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Msg# 6547

New poll for MEFAwards Posted by MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com January 01, 2006 - 18:18:04 Topic ID# 3
Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
MEFAwards group:

Which of these awards do you prefer for for third place in the "Late Third Age" category? Please vote by Tuesday night.

o The White Council Award
o The Building of Henneth Annýn Award
o The Desertion of Ithilien Award
o The Re-building of Barad-dýr Award
o The Death of the White Tree of Gondor Award
o The Destruction of the Corsair Fleet Award
o The Betrothal of Aragorn and Arwen Award


To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/surveys?id=2090713

Note: Please do not reply to this message. Poll votes are
not collected via email. To vote, you must go to the Yahoo! Groups
web site listed above.

Thanks!

Msg# 6548

New poll for MEFAwards Posted by MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com January 01, 2006 - 18:38:26 Topic ID# 3
Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
MEFAwards group:

For the "Multi-Age" awards, which theme do you prefer? Please vote by Tuesday night.

o Characters that appeared in all four ages (Tom Bombadil - Treebeard - Celeborn)
o Swords created in earlier ages that survied into the Third and Fourth Age (Andýril - Sting - Orcrist and/or Glamdring)


To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/surveys?id=2090725

Note: Please do not reply to this message. Poll votes are
not collected via email. To vote, you must go to the Yahoo! Groups
web site listed above.

Thanks!

Msg# 6549

New poll for MEFAwards Posted by MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com January 01, 2006 - 18:43:12 Topic ID# 3
Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
MEFAwards group:

Which award name do you prefer for third place for "First Age and Before"? First place will be "The Lamps of the Valar Award"; second place will be "The Light of the Two Trees Award". Please vote by Tuesday night.

o The Creation of the Sun and Moon Award
o The Silmarilli Award


To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/surveys?id=2090733

Note: Please do not reply to this message. Poll votes are
not collected via email. To vote, you must go to the Yahoo! Groups
web site listed above.

Thanks!

Msg# 6550

points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 01, 2006 - 23:42:30 Topic ID# 6550
Hey guys,

This is the last issue that I think it's absolutely critical we discuss
before next year's awards. This post-mortem surely has stretched out! I
think we've covered a lot of good ground, and if I've started a topic
and we never reached a decision, please remind me.

Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to speak
up.

First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the points
they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
be:

1-50 1 point
51-250 2 point
251-500 3 point
501-1000 4 point
1001+ 5 point

I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm very
interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer ones.
Would this point spread work better?

Issue #2: honourable mentions. This year we awarded honourable mentions
to stories who scored within three points of second place. But it
occurs to me this may not be the best system because the larger
categories were a lot more competitive. Think about it, in a
sub-category with five stories the top 60% of stories received first,
second, or third place, whereas in a sub-category with ten stories only
the top 30% of stories received first, second, or third places. That
means there will be more competition for the third place position in a
larger category, and *that* means that the third place story will
likely have a higher score than in a smaller category - which means
stiffer competition for those honourable mention positions.

I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
honourable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we could
set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points but isn't
awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honourable mention.

Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based on
the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honourable
mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories in
a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give honourable
mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this point.
So

5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%

Etc.

I'd personally be happy with either one.

One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more strongly
dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an easy
way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where the
author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to enter votes
for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had stories entered
in, but the votes were the same. It would have been much easier to be
able to go to vote for any one category, click a check-box of some sort
and have this vote automatically entered in the other categories.

Anthony, is this at all possible? If not it will be okay - it would be
nice but isn't strictly necessary. (And thanks for all your hard work.)

Barring that, can you guys think of any ways that we could make author
voting run more smoothly?

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6551

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by aelfwina@cableone.net January 02, 2006 - 8:39:41 Topic ID# 6550
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marta Layton" <melayton@gmail.com>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 11:47 PM
Subject: [MEFAwards] points and various voting matters


> Hey guys,
>
> This is the last issue that I think it's absolutely critical we discuss
> before next year's awards. This post-mortem surely has stretched out! I
> think we've covered a lot of good ground, and if I've started a topic
> and we never reached a decision, please remind me.
>
> Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
> several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to speak
> up.
>
> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the points
> they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
> level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
> those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
> be:
>
> 1-50 1 point
> 51-250 2 point
> 251-500 3 point
> 501-1000 4 point
> 1001+ 5 point
>
> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm very
> interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer ones.
> Would this point spread work better?

It's possible. I know that generally, I wrote my reviews at first with no
regards to how the points fell, but just said what I felt about the story.
Then, for certain stories that I felt had exceptional merit, I went back and
added to the reviews to get higher point counts. I didn't go back to any and
remove words to get less points. However, I often felt the longer reviews
were "padded" and had less impact than my original shorter and more
heartfelt reviews. With a smaller point spread, this problem could be
avoided. It would also make it easier to do more reviews in a shorter time
period.

>
> Issue #2: honourable mentions. This year we awarded honourable mentions
> to stories who scored within three points of second place. But it
> occurs to me this may not be the best system because the larger
> categories were a lot more competitive. Think about it, in a
> sub-category with five stories the top 60% of stories received first,
> second, or third place, whereas in a sub-category with ten stories only
> the top 30% of stories received first, second, or third places. That
> means there will be more competition for the third place position in a
> larger category, and *that* means that the third place story will
> likely have a higher score than in a smaller category - which means
> stiffer competition for those honourable mention positions.
>
> I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
> honourable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
> points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we could
> set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points but isn't
> awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honourable mention.
>
> Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based on
> the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
> have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honourable
> mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories in
> a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give honourable
> mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this point.
> So
>
> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%

I like this second formula better. It would be more fair than the current
system, yet not so complicated as your first suggestion. My only thing
would be an upward limit: say from 12 entries upwards, 4+3=7 and not go
beyond four honorable mentions, for I think that would dilute the value of
the award *too* much in the other direction.

Dreamflower
(Barbara)
>
> Etc.
>
> I'd personally be happy with either one.
>
> One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more strongly
> dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an easy
> way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where the
> author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to enter votes
> for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had stories entered
> in, but the votes were the same. It would have been much easier to be
> able to go to vote for any one category, click a check-box of some sort
> and have this vote automatically entered in the other categories.
>
> Anthony, is this at all possible? If not it will be okay - it would be
> nice but isn't strictly necessary. (And thanks for all your hard work.)
>
> Barring that, can you guys think of any ways that we could make author
> voting run more smoothly?
>
> Cheers,
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6552

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 02, 2006 - 9:12:45 Topic ID# 6550
>>This is the last issue that I think it's absolutely critical we
discuss
before next year's awards. This post-mortem surely has stretched out!
I
think we've covered a lot of good ground, and if I've started a topic
and we never reached a decision, please remind me.


I can't think of any

Msg# 6553

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 02, 2006 - 9:15:17 Topic ID# 6550
>>Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to speak
up.First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
so
feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
points
they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
be:1-50 1 point
51-250 2 point
251-500 3 point
501-1000 4 point
1001+ 5 point



I support this change. If I remember, we talked privately and my
suggestion was for an even more dramatic change. ... a point spread
of 1-3 points, or a 1-5 with a maximum counted character count of 500
instead of a 1000. (? it's been too long and I'm still on my first
coffee this morning) But I would be happy with the suggestion above.

Msg# 6554

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 02, 2006 - 9:15:50 Topic ID# 6550
>>>Issue #2: honorable mentions. This year we awarded honorable
mentions
to stories who scored within three points of second place. But it
occurs to me this may not be the best system because the larger
categories were a lot more competitive. Think about it, in a
sub-category with five stories the top 60% of stories received first,
second, or third place, whereas in a sub-category with ten stories
only
the top 30% of stories received first, second, or third places. That
means there will be more competition for the third place position in
a
larger category, and *that* means that the third place story will
likely have a higher score than in a smaller category - which means
stiffer competition for those honorable mention positions.


I'm ok with the HMs being within a count or percent of the total
points because I feel like it rewards the 'likability' of the story
and correctly conveys the reader's votes. If there are 5 stories in
a cate or 20 .... if the point spread is so close, the HMs show what
a close race it was, and I like that.

What about making them be within a three points of first place
instead of second? or the top ? % of the point spread? or within ? %
points of first place?




>>I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
honorable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we
could
set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points but
isn't
awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honorable mention.


I think this is an overall good idea and would be ok if it were
implemented, but I think it would be a difficult call to set that
number, especially if we change the point system.



>>>Another way to address this is to assign honorable mentions based
on
the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honorable
mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories
in
a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give
honorable
mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this
point.


I know that some judged contests do this and I highly support it in
those venues, and I would support it here, but I don't think that
it reflects the spirit of the awards as well as the first option,
especially if we reward those who place within a percent of points of
first place.

Msg# 6555

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 02, 2006 - 9:18:48 Topic ID# 6550
>>>>>>>>One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more
strongly
dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an
easy way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where
the
author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to enter votes
for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had stories
entered in, but the votes were the same. It would have been much
easier to be able to go to vote for any one category, click a check-
box of some sort and have this vote automatically entered in the other
categories.


I agree with entering one vote per author and having it automatically
go to them in all the categories in which they have stories entered.

I know there are arguments against this, and I agree with them in
part, - that someone may be stronger in some genre or elements than in
others, but I also know there has been a lot of confusion and
questions and problems with the readers understanding and voting in
the author review section and I think the simplification of the above
suggestion would outweigh the lack of flexibility.

Msg# 6556

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 02, 2006 - 11:28:21 Topic ID# 6550
> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the points
> they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
> level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
> those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
> be:
>
> 1-50 1 point
> 51-250 2 point
> 251-500 3 point
> 501-1000 4 point
> 1001+ 5 point


Someone mentioned that this would help people write reviews more
quickly (a good thing!) instead of having to worry over a review to
make it the points value they thought the story was worth. I think for
me that's probably the strongest argument for making it easier to
reach certain points values, but capping it at five to me is less
appealing. A 1000 characters is significantly more than 501, yet it
gives the same points value.

Also, I'm not sure why the 'step' has to be so short between points
levels one and two, 2 and a half times as much as the first step in
the next two categories, and then jump up by nearly the same amount
between levels four and five as the move from level 1 to level 2 in
the third. One of the nice things about this year's awards was that
there were no such skips in the points structure--nice even,
predictable intervals were, I thought, a good improvement on the first
year's table, which was missing some points levels actually.

Is the idea that the scoring levels are based on the average char
counts people turned in? What's the logic behind this? Because what
this seems to me to do is to make it easier to move out of level one,
but then it becomes harder to move out of any given level at any point
after that.

So, like driving a stick shift (a thing I'v not mastered but bear with
me here and correct the example where necessary), it's easy to get to
first gear (points level 2), but it's hard to get out of it and move
to any other level, and (ok, theoretically, altering reality to fit
with the analogy) harder to move from fourth to fifth gear than it is
even to move from second to third or third to fourth gear.

The result: there will probably be as few five point reviews as ten
point reviews last year, since that's exactly the same char threshold
as the ten point reviews was last year, while there will be a much
larger number of four point reviews and three point reviews, and
probably very few 2 pointers. I doubt there will be more than a
handful of one pointers, just like last year only more so. You can
hardly complete a thought in 50 chars. So you can easily get 2-3
points written, but it's hard to get 5 points written, and moderately
difficult to get 4 points written.

*At a guess* (please keep in mind that math is not my strong point,
here), there will be a lot more ties to break based on absolute
character counts because it'll be harder to vote proportionally--there
just won't be enough differentiation within the higher points
categories to make that possible.



> Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based on
> the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
> have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honourable
> mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories in
> a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give honourable
> mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this point.


I rather like this more proportional system. Depending on how things
go in fandom, the further we get from movie years, we may have fewer
entries or else more reviewers as word gets around and (ideally) more
people participate as reviewers. So this would avoid us being in a
situation where maybe very few stories make it to the threshold points
level, or else where nearly every story makes it that far. There'd be
no need to try and guess ahead of time or make a controversial
retroactive decision about that points threshold after the voting is
over. It'd be a simple decision, made once and for all, about a
percentage of stories that would get awards, and then a mathematical
formula would determine the actual number of honorable mentions.


> One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more strongly
> dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an easy
> way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where the
> author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to enter votes
> for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had stories entered
> in, but the votes were the same. It would have been much easier to be
> able to go to vote for any one category, click a check-box of some sort
> and have this vote automatically entered in the other categories.

I'd support anything that makes this an easier task. I ended up having
to find all the author's stories that I had read, and then divide them
into stories I thought could be mentioned together as contributing
towards a coherent review of the author. So I might mention stories in
Horror, Drama, and Action/Adventure to write an author review, then
enter that review in three different categories. I'd then have a
different review written out for the author using her/his stories from
LOTR, Silm, and Humor.

So for me, having a single author review, where I could use all the
stories at once, without having to figure out how to carve them up and
write two reviews without being repetitive, would be a significant
improvement.

> Barring that, can you guys think of any ways that we could make author
> voting run more smoothly?

Being able to see all the author's stories and categories on a single
page whenever one goes to write an author review would also be a huge
help. I got very tired of having to go dig through my review files to
find the person's stories, and determine categories and subcategories.
The filters were very problematic, because they weren't independent of
each other, but one governed the other. So:

Author: Name
Category: Romance

Would give you Romance, plus subcats, iirc, but then *because* it
*was* Romance as the main category, when you tried to select a
different one, you could only get the Romance subcats. And that would
result in an impossible filter combination like:

Author: Name
Category: Action/Adventure
Subcat options: Only romance subcats

You'd get a blank page, have to clear all filters, and then start
again instead of being able to use the filters to help you search out
the author's stories.


Topic we possibly have forgotten:

How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources that
are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.

Thanks for all your work, Marta. This has definitely dragged out a
bit, but you've persevered and kept pushing it forward.

Dwim

Msg# 6557

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 02, 2006 - 17:34:48 Topic ID# 6550
I wouldn't mess with the point system, unless it were to drop it in favor of
straight character counts.

As far as the author review goes, I thought it was silly repeating author
reviews over and over and over this year and scattering them willy-nilly
strikes me as sillier, because the way they were presented, they were to
award an author for having a particular strength in a particular subject
area.

I'd rather get an option to open up a second reply window after I've done a
story review, with a copy of the same review already entered, but editable,
which might be submitted as an author review.

Of course, if the purpose of author reviews isn't tied to the story
categories, you could approach it very differently.


On 1/2/06, aelfwina@cableone.net <aelfwina@cableone.net> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marta Layton" <melayton@gmail.com>
> To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 11:47 PM
> Subject: [MEFAwards] points and various voting matters
>
>
> > Hey guys,
> >
> > This is the last issue that I think it's absolutely critical we discuss
> > before next year's awards. This post-mortem surely has stretched out! I
> > think we've covered a lot of good ground, and if I've started a topic
> > and we never reached a decision, please remind me.
> >
> > Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
> > several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to speak
> > up.
> >
> > First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
> > feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the points
> > they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
> > level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
> > those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
> > be:
> >
> > 1-50 1 point
> > 51-250 2 point
> > 251-500 3 point
> > 501-1000 4 point
> > 1001+ 5 point
> >
> > I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm very
> > interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer ones.
> > Would this point spread work better?
>
> It's possible. I know that generally, I wrote my reviews at first with no
> regards to how the points fell, but just said what I felt about the story.
>
> Then, for certain stories that I felt had exceptional merit, I went back
> and
> added to the reviews to get higher point counts. I didn't go back to any
> and
> remove words to get less points. However, I often felt the longer reviews
>
> were "padded" and had less impact than my original shorter and more
> heartfelt reviews. With a smaller point spread, this problem could be
> avoided. It would also make it easier to do more reviews in a shorter
> time
> period.
>
> >
> > Issue #2: honourable mentions. This year we awarded honourable mentions
> > to stories who scored within three points of second place. But it
> > occurs to me this may not be the best system because the larger
> > categories were a lot more competitive. Think about it, in a
> > sub-category with five stories the top 60% of stories received first,
> > second, or third place, whereas in a sub-category with ten stories only
> > the top 30% of stories received first, second, or third places. That
> > means there will be more competition for the third place position in a
> > larger category, and *that* means that the third place story will
> > likely have a higher score than in a smaller category - which means
> > stiffer competition for those honourable mention positions.
> >
> > I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
> > honourable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
> > points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we could
> > set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points but isn't
> > awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honourable mention.
> >
> > Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based on
> > the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
> > have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honourable
> > mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories in
> > a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give honourable
> > mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this point.
> > So
> >
> > 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
> > 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
> > 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
> > 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%
>
> I like this second formula better. It would be more fair than the current
> system, yet not so complicated as your first suggestion. My only thing
> would be an upward limit: say from 12 entries upwards, 4+3=7 and not go
> beyond four honorable mentions, for I think that would dilute the value of
>
> the award *too* much in the other direction.
>
> Dreamflower
> (Barbara)
> >
> > Etc.
> >
> > I'd personally be happy with either one.
> >
> > One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more strongly
> > dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an easy
> > way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where the
> > author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to enter votes
> > for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had stories entered
> > in, but the votes were the same. It would have been much easier to be
> > able to go to vote for any one category, click a check-box of some sort
> > and have this vote automatically entered in the other categories.
> >
> > Anthony, is this at all possible? If not it will be okay - it would be
> > nice but isn't strictly necessary. (And thanks for all your hard work.)
> >
> > Barring that, can you guys think of any ways that we could make author
> > voting run more smoothly?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Marta
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> SPONSORED LINKS
> Writing and publishing a book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w1=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w2=Writing+a+book+report&w3=Writing+child+book&w4=Business+writing+book&w5=Writing+book&w6=Book+writing+software&c=6&s=158&.sig=5Hq4Nd6zG6tizNIjRcV4qg> Writing
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Msg# 6558

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 02, 2006 - 18:08:42 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
wrote:
>
> I wouldn't mess with the point system, unless it were to drop it in
favor of> straight character counts.


I have to say that I wouldn't be in favor of using straight character
counts because one long glowing review could effectively keep the
other stories out of the running. I like the point system because
while it allows for more or less points, it also somewhat levels the
playing field. I think that using a straight character would would
have the effect of lessening the motivation of the readers leaving
the shorter reviews because (I'm guessing) they'd feel that it
wouldn't make any difference.


>
> As far as the author review goes, I thought it was silly repeating
author> reviews over and over and over this year and scattering them
willy-nilly> strikes me as sillier, because the way they were
presented, they were to> award an author for having a particular
strength in a particular subject> area.


I'd be fine with having a single set of authors' awards without
having them by category. Their strengths could be commented on in
the text of the review/vote (great at drabbling, espcially Hobbits,
but also shows great talent in Elves, ...etc..)


>
> I'd rather get an option to open up a second reply window after
I've done a> story review, with a copy of the same review already
entered, but editable,> which might be submitted as an author review.
>
> Of course, if the purpose of author reviews isn't tied to the story
> categories, you could approach it very differently.


Great idea to automatically open an author's review window as a
prompt when the story review is opened.

Msg# 6559

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 02, 2006 - 18:49:03 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:> >> Someone mentioned that this would help people write
reviews more> quickly (a good thing!) instead of having to worry over
a review to> make it the points value they thought the story was
worth. I think for> me that's probably the strongest argument for
making it easier to> reach certain points values, but capping it at
five to me is less> appealing. A 1000 characters is significantly
more than 501, yet it> gives the same points value.


I found it pretty easy to ramble on about my favorite stories and
some of the others I really liked, but I found it tended to be not
quite the 10 points in some cases and wanted to (and did in some
cases) go back and add enough to make the count because I felt like
they deserved the points and I wanted to (basically) publically thank
the author in the biggest way possible, for writing the story. ....
but also, as time passed, I had less time and felt bad that some
(most) of the ones I reviewed later in the process didn't get as much
attention/points.


