bad ;) My to review list only increased.

The thing is, it sounds systematical, but I am afraid you ask a lot
from the author. This can cause an author to go like wow... too much.
And this actually leaves me wondering how you write your own stories
(but that is besides the discussion).

> More later, after work (and when I see how y'all react to this
> much!)

Heh, before you give more, let's go over this first. I do see a lot in
it on how you view Tolkien's works or how you approach your own material.

Rhapsody

>
> The thing is, it sounds systematical, but I am afraid you ask a lot
> from the author. This can cause an author to go like wow... too much.

This is the basic criticism I would have. Don't hve time to comment
individually at the moment, but some suggestions seem possibly a
little more difficult to implement than others.

However, I like the idea of trying to break the list of categories up
into manageable chunks, and telling the author to select one from each
category. Given that, perhaps actually seeing this in the shape of a
proposed e-mail form liasons could use would make it easier for some
to follow the exact moves you're proposing, RSF, and so easier to make
a judgment as to how difficult or overwhelming it may seem.

Actually, maybe this would be a good idea for this discussion? Give us
a proposed e-mail form, then append the explanation? If it works, it
makes life much simpler by providing the form for next year, without
having to go through a separate round, perhaps, of figuring it out, or
else it'd give the categorizers something to work with.

Dwim

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:

> > The thing is, it sounds systematical, but I am afraid you ask a
> > lot from the author. This can cause an author to go like wow...
> > too much.
>
> This is the basic criticism I would have. Don't hve time to comment
> individually at the moment, but some suggestions seem possibly a
> little more difficult to implement than others.
>
> However, I like the idea of trying to break the list of categories
> up into manageable chunks, and telling the author to select one from
> each category. Given that, perhaps actually seeing this in the shape
> of a proposed e-mail form liasons could use would make it easier for
> some to follow the exact moves you're proposing, RSF, and so easier
> to make a judgment as to how difficult or overwhelming it may seem.

I really would like this. It not only gives the author guidance, but
also the liaisons for the next event.

> Actually, maybe this would be a good idea for this discussion? Give
> us a proposed e-mail form, then append the explanation? If it works,
> it makes life much simpler by providing the form for next year,
> without having to go through a separate round, perhaps, of figuring
> it out, or else it'd give the categorizers something to work with.

I like this a lot because it has been suggested to change the
nomination e-mail, so with this, we can catch two things at the same
time. The more organised the liaison can work, the more easier the
work for the categoriser will be.

Thanks for suggesting it Dwim.

Rhapsody

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of aelfwina@cableone.net
> Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 8:57 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] New Topic: Categorisation
>
> Oh, I do like this, RSF! A list to choose from not only
> makes things easier for the author, but for the categorisers
> as well, and an "other, please explain" would make it
> possible for something quirky, such as a fic based on "Leaf
> by Niggle" or an otherwise indefinable humor piece.
>
> I also like the different breakdowns you have come up with.
>
> Dreamflower
>

I don't. And I can honestly say, I did only read half of it. And that's one
of the reasons I didn't like it. Too complicated to read! Let alone to use.
One thing you have to take into consideration here, unless an author is
self-nominating, we have to confirm everything with the author before a
nomination is complete. Any Author Liaisons out there from the 2004 and/or
2005 awards? How easy was that? In some cases, very. In some cases.....we
never heard from the authors. Or it took a very long time and multiple
e-mails (like 6) and in the meantime, we were biting our nails wondering if
these stories were going to be approved in time to be official nominations.
And what category would they go it?

Now, I admit that categorizatino this year was a nightmare and a half. Made
2004 look like a milk run by comparison. But it think ithe problem is more
in method than in setup What I mean, yes there are a lot of categories and
yes, sojemtimes they seem redundant or confusing. But Rhapsody hit the nail
on the head for why I set them up that way. Some people think in therms of
"I write Elf stories". Some think in terms of "I'm a Silm-ficcer." And
others specialize in, say, Humor. Now, say each of those three wrote a
story about Glorfindel. He's definitely and Elf, and he could be
Silmarillion. He could also be LOTR, though, and very possibly post-LOTR,
and he could certainly be in a humorous story. Say all three were. One was
a LOTR-Story about Glorfindel finding the Hobbits near the Bruinen. (that's
the Elf one). One was a story of him slaying the Balrog, in a funny way
(Silm). And one is rather generic on time but very, very funny.

