Yahoo Forum Archive

Hey guys,

Someone at the LJ made a comment that I think has a really good
suggestion:

******
[fantasy_fan]

As far as the Yahoo group is concerned, that dealt far too much with
the inner workings of the awards, which I wasn't competent to comment
on. I still get the e-mails from the Yahoo group, but I delete them
unread. I totally question why someone who just wants to read and
review, or someone whose stories are nominated, has to join a group
that deals with inner workings. Perhaps they could be invited to join
this specific group, if they are interested in making the awards
better, or if they are interested in becoming involved in the
administration of the awards?
******

This is a good point -- if you just want to vote, I imagine this group
can be pretty intimidating. So unless people object, I think we'll
change the focus of this list after we tie up loose ends on this
post-mortem. This list will still be available for people who have
questions, and for the admins to make announcements. And we'll still
post the nominations and the reviews here. But the policy discussions
and so on will move to a separate list. We'll call it mefa-grievances
or something like that. That way people who just want to participate
can, and the people who want to discuss policy can do that, too.

Sound like a plan?

Marta

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

>
> Hey guys,
>
> Someone at the LJ made a comment that I think has a really good
> suggestion:
>
> [fantasy_fan]
> As far as the Yahoo group is concerned, that dealt far too much
> with the inner workings of the awards, which I wasn't competent to
> comment on. I still get the e-mails from the Yahoo group, but I
> delete them unread. I totally question why someone who just wants
> to read and review, or someone whose stories are nominated, has to
> join a group that deals with inner workings. Perhaps they could be
> invited to join this specific group, if they are interested in
> making the awards better, or if they are interested in becoming
> involved in the administration of the awards?
> ******
>
> This is a good point -- if you just want to vote, I imagine this
> group can be pretty intimidating. So unless people object, I think
> we'll change the focus of this list after we tie up loose ends on
> this post-mortem. This list will still be available for people who
> have questions, and for the admins to make announcements. And we'll
> still post the nominations and the reviews here. But the policy
> discussions and so on will move to a separate list. We'll call it
> mefa-grievances or something like that. That way people who just
> want to participate can, and the people who want to discuss policy
> can do that, too.
>
> Sound like a plan?

Hi Marta,

That seems fine, although I think I'd call it something less
negative, like MEFA Policy or Post-mortem. But it also seems like a
point worth making to Fantasy Fan, and anyone else who is wondering
why all these wonky discussons are conducted here (as opposed to at
the MEFA Staff Yahoo group, for example) that there's a very
important reason for it: transparency. If policy is not discussed
publicly, then the MEFAs become vulnerable to accusations of being
unfair, cliquish, secretive, etc. So whether all members wish to
follow it or not, the discussion needs to be out here somewhere--
whether at this group, a new group, or the LJ.

BTW, you also mentioned some important uses of this group that I'd
forgotten: it's where nominations and reviews are posted publicly. If
the Yahoo membership becomes optional, as it looks likely to, it
might be good to include these in the list of reasons to join.

Kathy

Hi Kathy,

On 6 Feb 2006, at 23:15, Kathy wrote:

> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@...> wrote:
> >
> > Hey guys,
> >
> > Someone at the LJ made a comment that I think has a really good
> > suggestion:
> >
> > [fantasy_fan
<snip>
> >
> > This is a good point -- if you just want to vote, I imagine this
> > group can be pretty intimidating. So unless people object, I think
> > we'll change the focus of this list after we tie up loose ends on
> > this post-mortem. This list will still be available for people who
> > have questions, and for the admins to make announcements. And we'll
> > still post the nominations and the reviews here. But the policy
> > discussions and so on will move to a separate list. We'll call it
> > mefa-grievances or something like that. That way people who just
> > want to participate can, and the people who want to discuss policy
> > can do that, too.
> >
> > Sound like a plan?
>
> Hi Marta,
>
> That seems fine, although I think I'd call it something less
> negative, like MEFA Policy or Post-mortem.

Ack, did I really type in "mefa-grievance"? That's a group where I've
been moderating a discussion relating to who gets credit as writing one
of this year's entries. (Long story - *really* don't have time to go
into it tonight, sorry). I meant to type mefa-discussion, but
mefa-policy would probably be better. Something like that.

> But it also seems like a
> point worth making to Fantasy Fan, and anyone else who is wondering
> why all these wonky discussons are conducted here (as opposed to at
> the MEFA Staff Yahoo group, for example) that there's a very
> important reason for it: transparency.  If policy is not discussed
> publicly, then the MEFAs become vulnerable to accusations of being
> unfair, cliquish, secretive, etc. So whether all members wish to
> follow it or not, the discussion needs to be out here somewhere--
> whether at this group, a new group, or the LJ.
>

Yes, I agree. Transparency is definitely a Good Thing, and I don't want
to give that up. But when I read Fantasy Fan's post, it occurred to me
that this list has come to have a lot of different purposes. And the
way it's set up, if you don't want to use all of the things it's
currently set up to do, it can be very overwhelming. Yahoo makes it
harder to ignore certain posts than it would be in a web-based forum
system like LJ where you could just follow certain threads. (You can if
you go to read at the website, but even there Yahoo doesn't sort by
threads by default.

Hence my suggestion for two groups.

> BTW, you also mentioned some important uses of this group that I'd
> forgotten: it's where nominations and reviews are posted publicly. If
> the Yahoo membership becomes optional, as it looks likely to, it
> might be good to include these in the list of reasons to join.
>

If we go this way, we'll do that. And I'm still in favor of not
requiring membership to vote -- but if we do some of the other things
that have been suggested, I'm much more comfortable with keeping the
Yahoo requirement. Basically here are some ideas I think we need to do:

1. Make this group usable to people not interested in intricate policy
discussions. We can do this by setting up a second group.

2. Make it easier to join if you don't have a Yahoo account. The
email-only option should let people do this.

3. Walk people through the process more. Anthony's suggestions about
having people say what kind of membership they wanted when requesting a
password and having the admin invite them seemed like it would do this.

4. Let nominated authors get involved more easily. Giving them voting
(but not nominating) would satisfy me here.

So I think with these measures, I'm comfortable keeping the Yahoo
requirement. We can discuss it next year if it's still an issue.

Marta

> Sound like a plan?

I actually suggested this myself in one of my
earlier emails. Guess it got missed out! :-)

Naresha

~To forgive calls upon our love, to forget calls upon our strength~

AIM: Naresha21 MSN: candyman_gypsy@hotmail.com Yahoo: fruitcake5m1
Personal LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nareshaninya/
Writing LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/writingsofresha/

My Website! Slash Me Happy
http://www.websamba.com/SlashMeHappy

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