>
> Also, I'm not sure why the 'step' has to be so short between points
> levels one and two, 2 and a half times as much as the first step in
> the next two categories, and then jump up by nearly the same amount
> between levels four and five as the move from level 1 to level 2 in
> the third. One of the nice things about this year's awards was that
> there were no such skips in the points structure--nice even,
> predictable intervals were, I thought, a good improvement on the
first> year's table, which was missing some points levels actually.


I agree last year was better than the previous year. I'm not sure
why Marta divided the points the way she did and would like to hear
her reasoning before I decide if I agree or think it should be
changed from the proposal.




>>
>
>
> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
>
> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
that
> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.


oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.



> Thanks for all your work, Marta. This has definitely dragged out a
> bit, but you've persevered and kept pushing it forward.
>
> Dwim


from me too!

Sulriel

Msg# 6560

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 02, 2006 - 19:26:42 Topic ID# 6550
On 1/2/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Topic we possibly have forgotten:
> >
> > How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
> that
> > are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> > Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
> > we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
>
>
> oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.



Yes. I'd say anything and everything from within the story under
review should be inside <blockquotes> tags, but for stuff from JRRT or other
sources... hmm. That's tougher. Might be a judgment call for the admins.
Is the quote filler, or pertinent to the review? I'd think it would be a
situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't know. Did it happen this
year?


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

Msg# 6561

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 02, 2006 - 20:09:17 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...> wrote:
>
> On 1/2/06, sulriel <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Topic we possibly have forgotten:
> > >
> > > How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
> > that
> > > are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> > > Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
> > > we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
> >
> >
> > oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.
>
>
>
> Yes. I'd say anything and everything from within the story under
> review should be inside <blockquotes> tags, but for stuff from JRRT
or other
> sources... hmm. That's tougher. Might be a judgment call for the
admins.
> Is the quote filler, or pertinent to the review?

I'm thinking of quotations that are pertinent to the review.
> I'd think it would be a
> situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't know. Did it
happen this
> year?

Yes. I did it at least twice, causing you to throw rocks in my
general, northerly direction. ;-) I don't recall if other reviewers
did this, but I imagine many people may think associatively and want
to incorporate useful phrases and quotes from other works as they
explain why story X is good reading.

Dwim

Msg# 6562

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Kathy January 02, 2006 - 20:57:36 Topic ID# 6550
Happy New Year, everyone! Marta, great job running the post-mortem.
Here's my two cents on the final topic issues...

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
> several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to
> speak up.
>
> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
> so feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at
> a lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively
> means that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such
> spread would be:
>
> 1-50 1 point
> 51-250 2 point
> 251-500 3 point
> 501-1000 4 point
> 1001+ 5 point
>
> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm
> very interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer
> ones. Would this point spread work better?

Overall, this seems like a good idea, although I too wonder why the
point spread is so unevenly distributed. What about something like
this:

points characters
1 1-150
2 151-300
3 301-450
4 451-600
5 601+

I just took a look at my 2005 reviews and saw that in most cases I
was able to say what I wanted to say in about 300-500 characters. And
I didn't try to pad or manipulate my votes at all. If I find I want
to say more about a particular story, I have no problem with it
capping off at 5 points.

> Issue #2: honourable mentions. This year we awarded honourable
> mentions to stories who scored within three points of second place.
> But it occurs to me this may not be the best system because the
> larger categories were a lot more competitive.
> <snip>
> I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
> honourable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
> points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we
> could set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points
> but isn't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honourable
> mention.

I have some reservations about this option. For one thing, in lightly
reviewed categories there might be NO stories that met the threshold
number, including 1st place. But as someone pointed out, adjusting
the threshold after the fact would surely be controversial.

> Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based
> on the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we
> want to have the top half of stories receive a place award or an
> honourable mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of
> the stories in a five-story category get an award.) Then we could
> just give honourable mentions to the top stories below the places
> until we reach this point.
>
> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = 50%
> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 awards = 50%
> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards = 50%

This approach seems good to me, although I agree with Dreamflower
that there should be a cutoff at 3 or 4 honorable mentions.

> One more thing: the author awards.

Truth to tell, I still don't understand these awards even though I've
read the explanations several times over. One problem is that
although in theory they are supposed to be different than story
awards, in practice I have read many author awards that seemed
virtually indistinguishable from story awards. And there are so many
of them! Is there some way to simplify these...like just having one
set of author awards per category rather than for every subcategory?
Or alternatively, having just one author award per subcategory rather
than 1st, 2nd, 3rd and HMs?

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6563

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 02, 2006 - 23:03:52 Topic ID# 6550
Well, if it's pertinent, and it's not quoting the story under review, I'd
say count the characters. But leave the admins the option of
blocking questionable quotations if there's a complaint and general
agreement at the admin level that the complaint is valid.

On 1/2/06, dwimmer_laik <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I'm thinking of quotations that are pertinent to the review.
> > I'd think it would be a
> > situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't know. Did it
> happen this
> > year?
>
> Yes. I did it at least twice, causing you to throw rocks in my
> general, northerly direction. ;-) I don't recall if other reviewers
> did this, but I imagine many people may think associatively and want
> to incorporate useful phrases and quotes from other works as they
> explain why story X is good reading.
>
> Dwim
>
>
>


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

Msg# 6564

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Anthony Holder January 03, 2006 - 0:00:49 Topic ID# 6550
>> I wouldn't mess with the point system, unless it were to drop it in
> favor of> straight character counts.
>
> I have to say that I wouldn't be in favor of using straight character
> counts because one long glowing review could effectively keep the

Straight character counts, with a cap of 1000, would be very similar to
what is currently in place, and would be easy to code. The cap would
eliminate the problem with "one long glowing review" dominating the
voting.

Changing the number per point would also be easy to code.

Here are some stats to chew on: I binned the reviews by number of
characters (0 => 0-99, 100 => 100-199, ..., 3400 => 3400-3499)

Number of reviews | Number of Characters

| Num | CntBin |
| 795 | 0 |
| 1386 | 100 |
| 1192 | 200 |
| 817 | 300 |
| 539 | 400 |
| 364 | 500 |
| 247 | 600 |
| 157 | 700 |
| 114 | 800 |
| 77 | 900 |
| 67 | 1000 |
| 94 | 1100 |
| 52 | 1200 |
| 29 | 1300 |
| 24 | 1400 |
| 13 | 1500 |
| 12 | 1600 |
| 12 | 1700 |
| 11 | 1800 |
| 4 | 1900 |
| 1 | 2000 |
| 7 | 2100 |
| 2 | 2200 |
| 1 | 2300 |
| 1 | 2700 |
| 1 | 2800 |
| 1 | 2900 |
| 2 | 3100 |
| 1 | 3400 |


More detail for less than 500 characters, 25 character bins (0 => 0 to
24, 25 => 25 to 49, etc.)

Num | CntBin
| 53 | 0 |
| 149 | 25 |
| 272 | 50 |
| 321 | 75 |
| 370 | 100 |
| 372 | 125 |
| 331 | 150 |
| 313 | 175 |
| 364 | 200 |
| 322 | 225 |
| 271 | 250 |
| 235 | 275 |
| 243 | 300 |
| 230 | 325 |
| 190 | 350 |
| 154 | 375 |
| 153 | 400 |
| 149 | 425 |
| 119 | 450 |
| 118 | 475 |


Sort of a cumulative distribution function. This is number of reviews
larger than a certain threshold. Each one includes all the stories
larger than the higher thresholds, as well.

6023 > 0 chars >= 1 pt
5213 > 100 chars >= 2 pts
3823 > 200 chars >= 3 pts
2644 > 300 chars >= 4 pts
1823 > 400 chars >= 5 pts
1291 > 500 chars >= 6 pts
924 > 600 chars
796 > 650 chars >= 7 pts
682 > 700 chars
526 > 800 chars >= 8 pts
410 > 900 chars
371 > 950 chars >= 9 pts
330 > 1000 chars
267 > 1100 chars = 10 pts

Of the 6083 reviews, about 11% were more than 700 characters

Fewer than half were > 300 characters.

I don't know, from the goals, etc., of the awards, what the
benefits/drawbacks of limiting the impact of the longer reviews and
emphasizing the shorter reviews would be.

It does seem that maxing out the points on a review doesn't completely
inhibit people from writing longer ones.

The mode is 125, with a second peak at 200, showing how people would
write >100 to get a 2 point review, and some would write a bit more to
get to 200 characters, to be sure they got a 3 point review, then quit.

Question: If someone is reworking things to get that extra point, and
going from 180 to 200 characters, do you really think the extra 3-4
words is going to add significantly to the quality of the review?

I would suggest a more continuous scale, for that reason. That way,
people don't artificially inflate their reviews to get that next point,
they write what they think is a good review and quit when they're done.

You could come up with some added benefit to those extra long reviews,
like maybe counting 5% of the characters above 1000. That way, the 3468
character review would count 1123 points, rather than 1000. I do think
that one long glowing review shouldn't dominate the scoring, but I do
think that person should get some added benefit from all that extra
writing. This is especially true if you want to lower the cap to
emphasize the reviews with lower character counts.

It could be something a bit more complicated than that, like they do
with income taxes:

0 to 500 chars, 100% of chars

500 to 750 = 500 + 50% of chars > 500

750 to 1000 = 500 + 50% of chars between 500 and 750 + 25% of chars
> 750

> 1000 = 500 + 50% of chars between 500 and 750 + 25% of
chars between 750 and 1000 + 5% of chars > 1000

The current system essentially does this, but uses 2/3 of chars > 500,
with a hard cap at 1100 chars, and has step discontinuities (where it
jumps from 1 point to 2 with a change of just one character), where
this would be a smoother system with no discontinuities.

We could even match the current system, but eliminate the
discontinuities.
0 to 500 = 100% of chars
500 to 1100, 500 + 2/3 of additional chars
> 1100 (either no additional, like present, or 5% of additional chars)

As long as it is just math to determine the score from the valid
character count, I can do anything you want, and it's easy, so have fun
thinking of ways to count scores that will achieve the goals of the
MEFAs (lots of good reviews for your stories).

>> As far as the author review goes, I thought it was silly repeating
> author> reviews over and over and over this year and scattering them
> willy-nilly> strikes me as sillier, because the way they were
> presented, they were to> award an author for having a particular
> strength in a particular subject> area.
>
>
> I'd be fine with having a single set of authors' awards without
> having them by category. Their strengths could be commented on in
> the text of the review/vote (great at drabbling, espcially Hobbits,
> but also shows great talent in Elves, ...etc..)

I've also thought the author reviews were strange.

Making a single review by author would be relatively easy. That review
could count for all categories the author is in.

Allowing someone to write one review per author and someone else to do
one per category would be harder. It'll have to be all one way or the
other.

Merging the author reviews into larger categories (Main Categories
only, with no subcategories?) might make sense if you're planning to
use one review for all author voting. It would certainly reduce the
number of 'duplicates', but would reduce the number of awards (and
banners) as well. I don't know how much work that would be, but it
should be possible.

>>
>> I'd rather get an option to open up a second reply window after
> I've done a> story review, with a copy of the same review already
> entered, but editable,> which might be submitted as an author review.
>>
>> Of course, if the purpose of author reviews isn't tied to the story
>> categories, you could approach it very differently.
>
>
> Great idea to automatically open an author's review window as a
> prompt when the story review is opened.

I should be able to do this. After you save, it goes to the author
review page, rather than the main page. If you've already
started/finished an author review, it shows you what it is.


About quoting, I believe I can add a second 'admin-added' quote type,
as well as changing the <blockquote> to whatever we discussed earlier
to offset quotes that would end up prettier, but even if I can't, you
can always use the standard method.

It's your call as to what you count and what you don't, and I think
RabidSamFan has it about right in her last reply.

Later,
Anthony

Msg# 6565

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Laura January 03, 2006 - 0:04:24 Topic ID# 6550
"Marta Layton" <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
>> so feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at
>> a lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively
>> means that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such
>> spread would be:
>>
>> 1-50 1 point
>> 51-250 2 point
>> 251-500 3 point
>> 501-1000 4 point
>> 1001+ 5 point
>>
>> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm
>> very interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer
>> ones.
>> Would this point spread work better?

*chiming in once more as the voice of dissent*

I'm honestly not trying to play devil's advocate. Really, I'm not! And I think we've had some excellent ideas out of the post-mortem. But I have to weigh in as _strongly_ opposed to a change in the point levels. At least, a change like the one proposed.

Granted, I'm probably among the long-winded reviewers, but be that as it may, if I rambled off a review and hit as many aspects of the story as I could, I only got up to about 5 points on average. On rare occasions, I could hit 6. But that was if I rambled, and I caught most of those when I went back through and edited the reviews. That being said, I know I gave out several 10-point reviews, quite a few 9-point reviews, and even more 8-pointers and 7-pointers. For all of them, I went back and put in enough effort to get the story that high because I felt that strongly about it. I think there should be a difference between a 2-point story and a 10-point story, and I think the margin between points should reflect that. Furthermore, if I go to the effort to get a 1001-character review, I want it to count. I want the author to get those ten points.

Granted again that one of the big appeals of these awards are the reviews rather than the points garnered by the reviews. But if the point cap is 5 and the difference between a 250-character review and a 1001-character review is 3 points, there's really not much of an incentive to go the extra mile and give the story you're reviewing those extra 3. Competition-wise, it doesn't make that much of a difference. But as far as the quality of the reviews is concerned, I think there is a difference. happen to think that the 1000+ reviews are good ego boosters. I like receiving them, and I like giving them. And I think there's more incentive to give them if it actually makes a difference in the competition.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In my opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points) encourages longer reviews and rewards stories that deserve said reviews. A lower point cap (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more reviews, but on average, they would be shorter as the competitive advantage gained by long reviews would be lost. I think someone once mentioned reviews that were quick blips. With a lower cap, I think we'd see a lot more of those. So do we want our focus on quality or on quantity? I vote for quality. I think it does more for writing. Personally, I would much rather have one in-depth 6- or 7-point review than five quick blips of "Thanks, that was great." I'm grateful for both, don't get me wrong. But I learn more from the former than I do for the latter.


>> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
>> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
>> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
>> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%

For what it's worth, I like this formula for Honorable Mentions.

>> One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more strongly
>> dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an
>> easy way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where
>> the author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to
>> enter votes for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had
>> stories entered in, but the votes were the same. It would have been
>> much easier to be able to go to vote for any one category, click a
>> check-box of some sort and have this vote automatically entered in
>> the other categories.

If this is possible, I'd be okay with it. But I have to point out a few questions/concerns:

Poetry vs Prose - There are fanfic authors out there who write primarily prose and some who write primarily poetry. There are even a few who do ONLY one or the other. And there are far more readers of prose than there are of poetry. Would we give the poets a disadvantage? Or is there still some way of dividing out the poets from the prose writers? Same thing with the drabbles. Can we filter them out? Or is that too complicated?

Categories - Would this effectively eliminate author awards within categories? Essentially, would we have one giant award for authors where every author entered competes? Because I see a problem with that, too. Let's say Author A writes great Nazgul stories and has one amazing story in the villains' category. But not a lot of people read the villains category, so Author A only gets one author vote. Now let's say that very prolific Author B has stories entered in drama, hobbits, elves, men, humor, adventure, Lord of the Rings, etc. Lots of people read those and they like this author, so Author B gets many author votes. Now, Author B also has a story entered in villains, but it's not as good as the one that Author A entered. So Author A's story wins villains, but Author A gets no author award because very few reviewers will ever read Author A's story.

Is this making any sense? Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that prolific authors who write in popular categories would have an unfair advantage in the author awards over less well-known authors who write in more obscure categories.

I think *something* has to change with the author awards, but I really don't know what or how. That's why I can't say no to this solution. It's the best one I've seen yet, and I have no alternatives to offer. But I think there are still things we need to work out. Either that or do away with author awards entirely. I wouldn't be happy with that, but I can't say that I'm completely happy with the system as it currently stands.

*crawling back under her rock*
Thundera

Msg# 6566

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by aelfwina@cableone.net January 03, 2006 - 2:37:56 Topic ID# 6550
----- Original Message -----
From: "Laura" <thunderalaura@juno.com>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 12:00 AM
Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] points and various voting matters

(snip)

v> I'm honestly not trying to play devil's advocate. Really, I'm not! And I
think we've had some excellent ideas out of the post-mortem. But I have to
weigh in as _strongly_ opposed to a change in the point levels. At least, a
change like the one proposed.
>
> Granted, I'm probably among the long-winded reviewers, but be that as it
> may, if I rambled off a review and hit as many aspects of the story as I
> could, I only got up to about 5 points on average. On rare occasions, I
> could hit 6. But that was if I rambled, and I caught most of those when I
> went back through and edited the reviews. That being said, I know I gave
> out several 10-point reviews, quite a few 9-point reviews, and even more
> 8-pointers and 7-pointers. For all of them, I went back and put in enough
> effort to get the story that high because I felt that strongly about it. I
> think there should be a difference between a 2-point story and a 10-point
> story, and I think the margin between points should reflect that.
> Furthermore, if I go to the effort to get a 1001-character review, I want
> it to count. I want the author to get those ten points.
>
> Granted again that one of the big appeals of these awards are the reviews
> rather than the points garnered by the reviews. But if the point cap is 5
> and the difference between a 250-character review and a 1001-character
> review is 3 points, there's really not much of an incentive to go the
> extra mile and give the story you're reviewing those extra 3.
> Competition-wise, it doesn't make that much of a difference. But as far as
> the quality of the reviews is concerned, I think there is a difference.
> happen to think that the 1000+ reviews are good ego boosters. I like
> receiving them, and I like giving them. And I think there's more incentive
> to give them if it actually makes a difference in the competition.
>
> In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In my
> opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points) encourages longer
> reviews and rewards stories that deserve said reviews. A lower point cap
> (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more reviews, but on average,
> they would be shorter as the competitive advantage gained by long reviews
> would be lost. I think someone once mentioned reviews that were quick
> blips. With a lower cap, I think we'd see a lot more of those. So do we
> want our focus on quality or on quantity? I vote for quality. I think it
> does more for writing. Personally, I would much rather have one in-depth
> 6- or 7-point review than five quick blips of "Thanks, that was great."
> I'm grateful for both, don't get me wrong. But I learn more from the
> former than I do for the latter.


Well, as I said previously, my reviews were pretty much what I would have
said anyway. But I don't think longer necessarily means more quality. When
I did put in the extra effort to bring the point count up for some stories,
I felt that the reviews actually lost some impact. Unlike stories, which
benefit from polishing, I think reviews are more meaningful when they come
directly from the reader's first heartfelt impression.

And near the end of the competition, I did not have the time to do that, so
there were a few exceptional stories that did not get the benefit of
"padding".

Still, I find myself rethinking my original support of the idea, for I
wonder if the end result might not be a great many stories all getting the
same number of points. I noticed that at the beginning of the competition,
my reviews tended to average about 8 points, in the middle, that went down
to about 3, and then near the end, that dropped to about 2. I *still* might
have to add to some reviews.

But on the other hand, with a lower character count, I might only need to
add one or two words, as opposed to several repetitive sentences...