Basing by only Genres, all three would end up in Humor, but maybe the Silm
writer would not be happy to be competing agains the LOTR and the silly.
Basing by Races only, all would be Elves, but again the Silm writer might
not be happy competing against LOTR-based stories and the Humor writer may
find it worrisome to be thrown in with non-humorous stories.
Basing on Books/Time only, you make the Silm-er happy but perhaps not the
LOTR one who really couldn't care less about aragorn and all those scruffy,
smelly Men. And the Humor is still in the same boat.

And what about readers? Say I really only like reading humor fics. The
only way I'd be happy is if all the stories were grouped mainly on Genere.
That way I could easily wittle down the list to the Humor stories. But with
Races or Books/Time, I'd have to through each subcategory to find them.
Or a reader only reads Silm, with NO exceptions. Only Books/Time would be
helpful.
Same for a reader who exclusively reads Hobbit-fiction. Only Races would
do.

In the ASC Awards it works to use the series as main categories. There are
only 6 (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, MIS--MIS being everything else.) And one
brave, terribly insufficiently reluctant volunteer categorizes them all by
her lonesome. (Okay, Status of Stories maintainer, like myself, suggest
subcategories but only because Authors include headers when posting their
stories and we can get a general idea from the header or the summary in the
header. For example, if it has codes like G/B, I'm not going to read it, but
I know it's Romance (G/B)--meaning Garak/Bashir and I just don't go there
personally.

In Tolkien fanciction, it's more complicated. There is a MUCH wider base.
Sure, there are three books: Silm, LOTR, The Hobbit. But as, Rhapsody
pointed out, that hardly covers it. There are the spaces between the books
and after the books. People write about those times. In Trek, authros
generally align themselves as a particular series writer. Me, I'm a DS9er.
Some do cross over to others, but generally they think in terms of series.
There are a few who think in terms of genre (mainly humor). There are also
a few who think in terms of races (like Klingons or Cardassians), but they
generally still write within the "atmosphere", shall we say, of a series.
Or if they choose to go all the way original, they go in MIS. So, by the
way, do crossovers (Cross with other universes) and combines (combines
series).

In Tolkien fanfiction, writers do like I stated above. Some are Humor
writers. Some are Silm writers. Some are Elf writers. Very few, BTW, are
TTT or ROTK writers. They generally lump them together with LOTR. And very,
very, very, very few can tell you the MONTH their story is set in. (That
would be about the point where my eyes glazed over on C Dodd's post.)

Long story short, that's why I started with 3 topics or ways of
categorizing. To let each fit his or her own preference. And, yeah, the
more I look at it, the more I think self-nomination takes the most confusion
out of it. Something to think about there.

I don't think we want to reduce the number of categories. I really don't
thikn we want to sub-sub categorize: LOTR/Elf/Humor/Glorfindel. Gets quite
cumbersome. Reduce the main categories too far, and that's what you'll get.
Expand them too far, and you get a lack of competition. I think I've
mentioned before we need to aim for balance there. Feedback is the main
purpose, but competition is part of it. We want to have lots of winners,
but not so many that the win is worthless.

What we do need, is a better method for doing it. The first year, we used
spreadsheets and swapped orphans (non-viables) until we found a place for
them to fit. The second year, we tried to reduce the amount of manipulation
and put more burden on authors. See above for the complication in that. It
was better, but subcategorization is still very ambiguous. But yes, ther
still can be Rohan: Romance and Romance: Rohan because a Rohan writer might
write a romance and a Romance writer might set a story in Rohan. It's the
bent of the writer or an attempt to serve the bent of the reader that puts
the story in one or the other.

