Yahoo Forum Archive

Hey guys,

The other volunteers and I have successfully sorted all of this year's
nominations into categories and subcategories. Thank you to Elliska,
Inkling, and Rhonda for your help on this. And also, thank you to
Tanaqui and Aranel Took for all of the technical advancements that
made that easier this year.

I will begin posting the first round of check ballots shortly. If you
have not read it already, I encourage you to check out last week's
educational post, which can be found at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/message/9065

for important information about the checkballots. I also want to make
a brief comment about poetry.

This year, there were only twenty-two poems nominated. There were a
few poems that we could not place in either of the three category
choices selected by the author. The other categorizers and I discussed
categorizing poems with non-poem nominations (like we did with the few
WIPs in a similar situation), but decided that it was more important
that poems compete against other poems than that they compete against
other entries of a similar genre, race, or time period.

For this reason, all of the poems are competing in the "Genres:
Poetry" main category. So far as it was possible, we divided this
category into subcategories based on the poems' category selections.
For instance, we have a Genres: Poetry: Hobbits subcategory, where all
the entries selected Poetry as their story type and Hobbits as one of
their category choices. Genres: Poetry also has a Drama and Late Third
Age subcategory, as well as a General subcategory for poems that
didn't fit in either Hobbits, Drama, or Late Third Age.

********************

One other thing before we get going. Some authors are unsure of what
main categories their stories are using. Your story should be in one
of the three main categories you selected (unless we've discussed the
situation by email in the last two weeks); you can find your category
choices by logging in to www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/ and clicking the
"View your nominated stories" link. This will bring up a list of your
nominated stories, complete with the three category choices you
selected, listed in your order of preference.

If you prefer to not look through all of the ballots or cannot find
your nomination, just ask and I will let you know where your stories
are competing.

Now on with the ballots!

Marta
(MEFA Admin.)

Hi Marta,

I was wondering... would it be too much trouble to either bold the category
names or at least put them in ALL CAPS when you do future Check
Ballots? They blend right into the list and it's hard to find specific
categories. Just a Thought.

Arthur
--
"What part of 'You're dead' don't you understand?" -- Nýmo to an
Unidentified Elven Fýa giving the Lord of Mandos grief

****
Auta i lýmý! Utýlie'n aurý! ý Battle Cry of the Noldor at the Dagor Nirnaeth
Arnediad

Aurý entuluva! ý Battle Cry of Hýrin at the Dagor Nirnath Arnediad

Utýlie'n Estel ý Hope hath come


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

In a message dated 7/6/2008 8:05:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
namondil@gmail.com writes:

Hi Marta,

I was wondering... would it be too much trouble to either bold the category
names or at least put them in ALL CAPS when you do future Check
Ballots? They blend right into the list and it's hard to find specific
categories. Just a Thought.

Arthur



I agree. I had to cut and paste them into a word document and bold them
myself to find where the categories began and ended they just ran right together
in the mail. Finally I got tired of doing it and stopped looking at them.



**************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for
fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)


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

Hi Arthur and Oshun,

What I do is copy the check ballots directly from a page in the website,
so for *me* to change the text would be quite a bit of work; however, I
will speak to Tanaqui and Aranel about whether it is possible for the
website I copy from to be changed. Thanks for letting me know this was a
problem.

In the meantime, would it be helpful if I posted a list just of the
titles and authors in each subcategory, none of the other information?

Marta

heartofoshun@aol.com wrote:

>
>
>
> In a message dated 7/6/2008 8:05:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> namondil@gmail.com <mailto:namondil%40gmail.com> writes:
>
> Hi Marta,
>
> I was wondering... would it be too much trouble to either bold the category
> names or at least put them in ALL CAPS when you do future Check
> Ballots? They blend right into the list and it's hard to find specific
> categories. Just a Thought.
>
> Arthur
>
> I agree. I had to cut and paste them into a word document and bold them
> myself to find where the categories began and ended they just ran right
> together
> in the mail. Finally I got tired of doing it and stopped looking at them.
>

Listing just title and author could well help us figure out where each
story is currently categorized, Marta. I agree--I had to look several
times to figure out where each story fit.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large

"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." LOTR

"Don't go where I can't follow."

I mourn for this nation.

Hi Marta,

If the category titles can't be altered at this point (let's remember this
for NEXT YEAR) I think the story title, author and URL is all that is
necessary. If people need to they can always refer to the MEFA site for
additional information. I think most objections are going to be from authors
rather than other people and authors already know what their stories are
about.

Fiondil
--
"What part of 'You're dead' don't you understand?" -- Nýmo to an
Unidentified Elven Fýa giving the Lord of Mandos grief

****
Auta i lýmý! Utýlie'n aurý! ý Battle Cry of the Noldor at the Dagor Nirnaeth
Arnediad

Aurý entuluva! ý Battle Cry of Hýrin at the Dagor Nirnath Arnediad

Utýlie'n Estel ý Hope hath come


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

In a message dated 7/6/2008 8:52:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
melayton@gmail.com writes:

In the meantime, would it be helpful if I posted a list just of the
titles and authors in each subcategory, none of the other information?




That would be easier to read. But, then, people wouldn't know if their
stories were similar or not (actually, might save the MEFA admin a lot of
trouble--people like me would have to work a lot harder if they wanted to see if they
felt they had been miscategorized! LOL!)