I don't know...
>
>
>>> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
>>> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
>>> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
>>> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%
>
> For what it's worth, I like this formula for Honorable Mentions.
>
>>> One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more strongly
>>> dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an
>>> easy way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where
>>> the author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to
>>> enter votes for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had
>>> stories entered in, but the votes were the same. It would have been
>>> much easier to be able to go to vote for any one category, click a
>>> check-box of some sort and have this vote automatically entered in
>>> the other categories.
>
> If this is possible, I'd be okay with it. But I have to point out a few
> questions/concerns:
>
> Poetry vs Prose - There are fanfic authors out there who write primarily
> prose and some who write primarily poetry. There are even a few who do
> ONLY one or the other. And there are far more readers of prose than there
> are of poetry. Would we give the poets a disadvantage? Or is there still
> some way of dividing out the poets from the prose writers? Same thing with
> the drabbles. Can we filter them out? Or is that too complicated?
>
> Categories - Would this effectively eliminate author awards within
> categories? Essentially, would we have one giant award for authors where
> every author entered competes? Because I see a problem with that, too.
> Let's say Author A writes great Nazgul stories and has one amazing story
> in the villains' category. But not a lot of people read the villains
> category, so Author A only gets one author vote. Now let's say that very
> prolific Author B has stories entered in drama, hobbits, elves, men,
> humor, adventure, Lord of the Rings, etc. Lots of people read those and
> they like this author, so Author B gets many author votes. Now, Author B
> also has a story entered in villains, but it's not as good as the one that
> Author A entered. So Author A's story wins villains, but Author A gets no
> author award because very few reviewers will ever read Author A's story.
>
> Is this making any sense? Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that
> prolific authors who write in popular categories would have an unfair
> advantage in the author awards over less well-known authors who write in
> more obscure categories.
>
> I think *something* has to change with the author awards, but I really
> don't know what or how. That's why I can't say no to this solution. It's
> the best one I've seen yet, and I have no alternatives to offer. But I
> think there are still things we need to work out. Either that or do away
> with author awards entirely. I wouldn't be happy with that, but I can't
> say that I'm completely happy with the system as it currently stands.
>

I never even got to enter any author reviews. Part of it, of course was a
lack of time. But also there was the factor of not really understanding how
they worked.

Dreamflower

> *crawling back under her rock*
> Thundera
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6567

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Kathy January 03, 2006 - 2:41:16 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura" <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
> <snip>
> In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In
my opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points) encourages
longer reviews and rewards stories that deserve said reviews. A lower
point cap (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more reviews,
but on average, they would be shorter as the competitive advantage
gained by long reviews would be lost. I think someone once mentioned
reviews that were quick blips. With a lower cap, I think we'd see a
lot more of those. So do we want our focus on quality or on quantity?
I vote for quality. I think it does more for writing. Personally, I
would much rather have one in-depth 6- or 7-point review than five
quick blips of "Thanks, that was great." I'm grateful for both, don't
get me wrong. But I learn more from the former than I do for the
latter.
>

Hi Thundera,

I heartily agree that review quality is more important than quantity.
But are short reviews necessarily of lesser quality than
long ones? While I'll admit that my reviews got progressively
shorter as the voting deadline approached, I tried to say
something substantive in each of them, and don't believe that my 3-
and 4-pointers were inferior to my longer ones.

Were there many "Thanks, that was great" reviews in the MEFAs? I
don't recall seeing any. In fact, the thing that impressed me the
most about the MEFAs was the quality of the reviews, whether long or
short. I received some short reviews that I was very happy
with...it's actually rather impressive to see how much can be
conveyed in 300-400 characters!

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6568

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Laura January 03, 2006 - 3:17:25 Topic ID# 6550
-- "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> I heartily agree that review quality is more important than
>> quantity. But are short reviews necessarily of lesser quality than
>> long ones? While I'll admit that my reviews got progressively
>> shorter as the voting deadline approached, I tried to say
>> something substantive in each of them, and don't believe that my 3-
>> and 4-pointers were inferior to my longer ones.

Dreamflower made the same point, and I agree with you. You can fit a lot into 3- and 4 point reviews. Quality does not necessarily imply length.

However...

You can fit MORE into a 10-point review. More to the point, you can fit in specifics. I think part of this might be coming from how people went about making reviews bigger. For what I felt was a good story, I would comment on overall feel, some characterization points, and things like that. For what I felt was a GREAT story, I went through and found specifics. I'd comment on the overall feel and then point to why the feel was there, how it was achieved, and why it was such an effective use of style, tone, characterization, or whatever it was the author did so well. It's the specifics that I find most valuable when getting reviews. I have no idea what other people think of them, but I can point to several reviews I received where the reviewer listed out specifics they liked, specifics they didn't like, what worked, what didn't work, etc. And to me, that was the most valuable kind of review.

Anyway, the need to get a story up to 10 points was often what drove me to find those specifics. Otherwise, pressed for time, I would leave it at an overall impression, maybe point out a few instances, and then move on. But for stories that I thought really deserved a closer look, I tried to get them up to 7, 8, 9, or 10 points by picking out the why. I'm NOT saying my reviews are examples of quality. I'm known for being long-winded and I do tend to ramble. What I'm saying, though, is that the stories that inspired me to go back through and figure out just why they impacted me the way they did deserve more recognition than what a 3-point margin can give.

At least, that's my opinion.

So were some of the 10-point reviews inflated? Artificially padded? Sure. Some of them probably were. But if the reviewer felt strongly enough to go through and pad the review, I think that story needs to receive a bit more recognition than the proposed five points.

Again, just my opinion.

>> Were there many "Thanks, that was great" reviews in the MEFAs? I
>> don't recall seeing any. In fact, the thing that impressed me the
>> most about the MEFAs was the quality of the reviews, whether long
>> or short. I received some short reviews that I was very happy
>> with...it's actually rather impressive to see how much can be
>> conveyed in 300-400 characters!

Not a lot, but I was aware of some. And I'm grateful that people took the time to do even that much. Those are not bad reviews. They show interest, they offer feedback, and they can keep an author going. But I still think we need to reward stories that manage to inspire more from their reviewers, and my own feeling is that we need to do it with a larger point margin.

*disappearing back under the rock*
Thundera

-----------------------------------------------------------
- No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
no harm will come to you.
- Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
how any harm could come to me there, either.
William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
-----------------------------------------------------------

Msg# 6569

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 03, 2006 - 4:08:49 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura" <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
> > <snip>
> > In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In
> my opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points) encourages
> longer reviews and rewards stories that deserve said reviews. A lower
> point cap (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more reviews,
> but on average, they would be shorter as the competitive advantage
> gained by long reviews would be lost.
> latter.

> I heartily agree that review quality is more important than quantity.
> But are short reviews necessarily of lesser quality than
> long ones?

Two things seem to be going on here:

Firstly:

On the one hand, against Thundera's position, the question is raised:
on what basis do we think that longer reviews are qualitatively
superior to shorter ones, such that they merit being recognized by a
wider points spread? Valid question, but I'd point out that just
raising that as a question does not entitle us to conclude that in
fact, shorter reviews are either superior to longer ones *or* that
they are equal in value, and so it's a good idea to alter the points
scale to give them more weight.

On the other hand, against the position that we should change the
points scale to privilege shorter reviews, the underlying assumption
that seems to be at work is that a long review is likely to be padded
and so 'fake' in some sense, based on the fact that the questioner
felt like s/he was padding his/her reviews when s/he tried to do
longer ones. That may be very true sometimes and the rules in fact
encourage this, or at least I recall that when questions came up about
not having anything more to say but wanting to give more points to a
story, the advice was: Stretch it out. Find a way to say more, even if
it is fluffifying the review.

However, that isn't true of every long review, and personal experience
doesn't seem terribly helpful here. Personally, I found that taking
the time to analyze a piece and saying to myself, "I think this is a
ten-pointer and need to write about that much," made me see things
about the story I wouldn't have been able to articulate on a first
reaction. I've also found that in general, a more thought-out response
is nicer than one that seems to be an immediate outpouring of raw
reaction.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, the issue has been almost
immediately transformed from "What would be the advantages and
disadvantages of changing the points thresholds *and* lowering the
points cap by half?" into "How long does a review have to be before it
is good?" We can't answer the second question (other than that they
are as long as they need to be to say what you think you need to say
about the story's good qualities, whether that's 1 word or 2,000+
characters), but the first one strikes me as answerable without having
to go through the quality argument.

So I would suggest we avoid trying to couch the question of whether to
change the way points are awarded in terms of the inherent quality of
longer versus shorter reviews, and instead ask what good it does (and
also what bad it does) to change the thresholds while simultaneously
(or independently, which might be another option) changing the scale
by changing the points cap.

I can think of some benefits for changing these things:

Changing the thresholds:

1) If the issue is one of time management, such that given much more
limited time than we all wish we had to read and review massive
amounts of fanfic, it'd be better to make it easier to score at least
5 points by making shorter reviews worth more, then Marta's proposal
makes a lot of sense. It becomes relatively easy to give middling to
high-points reviews with the same amount of words you would've used
last year to give fewer points. Assuming the cap isn't changed, it'd
allow for higher points values to exist, but might mean you had to
make a significant leap to reach, say, an eight, nine or ten compared
to points values solidly in the mid-high range. Those who want to
write that much are encouraged to do so while acknowledgment is made
that we just don't always have the time to sit down with a story and
write a really detailed, careful analysis-cum-review.

Changing the points cap:

1) If the issue is that it feels somehow snobbish to have such a wide
points spread for stories, so that some are evaluated as a one whereas
others are evaluated as a ten, then it makes sense to restrict the
range of points possible by some degree. OR I suppose one could say
that if there's less pressure to put out a higher char count to reach
the higher scoring levels (because there are far fewer levels at which
to score) people might read and review more stories than they did in
previous years.

Changing both:

1) This would certainly address two perceived problems at once. (Ok, I
admit, I can't think of a good reason for doing both at once other
than that.)


Cons:

Changing the thresholds:

1) If a 10-point scale is retained, then the intervals between
thresholds will vary. This could be confusing to reviewers and authors.


Changing the points cap:

1) Ok, admittedly, I also don't think my pro is very strong in this
area. I'm not an egalitarian sort of person when it comes to actual
evaluations rather than opportunities available to someone's work
(obviously, I'm assuming that the problem is one of perceived unfair
bias that has its roots in what I would say is a really problematic
sense of egalitarianism, and this may just be very wrong). However,
the second possibility mentioned above is, I think, stronger. BUT
changing the points cap is not the only way to address that problem
and it is, I think, arguably less flexible and less able to recognize
problems of reviewer motivation that may crop up by reducing the
points cap.

I think there's the possibility of a sort of reverse Murphy's Law
happening here: if the points cap is lower, people will be likely
adjust their reviewing downwards, so that they just don't try to write
as much or do more complicated kinds of evaluations. Especially under
time pressure, you don't generally do anything more than you *have* to
anyway; if there is no incentive of giving significantly more points
because the scale tops out at 500 chars, I suspect we'll adjust to
that level.

Changing both:

1) The worst of both worlds, I think. The lack of more regularly
spaced thresholds due to the lower cap will reduce the spread of
actual points awarded even further, I think. Really, who wants to work
as hard to give five points as you did last year to give ten points
when the person writing up to five hundred fewer words than you did is
only giving one less point to the author? We are tired, we all have
work and lives, and we are all programmed to worship at the altar of
the Law of the Conservation of Energy.

Dwim

Msg# 6570

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 03, 2006 - 7:50:37 Topic ID# 6550
I like Anthony's idea of counting 100% of the first so many characters,
2/3rds of the next so many, etc. and giving 5% of the characters over 1000.
And I like the ten point spread much better than a lower spread, too.

To me, the goal is to get reviews which aren't puffed or trimmed according
to how many points awarded, but rather to get reviews which took a little
thought and effort on the part of the reviewer -- encouraging more thought
and more effort for good stories by awarding points. With a really good
story I do want to go and point out specifics, and if I can tag quotes to
keep my conscience clear, I'll be very happy to point out precisely what
made me bounce up and down in my chair going "ooh! ooh! ooh!"

If the point system is weighted a little toward short reviews, but not so
heavily that there's no reward for longer reviews, I think that most
reviewers will be less point obsessed not more. And that's not a bad thing.


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

Msg# 6571

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rhapsody\_the\_bard January 03, 2006 - 10:47:05 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura" <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
>
> "Marta Layton" <melayton@g...> wrote:
> >> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
> >> so feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
> >> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at
> >> a lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively
> >> means that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such
> >> spread would be:
> >>
> >> 1-50 1 point
> >> 51-250 2 point
> >> 251-500 3 point
> >> 501-1000 4 point
> >> 1001+ 5 point
> >>
> >> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm
> >> very interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer
> >> ones.
> >> Would this point spread work better?
>
> *chiming in once more as the voice of dissent*
>
> I'm honestly not trying to play devil's advocate. Really, I'm not!
And I think we've had some excellent ideas out of the post-mortem. But
I have to weigh in as _strongly_ opposed to a change in the point
levels. At least, a change like the one proposed.
>
> Granted, I'm probably among the long-winded reviewers, but be that
> as it may, if I rambled off a review and hit as many aspects of the
> story as I could, I only got up to about 5 points on average. On
> rare occasions, I could hit 6. But that was if I rambled, and I
> caught most of those when I went back through and edited the
> reviews. That being said, I know I gave out several 10-point
> reviews, quite a few 9-point reviews, and even more 8-pointers and
> 7-pointers. For all of them, I went back and put in enough effort to
> get the story that high because I felt that strongly about it. I
> think there should be a difference between a 2-point story and a
> 10-point story, and I think the margin between points should reflect
> that. Furthermore, if I go to the effort to get a 1001-character
> review, I want it to count. I want the author to get those ten
> points.

I am a rambler as well, but when I leave reviews in general, they
*are* long. No matter where I leave them. Story archives, MEFA's..
While for the MEFA's, I only finalised them after I checked spelling,
I really didn't care for the points, I was merely aiming at leaving a
nice review that would make the author in question smile or for an ego
boost. So if I really loved a story, wanted to pass back to the author
how good it felt to have read the story, and I left a glowing review
(since I did leave long glowing reviews to stories with just one
review for the MEFAs I guess).. it feels like being ticked on my
fingers for doing so. Weren't these the Feel good awards? So why not
leave a story a glowing review (a glowing review can be either short
or long) if my aim is to make a writer feel good about their work? Is
that so wrong?

*scratches her head* Just please, don't loose sight of the aim to make
author's feel good about their work before it boils down to a points
debate.

> Competition-wise, it doesn't make that much of a difference. But as
> far as the quality of the reviews is concerned, I think there is a
> difference. happen to think that the 1000+ reviews are good ego
> boosters. I like receiving them, and I like giving them. And I think
< there's more incentive to give them if it actually makes a
> difference in the competition.

I agree completely, changing the points system won't stop me from
leaving long reviews since I didn't pay much attention to the number
of points a story got in the first place.

As for quoting from stories... isn't it an idea to add a button to the
system, review form where a reviewer can click on (telling or putting
it in the faq that you have to put the <blockquote> code around it
will not work...). Let's say you want to quote from a story, a quick
click, in which it automatically adds the quote-code (or maybe a java
script kind of thing where you can paste the part in, click on ok and
it gets inserted)...

Rhapsody

Msg# 6572

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by ainaechoiriel January 03, 2006 - 18:52:29 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>

Just a few cents from me....

> I have to say that I wouldn't be in favor of using straight character
> counts because one long glowing review could effectively keep the
> other stories out of the running. I like the point system because
> while it allows for more or less points, it also somewhat levels the
> playing field. I think that using a straight character would would
> have the effect of lessening the motivation of the readers leaving
> the shorter reviews because (I'm guessing) they'd feel that it
> wouldn't make any difference.

I agree wholeheartedly.

> I'd be fine with having a single set of authors' awards without
> having them by category. Their strengths could be commented on in
> the text of the review/vote (great at drabbling, espcially Hobbits,
> but also shows great talent in Elves, ...etc..)

I would not. Let me just give you my experience with the
Alt.StarTrek.Creative Awards, even with their Author categories.
Though from 1196-2002, I had one Best General Story in my category
(DS9 or MIS/Combined) every other year, had been asked for my
autograph on multiple occassions and even Armin Shimmerman remembered
me two years late simply by name, I NEVER won Best DS9 Author, and
very definitely never won the Best Author award which has a fancy
name. That last one is only eligible for winning once. Once you've
won, people can vote on you again but only for comment. No points.

Anyway, I always wanted to win one of those. I got 2nd place once in
DS9, but that might have been a smaller set, the
Alt.StarTrek.Creative.All-Ages Tribble Awards, from a sister-group. I
never even go so much as a comment for the fancy one. Alas. And I
felt it. It hurt. Yeah, it's great when someone likes your story.
It's even better when they like your WRITING. A story may have a fan
but when you have a fan, that's a step up. When your name is known.....

Ah, but it feels good. And it feels sad when it's not even noticed.
Here I was a famous DS9 fanfic-writer (I'm a bit out-of-date now) and
still never won the fancy award. Or the Best DS9 Author award. Never
so much a single comment for the main one. (That I can remember.) It
is sad. And that was in the smaller pond of ASC.

How much harder will it be to win in this huge group of LOTR writers?
And not just those members here. We might grow as much next year as
we did this year.

So I don't want to see Authors all lumped into a few categories and
just a handful of awards. I want to share that wealth. I may never win
Best Tolkien Author, but I covet my Witch King Award for Horror Author
Award for 2004 and I display my banner proudly, still wishing I'd
gotten something for DS9.

(ASC does not break down further than the series and then the overall
best fancy-named award and best fancy-named New Author award. I think.)

PS. I like the idea of letting you repeat the review but being able to
edit if you want.

--Ainae

Msg# 6573

Re: points and various voting matters (Dreamflower) Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 7:14:06 Topic ID# 6573
>

Hi Dreamflower,

> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 08:36:27 -0600
> From: <aelfwina@cableone.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marta Layton" <melayton@gmail.com>
> To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 11:47 PM
> Subject: [MEFAwards] points and various voting matters
>
>
>> Hey guys,
>>
>> This is the last issue that I think it's absolutely critical we
>> discuss
>> before next year's awards. This post-mortem surely has stretched out!
>> I
>> think we've covered a lot of good ground, and if I've started a topic
>> and we never reached a decision, please remind me.
>>
>> Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
>> several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to speak
>> up.
>>
>> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
>> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>> points
>> they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
>> level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
>> those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
>> be:
>>
>> 1-50 1 point
>> 51-250 2 point
>> 251-500 3 point
>> 501-1000 4 point
>> 1001+ 5 point
>>
>> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm very
>> interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer ones.
>> Would this point spread work better?
>
> It's possible. I know that generally, I wrote my reviews at first with
> no
> regards to how the points fell, but just said what I felt about the
> story.
> Then, for certain stories that I felt had exceptional merit, I went
> back and
> added to the reviews to get higher point counts. I didn't go back to
> any and
> remove words to get less points. However, I often felt the longer
> reviews
> were "padded" and had less impact than my original shorter and more
> heartfelt reviews. With a smaller point spread, this problem could be
> avoided. It would also make it easier to do more reviews in a shorter
> time
> period.
>


I can see where you would feel that way, given how you say you wrote
your reviews. On the other hand, I would often go on about those things
that I liked about a story until I felt I had written enough to get it
the points I wanted to. This meant that I was not adding anything to
the longer reviews; if anything, I was stopping before maybe I would
have liked for the shorter ones.

I don't know that there's anything intrinsically better or worse about
longer or shorter reviews. It all depends on the reviewer and which
they're better at. I do know that I received quite a few comments from
people who really struggled to write longer reviews, who felt
discouraged because their longest reviews were worth so much less than
other peoples' longest reviews. That was my reason for lessening the
number of points that each review was worth. This wound in effect make
each point worth more.