I think a list of subcategories would be good but we'd have to be VERY good
at putting together that list. What if we get 500 "Others" because we
weren't broad enough? What if we get 15 inviable categories because we were
too broad? Balance there, too, but how do we find it?

The main thing though, is that we can't make it MORE complicated. And C
Dodd's suggestion would do that. Self-nomination really is the best because
authors know their stories best. Just a brainstorm right now: if we don't
limit it all to self-nomination, what about just nominating a story, URL and
author (with e-mail) and leaving it up to the author to, in accepting the
nomination, finish the nomination themselves, right on the web site with a
form like C Dodd suggested, just one much, much simpler?

--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

It seems like to me that it would make an awful lot of sense and make
things a lot simpler to have a single main list of categories and as
many subcategories as you need.

I think it would be easier to understand if there was a set format
one way or the other.

if you went by genre, - you'd still have a endless choices for
subcates.

romance for example: subcates could include book/time choices, as
well as race and specific pairings. (main cate romance would have
subcates including, Hobbit, Sam and Rosie, Silmarillion, Elves,
Glorfindel, LotR, Post Ring War, 4th Age, Arwen and Aragorn)

Romance readers would quickly and easily find their way to the main
cate and go from there, same with Drama/Angst, humor, etc.

subcate reading would still be just as easy. It would only take one
click for the Silm readers to figure out to check each main Cate for
Silm-related subcates.


I'd highly recommend having a set list and LETTING THE AUTHOR PICK
the category and first, second and third choice of subcate, and an
text field for 'other'.

use a date stamp to move the ones to second/third choices once the
subcate gets full. - no sub-sub-cates, just more subcates in each
category. - also move down to second or third choice for the ones
that don't fill. I see that as a very simple way to go, for the
authors, the categorizes and the readers.

many of the subcates would be duplicated between the main cates and
that's ok. I'd take one of the main cates, genre, and use the others
as the basis for the subcate, books/time and race, and individualize
the subcate from there.

A standard format is mentally/emotionally comforting to people and
while I respect that you want a loose format, I've also heard many
times that the categorization was confusing (*I* found it confusing)
and I think some standardization would help people find their way
around the awards. => ease of navigation means more reading, more
voting, more feedback.

Sulriel

as a reader, I found it extraordinarily frustrating to have three
main categories with the endless freestyle of subcates and the
seemingly duplications between them. I finally just gave up
activily looking for stuff that I liked and trudged through by going
down the lists, subcate by subcate. If I weren't dedicated and
tenacious, you'd have lost a reader early in the process. I'd have
voted for the few that I knew and loved and otherwise spent my time
elsewhere.

The people reading this list and commenting are your dedicated
readers, - you have to design the process with *everyone else* in
mind.

Sulriel




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

>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of aelfwina@c...
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 8:57 AM
> > To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] New Topic: Categorisation
> >
> > Oh, I do like this, RSF! A list to choose from not only
> > makes things easier for the author, but for the categorisers
> > as well, and an "other, please explain" would make it
> > possible for something quirky, such as a fic based on "Leaf
> > by Niggle" or an otherwise indefinable humor piece.
> >
> > I also like the different breakdowns you have come up with.
> >
> > Dreamflower
> >
>
> I don't. And I can honestly say, I did only read half of it. And

that's one

> of the reasons I didn't like it. Too complicated to read! Let alone

to use.

> One thing you have to take into consideration here, unless an

author is

> self-nominating, we have to confirm everything with the author

before a

> nomination is complete. Any Author Liaisons out there from the

2004 and/or

> 2005 awards? How easy was that? In some cases, very. In some

cases.....we

> never heard from the authors. Or it took a very long time and

multiple

> e-mails (like 6) and in the meantime, we were biting our nails

wondering if

> these stories were going to be approved in time to be official

nominations.