**************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for
fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)


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

I just wanted to say thanks for all this work! I am very pleased with
my categories; all were as I originally chose, except for one, and
that turned out to be a much better subcategory under the main
category than I had originally chosen! I never thought of it as a
possibility, actually, so hats off to the category committee.

A possible hint for those who are having trouble finding where their
tales are placed -- I get the emails from the group in Digest form, so
all I had to do was run a search on the page for all ocurrances of
"Linaewen." I was able to find each of my categories easily. That
may not help, though, if you don't have your group notifications set
up that way!

Linaewen

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "aure_enteluva" <melayton@...> wrote:
>
> Hey guys,
>
> The other volunteers and I have successfully sorted all of this year's
> nominations into categories and subcategories. Thank you to Elliska,
> Inkling, and Rhonda for your help on this. And also, thank you to
> Tanaqui and Aranel Took for all of the technical advancements that
> made that easier this year.
>
> I will begin posting the first round of check ballots shortly. If you
> have not read it already, I encourage you to check out last week's
> educational post, which can be found at
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/message/9065
>
> for important information about the checkballots. I also want to make
> a brief comment about poetry.
>
> This year, there were only twenty-two poems nominated. There were a
> few poems that we could not place in either of the three category
> choices selected by the author. The other categorizers and I discussed
> categorizing poems with non-poem nominations (like we did with the few
> WIPs in a similar situation), but decided that it was more important
> that poems compete against other poems than that they compete against
> other entries of a similar genre, race, or time period.
>
> For this reason, all of the poems are competing in the "Genres:
> Poetry" main category. So far as it was possible, we divided this
> category into subcategories based on the poems' category selections.
> For instance, we have a Genres: Poetry: Hobbits subcategory, where all
> the entries selected Poetry as their story type and Hobbits as one of
> their category choices. Genres: Poetry also has a Drama and Late Third
> Age subcategory, as well as a General subcategory for poems that
> didn't fit in either Hobbits, Drama, or Late Third Age.
>
> ********************
>
> One other thing before we get going. Some authors are unsure of what
> main categories their stories are using. Your story should be in one
> of the three main categories you selected (unless we've discussed the
> situation by email in the last two weeks); you can find your category
> choices by logging in to www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/ and clicking the
> "View your nominated stories" link. This will bring up a list of your
> nominated stories, complete with the three category choices you
> selected, listed in your order of preference.
>
> If you prefer to not look through all of the ballots or cannot find
> your nomination, just ask and I will let you know where your stories
> are competing.
>
> Now on with the ballots!
>
> Marta
> (MEFA Admin.)
>

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 10:16 PM, linaewen0 <marggrenawalt@sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> A possible hint for those who are having trouble finding where their
> tales are placed -- I get the emails from the group in Digest form, so
> all I had to do was run a search on the page for all ocurrances of
> "Linaewen."

Another way to make searching for your nominations easier, if you're not
reading on digest ...

Log into Yahoo! and go to the group's page:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/

About midway down is a search box. Choose Advanced:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/msearch_adv

For *Subject,* select "contains" and type "check ballot"

For *Message Body,* select "contains" and type your penname (e.g., "dawn
felagund").

This should return a nice and neat list of all the check ballots where you
are mentioned, which makes it much easier to find yourself. I just tested it
for myself and Oshun, and it worked great.

And I have to add my accolades to the categorization volunteers! I get weak
in the knees just thinking of the effort it must take to put all of those
stories into tidy categories. Speaking for myself, I am pleased with how
each and every one of my nominations was categorized. Wonderful work! :)

Dawn

--
~oOo~
Dawn Felagund
www.silmarillionwritersguild.org


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

Thank you! I actually sort of enjoy it, it's like putting a puzzle
together. :)

Radbooks

> And I have to add my accolades to the categorization volunteers! I

get weak

> in the knees just thinking of the effort it must take to put all of

those

> stories into tidy categories. Speaking for myself, I am pleased with how
> each and every one of my nominations was categorized. Wonderful work! :)
>
> Dawn
>
> --
> ~oOo~
> Dawn Felagund
> www.silmarillionwritersguild.org
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Thanks, Linaewn!

Radbooks

> I just wanted to say thanks for all this work! I am very pleased with
> my categories; all were as I originally chose, except for one, and
> that turned out to be a much better subcategory under the main
> category than I had originally chosen! I never thought of it as a
> possibility, actually, so hats off to the category committee.
>

Just wanted to thank y'all for posting these check ballots. I now have a nifty list of numbers for stories I want to read. :)

viv

http://www.livejournal.com/users/spacellama


















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

Bonnie L. Sherrell wrote:

>
>
> Listing just title and author could well help us figure out where each
> story is currently categorized, Marta. I agree--I had to look several
> times to figure out where each story fit.
> Bonnie L. Sherrell
> Teacher at Large
>

Hi Bonnie,

That is a good point re: making it easier to find your stories in the
finished lists. I did post a list of just titles and authors. You can
think of it like an index for the full check ballots.

Btw, I posted it as message #9118, with the subject "Check Ballot -
Simplified Version".

Marta

You are most welcome, Viv!

Marta

Viv wrote:

>
>
> Just wanted to thank y'all for posting these check ballots. I now have a
> nifty list of numbers for stories I want to read. :)
>
> viv
>