>> Issue #2: honourable mentions. This year we awarded honourable
>> mentions
>> to stories who scored within three points of second place. But it
>> occurs to me this may not be the best system because the larger
>> categories were a lot more competitive. Think about it, in a
>> sub-category with five stories the top 60% of stories received first,
>> second, or third place, whereas in a sub-category with ten stories
>> only
>> the top 30% of stories received first, second, or third places. That
>> means there will be more competition for the third place position in a
>> larger category, and *that* means that the third place story will
>> likely have a higher score than in a smaller category - which means
>> stiffer competition for those honourable mention positions.
>>
>> I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
>> honourable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
>> points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we
>> could
>> set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points but isn't
>> awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honourable mention.
>>
>> Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based on
>> the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
>> have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honourable
>> mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories in
>> a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give
>> honourable
>> mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this
>> point.
>> So
>>
>> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
>> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
>> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
>> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%
>
> I like this second formula better. It would be more fair than the
> current
> system, yet not so complicated as your first suggestion. My only thing
> would be an upward limit: say from 12 entries upwards, 4+3=7 and not go
> beyond four honorable mentions, for I think that would dilute the
> value of
> the award *too* much in the other direction.
>

I think we could work with this. But I think it might be easier to do
this by limiting the number of stories in any sub-category. Let's say
we say each sub-category has to have between 5 and 15 stories. Then we
could have:

5-6 stories 0 honourable mentions
7-8 stories 1 honourable mention
9-10 stories 2 honourable mentions
11-12 stories 3 honourable mentions
13-14 stories 4 honourable mentions
15 stories 5 honourable mentions

This would preserve giving half the stories an honourable mention,
which would be nice to be able to point to. It's always easier to give
a blanket statement than have to point out exceptions. If we really
want to cap it off at 4 honourable mentions I'd live with that, though.

Marta

Msg# 6574

Re: points Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 7:20:57 Topic ID# 6574
If I remember, someone mentioned the potential of ties as a reason not
to lower the point spread to 1-5, but if I remember, that shouldn't be
an issue, because the system automatically ranks the stories by
points, then those with the same number of points by (?) number of
reviews and those with the same number of reviews by character count.

I think it'd be highly unlikely to have ties once those steps had been
taken.

it would also give the potential to reward those reviews that were
longer than the point cap on character count.

Sulriel

Msg# 6575

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 7:39:51 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:12:08 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
>
>
>
>>>>> Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
>>> several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to speak
>>> up.First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
>>> so
>>> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>>> points
>>> they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
>>> level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
>>> those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
>>> be:1-50 1 point
>>> 51-250 2 point
>>> 251-500 3 point
>>> 501-1000 4 point
>>> 1001+ 5 point
>>>
>
>
> I support this change. If I remember, we talked privately and my
> suggestion was for an even more dramatic change. ... a point spread
> of 1-3 points, or a 1-5 with a maximum counted character count of 500
> instead of a 1000. (? it's been too long and I'm still on my first
> coffee this morning) But I would be happy with the suggestion above.
>

I'd be against putting the cap at 500 characters because I would have a
very hard time rationing that. I can't write a decent review,
especially for a longer story, in less than 300 or so characters even
if I try to.

As far as the three-point thing, I think that might be flattening it
too much. Just my opinion, of course... I'll go with whatever most
people want here, within reason.

Marta

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

Msg# 6576

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 8:19:47 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:14:30 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
>
>
>
>>>>>> Issue #2: honorable mentions. This year we awarded honorable
>>> mentions
>>> to stories who scored within three points of second place. But it
>>> occurs to me this may not be the best system because the larger
>>> categories were a lot more competitive. Think about it, in a
>>> sub-category with five stories the top 60% of stories received first,
>>> second, or third place, whereas in a sub-category with ten stories
>>> only
>>> the top 30% of stories received first, second, or third places. That
>>> means there will be more competition for the third place position in
>>> a
>>> larger category, and *that* means that the third place story will
>>> likely have a higher score than in a smaller category - which means
>>> stiffer competition for those honorable mention positions.
>
>
> I'm ok with the HMs being within a count or percent of the total
> points because I feel like it rewards the 'likability' of the story
> and correctly conveys the reader's votes. If there are 5 stories in
> a cate or 20 .... if the point spread is so close, the HMs show what
> a close race it was, and I like that.
>
> What about making them be within a three points of first place
> instead of second? or the top ? % of the point spread? or within ? %
> points of first place?
>

I think these are likely to overly favor a smaller subcategory if
there's a "power-house" in a small category that drives the number of
points the first place story received way up. Let's say we want to
award within 20% of the points awarded to first place, and first place
receives 50 points. That means everything that receives 40 or more
points gets an honourable mention. Now, the larger categories are
likerly to have "tighter" races (more stories scoring within fewer
points of each other) by virtue of having more stories. So in a smaller
category where first place scores high, it's very likely that *no*
stories will get honourable mentions because third place is lower than
forty points. Whereas in a larger category, there are likely to be
enough stories that some would fall in this interval and would receive
honourable mentions.

>>>>> I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
>>> honorable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
>>> points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we
>>> could
>>> set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points but
>>> isn't
>>> awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honorable mention.
>>>
>
> I think this is an overall good idea and would be ok if it were
> implemented, but I think it would be a difficult call to set that
> number, especially if we change the point system.
>

You're right, this would be a problem, but I'm not sure it's any more
random than the current three-point rules. One solution might be to
wait to determine this limit until we have the actual figures from next
year. Anthony, would it be possible to see the number of points that
the top third (or half, or whatever percent of stories we want to
award) scored above? Say we decide we want to give honourable mention
to the top third of stories. I guess this would in effect be
recognising the top % of stories instead of within a certain point
range. The only problem is it wouldn't necessarily be an honourable
mention in a certain category, as which stories get an HM id etermined
by the *overall* pointspread, across all the categories.
>
>>>
>>>>>> Another way to address this is to assign honorable mentions based
>>> on
>>> the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
>>> have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honorable
>>> mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories
>>> in
>>> a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give
>>> honorable
>>> mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this
>>> point.
>
>
> I know that some judged contests do this and I highly support it in
> those venues, and I would support it here, but I don't think that
> it reflects the spirit of the awards as well as the first option,
> especially if we reward those who place within a percent of points of
> first place.
>
>
>

How is this not in keeping with the spirit of the awards? Is it that
there could be some stories that place very close to the last
honourable mentions that just don't get recognised? If so, I wonder if
some hybrid situation might be doable:

1. Give honourable mentions to enough stories so that 50% get either
1st, 2nd, 3rd place or an honourable mention.
2. Give honourable mentions to any stories with the same number of
points as the last story to win an honourable mention by (1) above.

I have to admit that this is my favourite option, provided it's
codeable. But I can see the merit of either, and so I'm flexible.

Marta


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

Msg# 6577

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 8:38:06 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> >>>>>> Issue #2: honorable mentions. This year we awarded honorable
> >>> mentions> >>> to stories who scored within three points of
second place. But it> >>> occurs to me this may not be the best system
because the larger> >>> categories were a lot more competitive. Think
about it, in a> >>> sub-category with five stories the top 60% of
stories received first,> >>> second, or third place, whereas in a sub-
category with ten stories> >>> only> >>> the top 30% of stories
received first, second, or third places. That> >>> means there will be
more competition for the third place position in
> >>> a> >>> larger category, and *that* means that the third place
story will> >>> likely have a higher score than in a smaller category -
which means> >>> stiffer competition for those honorable mention
positions.
> >
> >
> > I'm ok with the HMs being within a count or percent of the total
> > points because I feel like it rewards the 'likability' of the
story> > and correctly conveys the reader's votes. If there are 5
stories in> > a cate or 20 .... if the point spread is so close, the
HMs show what> > a close race it was, and I like that.
> >
> > What about making them be within a three points of first place
> > instead of second? or the top ? % of the point spread? or
within ? %> > points of first place?
> >
>
> I think these are likely to overly favor a smaller subcategory if
> there's a "power-house" in a small category that drives the number
of > points the first place story received way up. Let's say we want
to > award within 20% of the points awarded to first place, and first
place > receives 50 points. That means everything that receives 40 or
more > points gets an honourable mention. <snipped>>


*** oops - I didn't think of it working backwards like that. You're
right. (although I think you mean *dis*favor a small subcate by your
example?) ... I withdrawn my support from this option (unless someone
else raises another point that changes my mind back :) )

Sulriel

Msg# 6578

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 8:39:21 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
>


>
> >>>>> I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
> >>> honorable mention to all the stories that get a certain number
of> >>> points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For xample,
we> >>> could> >>> set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets
20 points but> >>> isn't> >>> awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets
an honorable mention.> >>>
> >
> > I think this is an overall good idea and would be ok if it were
> > implemented, but I think it would be a difficult call to set that
> > number, especially if we change the point system.
> >
>
> You're right, this would be a problem, but I'm not sure it's any
more > random than the current three-point rules. One solution might
be to > wait to determine this limit until we have the actual figures
from next > year. Anthony, would it be possible to see the number of
points that > the top third (or half, or whatever percent of stories
we want to > award) scored above? Say we decide we want to give
honourable mention > to the top third of stories. I guess this would
in effect be > recognising the top % of stories instead of within a
certain point > range. The only problem is it wouldn't necessarily be
an honourable > mention in a certain category, as which stories get an
HM id etermined > by the *overall* pointspread, across all the
categories.


*** I don't support making point decisions after the fact.

I think your previous example of smaller subcate would work against
this proposal as well ... what if none of the stories received that
number of points. It's easy to say that there would be no HMs in that
subcate, but you could easily end up with 1st, 2nd, 3rd places with a
lower point count than HMs in other categories and that seems
inconsistent with the rest of the system.

Msg# 6579

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 8:47:43 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:17:58 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters

>>> One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more
>>> strongly
>>> dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an
>>> easy way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where
>>> the
>>> author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to enter
>>> votes
>>> for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had stories
>>> entered in, but the votes were the same. It would have been much
>>> easier to be able to go to vote for any one category, click a check-
>>> box of some sort and have this vote automatically entered in the
>>> other
>>> categories.
>
>
> I agree with entering one vote per author and having it automatically
> go to them in all the categories in which they have stories entered.
>
> I know there are arguments against this, and I agree with them in
> part, - that someone may be stronger in some genre or elements than in
> others, but I also know there has been a lot of confusion and
> questions and problems with the readers understanding and voting in
> the author review section and I think the simplification of the above
> suggestion would outweigh the lack of flexibility.
>

Let me be clear about this (because I think I'm being misinterpreted
further down in the digest): I'm not suggesting we have one giant
category for all authors. I'm actually pretty against this.

What I *am* suggesting is that a person be able to enter a review for
an author and have it automatically generate reviews with the same text
in all other categories in which that author is entered. To give an
example... let's say someone has the following nominations:

- "The Trouble With Brandybucks" in "Hobbits : Fourth Age"
- "Envinyatar" in "Drama : Drabble"
- "A Dwarf Among Elves" in "LOTR : Lothlorien".

This author is then entered in the following author categories.

- Hobbits : General Authors
- LOTR : General Authors
- Drama : Drabble Authors

Let's say I'm looking at the nominations for "Drama : Drabble". I see a
listing for "Envinyatar", and by that drabble I see a link to vote on
the story, and a second like to vote for the author. I click on the
second link, and it takes me to a page where I can enter that vote.
What I'm proposing is that we have a check-box that I could click, and
whatever I enter for "Drama : Drabble Authors" is also entered as a
vote for "Hobbits : General Authors" and "LOTR : General Authors".

If you do want to customise the vote to the subcategory you could just
not click that check-box and enter separate reviews when you're ready.

Going back to my example, let's say I submitted a vote for all the
categories and want to go back and change them all. I could edit the
review and click the check-box, and it would make the changes to all
the different reviews. Alternatively, if I only wanted to change the
"Hobbits : General Authors" one, I could navigate to "The Trouble With
Brandybucks", click the link to edit the existing author review, make
my changes, and save the review *without* clicking the checkbox.

I'm honestly not sure if this is practical. But that's what I'm
suggesting - *not* stripping down to a single authors' category.

Marta

Msg# 6580

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 8:56:04 Topic ID# 6550
> >>>>>> Another way to address this is to assign honorable mentions
based> >>> on> >>> the number of entries per category. For example,
let's say we want to> >>> have the top half of stories receive a place
award or an honorable> >>> mention. (Not that out-of-line when you
consider 60% of the stories> >>> in> >>> a five-story category get an
award.) Then we could just give> >>> honorable> >>> mentions to the
top stories below the places until we reach this> >>> point.
> >
> >
> > I know that some judged contests do this and I highly support it
in> > those venues, and I would support it here, but I don't think
hat> > it reflects the spirit of the awards as well as the first
option,> > especially if we reward those who place within a percent of
points of> > first place.
> >
> >> >> > How is this not in keeping with the spirit of the awards? Is
it that > there could be some stories that place very close to the
last > honourable mentions that just don't get recognised? If so, I
wonder if > some hybrid situation might be doable:
>
> 1. Give honourable mentions to enough stories so that 50% get either
> 1st, 2nd, 3rd place or an honourable mention.
> 2. Give honourable mentions to any stories with the same number of >
points as the last story to win an honourable mention by (1) above.
>
> I have to admit that this is my favourite option, provided it's >
codeable. But I can see the merit of either, and so I'm flexible.
>
> Marta



I'm not adamantly opposed to this option. My reluctance comes from -
in a backwards kind of way - my support of how well this works in a
*judged* system.... which this isn't, not in the strictest sense. I
feel like, in a judged system, it's quite legit for a judge to pick
the 1st and top placing and put the rest in order and award the top
percent HMs.

But I feel like, these awards are more 'voters choice' and I think
that if it's a close race, it should be reflected in the awards.

JMO, but I don't think it dilutes the awards if we set the rules that
any story within some% of first (or third) place's points get HM and
the entire cate has a small point spread. A close race is a close
race. .... IMO it's *totally* difference from an 'everybody' wins
kind of mentality where you give every kid a purple ribbon for walking
around the ring regardless of skill or whatever is being judged.

If you set a certain number of HMs, you might have one cate with a
point spread of only 5 points between third place and the lowest
number of points, and those close stories not recognized and another
category with a 20 point difference where a story does get HM.

I feel like, (as opposed to the judged system mentioned above), when
the readers/voters are putting so much effort into their reviews, it
doesn't seem quite right not to reward those that are so close.

again, I would support many of the difference combinations that have
been mentioned, and I don't mean to argue strongly one way or the
other, I'm just trying to put my thoughts out.

<looks up .... blinks> ... .I'm afraid I've even confused myself by
now ...

in summary: I'm 'ok' with the 'HM within three points of third
place' - isn't that what we used in '05.? I'd prefer to use some%
of points within THIRD place (not first as I said before because of
the problem Marta pointed out) - and I think it's ok if all the
stories get HM if they earn it, or none if they don't come within the
percent.

Msg# 6581

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim) Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 10:06:08 Topic ID# 6581
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:28:02 -0000
> From: "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
>> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
>> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>> points
>> they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
>> level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
>> those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such spread would
>> be:
>>
>> 1-50 1 point
>> 51-250 2 point
>> 251-500 3 point
>> 501-1000 4 point
>> 1001+ 5 point
>
>
> Someone mentioned that this would help people write reviews more
> quickly (a good thing!) instead of having to worry over a review to
> make it the points value they thought the story was worth. I think for
> me that's probably the strongest argument for making it easier to
> reach certain points values, but capping it at five to me is less
> appealing. A 1000 characters is significantly more than 501, yet it
> gives the same points value.


You're absolutely right about there being a pretty big difference
between the two. The way I broke down the points probably isn't the
best way, and we could certainly rework that maybe a point every 250
characters or some such thing. Besides wanting to simplify things and
make reviewing easier, I heard from a few reviewer who said they felt
bad writing reviews when they could only do short ones because they
were "only" worth one point or two points, and this shocked me quite a
bit. Every point can make a difference, and I don't want people to feel
like short reviews aren't worth much. I thought if there were less
points per review, then those shorter reviews would feel like they were
wroth more - hence the push to cut back on the number of points.

> Also, I'm not sure why the 'step' has to be so short between points
> levels one and two, 2 and a half times as much as the first step in
> the next two categories, and then jump up by nearly the same amount
> between levels four and five as the move from level 1 to level 2 in
> the third. One of the nice things about this year's awards was that
> there were no such skips in the points structure--nice even,
> predictable intervals were, I thought, a good improvement on the first
> year's table, which was missing some points levels actually.
>
> Is the idea that the scoring levels are based on the average char
> counts people turned in? What's the logic behind this? Because what
> this seems to me to do is to make it easier to move out of level one,
> but then it becomes harder to move out of any given level at any point
> after that.
>
>

I'm not particularly attached to those points I proposed above. I'd be
just as happy with, say:

0-250 chars 1 pt
251-500 chars 2 pts
501-750 chars 3 pts
751-1000 chars 4 pts
1001+ chars 5 pts

There really *wasn't* any rhyme or reason to the point levels, except
that they were round numbers.

<snip>
> *At a guess* (please keep in mind that math is not my strong point,
> here), there will be a lot more ties to break based on absolute
> character counts because it'll be harder to vote proportionally--there
> just won't be enough differentiation within the higher points
> categories to make that possible.
>

I think you're right about this (and this is just my guess, too). Would
having a more equal distribution of points like what I laid out above
be any better? I think it would likely still be lower point totals
overall so more ties on the number of points, so you'll have more ties
if each vote is worth less point anyway.

A good way to avoid all of this would be to go with Rabidsamfan's
suggestion to do away with points and just go with character counts up
to a certain cap. 1000 characters or whatever. The more I think about
it, the more I like that idea - though I'm not so sold on it as to
insist on it.

>> Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based on
>> the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we want to
>> have the top half of stories receive a place award or an honourable
>> mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of the stories in
>> a five-story category get an award.) Then we could just give
>> honourable
>> mentions to the top stories below the places until we reach this
>> point.
>
>
> I rather like this more proportional system. Depending on how things
> go in fandom, the further we get from movie years, we may have fewer
> entries or else more reviewers as word gets around and (ideally) more
> people participate as reviewers. So this would avoid us being in a
> situation where maybe very few stories make it to the threshold points
> level, or else where nearly every story makes it that far. There'd be
> no need to try and guess ahead of time or make a controversial
> retroactive decision about that points threshold after the voting is
> over. It'd be a simple decision, made once and for all, about a
> percentage of stories that would get awards, and then a mathematical
> formula would determine the actual number of honorable mentions.
>

Thanks for articulating this so well. These were a lot of the reasons I
like this option so much, but you've presented them more clearly than
I've been able to. I whole-heartedly agree with what you've said.

>> One more thing: the author awards. This one may be more strongly
>> dictated by technical concerns. Would it be a good idea to have an
>> easy
>> way to enter the same author vote for all the categories where the
>> author has works entered. For instance, this year I had to enter votes
>> for Dreamflower for every one of the categories she had stories
>> entered
>> in, but the votes were the same. It would have been much easier to be
>> able to go to vote for any one category, click a check-box of some
>> sort
>> and have this vote automatically entered in the other categories.
>
> I'd support anything that makes this an easier task. I ended up having
> to find all the author's stories that I had read, and then divide them
> into stories I thought could be mentioned together as contributing
> towards a coherent review of the author. So I might mention stories in
> Horror, Drama, and Action/Adventure to write an author review, then
> enter that review in three different categories. I'd then have a
> different review written out for the author using her/his stories from
> LOTR, Silm, and Humor.
>
> So for me, having a single author review, where I could use all the
> stories at once, without having to figure out how to carve them up and
> write two reviews without being repetitive, would be a significant
> improvement.
>

Well, technically you can enter the same author review for every
category an author is entered in. But this does get repetitive when
trying to read through author reviews, I agree. It would be nice to not
display duplicate reviews; I'm not sure how we'd program this.