> And what category would they go it?
>
> Now, I admit that categorizatino this year was a nightmare and a

half. Made

> 2004 look like a milk run by comparison. But it think ithe problem

is more

> in method than in setup What I mean, yes there are a lot of

categories and

> yes, sojemtimes they seem redundant or confusing. But Rhapsody hit

the nail

> on the head for why I set them up that way. Some people think in

therms of

> "I write Elf stories". Some think in terms of "I'm a Silm-

ficcer." And

> others specialize in, say, Humor. Now, say each of those three

wrote a

> story about Glorfindel. He's definitely and Elf, and he could be
> Silmarillion. He could also be LOTR, though, and very possibly

post-LOTR,

> and he could certainly be in a humorous story. Say all three

were. One was

> a LOTR-Story about Glorfindel finding the Hobbits near the

Bruinen. (that's

> the Elf one). One was a story of him slaying the Balrog, in a

funny way

> (Silm). And one is rather generic on time but very, very funny.
>
> Basing by only Genres, all three would end up in Humor, but maybe

the Silm

> writer would not be happy to be competing agains the LOTR and the

silly.

> Basing by Races only, all would be Elves, but again the Silm writer

might

> not be happy competing against LOTR-based stories and the Humor

writer may

> find it worrisome to be thrown in with non-humorous stories.
> Basing on Books/Time only, you make the Silm-er happy but perhaps

not the

> LOTR one who really couldn't care less about aragorn and all those

scruffy,

> smelly Men. And the Humor is still in the same boat.
>
> And what about readers? Say I really only like reading humor

fics. The

> only way I'd be happy is if all the stories were grouped mainly on

Genere.

> That way I could easily wittle down the list to the Humor stories.

But with

> Races or Books/Time, I'd have to through each subcategory to find

them.

> Or a reader only reads Silm, with NO exceptions. Only Books/Time

would be

> helpful.
> Same for a reader who exclusively reads Hobbit-fiction. Only Races

would

> do.
>
> In the ASC Awards it works to use the series as main categories.

There are

> only 6 (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, MIS--MIS being everything else.)

And one

> brave, terribly insufficiently reluctant volunteer categorizes them

all by

> her lonesome. (Okay, Status of Stories maintainer, like myself,

suggest

> subcategories but only because Authors include headers when posting

their

> stories and we can get a general idea from the header or the

summary in the

> header. For example, if it has codes like G/B, I'm not going to

read it, but

> I know it's Romance (G/B)--meaning Garak/Bashir and I just don't go

there

> personally.
>
> In Tolkien fanciction, it's more complicated. There is a MUCH

wider base.

> Sure, there are three books: Silm, LOTR, The Hobbit. But as,

Rhapsody

> pointed out, that hardly covers it. There are the spaces between

the books

> and after the books. People write about those times. In Trek,

authros

> generally align themselves as a particular series writer. Me, I'm

a DS9er.

> Some do cross over to others, but generally they think in terms of

series.

> There are a few who think in terms of genre (mainly humor). There

are also

> a few who think in terms of races (like Klingons or Cardassians),

but they

> generally still write within the "atmosphere", shall we say, of a

series.

> Or if they choose to go all the way original, they go in MIS. So,

by the

> way, do crossovers (Cross with other universes) and combines

(combines

> series).
>
> In Tolkien fanfiction, writers do like I stated above. Some are

Humor

> writers. Some are Silm writers. Some are Elf writers. Very few,

BTW, are

> TTT or ROTK writers. They generally lump them together with LOTR.

And very,

> very, very, very few can tell you the MONTH their story is set in.

(That

> would be about the point where my eyes glazed over on C Dodd's

post.)

>
> Long story short, that's why I started with 3 topics or ways of
> categorizing. To let each fit his or her own preference. And,

yeah, the

> more I look at it, the more I think self-nomination takes the most

confusion

> out of it. Something to think about there.
>
> I don't think we want to reduce the number of categories. I really

don't

> thikn we want to sub-sub categorize: LOTR/Elf/Humor/Glorfindel.

