Yahoo Forum Archive

Hi, all,

Larner and I will be sharing the responsibility this year of posting the
weekly informative announcements about the awards. For those new to the
MEFAs, these announcements are intended to answer common questions and
provide information about the awards. If you have any questions, please feel
free to reply to these posts. If I don't know the answer, I'll refer your
question to someone who does! :)

The logical place to begin is with nominations.

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Who can nominate stories?

Anyone who is a member of the MEFAwards Yahoo! group is eligible to nominate
up to twenty stories. You can join the MEFAwards group here,

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

or email mefasupport AT mefawards DOT net to be added. You will be sent a
username and password to log onto the MEFAs website and enter your
nominations.

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When can I nominate a story?

Nominations for the 2009 awards season are being accepted from 22 May
through 30 June.

Also, remember that the MEFAs run according to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT),
*not* your local timezone, so be sure to keep this in mind when planning
around deadlines.

To find the time in GMT, visit the MEFA 2009 site. In the lower left-hand
corner, it reads "Page Served at," followed by the date and time in GMT.

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How do I nominate a story?

Before you nominate a story, it is important to be sure that the story is
eligible to compete in the awards. In order to be eligible, the story cannot
have competed in past awards *unless* it competed as a work-in-progress.
Stories may compete *once* as a work-in-process and *once* as a finished
piece. If it has competed already as a work-in-progress, then it must
compete as a finished piece. If it has competed as a finished piece, then it
is not eligible for future awards.

How do you know if the story you wish to nominate has already competed in
the awards? Begin by searching the MEFA archive, found here:
http://mefawards.net/mefa-archive/

It is important to note, also, that if *any* part of the piece has competed
in past awards, then it is not eligible for future awards (unless it
competed as a work-in-progress and is now competing as a finished piece).
This means that if, in a series of fifty drabbles, *one* of the drabbles has
competed in the past, then the series is not eligible. Or, if a poem has
competed as part of a longer story in the past, then it is not eligible to
compete on its own in future awards.

To be eligible for the MEFAs, stories must also be Tolkien-related; rated
General, Teen, or Mature according to the MEFA ratings guide; posted on a
website that is accessible to the public and does not require logging in to
view; and provide a way to navigate between chapters (for multi-chapter
stories).

If you can determine that all of the above criteria are met, the next step
is to check that the story hasn't already been nominated this year by
someone else. You can check that here:

http://mefawards.net/MEFA2009/index.php?page=storiesBrowse&filter=hide

Why are these steps important? It kind of seems like a lot of work. Why
bother? Won't the volunteers figure all of this out for you?

It is important to go through this process for stories you want to nominate
because, if a story is ineligible or has been nominated already this year,
then you will lose that nomination. (The exception is if the story was
nominated within twenty-four hours of your nomination being entered to
account for the possibility of two people nominating the same story more or
less simultaneously.) So, if you don't want to throw away your nomination on
a story that is ineligible or already nominated, the few minutes it takes to
complete these steps are important.

Once you've determined that the story is eligible, you can actually enter
the nomination:

1. Log into the MEFA 2009 website: http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2009/

2. Choose "Nominate a Story" or "Self-nominate a Story."

3. The first item on the list will present a list of authors. If you do not
find your author on the list, there is information below this form field
about how to search the author to make sure s/he isn't listed under another
name and, if the author still is not found, to add the author to the list.

4. Next, you will enter the title, a URL where the story can be found, and
the author's contact information and ... you're finished! That's all there
is to it!

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Contacting Authors

Authors must accept your nomination in order to compete in the awards. Once
you've completed your nomination, the MEFA staff will attempt to contact the
author using the information that you've provided.

However, this can be challenging. If an author doesn't check his or her
email, or is offline for a time, then the nomination cannot be completed.

How can you prevent this from happening? You are encouraged to contact
authors you wish to nominate *before* submitting the nomination. If they
expect the nomination, they can be sure to check their email. Also,
encouraging authors to add mefawards.net to the "white list" of their SPAM
filters assures that the nomination won't be lost as SPAM.

In the nomination notes, you are also encouraged to provide additional
contact information for the author. If the author uses multiple email
addresses or posts regularly on a journal, blog, or website, please include
this information! The author's liaison can often use it to track down
authors she's having trouble locating.

What if an author really cannot be found? Do you lose that nomination? Not
necessarily. If, after two weeks, the liaison cannot reach the author, you
will have the option to withdraw that nomination and nominate another story
in its place. Or, if you would like to continue to wait for the author, you
can choose to keep the nomination active.

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

Can I nominate my own story?

In short, yes, self-nominations are allowed and are treated equally to
nominations entered by someone else. A self-nomination counts towards the
nominator's twenty-story quota. To self-nominate a story, choose
"Self-nominate a Story" after logging into the MEFA website:
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2009/

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

Links for More Information

MEFA Eligibility FAQs:
http://mefawards.net/MEFA2009/index.php?page=FAQeligibility
MEFA Nomination FAQs:
http://mefawards.net/MEFA2009/index.php?page=FAQnominations
MEFA Ratings Guide:
http://mefawards.net/MEFA2009/index.php?page=FAQratingsguide

--
~oOo~
Dawn Felagund
http://themidhavens.net/heretic_loremaster/
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org


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