Short of that, the only way I can see this suggestion working would be
to have all the authors in a single category - and I'm not crazy about
that idea.

>> Barring that, can you guys think of any ways that we could make author
>> voting run more smoothly?
>
> Being able to see all the author's stories and categories on a single
> page whenever one goes to write an author review would also be a huge
> help. I got very tired of having to go dig through my review files to
> find the person's stories, and determine categories and subcategories.
> The filters were very problematic, because they weren't independent of
> each other, but one governed the other. So:
>
> Author: Name
> Category: Romance
>
> Would give you Romance, plus subcats, iirc, but then *because* it
> *was* Romance as the main category, when you tried to select a
> different one, you could only get the Romance subcats. And that would
> result in an impossible filter combination like:
>
> Author: Name
> Category: Action/Adventure
> Subcat options: Only romance subcats
>
> You'd get a blank page, have to clear all filters, and then start
> again instead of being able to use the filters to help you search out
> the author's stories.
>

I hadn't notice that but agree that it would be problematic. For me
personally I always hit the "reset" button and dealt with the delay.
But then I have DSL and never had problems with the server; I realise
this would be much harder for some people.

Anthony, would it be possible for the drop-down menu of the
subcategories to include a list like:

*****
Diplay all applicable sub-categories.
---
Display all Books/Time: Gap-Filler sub-categories.
Drama
Drabble
Hobbits
War of the Ring
---
Display all Books/Time: Post-Ring War Sub-Categories.
Aman

[etc.]

*****

So for example if the category was Romance and...
a. You selected "Display all applicable sub-categories." --> The page
would display all of the stories in Romance.
b. You selected "Display all Genres: Romance sub-categories." --> The
page would display all of the stories in Romance.
c. You selected a particular subcategory under "Display all Genres:
Romance subcategories." --> The page would display those stories in
that sub-category of romance.
d. You selected something else. --> The page would be blank.

I think this would address Dwim's concerns (I could be wrong, of
course).

>
> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
>
> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources that
> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
>

I think we decided that all reviews, regardless of source or length,
had to be within blockquote tags. You can include them but they won't
count for scoring purposes. Am I misremembering this?

> Thanks for all your work, Marta. This has definitely dragged out a
> bit, but you've persevered and kept pushing it forward.
>

Thanks. I don't mind things going on if there's still stuff to discuss,
though we do need to wrap up things that might require coding fairly
soon. I just don't want this to become a burden to anyone.

Marta

Msg# 6582

Re: points and various voting matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 10:06:25 Topic ID# 6582
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 18:34:44 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> I wouldn't mess with the point system, unless it were to drop it in
> favor of
> straight character counts.
>

I'd be okay with this, with a caveat: straight character counts to a
limit. Just like now there's a cap of ten points, maybe there could be
a cap of a thousand characters. Or whatever else we decide is fair --
we can debate the exact number if we decide this is a good idea. You
can go on typing past that, but it's not counting for purposes of
votes. It would certainly be simpler, and I think it would be a better
representation of how well-liked a story is. I know I realised that I
was 20 characters short of the next point so I'd add another sentence
that maybe wasn't strictly necessary - a pure point system would have
avoided this, and I think given better reviews.

> As far as the author review goes, I thought it was silly repeating
> author
> reviews over and over and over this year and scattering them
> willy-nilly
> strikes me as sillier, because the way they were presented, they were
> to
> award an author for having a particular strength in a particular
> subject
> area.
>
> I'd rather get an option to open up a second reply window after I've
> done a
> story review, with a copy of the same review already entered, but
> editable,
> which might be submitted as an author review.
>

I'd be pretty strongly against this. Actually if someone submitted an
author review that was identiccal to a story review they had also
submitted, I'd have to question whether this was a copied review and so
whether the second one (the author review should count). We have a rule
against duplicating story reviews, and it seems against the spirit of
this rule to copy a story review into an author review. Even if this is
allowed, I don't want to encourage it by providing this sort of
feature.

Marta

Msg# 6583

Re: points and various voting matters (sulriel) Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 10:16:15 Topic ID# 6583
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 00:07:36 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
> wrote:
>>
>> I wouldn't mess with the point system, unless it were to drop it in
> favor of> straight character counts.
>
>
> I have to say that I wouldn't be in favor of using straight character
> counts because one long glowing review could effectively keep the
> other stories out of the running. I like the point system because
> while it allows for more or less points, it also somewhat levels the
> playing field. I think that using a straight character would would
> have the effect of lessening the motivation of the readers leaving
> the shorter reviews because (I'm guessing) they'd feel that it
> wouldn't make any difference.
>

Let's be specific here about just what we mean by "straight character
count".

When I use that phrase I mean that each character gets one point, up to
some maximum. I've been saying 1,000 characters, but this is certainly
negotiable. The point is that there would be a cap, just like now you
can only get 10 points no matter how much you write. I don't think this
sort of system would be any worse than what we currently have.

I think how you're interpreting it is saying that each character gets
one point, no limit. If I type a 5,700-character review, that gets
5,700 points. I agree with you - this kind of system would be bad for
the awards. But that's not what i'm sugggesting and not how I'm
understanding RSF's suggestion. (Note, this is my understanding of RSF
- I may be misunderstanding.)

>>
>> As far as the author review goes, I thought it was silly repeating
> author> reviews over and over and over this year and scattering them
> willy-nilly> strikes me as sillier, because the way they were
> presented, they were to> award an author for having a particular
> strength in a particular subject> area.
>
>
> I'd be fine with having a single set of authors' awards without
> having them by category. Their strengths could be commented on in
> the text of the review/vote (great at drabbling, espcially Hobbits,
> but also shows great talent in Elves, ...etc..)
>

I'd be against this. It would just be too huge - we had several hundred
authors this year, and I'd hate to have a single category with several
hundred competing authors. It would be cutthroat!

>> I'd rather get an option to open up a second reply window after
> I've done a> story review, with a copy of the same review already
> entered, but editable,> which might be submitted as an author review.
>>
>> Of course, if the purpose of author reviews isn't tied to the story
>> categories, you could approach it very differently.
>
>
> Great idea to automatically open an author's review window as a
> prompt when the story review is opened.
>

To clarify my earlier statement... I don't mind having a link to open a
window to enter the authors' review from the story review. I just don't
want the story review to be automatically put in there, which is what I
understood RSF's suggestion to be.

Guys, I took a half-day off because I was feeling ill, but now I need
to get ready for work. I'll have to save the rest of these emails until
tonight, and as I'm still a bit under the weather I may not be up to it
even thenl. But I will get to all of these as soon as I can.

Marta

Msg# 6584

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 04, 2006 - 10:31:37 Topic ID# 6550
On 1/4/06, Marta Layton <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Let me be clear about this (because I think I'm being misinterpreted
> further down in the digest): I'm not suggesting we have one giant
> category for all authors. I'm actually pretty against this.
>
> What I *am* suggesting is that a person be able to enter a review for
> an author and have it automatically generate reviews with the same text
> in all other categories in which that author is entered. To give an
> example... let's say someone has the following nominations:
>
> - "The Trouble With Brandybucks" in "Hobbits : Fourth Age"
> - "Envinyatar" in "Drama : Drabble"
> - "A Dwarf Among Elves" in "LOTR : Lothlorien".
>
> This author is then entered in the following author categories.
>
> - Hobbits : General Authors
> - LOTR : General Authors
> - Drama : Drabble Authors
>
> Let's say I'm looking at the nominations for "Drama : Drabble". I see a
> listing for "Envinyatar", and by that drabble I see a link to vote on
> the story, and a second like to vote for the author. I click on the
> second link, and it takes me to a page where I can enter that vote.
> What I'm proposing is that we have a check-box that I could click, and
> whatever I enter for "Drama : Drabble Authors" is also entered as a
> vote for "Hobbits : General Authors" and "LOTR : General Authors".
>
> If you do want to customise the vote to the subcategory you could just
> not click that check-box and enter separate reviews when you're ready.
>
> Going back to my example, let's say I submitted a vote for all the
> categories and want to go back and change them all. I could edit the
> review and click the check-box, and it would make the changes to all
> the different reviews. Alternatively, if I only wanted to change the
> "Hobbits : General Authors" one, I could navigate to "The Trouble With
> Brandybucks", click the link to edit the existing author review, make
> my changes, and save the review *without* clicking the checkbox.
>
> I'm honestly not sure if this is practical. But that's what I'm
> suggesting - *not* stripping down to a single authors' category.
>
> Marta



Yes, but there were authors who wrote in multiple categories who I felt
deserved mention as authors in some of them, but not necessarily all of
them; and there were categories where I didn't feel competent to judge an
author on their feel for the material, characterization, poetical
ability, or the like. So I'm opposed to any kind of blanket distribution of
Author reviews.

If you could make the distribution more discrete, by check marks for each
pertinent category AND give me a simple way to find those reviews for
editing, rather than wandering around Robin Hood's barn trying to find each
one through the stories, I might go for it. But I still prefer to have
the option to make my author reviews subsidiary to the story reviews I do.

And if you do distribute the reviews over several categories, I think that
should force a "Tentative" status, so that the reviewer has to okay each
one. Otherwise, someone will make one "final" expecting to be able to edit
the others and find themselves out of luck.


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

Msg# 6585

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Laura January 04, 2006 - 13:38:54 Topic ID# 6550
-- Marta Layton <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What I *am* suggesting is that a person be able to enter a review
>> for an author and have it automatically generate reviews with the
>> same text in all other categories in which that author is entered.
>> To give an example... let's say someone has the following
>> nominations:
>>
>> - "The Trouble With Brandybucks" in "Hobbits : Fourth Age"
>> - "Envinyatar" in "Drama : Drabble"
>> - "A Dwarf Among Elves" in "LOTR : Lothlorien".
>>
>> This author is then entered in the following author categories.
>>
>> - Hobbits : General Authors
>> - LOTR : General Authors
>> - Drama : Drabble Authors
>>
>> Let's say I'm looking at the nominations for "Drama : Drabble". I
>> see a listing for "Envinyatar", and by that drabble I see a link to
>> vote on the story, and a second like to vote for the author. I
>> click on the second link, and it takes me to a page where I can
>> enter that vote. What I'm proposing is that we have a check-box
>> that I could click, and whatever I enter for "Drama : Drabble
>> Authors" is also entered as a vote for "Hobbits : General Authors"
>> and "LOTR : General Authors".

Okay, that clears things up. Thanks.

However...I've got some major reservations with this idea. I still like the idea of either changing the author awards or doing away with them entirely, but I can't get behind this proposal and here's why:

Let's say we have an author. We'll name him Fred. Fred has possibly the best fanfiction ever written entered in the Silmarillion category. Fred himself is an amazing author but has only written one story. That story blows all competition out of the water, but it's still just one story. And being a Silmarillion story, it doesn't get as much attention as other stories might.

Now let's say we have another author. We'll call her Fredita. Fredita is a pretty good author. She has some pretty good stories. She's prolific. She's well-known. She has a large and faithful following. Fredita has entries in Hobbits, Elves, Men, Dwarves, Drama, Adventure, and one little vignette in Silmarillion that she did on a dare.

The voting season begins. People read Fredita's stories because they're good stories and they're familiar. A few adventurous souls try Fred's story in Silmarillion and discover it to be the best thing they ever read. They give him glowing author reviews as a result, knowing he is hands-down the best Silmarillion author out there.

In the meantime, Fredita's faithful following is reading her stories in Hobbits, Elves, Men, Drama, and Adventure. They find her to be the pretty good author they've come to expect and they give her pretty good reviews. Being faithful fans, they wish they could do more, but being faithful fans mired in reality, they're also pressed for time. So they compromise and click the box that duplicates their author reviews throughout the system.

Voting season ends. Fred's Silmarillion story clearly wins its subcategory. But Fred himself, despite being a brilliant author, gets no author award because Fredita's accumulation of pretty good reviews written elsewhere in the system were enough to beat out Fred's few glowing reviews written by those who'd actually taken the time to stroll through the Silmarillion category.

And the moral?

Difficult to say, actually. Writing is such a subjective thing that you could argue a pretty good writer who's able to get by in multiple areas is a better writer than someone who is able to completely dominate in just one. But that doesn't feel like a fair way to run awards, especially if we still intend to separate the authors into their various categories. Sure, you can still duplicate an author review throughout the system by saving and then going through by hand and pasting it in. But that takes time, and not everyone is going to do that. Plus, those who do it at least have to LOOK at the categories when they go through to give their authors a review. Giving reviewers a box to click makes it too easy and, in my mind, invites blanket reviews when blanket reviews might not be deserved.

Anyway, that's my major reservation to a box that will ease the propogation of duplicate author reviews. I hope something up there made sense. I'm actually opposed to duplicate author reviews in the first place, but given time constraints and the current system, I don't see a way past those. I would, however, like to see something in place (such as the forced copying and pasting) that would limit the number of duplicate reviews going around.

Just my two cents for whatever the current economy deems that to be worth.

Thundera


------------------------------------------------------------
- No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
no harm will come to you.
- Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
how any harm could come to me there, either.
William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
------------------------------------------------------------

Msg# 6586

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Kathy January 04, 2006 - 14:08:19 Topic ID# 6550
In consideration of the Freds out there, I agree with Thundera. And I
have to question a system that permits an author review in a drabble
category to be duplicated in a general category, whether it's done
automatically or manually. The skills just seem too different to me.

Kathy (Inkling)

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura" <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
>
> -- Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> >> What I *am* suggesting is that a person be able to enter a
review
> >> for an author and have it automatically generate reviews with
the
> >> same text in all other categories in which that author is
entered.
> >> To give an example... let's say someone has the following
> >> nominations:
> >>
> >> - "The Trouble With Brandybucks" in "Hobbits : Fourth Age"
> >> - "Envinyatar" in "Drama : Drabble"
> >> - "A Dwarf Among Elves" in "LOTR : Lothlorien".
> >>
> >> This author is then entered in the following author categories.
> >>
> >> - Hobbits : General Authors
> >> - LOTR : General Authors
> >> - Drama : Drabble Authors
> >>
> >> Let's say I'm looking at the nominations for "Drama : Drabble".
I
> >> see a listing for "Envinyatar", and by that drabble I see a link
to
> >> vote on the story, and a second like to vote for the author. I
> >> click on the second link, and it takes me to a page where I can
> >> enter that vote. What I'm proposing is that we have a check-box
> >> that I could click, and whatever I enter for "Drama : Drabble
> >> Authors" is also entered as a vote for "Hobbits : General
Authors"
> >> and "LOTR : General Authors".
>
> Okay, that clears things up. Thanks.
>
> However...I've got some major reservations with this idea. I still
like the idea of either changing the author awards or doing away with
them entirely, but I can't get behind this proposal and here's why:
>
> Let's say we have an author. We'll name him Fred. Fred has possibly
the best fanfiction ever written entered in the Silmarillion
category. Fred himself is an amazing author but has only written one
story. That story blows all competition out of the water, but it's
still just one story. And being a Silmarillion story, it doesn't get
as much attention as other stories might.
>
> Now let's say we have another author. We'll call her Fredita.
Fredita is a pretty good author. She has some pretty good stories.
She's prolific. She's well-known. She has a large and faithful
following. Fredita has entries in Hobbits, Elves, Men, Dwarves,
Drama, Adventure, and one little vignette in Silmarillion that she
did on a dare.
>
> The voting season begins. People read Fredita's stories because
they're good stories and they're familiar. A few adventurous souls
try Fred's story in Silmarillion and discover it to be the best thing
they ever read. They give him glowing author reviews as a result,
knowing he is hands-down the best Silmarillion author out there.
>
> In the meantime, Fredita's faithful following is reading her
stories in Hobbits, Elves, Men, Drama, and Adventure. They find her
to be the pretty good author they've come to expect and they give her
pretty good reviews. Being faithful fans, they wish they could do
more, but being faithful fans mired in reality, they're also pressed
for time. So they compromise and click the box that duplicates their
author reviews throughout the system.
>
> Voting season ends. Fred's Silmarillion story clearly wins its
subcategory. But Fred himself, despite being a brilliant author, gets
no author award because Fredita's accumulation of pretty good reviews
written elsewhere in the system were enough to beat out Fred's few
glowing reviews written by those who'd actually taken the time to
stroll through the Silmarillion category.
>
> And the moral?
>
> Difficult to say, actually. Writing is such a subjective thing that
you could argue a pretty good writer who's able to get by in multiple
areas is a better writer than someone who is able to completely
dominate in just one. But that doesn't feel like a fair way to run
awards, especially if we still intend to separate the authors into
their various categories. Sure, you can still duplicate an author
review throughout the system by saving and then going through by hand
and pasting it in. But that takes time, and not everyone is going to
do that. Plus, those who do it at least have to LOOK at the
categories when they go through to give their authors a review.
Giving reviewers a box to click makes it too easy and, in my mind,
invites blanket reviews when blanket reviews might not be deserved.
>
> Anyway, that's my major reservation to a box that will ease the
propogation of duplicate author reviews. I hope something up there
made sense. I'm actually opposed to duplicate author reviews in the
first place, but given time constraints and the current system, I
don't see a way past those. I would, however, like to see something
in place (such as the forced copying and pasting) that would limit
the number of duplicate reviews going around.
>
> Just my two cents for whatever the current economy deems that to be
worth.
>
> Thundera
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> - No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
> no harm will come to you.
> - Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
> how any harm could come to me there, either.
> William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>

Msg# 6587

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by MarigoldCotton@aol.com January 04, 2006 - 14:14:20 Topic ID# 6550
<thunderalaura@juno.com> writes:

>Giving reviewers a box to click makes it too easy and, in my >mind, invites blanket reviews when blanket reviews might not be >deserved.

I agree with Thundera here - in a best case scenario an author review should be specific to the category, for example discussing the author's skill in writing humour, or angst, or pointing out how their choice of language enhances their poetry or drabbles or whatever. I feel that by being able to just click a button and apply that author review to every category that particular author is in, isn't fair.

Someone who writes brilliant humour might not necessarily be very good at writing drama, so why should they get a really good author review across the board and affect the totals, possibly tipping the scales away from those that were more deserving of winning the author award in that category?

If people won't take the time to do write category specific author reviews, at least they should be willing to take the time to copy and paste their author review to each category.

Just my opinion...