Gets quite

> cumbersome. Reduce the main categories too far, and that's what

you'll get.

> Expand them too far, and you get a lack of competition. I think I've
> mentioned before we need to aim for balance there. Feedback is the

main

> purpose, but competition is part of it. We want to have lots of

winners,

> but not so many that the win is worthless.
>
> What we do need, is a better method for doing it. The first year,

we used

> spreadsheets and swapped orphans (non-viables) until we found a

place for

> them to fit. The second year, we tried to reduce the amount of

manipulation

> and put more burden on authors. See above for the complication in

that. It

> was better, but subcategorization is still very ambiguous. But

yes, ther

> still can be Rohan: Romance and Romance: Rohan because a Rohan

writer might

> write a romance and a Romance writer might set a story in Rohan.

It's the

> bent of the writer or an attempt to serve the bent of the reader

that puts

> the story in one or the other.
>
> I think a list of subcategories would be good but we'd have to be

VERY good

> at putting together that list. What if we get 500 "Others" because

we

> weren't broad enough? What if we get 15 inviable categories

because we were

> too broad? Balance there, too, but how do we find it?
>
> The main thing though, is that we can't make it MORE complicated.

And C

> Dodd's suggestion would do that. Self-nomination really is the

best because

> authors know their stories best. Just a brainstorm right now: if

we don't

> limit it all to self-nomination, what about just nominating a

story, URL and

> author (with e-mail) and leaving it up to the author to, in

accepting the

> nomination, finish the nomination themselves, right on the web site

with a

> form like C Dodd suggested, just one much, much simpler?
>
> --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
>

I still like having the choices between Genres, Boooks, and Races, but I
think we're making progress. I like your idea of a date stamp, letting
chronological order decide who stays in one subcategory and who moves into
another or a enw one. It's a step in the right direction. Still might be
stickiness from that poing: new or other? But it can easily answer the
question "Why did my story move?" Because it was approved after the
subcategory was full. Or words to that effect. Anyway, in case it wasn't
clear in your post (I've been working between reading it and writing this)
the stamp should be when the author approves it, not when it's nominated.
Simply because a nominated story that is never approved sits in a
subcategory, pushing another out that is approved.

And let me put this out there: I do like C Dodd's basic suggestion of a
form, just not the total complication of the suggestions for what is in that
form.

And length as category will always be debated here. Some like it, some hate
it with apassion. Me, I hate it. Dwim put forth a good reason why she
wouldn't vote for it: In the essence of time, she'd skip all the
long-stories.

What about my suggestion of simplifying the nomination down to just Title,
URL, Author , and Author e-mail? We send a note to the author saying "Your
story, X, was nominated. To complete this nomination, please log in with
the following info to the MEFA2005 site and fill out the nomination form.
Please note, this nomination is not official until the form is complete."

Then, of course, we have to decide what's in that form.

