Yahoo Forum Archive

Hey guys,

I want to take a minute to talk about categories and subcategories that
are smaller.

I. RARE MAIN CATEGORIES

Every story that competes in the MEFA is assigned both a main category
and a subcategory. A main category is a broad grouping that stories are
assigned to before they are broken down further into subcategories. Main
categories are organized around a certain genre, race, or time period.
When a piece is nominated, the author selects three possible category
choices, and ranks them as their first-, second-, and third-choice main
category.

Categories are arranged by genres, races, and time periods. The
available categories are:

Genres - Adventure; Alternate Universe; Crossover; Drama; Horror; Humor;
Longer Works; Mystery; Non-Fiction; Romance

Races - Cross-Cultural; Dwarves; Elves; Hobbits; Men; Other Beings; Villains

Times - First Age and Prior; Second Age; Early Third Age (1-2850
TA/1-1250 SR); Mid Third Age (2851-3017 TA/1251-1417 SR); Late Third Age
(3018-3022 TA/1418-1422 SR); Fourth Age and Beyond; Modern Times; Multi-Age

Obviously some categories are more popular than others. Think about the
archive where you post. How many mysteries, as compared to how many
humor? How many dwarf-fics compared to how many about hobbits? Some
categories will naturally attract more entries. So we break
subcategories into groupings of about the same size, and to make big
enough groupings, we may have to move a story out of its first choice
category and into its second or even third choice.

What does this mean for you? Well, some categories are traditionally
smaller than others. There are some categories where we just barely have
enough stories every year, and some categories that we can only offer
some years. Check out

www.mefawards.net/mefa-archive/year.php

to see how many stories end up competing in each main category each
year. If a category tends to be smaller, then that means it's more
likely that we'll need to use stories that have that category listed as
their second or third choice, to make the category work.

So, if you REALLY, REALLY want your Glorfindel murder mystery to compete
in Races: Elves, by all means do NOT select Genres: Mystery as your
second choice. Mystery tends to be small, and so the volunteers are more
likely to put stories with that category as their second or third choice
in Genres: Mystery, than they would for a typically larger category. If
you really want to be put in a certain category, then try to avoid using
an "endangered" category as your second choice.

*******

II. NON-FICTION AND POETRY

I also want to say a word about essays and poetry. Non-fiction pieces
compete in their own main category, if we get enough. Right now, there
are only four essays whose nominations have been finalized, so I really
want to encourage people - if you know of an essay or research article
that you particularly liked, don't forget to nominate it. Essays are
eligible, too.

Poetry is an even more serious case. Poetry is sorted into main
categories just like every other type of entry, but we then go and
create special subcategories within those main categories so that poems
only compete with other poems. Last year we didn't have enough poem
nominations to do this, which meant that humorous poetry had to compete
against dramatic poetry, hobbits against First Age Elves. The more poems
that are nominated, the more appropriate categorization we can do for
poems. Currently there are only two poems whose nominations have been
finalized. If you know of good poems that are eligible, please consider
nominating some of them.

I don't want you all to run out and nominate pieces *just* because
they're poetry or non-fiction. But if you know some good ones, please
include them in your nominations - you'll be helping us run a better
awards by doing so.

Marta
(MEFA Admin.)