Marigold





>-- Marta Layton <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What I *am* suggesting is that a person be able to enter a review
>>> for an author and have it automatically generate reviews with the
>>> same text in all other categories in which that author is entered.
>>> To give an example... let's say someone has the following
>>> nominations:
>>>
>>> - "The Trouble With Brandybucks" in "Hobbits : Fourth Age"
>>> - "Envinyatar" in "Drama : Drabble"
>>> - "A Dwarf Among Elves" in "LOTR : Lothlorien".
>>>
>>> This author is then entered in the following author categories.
>>>
>>> - Hobbits : General Authors
>>> - LOTR : General Authors
>>> - Drama : Drabble Authors
>>>
>>> Let's say I'm looking at the nominations for "Drama : Drabble". I
>>> see a listing for "Envinyatar", and by that drabble I see a link to
>>> vote on the story, and a second like to vote for the author. I
>>> click on the second link, and it takes me to a page where I can
>>> enter that vote. What I'm proposing is that we have a check-box
>>> that I could click, and whatever I enter for "Drama : Drabble
>>> Authors" is also entered as a vote for "Hobbits : General Authors"
>>> and "LOTR : General Authors".
>
>Okay, that clears things up. Thanks.
>
>However...I've got some major reservations with this idea. I still like the idea of either changing the author awards or doing away with them entirely, but I can't get behind this proposal and here's why:
>
>Let's say we have an author. We'll name him Fred. Fred has possibly the best fanfiction ever written entered in the Silmarillion category. Fred himself is an amazing author but has only written one story. That story blows all competition out of the water, but it's still just one story. And being a Silmarillion story, it doesn't get as much attention as other stories might.
>
>Now let's say we have another author. We'll call her Fredita. Fredita is a pretty good author. She has some pretty good stories. She's prolific. She's well-known. She has a large and faithful following. Fredita has entries in Hobbits, Elves, Men, Dwarves, Drama, Adventure, and one little vignette in Silmarillion that she did on a dare.
>
>The voting season begins. People read Fredita's stories because they're good stories and they're familiar. A few adventurous souls try Fred's story in Silmarillion and discover it to be the best thing they ever read. They give him glowing author reviews as a result, knowing he is hands-down the best Silmarillion author out there.
>
>In the meantime, Fredita's faithful following is reading her stories in Hobbits, Elves, Men, Drama, and Adventure. They find her to be the pretty good author they've come to expect and they give her pretty good reviews. Being faithful fans, they wish they could do more, but being faithful fans mired in reality, they're also pressed for time. So they compromise and click the box that duplicates their author reviews throughout the system.
>
>Voting season ends. Fred's Silmarillion story clearly wins its subcategory. But Fred himself, despite being a brilliant author, gets no author award because Fredita's accumulation of pretty good reviews written elsewhere in the system were enough to beat out Fred's few glowing reviews written by those who'd actually taken the time to stroll through the Silmarillion category.
>
>And the moral?
>
>Difficult to say, actually. Writing is such a subjective thing that you could argue a pretty good writer who's able to get by in multiple areas is a better writer than someone who is able to completely dominate in just one. But that doesn't feel like a fair way to run awards, especially if we still intend to separate the authors into their various categories. Sure, you can still duplicate an author review throughout the system by saving and then going through by hand and pasting it in. But that takes time, and not everyone is going to do that. Plus, those who do it at least have to LOOK at the categories when they go through to give their authors a review. Giving reviewers a box to click makes it too easy and, in my mind, invites blanket reviews when blanket reviews might not be deserved.
>
>Anyway, that's my major reservation to a box that will ease the propogation of duplicate author reviews. I hope something up there made sense. I'm actually opposed to duplicate author reviews in the first place, but given time constraints and the current system, I don't see a way past those. I would, however, like to see something in place (such as the forced copying and pasting) that would limit the number of duplicate reviews going around.
>
>Just my two cents for whatever the current economy deems that to be worth.
>
>Thundera
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>- No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
>  no harm will come to you.
>- Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
>  how any harm could come to me there, either.
>     William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


--
Marigold's Red Book
http://marigold.tolkienshire.com

Marigold's Recommendations Page
http://www.geocities.com/marigoldsrecommendations/

Marigold's Live Journal
http://www.livejournal.com/users/marigoldg/

Tales of The Red Book
http://www.livejournal.com/users/talesofredbook/




There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.
>
>Sam, in Mordor, RoTK

Msg# 6588

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 04, 2006 - 14:15:04 Topic ID# 6550
Me too. I think of drabbles as being much more closely related to poetry
than general fiction, actually but that's another question.

I'd far rather see a story review duplicated into an author review than
multiple, identical author reviews. Since the two votes are going in
different directions, why not?


On 1/4/06, Kathy <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> In consideration of the Freds out there, I agree with Thundera. And I
> have to question a system that permits an author review in a drabble
> category to be duplicated in a general category, whether it's done
> automatically or manually. The skills just seem too different to me.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>


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

Msg# 6589

Author Review Blues Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 04, 2006 - 17:23:06 Topic ID# 6550
Ok, so with author reviews, we've got the problem of the Freds of the
world versus the Freditas, and the sense that author awards are
artificially fragmenting an author's work, encouraging meaningless
repetition of reviews which then results in bizarre rankings, where
someone wins an author award for "The Hobbit" drabbles on the basis of
work s/he did as a novelist in the Horror category and some humor
pieces. Also, it's not always clear how to distinguish the author
review from the story review, leading to questions about why we should
allow copying author reviews and not copying of story reviews.

We need a compromise that gives us sensible author review categories that

1) do not seem artificially to fragment an author's work, resulting in
weird copy-pastes that result in even weirder rankings;

2) are distinct enough from story reviews that we don't just repeat or
extend story reviews;

3) are not so all-inclusive as to make competition absolutely cutthroat;

4) are organized in a manner that is less confusing all around,
thereby encouraging more people to actually review authors.

What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and looked at
*forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story, novella,
novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things that authors would
have to select when filling out their story forms. So it's not like
we'd be making any executive decisions about how to classify an
author's work--the author has done it for us. That would be a big
benefit, requiring no extra work or forms for anyone.

The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of authors
across the story-awards genres and subgenres into logical categories
that are specific enough that we have some idea of how to compare the
authors. The form of their writing holds them together across the
divisions we'd imposed to judge stories against each other, so it
wouldn't work to just copy a review about an author's skill as a
writer of novels into the poet category, for example. It makes sense
to write a different review.

At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis of
categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction that we
don't need to deal with author awards in subcategories, which would
cut down on a sense of pernicious repetition. It's also just extending
an already existing trend (see below).

Now, it is true, there's a reason we split the stories into different
categories and subcategories--but we've got the story awards to deal
with recognizing merits of specific content. Author awards are (I
think) about assessing individual style and a more general sense of
substance within certain, more abstract bounds than "Silmarillion:
drabble cycle", for example. So we're not doing an injustice by
comparing incomparables here.

Would it be more competitive than the current scenario? Yes, it would
be. There would be more people competing for author awards under any
form-based category than in any individual story category since
*every* drabbler and *every* novelist would be elligible for an author
award for writing drabbles or novels, irrespective of whether they
wrote the novel about Silm characters of Ring-war characters, whether
they wrote the drabbles about hobbits or dragons.

Also, by moving away from category/subcategory combinations currently
used for author awards, we would have fewer categories to compete in.
However, there are only three subcategories within any given author
awards category anyway: general, drabble, and poetry, which already
tends in the direction of recognizing *form*, but does not go all the
way and recognize that novels are a unique form or that vignettes are
a unique form, each requiring different skills to pull off. Those
kinds of stories compete together under "general." So this would
rectify that situation in a way by recognizing different skill sets.

Against the fear that this would be too cutthroat, it's much more
competitive (and I think a fairer competition in some cases, where
maybe only two poets make up an entire category/subcategory combo
elligible for author awards, whereas a different c/s combo might pit
twenty poets against each other) than being allowed only a single
author review for any given author.

So I think (I hope) this would meet all four of what I see as the
major problems we currently have with author reviews and awards. I'm
fairly certain that we could come up with a few more categories that
wouldn't repeat the story award categories if desired (maybe an award
for characterization, for example, or splitting non-fiction into essay
and research article since those do require totally different skills).
But the basic idea hopefully would be a way out of our current
difficulties.



Taking the above sketch as a possibility for reorganizing author
reviews, and combining it with my request for a simpler user interface
when it comes to writing those author reviews, I could see a page
somewhat like this (and I hope yahoo doesn't destroy the formatting)
to try and streamline things, make them clearer, and hopefully
encourage more author reviewing because it would be less confusing:


Author Name: Dwym the Evil Twyn

Story Title Story Type Have I Reviewed?

<link>Gimli's Gift</link> Short Story <link>Yes</link>

<link>Oops, I Sued It Again!</link> Short Story No

_____________________________________

Enter Author Review for Short Story: [text box]


<link>Fear and Loathing Novel <link>Yes</link>
in the White City</link>

______________________________________

Enter Author Review for Novel:[text box]


<link>Grey</link> Drabble No

<link>Purposive</link> Drabble No

_____________________________________

Enter Author Review for Drabble: [text box]





Etc., etc., and alphabetically by review category (as I failed to do).

This I am taking as a possible modification of the author's main page
on the website. It would give us every story the author has written,
links to the story (so we can read it if we want to before writing the
author review), the category it is listed under *for the purposes of
author reviews*, and a notice whether I've reviewed the story (and if
I have, a quick way to see what I'd said and so refresh my
memory--best if opens in a new screen). It automatically breaks up the
stories into the appropriate groups and offers us an immediate
opportunity to write an author review. It'd be easy to see in what
categories we had already reviewed the author since they'd be right
there. No fuss, no bother, no reloads.

If we did revamp author pages this way, there'd have to be a more
obvious pointer towards them so that people would actually go there to
review the author as an author, of course, but that's another issue
that can be handled if something like this page revision were to go
through. I'm mainly using it as an illustration of how to simplify the
process of reviewing authors and to show how the category change I'd
proposed could be easily fitted into that revision.

What do you all think?

Dwim

Msg# 6590

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim) Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 04, 2006 - 17:36:26 Topic ID# 6581
> > Someone mentioned that this would help people write reviews more
> > quickly (a good thing!) instead of having to worry over a review to
> > make it the points value they thought the story was worth. I think for
> > me that's probably the strongest argument for making it easier to
> > reach certain points values, but capping it at five to me is less
> > appealing. A 1000 characters is significantly more than 501, yet it
> > gives the same points value.
>
>
> You're absolutely right about there being a pretty big difference
> between the two. The way I broke down the points probably isn't the
> best way, and we could certainly rework that maybe a point every 250
> characters or some such thing. Besides wanting to simplify things and
> make reviewing easier, I heard from a few reviewer who said they felt
> bad writing reviews when they could only do short ones because they
> were "only" worth one point or two points, and this shocked me quite a
> bit. Every point can make a difference, and I don't want people to feel
> like short reviews aren't worth much.

I think we're too used to watching our votes shrivel in ballot boxes
to be happy with writing 1-2 pointers for stories we like is the
problem. :-/ Waiting on a solution to that sort of thing, however, may
be problematic...

I could see revising the thresholds to make it easier to score
someone's story more points with fewer words--it might look like an
exponentional curve, where the points on the graph start off closer
together and then get further and further apart on the curve. So it'd
be easiest to get from points level one to points level two, a little
harder to move from two to three, a little harder to go to four, up
through around six. Then maybe you'd start seeing bigger gaps, where
it's harder to write a seven pointer, harder to move from a seven
point review to an eight point review, and so on.


> There really *wasn't* any rhyme or reason to the point levels, except
> that they were round numbers.


Ah. Ok, makes sense.

> A good way to avoid all of this would be to go with Rabidsamfan's
> suggestion to do away with points and just go with character counts up
> to a certain cap. 1000 characters or whatever. The more I think about
> it, the more I like that idea - though I'm not so sold on it as to
> insist on it.

I'd go for this. It'd make things easier, I think, so long as there
was a cap in place. I'm happy with 1000 being the cap--that seems
reasonable to me and appears to have worked well as a cap the past two
years.


> >
> > I rather like this more proportional system. <snip>
>
> Thanks for articulating this so well. These were a lot of the reasons I
> like this option so much, but you've presented them more clearly than
> I've been able to. I whole-heartedly agree with what you've said.

You're welcome.

<snip>

> > So for me, having a single author review, where I could use all the
> > stories at once, without having to figure out how to carve them up and
> > write two reviews without being repetitive, would be a significant
> > improvement.
> >
>
> Well, technically you can enter the same author review for every
> category an author is entered in. But this does get repetitive when
> trying to read through author reviews, I agree. It would be nice to not
> display duplicate reviews; I'm not sure how we'd program this.
>
> Short of that, the only way I can see this suggestion working would be
> to have all the authors in a single category - and I'm not crazy about
> that idea.

I just posted on Author Awards, so you can see how I'd try to modify
them to suit the concerns raised on the list. The Author Awards are
undoubtedly the part of the MEFAs that works least well, since it's
just plain confusing and results in weird mismatches between the
category in which a person wins an Author Awards and the content of
the actual review.

> > Topic we possibly have forgotten:
> >
> > How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources that
> > are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> > Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
> > we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
> >
>
> I think we decided that all reviews, regardless of source or length,
> had to be within blockquote tags. You can include them but they won't
> count for scoring purposes. Am I misremembering this?

I'm not sure. That's why I asked! I'm happy if all quotes, regardless
of their source, get treated the same, so long as we *can* quote
freely, and so long as it's made clear in the rules how to handle them.

Dwim

Msg# 6591

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 19:25:58 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 10
> Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 20:26:31 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> On 1/2/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
>>>
>>> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
>> that
>>> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
>>> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
>>> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
>>
>>
>> oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.
>
>
>
> Yes. I'd say anything and everything from within the story under
> review should be inside <blockquotes> tags, but for stuff from JRRT or
> other
> sources... hmm. That's tougher. Might be a judgment call for the
> admins.
> Is the quote filler, or pertinent to the review? I'd think it would
> be a
> situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't know. Did it happen
> this
> year?
>

I don't want to make this an admin judgement call because if we do
this, then it leaves the admins open to criticism. Whether a quote
counts or not affects how many points a story gets which controls who
wins -- and I don't want someone second-guessing the results. That's
why for this I want a rule we can apply objectively and can point to as
a reason for why we make a certain decision.

Marta

Msg# 6592

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 19:37:27 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 11
> Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 02:09:04 -0000
> From: "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...> wrote:
>>
>> On 1/2/06, sulriel <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
>>>>
>>>> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
>>> that
>>>> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
>>>> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
>>>> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
>>>
>>>
>>> oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.
>>
>>
>>
>> Yes. I'd say anything and everything from within the story under
>> review should be inside <blockquotes> tags, but for stuff from JRRT
> or other
>> sources... hmm. That's tougher. Might be a judgment call for the
> admins.
>> Is the quote filler, or pertinent to the review?
>
> I'm thinking of quotations that are pertinent to the review.
>> I'd think it would be a
>> situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't know. Did it
> happen this
>> year?
>
> Yes. I did it at least twice, causing you to throw rocks in my
> general, northerly direction. ;-) I don't recall if other reviewers
> did this, but I imagine many people may think associatively and want
> to incorporate useful phrases and quotes from other works as they
> explain why story X is good reading.
>

*raises hand tentatively*

If anything, I was worse than Dwim. I know because I had to edit loads
of my own reviews , and I would have felt guilty if I had had to ask
anyone else to do it.

It's EXTREMELY easy to do. Having an easy rule that we all know from
the beginning will help all of us know what's allowed, and IMO it's not
a bad rule to have.

Marta

Msg# 6593

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 19:54:54 Topic ID# 6550
-

If I understand what Dwim is saying here, I would support this.

What I think is being proposed it so have the author categories
different than the story categories.

- essentially by form only? Novel, short story, poetry, drabble...

in that case, it should be easy enough to write distinctly different
reviews regarding the author's strength in that specific form, such
as well-woven sub-plots in novels or snappy paced short story with a
complete plot arch, intensity and emotion in a drabble. (?)

Sulriel


-- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:
>
> Ok, so with author reviews, we've got the problem of the Freds of
the
> world versus the Freditas, and the sense that author awards are
> artificially fragmenting an author's work, encouraging meaningless
> repetition of reviews which then results in bizarre rankings, where
> someone wins an author award for "The Hobbit" drabbles on the basis
of
> work s/he did as a novelist in the Horror category and some humor
> pieces. Also, it's not always clear how to distinguish the author
> review from the story review, leading to questions about why we
should
> allow copying author reviews and not copying of story reviews.
>
> We need a compromise that gives us sensible author review
categories that
>
> 1) do not seem artificially to fragment an author's work, resulting
in
> weird copy-pastes that result in even weirder rankings;
>
> 2) are distinct enough from story reviews that we don't just repeat
or
> extend story reviews;
>
> 3) are not so all-inclusive as to make competition absolutely
cutthroat;
>
> 4) are organized in a manner that is less confusing all around,
> thereby encouraging more people to actually review authors.
>
> What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and looked
at
> *forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story,
novella,
> novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things that authors
would
> have to select when filling out their story forms. So it's not like
> we'd be making any executive decisions about how to classify an
> author's work--the author has done it for us. That would be a big
> benefit, requiring no extra work or forms for anyone.
>
> The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of authors
> across the story-awards genres and subgenres into logical categories
> that are specific enough that we have some idea of how to compare
the
> authors. The form of their writing holds them together across the
> divisions we'd imposed to judge stories against each other, so it
> wouldn't work to just copy a review about an author's skill as a
> writer of novels into the poet category, for example. It makes sense
> to write a different review.
>
> At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis of
> categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction that we
> don't need to deal with author awards in subcategories, which would
> cut down on a sense of pernicious repetition. It's also just
extending
> an already existing trend (see below).
>
> Now, it is true, there's a reason we split the stories into
different
> categories and subcategories--but we've got the story awards to deal
> with recognizing merits of specific content. Author awards are (I
> think) about assessing individual style and a more general sense of
> substance within certain, more abstract bounds than "Silmarillion:
> drabble cycle", for example. So we're not doing an injustice by
> comparing incomparables here.
>
> Would it be more competitive than the current scenario? Yes, it
would
> be. There would be more people competing for author awards under any
> form-based category than in any individual story category since
> *every* drabbler and *every* novelist would be elligible for an
author
> award for writing drabbles or novels, irrespective of whether they
> wrote the novel about Silm characters of Ring-war characters,
whether
> they wrote the drabbles about hobbits or dragons.
>
> Also, by moving away from category/subcategory combinations
currently
> used for author awards, we would have fewer categories to compete
in.
> However, there are only three subcategories within any given author
> awards category anyway: general, drabble, and poetry, which already
> tends in the direction of recognizing *form*, but does not go all
the
> way and recognize that novels are a unique form or that vignettes
are
> a unique form, each requiring different skills to pull off. Those
> kinds of stories compete together under "general." So this would
> rectify that situation in a way by recognizing different skill
sets.
>
> Against the fear that this would be too cutthroat, it's much more
> competitive (and I think a fairer competition in some cases, where
> maybe only two poets make up an entire category/subcategory combo
> elligible for author awards, whereas a different c/s combo might pit
> twenty poets against each other) than being allowed only a single
> author review for any given author.
>
> So I think (I hope) this would meet all four of what I see as the
> major problems we currently have with author reviews and awards. I'm
> fairly certain that we could come up with a few more categories that
> wouldn't repeat the story award categories if desired (maybe an
award
> for characterization, for example, or splitting non-fiction into
essay
> and research article since those do require totally different
skills).
> But the basic idea hopefully would be a way out of our current
> difficulties.
>
>
>
> Taking the above sketch as a possibility for reorganizing author
> reviews, and combining it with my request for a simpler user
interface
> when it comes to writing those author reviews, I could see a page
> somewhat like this (and I hope yahoo doesn't destroy the formatting)
> to try and streamline things, make them clearer, and hopefully
> encourage more author reviewing because it would be less confusing:
>
>
> Author Name: Dwym the Evil Twyn
>
> Story Title Story Type Have I
Reviewed?
>
> <link>Gimli's Gift</link> Short Story
<link>Yes</link>
>
> <link>Oops, I Sued It Again!</link> Short Story No
>
> _____________________________________
>
> Enter Author Review for Short Story: [text box]
>
>
> <link>Fear and Loathing Novel
<link>Yes</link>
> in the White City</link>
>
> ______________________________________
>
> Enter Author Review for Novel:[text box]
>
>
> <link>Grey</link> Drabble No
>
> <link>Purposive</link> Drabble No
>
> _____________________________________
>
> Enter Author Review for Drabble: [text box]
>
>
>
>
>
> Etc., etc., and alphabetically by review category (as I failed to
do).
>
> This I am taking as a possible modification of the author's main
page
> on the website. It would give us every story the author has written,
> links to the story (so we can read it if we want to before writing
the
> author review), the category it is listed under *for the purposes of
> author reviews*, and a notice whether I've reviewed the story (and
if
> I have, a quick way to see what I'd said and so refresh my
> memory--best if opens in a new screen). It automatically breaks up
the
> stories into the appropriate groups and offers us an immediate
> opportunity to write an author review. It'd be easy to see in what
> categories we had already reviewed the author since they'd be right
> there. No fuss, no bother, no reloads.
>
> If we did revamp author pages this way, there'd have to be a more
> obvious pointer towards them so that people would actually go there
to
> review the author as an author, of course, but that's another issue
> that can be handled if something like this page revision were to go
> through. I'm mainly using it as an illustration of how to simplify
the
> process of reviewing authors and to show how the category change I'd
> proposed could be easily fitted into that revision.
>
> What do you all think?
>
> Dwim
>

Msg# 6594

Quotes Posted by Kathy January 04, 2006 - 20:03:26 Topic ID# 6550
Seems like the simplest rule--and I think this has already been
suggested--is to just say that ALL quotes, not matter what the
source, have to be inside blockquote tags.