--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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of sulriel
> Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 10:47 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] New Topic: Categorisation
>
>
> It seems like to me that it would make an awful lot of sense
> and make things a lot simpler to have a single main list of
> categories and as many subcategories as you need.
>
> I think it would be easier to understand if there was a set
> format one way or the other.
>
> if you went by genre, - you'd still have a endless choices
> for subcates.
>
> romance for example: subcates could include book/time
> choices, as well as race and specific pairings. (main cate
> romance would have subcates including, Hobbit, Sam and Rosie,
> Silmarillion, Elves, Glorfindel, LotR, Post Ring War, 4th
> Age, Arwen and Aragorn)
>
> Romance readers would quickly and easily find their way to
> the main cate and go from there, same with Drama/Angst, humor, etc.
>
> subcate reading would still be just as easy. It would only
> take one click for the Silm readers to figure out to check
> each main Cate for Silm-related subcates.
>
>
> I'd highly recommend having a set list and LETTING THE AUTHOR
> PICK the category and first, second and third choice of
> subcate, and an text field for 'other'.
>
> use a date stamp to move the ones to second/third choices
> once the subcate gets full. - no sub-sub-cates, just more
> subcates in each category. - also move down to second or
> third choice for the ones that don't fill. I see that as a
> very simple way to go, for the authors, the categorizes and
> the readers.
>
> many of the subcates would be duplicated between the main
> cates and that's ok. I'd take one of the main cates, genre,
> and use the others as the basis for the subcate, books/time
> and race, and individualize the subcate from there.
>
> A standard format is mentally/emotionally comforting to
> people and while I respect that you want a loose format, I've
> also heard many times that the categorization was confusing
> (*I* found it confusing) and I think some standardization
> would help people find their way around the awards. => ease
> of navigation means more reading, more voting, more feedback.
>
> Sulriel
>
>
>
>
>
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Well, what I'm thinking is that the author would be as specific as possible,
and then the categorizers could pile things together to make award
categories instead of trying to break things apart. More data gives you a
little more leeway.
The different aspects of the fic would work independently of each other,
basically. So if you had fifteen short stories about elves, and eight of
them were about Galadriel and the others were split between Legolas and
Celeborn and Thranduil, "Galadriel" would be in her own listing while the
other stories would fall under "Elves".
The intention here is to make it as easy as possible to divide the
nominations into groups of roughly similar size. One of the things I loved
about the MEFAs was the fact that when it came down to it, each story was
only competing against a handful of other stories for each award.
The thing is, as an author, even though my liaison did everything to help
me, I didn't understand the categories because I only had my own nominations
to think about, and I was told I could make up a new one and enough people
wanted it, it would be there -- (I tried for "Character study", but that
fell flat on its nose.) And as a reader, I was completely frustrated by the
categories. I used the keyword search to find the stories I was interested
in most of the time, because the categories didn't help me.
I agree that authors should be able to indicate how they think of a story
primarily, but that's another e-mail, when I haven't got three groups of
fourth graders breathing down my neck!