Kathy (Inkling)

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> > Message: 10
> > Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 20:26:31 -0500
> > From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
> > Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
> >
> > On 1/2/06, sulriel <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
> >>>
> >>> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from
sources
> >> that
> >>> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> >>> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published
author? Did
> >>> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
> >>
> >>
> >> oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.
> >
> >
> >
> > Yes. I'd say anything and everything from within the story under
> > review should be inside <blockquotes> tags, but for stuff from
JRRT or
> > other
> > sources... hmm. That's tougher. Might be a judgment call for
the
> > admins.
> > Is the quote filler, or pertinent to the review? I'd think it
would
> > be a
> > situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't know. Did it
happen
> > this
> > year?
> >
>
> I don't want to make this an admin judgement call because if we do
> this, then it leaves the admins open to criticism. Whether a quote
> counts or not affects how many points a story gets which controls
who
> wins -- and I don't want someone second-guessing the results.
That's
> why for this I want a rule we can apply objectively and can point
to as
> a reason for why we make a certain decision.
>
> Marta
>

Msg# 6595

Re: Quotes Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 20:21:54 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
>> Seems like the simplest rule--and I think this has already been
> suggested--is to just say that ALL quotes, not matter what the
> source, have to be inside blockquote tags.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)


As the person who personally managed the quote/blockquote situation
last year, I *highly* recommend that any and all quotes from any
source must be blockquoted.

It's a simple rule, easy to remember and allows for as much quotage as
anyone wants to use.


Sulriel

Msg# 6596

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 04, 2006 - 20:24:19 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
> -
>
> If I understand what Dwim is saying here, I would support this.
>
> What I think is being proposed it so have the author categories
> different than the story categories.
>
> - essentially by form only? Novel, short story, poetry, drabble...
>
> in that case, it should be easy enough to write distinctly different
> reviews regarding the author's strength in that specific form, such
> as well-woven sub-plots in novels or snappy paced short story with a
> complete plot arch, intensity and emotion in a drabble. (?)

Yes, that's essentially it. Undoubtedly, some of these things would be
mentioned in story reviews, but in author reviews, the focus would be
on how well the author handled the form, across all his/her entries
that fall under that form. Or at least, as many of the author's works
as the reviewer has read during the awards.

Dwim

Msg# 6597

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 20:39:54 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> >> > If I understand what Dwim is saying here, I would support
this. >
> > What I think is being proposed it so have the author categories
> > different than the story categories.
> >
> > - essentially by form only? Novel, short story, poetry,
drabble...
> >
> > in that case, it should be easy enough to write distinctly
different > > reviews regarding the author's strength in that
specific form, such > > as well-woven sub-plots in novels or snappy
paced short story with a > > complete plot arch, intensity and
emotion in a drabble. (?)
>


> Yes, that's essentially it. Undoubtedly, some of these things would
be
> mentioned in story reviews, but in author reviews, the focus would
be> on how well the author handled the form, across all his/her
entries> that fall under that form. Or at least, as many of the
author's works> as the reviewer has read during the awards.
> > Dwim


this would also essentially negate and simplify the "No copy and
paste between reviews" rule because the forms are (should be)
different enough to require a seperate review be written for each
one ... some things - such as "brillant characterization" - will
cross the forms, but I think that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Msg# 6598

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by Kathy January 04, 2006 - 20:46:49 Topic ID# 6550
I was disappointed to see no mention here of Dwym the Evil Twin's
story, "The Great Adventure of Bingo Baggins and Trotter." ;)

I like your idea, Dwim, though I think we would definitely want to
look at adding some categories to supplement story forms, as you
suggested...in addition to characterization, perhaps descriptive
writing, dialogue, suspense, etc. It might even be fun to have
author awards for things like "best opening line"...one of
the most important elements of a story, IMO. It's usually what
entices me to read a story--or not.

Kathy (Inkling)

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:
>
> Ok, so with author reviews, we've got the problem of the Freds of
the
> world versus the Freditas, and the sense that author awards are
> artificially fragmenting an author's work, encouraging meaningless
> repetition of reviews which then results in bizarre rankings, where
> someone wins an author award for "The Hobbit" drabbles on the basis
of
> work s/he did as a novelist in the Horror category and some humor
> pieces. Also, it's not always clear how to distinguish the author
> review from the story review, leading to questions about why we
should
> allow copying author reviews and not copying of story reviews.
>
> We need a compromise that gives us sensible author review
categories that
>
> 1) do not seem artificially to fragment an author's work, resulting
in
> weird copy-pastes that result in even weirder rankings;
>
> 2) are distinct enough from story reviews that we don't just repeat
or
> extend story reviews;
>
> 3) are not so all-inclusive as to make competition absolutely
cutthroat;
>
> 4) are organized in a manner that is less confusing all around,
> thereby encouraging more people to actually review authors.
>
> What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and looked
at
> *forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story,
novella,
> novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things that authors
would
> have to select when filling out their story forms. So it's not like
> we'd be making any executive decisions about how to classify an
> author's work--the author has done it for us. That would be a big
> benefit, requiring no extra work or forms for anyone.
>
> The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of authors
> across the story-awards genres and subgenres into logical categories
> that are specific enough that we have some idea of how to compare
the
> authors. The form of their writing holds them together across the
> divisions we'd imposed to judge stories against each other, so it
> wouldn't work to just copy a review about an author's skill as a
> writer of novels into the poet category, for example. It makes sense
> to write a different review.
>
> At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis of
> categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction that we
> don't need to deal with author awards in subcategories, which would
> cut down on a sense of pernicious repetition. It's also just
extending
> an already existing trend (see below).
>
> Now, it is true, there's a reason we split the stories into
different
> categories and subcategories--but we've got the story awards to deal
> with recognizing merits of specific content. Author awards are (I
> think) about assessing individual style and a more general sense of
> substance within certain, more abstract bounds than "Silmarillion:
> drabble cycle", for example. So we're not doing an injustice by
> comparing incomparables here.
>
> Would it be more competitive than the current scenario? Yes, it
would
> be. There would be more people competing for author awards under any
> form-based category than in any individual story category since
> *every* drabbler and *every* novelist would be elligible for an
author
> award for writing drabbles or novels, irrespective of whether they
> wrote the novel about Silm characters of Ring-war characters,
whether
> they wrote the drabbles about hobbits or dragons.
>
> Also, by moving away from category/subcategory combinations
currently
> used for author awards, we would have fewer categories to compete
in.
> However, there are only three subcategories within any given author
> awards category anyway: general, drabble, and poetry, which already
> tends in the direction of recognizing *form*, but does not go all
the
> way and recognize that novels are a unique form or that vignettes
are
> a unique form, each requiring different skills to pull off. Those
> kinds of stories compete together under "general." So this would
> rectify that situation in a way by recognizing different skill
sets.
>
> Against the fear that this would be too cutthroat, it's much more
> competitive (and I think a fairer competition in some cases, where
> maybe only two poets make up an entire category/subcategory combo
> elligible for author awards, whereas a different c/s combo might pit
> twenty poets against each other) than being allowed only a single
> author review for any given author.
>
> So I think (I hope) this would meet all four of what I see as the
> major problems we currently have with author reviews and awards. I'm
> fairly certain that we could come up with a few more categories that
> wouldn't repeat the story award categories if desired (maybe an
award
> for characterization, for example, or splitting non-fiction into
essay
> and research article since those do require totally different
skills).
> But the basic idea hopefully would be a way out of our current
> difficulties.
>
>
>
> Taking the above sketch as a possibility for reorganizing author
> reviews, and combining it with my request for a simpler user
interface
> when it comes to writing those author reviews, I could see a page
> somewhat like this (and I hope yahoo doesn't destroy the formatting)
> to try and streamline things, make them clearer, and hopefully
> encourage more author reviewing because it would be less confusing:
>
>
> Author Name: Dwym the Evil Twyn
>
> Story Title Story Type Have I
Reviewed?
>
> <link>Gimli's Gift</link> Short Story
<link>Yes</link>
>
> <link>Oops, I Sued It Again!</link> Short Story No
>
> _____________________________________
>
> Enter Author Review for Short Story: [text box]
>
>
> <link>Fear and Loathing Novel
<link>Yes</link>
> in the White City</link>
>
> ______________________________________
>
> Enter Author Review for Novel:[text box]
>
>
> <link>Grey</link> Drabble No
>
> <link>Purposive</link> Drabble No
>
> _____________________________________
>
> Enter Author Review for Drabble: [text box]
>
>
>
>
>
> Etc., etc., and alphabetically by review category (as I failed to
do).
>
> This I am taking as a possible modification of the author's main
page
> on the website. It would give us every story the author has written,
> links to the story (so we can read it if we want to before writing
the
> author review), the category it is listed under *for the purposes of
> author reviews*, and a notice whether I've reviewed the story (and
if
> I have, a quick way to see what I'd said and so refresh my
> memory--best if opens in a new screen). It automatically breaks up
the
> stories into the appropriate groups and offers us an immediate
> opportunity to write an author review. It'd be easy to see in what
> categories we had already reviewed the author since they'd be right
> there. No fuss, no bother, no reloads.
>
> If we did revamp author pages this way, there'd have to be a more
> obvious pointer towards them so that people would actually go there
to
> review the author as an author, of course, but that's another issue
> that can be handled if something like this page revision were to go
> through. I'm mainly using it as an illustration of how to simplify
the
> process of reviewing authors and to show how the category change I'd
> proposed could be easily fitted into that revision.
>
> What do you all think?
>
> Dwim
>

Msg# 6599

(attn: Ainae) Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 21:21:48 Topic ID# 6599
> Message: 12
> Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 02:57:30 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> Happy New Year, everyone! Marta, great job running the post-mortem.

Thanks. Every time I admit to half-thinking I should do a better job,
you guys correct me. ;-)

> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>>
>> Anyway... the topic is points and how votes will count. There are
>> several issues. And if I forget any on this topic, feel free to
>> speak up.
>>
>> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
>> so feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at
>> a lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively
>> means that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such
>> spread would be:
>>
>> 1-50 1 point
>> 51-250 2 point
>> 251-500 3 point
>> 501-1000 4 point
>> 1001+ 5 point
>>
>> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm
>> very interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer
>> ones. Would this point spread work better?
>
> Overall, this seems like a good idea, although I too wonder why the
> point spread is so unevenly distributed. What about something like
> this:
>
> points characters
> 1 1-150
> 2 151-300
> 3 301-450
> 4 451-600
> 5 601+
>
> I just took a look at my 2005 reviews and saw that in most cases I
> was able to say what I wanted to say in about 300-500 characters. And
> I didn't try to pad or manipulate my votes at all. If I find I want
> to say more about a particular story, I have no problem with it
> capping off at 5 points.
>

I'm not too crazy about this, though not completely against it, either.
It just feels a little bit short to me. I easily hit 600 on longer
stories; I'd be happier with 800 or even 1000 being the cap. But I
don't have anything to base this on. I know Anthony's provided some
stats down on the digest, and I'll comment more on this later.

>> Issue #2: honourable mentions. This year we awarded honourable
>> mentions to stories who scored within three points of second place.
>> But it occurs to me this may not be the best system because the
>> larger categories were a lot more competitive.
>> <snip>
>> I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
>> honourable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
>> points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For example, we
>> could set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points
>> but isn't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honourable
>> mention.
>
> I have some reservations about this option. For one thing, in lightly
> reviewed categories there might be NO stories that met the threshold
> number, including 1st place. But as someone pointed out, adjusting
> the threshold after the fact would surely be controversial.
>

I agree - I always preferred the second method, even before I proposed
it, and after seeing the discussion I definitely think this is better.

>> Another way to address this is to assign honourable mentions based
>> on the number of entries per category. For example, let's say we
>> want to have the top half of stories receive a place award or an
>> honourable mention. (Not that out-of-line when you consider 60% of
>> the stories in a five-story category get an award.) Then we could
>> just give honourable mentions to the top stories below the places
>> until we reach this point.
>>
>> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
>> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = 50%
>> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 awards = 50%
>> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards = 50%
>
> This approach seems good to me, although I agree with Dreamflower
> that there should be a cutoff at 3 or 4 honorable mentions.
>

Yep, this sounds like a good plan. Like I said before, I suggest that
if we do this, we also limit the size of the sub-category. I wouldn't
object at all to a limit of 4 HM's with a limit of 15 stories to the
sub-category.

>> One more thing: the author awards.
>
> Truth to tell, I still don't understand these awards even though I've
> read the explanations several times over. One problem is that
> although in theory they are supposed to be different than story
> awards, in practice I have read many author awards that seemed
> virtually indistinguishable from story awards. And there are so many
> of them! Is there some way to simplify these...like just having one
> set of author awards per category rather than for every subcategory?
> Or alternatively, having just one author award per subcategory rather
> than 1st, 2nd, 3rd and HMs?
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>

To be honest, the author awards are more of an irritation for me than
anything. They're a lot of trouble to explain, and I'd almost prefer it
if we didn't have them at all. If we do continue to have them, I like
Dwim's suggestion of doing content-based.

But I'm not the one that needs to be convinced. This is a major change,
and I think Ainae's the one who really needs to decide whether we
should do anything. I'll email Ainae and ask her to follow the list. As
a courtesy to her, why don't we put "(attn: Ainae) in the subject line
so she can find these easily.

Oh, and this will probably be the last time I comment on author
reviews, unless I change my mind. I think I've pretty well said my
opinion on this one.

Thanks,
Marta

Msg# 6600

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by aelfwina@cableone.net January 04, 2006 - 21:53:19 Topic ID# 6550
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 8:46 PM
Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Author Review Blues


>I was disappointed to see no mention here of Dwym the Evil Twin's
> story, "The Great Adventure of Bingo Baggins and Trotter." ;)
>
> I like your idea, Dwim, though I think we would definitely want to
> look at adding some categories to supplement story forms, as you
> suggested...in addition to characterization, perhaps descriptive
> writing, dialogue, suspense, etc. It might even be fun to have
> author awards for things like "best opening line"...one of
> the most important elements of a story, IMO. It's usually what
> entices me to read a story--or not.

Oh my! I *really* like this: speaking to an author's strengths *as an
author*, and not simply within the confines of a single story. Forms would
be one way, but adding such things as characterization, dialogue,
descriptive writing, plotting, and so forth would add a whole new element to
voting for the author awards--it would increase the number of categories of
author awards from just drabble, poem, short story, vignette, novel and so
open it up to be more author awards that could be given (One of
Anaechoiriel's concerns being that only a few author awards would be
counter-productive.) and yet have them different enough from story awards to
make them far more interesting. And I would think an analysis of one's
strengths as a writer would be not only flattering, but also provide an
author with some valuable insight that doesn't always come in a story
review. ("Why, goodness, I had no idea people thought I was good at
dialogue!" or "Gee, after all my hard work, it's nice to know that readers
appreciate my plotting!" or "If they think I am that good at drabbles,
perhaps I should write more of them.")

Yes, I do indeed like *this* idea very much!

Dreamflower
(Barbara)


>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
> wrote:
>>
>> Ok, so with author reviews, we've got the problem of the Freds of
> the
>> world versus the Freditas, and the sense that author awards are
>> artificially fragmenting an author's work, encouraging meaningless
>> repetition of reviews which then results in bizarre rankings, where
>> someone wins an author award for "The Hobbit" drabbles on the basis
> of
>> work s/he did as a novelist in the Horror category and some humor
>> pieces. Also, it's not always clear how to distinguish the author
>> review from the story review, leading to questions about why we
> should
>> allow copying author reviews and not copying of story reviews.
>>
>> We need a compromise that gives us sensible author review
> categories that
>>
>> 1) do not seem artificially to fragment an author's work, resulting
> in
>> weird copy-pastes that result in even weirder rankings;
>>
>> 2) are distinct enough from story reviews that we don't just repeat
> or
>> extend story reviews;
>>
>> 3) are not so all-inclusive as to make competition absolutely
> cutthroat;
>>
>> 4) are organized in a manner that is less confusing all around,
>> thereby encouraging more people to actually review authors.
>>
>> What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and looked
> at
>> *forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story,
> novella,
>> novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things that authors
> would
>> have to select when filling out their story forms. So it's not like
>> we'd be making any executive decisions about how to classify an
>> author's work--the author has done it for us. That would be a big
>> benefit, requiring no extra work or forms for anyone.
>>
>> The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of authors
>> across the story-awards genres and subgenres into logical categories
>> that are specific enough that we have some idea of how to compare
> the
>> authors. The form of their writing holds them together across the
>> divisions we'd imposed to judge stories against each other, so it
>> wouldn't work to just copy a review about an author's skill as a
>> writer of novels into the poet category, for example. It makes sense
>> to write a different review.
>>
>> At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis of
>> categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction that we
>> don't need to deal with author awards in subcategories, which would
>> cut down on a sense of pernicious repetition. It's also just
> extending
>> an already existing trend (see below).
>>
>> Now, it is true, there's a reason we split the stories into
> different
>> categories and subcategories--but we've got the story awards to deal
>> with recognizing merits of specific content. Author awards are (I
>> think) about assessing individual style and a more general sense of
>> substance within certain, more abstract bounds than "Silmarillion:
>> drabble cycle", for example. So we're not doing an injustice by
>> comparing incomparables here.
>>
>> Would it be more competitive than the current scenario? Yes, it
> would
>> be. There would be more people competing for author awards under any
>> form-based category than in any individual story category since
>> *every* drabbler and *every* novelist would be elligible for an
> author
>> award for writing drabbles or novels, irrespective of whether they
>> wrote the novel about Silm characters of Ring-war characters,
> whether
>> they wrote the drabbles about hobbits or dragons.
>>
>> Also, by moving away from category/subcategory combinations
> currently
>> used for author awards, we would have fewer categories to compete
> in.
>> However, there are only three subcategories within any given author
>> awards category anyway: general, drabble, and poetry, which already
>> tends in the direction of recognizing *form*, but does not go all
> the
>> way and recognize that novels are a unique form or that vignettes
> are
>> a unique form, each requiring different skills to pull off. Those
>> kinds of stories compete together under "general." So this would
>> rectify that situation in a way by recognizing different skill
> sets.
>>
>> Against the fear that this would be too cutthroat, it's much more
>> competitive (and I think a fairer competition in some cases, where
>> maybe only two poets make up an entire category/subcategory combo
>> elligible for author awards, whereas a different c/s combo might pit
>> twenty poets against each other) than being allowed only a single
>> author review for any given author.
>>
>> So I think (I hope) this would meet all four of what I see as the
>> major problems we currently have with author reviews and awards. I'm
>> fairly certain that we could come up with a few more categories that
>> wouldn't repeat the story award categories if desired (maybe an
> award
>> for characterization, for example, or splitting non-fiction into
> essay
>> and research article since those do require totally different
> skills).
>> But the basic idea hopefully would be a way out of our current
>> difficulties.
>>
>>
>>
>> Taking the above sketch as a possibility for reorganizing author
>> reviews, and combining it with my request for a simpler user
> interface
>> when it comes to writing those author reviews, I could see a page
>> somewhat like this (and I hope yahoo doesn't destroy the formatting)
>> to try and streamline things, make them clearer, and hopefully
>> encourage more author reviewing because it would be less confusing:
>>
>>
>> Author Name: Dwym the Evil Twyn
>>
>> Story Title Story Type Have I
> Reviewed?
>>
>> <link>Gimli's Gift</link> Short Story
> <link>Yes</link>
>>
>> <link>Oops, I Sued It Again!</link> Short Story No
>>
>> _____________________________________
>>
>> Enter Author Review for Short Story: [text box]
>>
>>
>> <link>Fear and Loathing Novel
> <link>Yes</link>
>> in the White City</link>
>>
>> ______________________________________
>>
>> Enter Author Review for Novel:[text box]
>>
>>
>> <link>Grey</link> Drabble No
>>
>> <link>Purposive</link> Drabble No
>>
>> _____________________________________
>>
>> Enter Author Review for Drabble: [text box]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Etc., etc., and alphabetically by review category (as I failed to
> do).
>>
>> This I am taking as a possible modification of the author's main
> page
>> on the website. It would give us every story the author has written,
>> links to the story (so we can read it if we want to before writing
> the
>> author review), the category it is listed under *for the purposes of
>> author reviews*, and a notice whether I've reviewed the story (and
> if
>> I have, a quick way to see what I'd said and so refresh my
>> memory--best if opens in a new screen). It automatically breaks up
> the
>> stories into the appropriate groups and offers us an immediate
>> opportunity to write an author review. It'd be easy to see in what
>> categories we had already reviewed the author since they'd be right
>> there. No fuss, no bother, no reloads.
>>
>> If we did revamp author pages this way, there'd have to be a more
>> obvious pointer towards them so that people would actually go there
> to
>> review the author as an author, of course, but that's another issue
>> that can be handled if something like this page revision were to go
>> through. I'm mainly using it as an illustration of how to simplify
> the
>> process of reviewing authors and to show how the category change I'd
>> proposed could be easily fitted into that revision.
>>
>> What do you all think?
>>
>> Dwim
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6601