On 11/15/05, Ainaechoiriel <mefaadmin@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of aelfwina@cableone.net
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 8:57 AM
> > To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] New Topic: Categorisation
> >
> > Oh, I do like this, RSF! A list to choose from not only
> > makes things easier for the author, but for the categorisers
> > as well, and an "other, please explain" would make it
> > possible for something quirky, such as a fic based on "Leaf
> > by Niggle" or an otherwise indefinable humor piece.
> >
> > I also like the different breakdowns you have come up with.
> >
> > Dreamflower
> >
>
> I don't. And I can honestly say, I did only read half of it. And that's
> one
> of the reasons I didn't like it. Too complicated to read! Let alone to
> use.
> One thing you have to take into consideration here, unless an author is
> self-nominating, we have to confirm everything with the author before a
> nomination is complete. Any Author Liaisons out there from the 2004 and/or
> 2005 awards? How easy was that? In some cases, very. In some cases.....we
> never heard from the authors. Or it took a very long time and multiple
> e-mails (like 6) and in the meantime, we were biting our nails wondering
> if
> these stories were going to be approved in time to be official
> nominations.
> And what category would they go it?
>
> Now, I admit that categorizatino this year was a nightmare and a half.
> Made
> 2004 look like a milk run by comparison. But it think ithe problem is more
> in method than in setup What I mean, yes there are a lot of categories and
> yes, sojemtimes they seem redundant or confusing. But Rhapsody hit the
> nail
> on the head for why I set them up that way. Some people think in therms of
> "I write Elf stories". Some think in terms of "I'm a Silm-ficcer." And
> others specialize in, say, Humor. Now, say each of those three wrote a
> story about Glorfindel. He's definitely and Elf, and he could be
> Silmarillion. He could also be LOTR, though, and very possibly post-LOTR,
> and he could certainly be in a humorous story. Say all three were. One was
> a LOTR-Story about Glorfindel finding the Hobbits near the Bruinen.
> (that's
> the Elf one). One was a story of him slaying the Balrog, in a funny way
> (Silm). And one is rather generic on time but very, very funny.
>
> Basing by only Genres, all three would end up in Humor, but maybe the Silm
> writer would not be happy to be competing agains the LOTR and the silly.
> Basing by Races only, all would be Elves, but again the Silm writer might
> not be happy competing against LOTR-based stories and the Humor writer may
> find it worrisome to be thrown in with non-humorous stories.
> Basing on Books/Time only, you make the Silm-er happy but perhaps not the
> LOTR one who really couldn't care less about aragorn and all those
> scruffy,
> smelly Men. And the Humor is still in the same boat.
>
> And what about readers? Say I really only like reading humor fics. The
> only way I'd be happy is if all the stories were grouped mainly on Genere.
> That way I could easily wittle down the list to the Humor stories. But
> with
> Races or Books/Time, I'd have to through each subcategory to find them.
> Or a reader only reads Silm, with NO exceptions. Only Books/Time would be
> helpful.
> Same for a reader who exclusively reads Hobbit-fiction. Only Races would
> do.
>
> In the ASC Awards it works to use the series as main categories. There are
> only 6 (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, MIS--MIS being everything else.) And one
> brave, terribly insufficiently reluctant volunteer categorizes them all by
> her lonesome. (Okay, Status of Stories maintainer, like myself, suggest
> subcategories but only because Authors include headers when posting their
> stories and we can get a general idea from the header or the summary in
> the
> header. For example, if it has codes like G/B, I'm not going to read it,
> but
> I know it's Romance (G/B)--meaning Garak/Bashir and I just don't go there
> personally.
>
> In Tolkien fanciction, it's more complicated. There is a MUCH wider base.
> Sure, there are three books: Silm, LOTR, The Hobbit. But as, Rhapsody
> pointed out, that hardly covers it. There are the spaces between the books
> and after the books. People write about those times. In Trek, authros
> generally align themselves as a particular series writer. Me, I'm a DS9er.
> Some do cross over to others, but generally they think in terms of series.
> There are a few who think in terms of genre (mainly humor). There are also
> a few who think in terms of races (like Klingons or Cardassians), but they
> generally still write within the "atmosphere", shall we say, of a series.
> Or if they choose to go all the way original, they go in MIS. So, by the
> way, do crossovers (Cross with other universes) and combines (combines
> series).
>
> In Tolkien fanfiction, writers do like I stated above. Some are Humor
> writers. Some are Silm writers. Some are Elf writers. Very few, BTW, are
> TTT or ROTK writers. They generally lump them together with LOTR. And
> very,
> very, very, very few can tell you the MONTH their story is set in. (That
> would be about the point where my eyes glazed over on C Dodd's post.)
>
> Long story short, that's why I started with 3 topics or ways of
> categorizing. To let each fit his or her own preference. And, yeah, the
> more I look at it, the more I think self-nomination takes the most
> confusion
> out of it. Something to think about there.
>
> I don't think we want to reduce the number of categories. I really don't
> thikn we want to sub-sub categorize: LOTR/Elf/Humor/Glorfindel. Gets quite
> cumbersome. Reduce the main categories too far, and that's what you'll
> get.
> Expand them too far, and you get a lack of competition. I think I've
> mentioned before we need to aim for balance there. Feedback is the main
> purpose, but competition is part of it. We want to have lots of winners,
> but not so many that the win is worthless.
>
> What we do need, is a better method for doing it. The first year, we used
> spreadsheets and swapped orphans (non-viables) until we found a place for
> them to fit. The second year, we tried to reduce the amount of
> manipulation
> and put more burden on authors. See above for the complication in that. It
> was better, but subcategorization is still very ambiguous. But yes, ther
> still can be Rohan: Romance and Romance: Rohan because a Rohan writer
> might
> write a romance and a Romance writer might set a story in Rohan. It's the
> bent of the writer or an attempt to serve the bent of the reader that puts
> the story in one or the other.
>
> I think a list of subcategories would be good but we'd have to be VERY
> good
> at putting together that list. What if we get 500 "Others" because we
> weren't broad enough? What if we get 15 inviable categories because we
> were
> too broad? Balance there, too, but how do we find it?
>
> The main thing though, is that we can't make it MORE complicated. And C
> Dodd's suggestion would do that. Self-nomination really is the best
> because
> authors know their stories best. Just a brainstorm right now: if we don't
> limit it all to self-nomination, what about just nominating a story, URL
> and
> author (with e-mail) and leaving it up to the author to, in accepting the
> nomination, finish the nomination themselves, right on the web site with a
> form like C Dodd suggested, just one much, much simpler?
>
> --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
>
>
>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I must agree with Sulriel that a standard list of categories and
subcategories would be VERY helpful. I, too, found myself on several
occasions trying to figure out what specific catagories meant, and was
surprised to find one story listed under romance, as it was very
difficult to categorize at all.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large

The most outrageous lies that can be invented will
find believers if a person only tells them with all his might.
~Mark Twain~

I mourn for this nation.

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:

>
>
>
> as a reader, I found it extraordinarily frustrating to have three
> main categories with the endless freestyle of subcates and the
> seemingly duplications between them. I finally just gave up
> activily looking for stuff that I liked and trudged through by going
> down the lists, subcate by subcate. If I weren't dedicated and
> tenacious, you'd have lost a reader early in the process. I'd have
> voted for the few that I knew and loved and otherwise spent my time
> elsewhere.

Yes, of course. A standard set of subcats would help tremendously! It
is clear to the categoriser what to do, instead of going through the
wealth of subcats (some different worded... and the more info supplied
can work against the categoriser as well, this is something that can
be easily overlooked). Create clearness. For the liaison, the author,
the nominator, the categoriser, the reader and the reviewer (I have
been all of this this year).

It all starts with the nomination itself. You cannot estimate how many
stories will be nominated next year, so already assuming it will be
less... I wouldn't dare to make such an assumption. But clarity helps.
A lot. In explaning, reading, using it... I managed in all the cases
someone asked about the subcats and categories, to explain it to them.
There were authors who just approved, others weighed it very carefully
and chose their first category very thoughtfully. I even came across
an author who changed every aspect of the categories the nominator
choose for it. That is why I am firmly against changing the author's
wishes while categorising. Once the nomination is completed: don't
toodle around with it. If an author knows from which it can choose
from... every bit helps right?

> The people reading this list and commenting are your dedicated
> readers, - you have to design the process with *everyone else* in
> mind.

We're still discussing it, so nothing is written in stone yet. I am
trying to bring in my experience in the process this year, mirroring
what worked and what not. I can honestly say, not everyone thinks from
the genre perspective, but from books or races/places as well. In that
respect you should cater to those wishes as well.

Let's try to aim for an improvement of this, to make life easier on
everyone (especially for those who still want to volunteer for next
year) and I am certain a common ground can be reached.

Rhapsody

>
> as a reader, I found it extraordinarily frustrating to have three
> main categories with the endless freestyle of subcates and the
> seemingly duplications between them. I finally just gave up
> activily looking for stuff that I liked and trudged through by going
> down the lists, subcate by subcate. If I weren't dedicated and
> tenacious, you'd have lost a reader early in the process. I'd have
> voted for the few that I knew and loved and otherwise spent my time
> elsewhere.
>
> The people reading this list and commenting are your dedicated
> readers, - you have to design the process with *everyone else* in
> mind.
>
> Sulriel

I agree with you Suriel. I'm strictly a reader and came to the awards
somewhere during reading season. I had a hard time to find what I liked to
read. I wanted to see new stories I didn't know before, but I got lost in
all the categories and sub categories. Some of them made no sense to me. And
I could never find what category I was looking at last time. Too many
choices, which sounded pretty similar to me. Would it be possible to save a
filter combination in my account, so that when I come back I can choose the
same filter combination again? I could never remember what I used last time.
After the first few tries I just gave up and started on whatever combination
I figured out for that session. Till today I have no idea whether I finished
a category or not.

Chris