Re: points and various voting matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 21:57:00 Topic ID# 6582
> Message: 13
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 00:03:50 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> Well, if it's pertinent, and it's not quoting the story under review,
> I'd
> say count the characters. But leave the admins the option of
> blocking questionable quotations if there's a complaint and general
> agreement at the admin level that the complaint is valid.
>

The problem is that whether it's pertinent is a judgment call, and so
open to critique. I think things will run smoother all around if we
just don't count any quotes. Actually, if we did that, it would make me
feel more friendly to Kathy's point system of

CHARS --- POINTS
1-150 --- 1
151-300 --- 2
301-450 --- 3
451-600 --- 4
601+ --- 5

I still think it's a little low, but not so much when you consider it
wouldn't be counting any quotes.

Cheers,
Marta

> On 1/2/06, dwimmer_laik <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm thinking of quotations that are pertinent to the review.
>>> I'd think it would be a
>>> situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't know. Did it
>> happen this
>>> year?
>>
>> Yes. I did it at least twice, causing you to throw rocks in my
>> general, northerly direction. ;-) I don't recall if other reviewers
>> did this, but I imagine many people may think associatively and want
>> to incorporate useful phrases and quotes from other works as they
>> explain why story X is good reading.
>>
>> Dwim
>>
>>
>>
>

Msg# 6602

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 22:02:30 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
>> > ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...>> > I like your idea, Dwim, though
I think we would definitely want to
> > look at adding some categories to supplement story forms, as you
> > suggested...in addition to characterization, perhaps descriptive
> > writing, dialogue, suspense, etc. It might even be fun to have
> > author awards for things like "best opening line"...one of
> > the most important elements of a story, IMO. It's usually what
> > entices me to read a story--or not.
>
> Oh my! I *really like this: speaking to an author's strengths *as
an > author*, and not simply within the confines of a single story.
Forms would > be one way, but adding such things as characterization,
dialogue, > descriptive writing, plotting, and so forth would add a
whole new element to > voting for the author awards--it would
increase the number of categories of > author awards from just
drabble, poem, short story, vignette, novel and so > open it up to be
more author awards that could be given <<snipped>>
> Yes, I do indeed like *this* idea very much!
> > Dreamflower
> (Barbara)


I third this - wonderful idea!

Sulriel
>
> >
> > Kathy (Inkling)
> >
> > --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik"
<dwimmer_laik@y...>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Ok, so with author reviews, we've got the problem of the Freds of
> > the
> >> world versus the Freditas, and the sense that author awards are
> >> artificially fragmenting an author's work, encouraging
meaningless
> >> repetition of reviews which then results in bizarre rankings,
where
> >> someone wins an author award for "The Hobbit" drabbles on the
basis
> > of
> >> work s/he did as a novelist in the Horror category and some humor
> >> pieces. Also, it's not always clear how to distinguish the author
> >> review from the story review, leading to questions about why we
> > should
> >> allow copying author reviews and not copying of story reviews.
> >>
> >> We need a compromise that gives us sensible author review
> > categories that
> >>
> >> 1) do not seem artificially to fragment an author's work,
resulting
> > in
> >> weird copy-pastes that result in even weirder rankings;
> >>
> >> 2) are distinct enough from story reviews that we don't just
repeat
> > or
> >> extend story reviews;
> >>
> >> 3) are not so all-inclusive as to make competition absolutely
> > cutthroat;
> >>
> >> 4) are organized in a manner that is less confusing all around,
> >> thereby encouraging more people to actually review authors.
> >>
> >> What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and
looked
> > at
> >> *forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story,
> > novella,
> >> novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things that authors
> > would
> >> have to select when filling out their story forms. So it's not
like
> >> we'd be making any executive decisions about how to classify an
> >> author's work--the author has done it for us. That would be a big
> >> benefit, requiring no extra work or forms for anyone.
> >>
> >> The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of authors
> >> across the story-awards genres and subgenres into logical
categories
> >> that are specific enough that we have some idea of how to compare
> > the
> >> authors. The form of their writing holds them together across the
> >> divisions we'd imposed to judge stories against each other, so it
> >> wouldn't work to just copy a review about an author's skill as a
> >> writer of novels into the poet category, for example. It makes
sense
> >> to write a different review.
> >>
> >> At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis of
> >> categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction that
we
> >> don't need to deal with author awards in subcategories, which
would
> >> cut down on a sense of pernicious repetition. It's also just
> > extending
> >> an already existing trend (see below).
> >>
> >> Now, it is true, there's a reason we split the stories into
> > different
> >> categories and subcategories--but we've got the story awards to
deal
> >> with recognizing merits of specific content. Author awards are (I
> >> think) about assessing individual style and a more general sense
of
> >> substance within certain, more abstract bounds
than "Silmarillion:
> >> drabble cycle", for example. So we're not doing an injustice by
> >> comparing incomparables here.
> >>
> >> Would it be more competitive than the current scenario? Yes, it
> > would
> >> be. There would be more people competing for author awards under
any
> >> form-based category than in any individual story category since
> >> *every* drabbler and *every* novelist would be elligible for an
> > author
> >> award for writing drabbles or novels, irrespective of whether
they
> >> wrote the novel about Silm characters of Ring-war characters,
> > whether
> >> they wrote the drabbles about hobbits or dragons.
> >>
> >> Also, by moving away from category/subcategory combinations
> > currently
> >> used for author awards, we would have fewer categories to compete
> > in.
> >> However, there are only three subcategories within any given
author
> >> awards category anyway: general, drabble, and poetry, which
already
> >> tends in the direction of recognizing *form*, but does not go all
> > the
> >> way and recognize that novels are a unique form or that vignettes
> > are
> >> a unique form, each requiring different skills to pull off. Those
> >> kinds of stories compete together under "general." So this would
> >> rectify that situation in a way by recognizing different skill
> > sets.
> >>
> >> Against the fear that this would be too cutthroat, it's much more
> >> competitive (and I think a fairer competition in some cases,
where
> >> maybe only two poets make up an entire category/subcategory combo
> >> elligible for author awards, whereas a different c/s combo might
pit
> >> twenty poets against each other) than being allowed only a single
> >> author review for any given author.
> >>
> >> So I think (I hope) this would meet all four of what I see as the
> >> major problems we currently have with author reviews and awards.
I'm
> >> fairly certain that we could come up with a few more categories
that
> >> wouldn't repeat the story award categories if desired (maybe an
> > award
> >> for characterization, for example, or splitting non-fiction into
> > essay
> >> and research article since those do require totally different
> > skills).
> >> But the basic idea hopefully would be a way out of our current
> >> difficulties.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Taking the above sketch as a possibility for reorganizing author
> >> reviews, and combining it with my request for a simpler user
> > interface
> >> when it comes to writing those author reviews, I could see a page
> >> somewhat like this (and I hope yahoo doesn't destroy the
formatting)
> >> to try and streamline things, make them clearer, and hopefully
> >> encourage more author reviewing because it would be less
confusing:
> >>
> >>
> >> Author Name: Dwym the Evil Twyn
> >>
> >> Story Title Story Type Have I
> > Reviewed?
> >>
> >> <link>Gimli's Gift</link> Short Story
> > <link>Yes</link>
> >>
> >> <link>Oops, I Sued It Again!</link> Short Story No
> >>
> >> _____________________________________
> >>
> >> Enter Author Review for Short Story: [text box]
> >>
> >>
> >> <link>Fear and Loathing Novel
> > <link>Yes</link>
> >> in the White City</link>
> >>
> >> ______________________________________
> >>
> >> Enter Author Review for Novel:[text box]
> >>
> >>
> >> <link>Grey</link> Drabble No
> >>
> >> <link>Purposive</link> Drabble No
> >>
> >> _____________________________________
> >>
> >> Enter Author Review for Drabble: [text box]
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Etc., etc., and alphabetically by review category (as I failed to
> > do).
> >>
> >> This I am taking as a possible modification of the author's main
> > page
> >> on the website. It would give us every story the author has
written,
> >> links to the story (so we can read it if we want to before
writing
> > the
> >> author review), the category it is listed under *for the
purposes of
> >> author reviews*, and a notice whether I've reviewed the story
(and
> > if
> >> I have, a quick way to see what I'd said and so refresh my
> >> memory--best if opens in a new screen). It automatically breaks
up
> > the
> >> stories into the appropriate groups and offers us an immediate
> >> opportunity to write an author review. It'd be easy to see in
what
> >> categories we had already reviewed the author since they'd be
right
> >> there. No fuss, no bother, no reloads.
> >>
> >> If we did revamp author pages this way, there'd have to be a more
> >> obvious pointer towards them so that people would actually go
there
> > to
> >> review the author as an author, of course, but that's another
issue
> >> that can be handled if something like this page revision were to
go
> >> through. I'm mainly using it as an illustration of how to
simplify
> > the
> >> process of reviewing authors and to show how the category change
I'd
> >> proposed could be easily fitted into that revision.
> >>
> >> What do you all think?
> >>
> >> Dwim
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Msg# 6603

Re: points and various voting matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by sulriel January 04, 2006 - 22:03:54 Topic ID# 6582
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> The problem is that whether it's pertinent is a judgment call, and
so > open to critique. I think things will run smoother all around if
we > just don't count any quotes. Actually, if we did that, it would
make me > feel more friendly to Kathy's point system of
>
> CHARS --- POINTS
> 1-150 --- 1
> 151-300 --- 2
> 301-450 --- 3
> 451-600 --- 4
> 601+ --- 5
>
> I still think it's a little low, but not so much when you consider
it > wouldn't be counting any quotes.
> > Cheers,
> Marta


I think this is a reasonable point spread and division, especially if,
as you say, *all* quotes from any source are blockquoted.

Sulriel

Msg# 6604

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by Marta Layton January 04, 2006 - 23:39:43 Topic ID# 6604
> Message: 14
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 00:01:08 -0600
> From: Anthony Holder <aaholder@swbell.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
>>> I wouldn't mess with the point system, unless it were to drop it in
>> favor of> straight character counts.
>>
>> I have to say that I wouldn't be in favor of using straight character
>> counts because one long glowing review could effectively keep the
>
> Straight character counts, with a cap of 1000, would be very similar to
> what is currently in place, and would be easy to code. The cap would
> eliminate the problem with "one long glowing review" dominating the
> voting.
>
> Changing the number per point would also be easy to code.
>

Thanks for weighing in on programmability. I don't want to do anything
that will create a lot of work for you, and I'd be happy with either of
these options. I think I prefer the straight character count (with
cap), though I could live with the other way too.

> Here are some stats to chew on: I binned the reviews by number of
> characters (0 => 0-99, 100 => 100-199, ..., 3400 => 3400-3499)
>
> Number of reviews | Number of Characters
>
> <snip stats>

Looking at (I think) Inkling's point spread, we would have gotten the
following:

1 point (1-149 chars) = 1537 reviews
2 point (150-299 chars) = 1836 reviews
3 point (300-449 chars) = 1119 reviews
4 points (450-599 chars) = 601 reviews
5 points (600+ chars) = 930 reviews

I know Inkling's points were slightly different, but I was trying to
work with the numbers Anthony gave. I think you get the idea.

Anyway, I think if we do want to go with something similar to this
point spread we might consider making the #4 bracket a bit larger.
Maybe making it 450-700 points? That might make the brackets more
equitable.

> Of the 6083 reviews, about 11% were more than 700 characters
>
> Fewer than half were > 300 characters.
>

I find these statistics fascinating because it shows that I really am
in the minority. Or maybe I'm just mis-remembering my own stats.
Anthony, would it be hard to run similar statistics for my own reviews?
Is this even possible? I'd love to see my own reviews broke down into
the 100-point brackets you did above.

If this isn't too hard and you don't mind, feel free to email them to
me privately; if not, don't worry about it at all. In any case don't
feel the need to reply onlist to this part.

> I don't know, from the goals, etc., of the awards, what the
> benefits/drawbacks of limiting the impact of the longer reviews and
> emphasizing the shorter reviews would be.
>
> It does seem that maxing out the points on a review doesn't completely
> inhibit people from writing longer ones.
>

Here's my thoughts on this:

People who want to write longer reviews are probably going to already
do this,, time permitting. I don't see these people getting embarrassed
or feeling like they should write more; their reviews are worth more
points anyway. But some people aren't naturally as verbose and so *all*
of their reviews will be shorter, while other people will write shorter
reviews for some stories.

If there's a voting system that will make it easier to write these
short reviews as well, I think this will make it easier for those
people who would write primarily short reviews to get involved. It
would also make them feel like their contribution is valued -- both of
which I think will make the awards run better.

> Question: If someone is reworking things to get that extra point, and
> going from 180 to 200 characters, do you really think the extra 3-4
> words is going to add significantly to the quality of the review?
>
> I would suggest a more continuous scale, for that reason. That way,
> people don't artificially inflate their reviews to get that next point,
> they write what they think is a good review and quit when they're done.
>

I know I occasionally added an extra (valid) thought to a review, but
more often than not I think people trying to reach the next point level
do add an extra word here or there and end up artificially inflating
the reivew, like you say. So yes, I like the more continuous scale.
Besides actually working better than the point system, it would keep us
from having to decide what exactly the character counts for each point
should be - we'd sidestep that issue entirely.

> You could come up with some added benefit to those extra long reviews,
> like maybe counting 5% of the characters above 1000. That way, the 3468
> character review would count 1123 points, rather than 1000. I do think
> that one long glowing review shouldn't dominate the scoring, but I do
> think that person should get some added benefit from all that extra
> writing. This is especially true if you want to lower the cap to
> emphasize the reviews with lower character counts.
>
> It could be something a bit more complicated than that, like they do
> with income taxes:
>
> 0 to 500 chars, 100% of chars
>
> 500 to 750 = 500 + 50% of chars > 500
>
> 750 to 1000 = 500 + 50% of chars between 500 and 750 + 25% of chars
>> 750
>
>> 1000 = 500 + 50% of chars between 500 and 750 + 25% of
> chars between 750 and 1000 + 5% of chars > 1000
>
> The current system essentially does this, but uses 2/3 of chars > 500,
> with a hard cap at 1100 chars, and has step discontinuities (where it
> jumps from 1 point to 2 with a change of just one character), where
> this would be a smoother system with no discontinuities.
>
> We could even match the current system, but eliminate the
> discontinuities.
> 0 to 500 = 100% of chars
> 500 to 1100, 500 + 2/3 of additional chars
>> 1100 (either no additional, like present, or 5% of additional chars)
>
> As long as it is just math to determine the score from the valid
> character count, I can do anything you want, and it's easy, so have fun
> thinking of ways to count scores that will achieve the goals of the
> MEFAs (lots of good reviews for your stories).
>

I do want to keep this relatively simple so it's easy to explain. That
doesn't mean we have to go with strict character counts, but let's not
make it *too* complicated. Something like

1 point for each character up to 500 +
1/2 point for each character between 501-1500

I also don't want to not have a cap on the number of points per review.
Part of it is I don't want one reviewer to control too much of the
competition. But more than that, I want to encourage people to move on
to review another story.

But that caveat aside, I really like this idea. It's probably my
favourite choice of all the ideas presented.

Off to bed... I may get to another email tomorrow morning, otherwise it
will be tomorrow night. Feel free ot keep discussing, guys.

Marta

Msg# 6605

Author Award changes Posted by Anthony Holder January 04, 2006 - 23:47:32 Topic ID# 6605
I really like the suggestions on how to change the author awards, but...

It does mean that I have a lot more work to do, if it is going to get
done, and I'm not sure I have time to do that.

In some ways, the suggestions make the process simpler (in many ways),
but it's different, and that means changing things around, which means
more work.

I have MEFA2006 and another group (LLL of Texas) to support with
websites this year, and you all are asking for quite a few changes.
Hopefully, the LLL folks won't need too much, but I know that I have
quite a bit to do for them as well, and a similar deadline. On top of
that, I have a late February RL work deadline that may involve
overtime.

(By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed Professional
Engineer in the State of Texas! I did very well on the exam, not that
it really matters, because my license and the guy/gal that just
squeaked by look exactly the same.)

I haven't even started working on things, because you're still
discussing it (and I haven't wanted to work on it yet). I have been
taking notes, and my note list is pretty long. Once the PM is done,
I'll look through my list and I'll see what's important, what can wait,
and what can be left out, and I'll summarize it all for you.

As far as point counting goes, you all have lots of good ideas, and as
long as it's all based on math and simple if-then statements, I'm OK
with it.

For honorable mention, again it needs to be a specific mathematical
formula, with some conditionals, and I can make it work.

I guess I would say that you should get done soon, so I can tell you
what is possible.

I'll start looking at my list for other issues and compiling them into
a more succinct to-do list for myself, and just leave specifics of
Author awards off the list for now.

Later,
Anthony

Msg# 6606

Poll results for MEFAwards Posted by MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com January 05, 2006 - 3:10:05 Topic ID# 123
The following MEFAwards poll is now closed. Here are the
final results:


POLL QUESTION: For the "Multi-Age" awards, which theme do you prefer? Please vote by Tuesday night.

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- Characters that appeared in all four ages (Tom Bombadil - Treebeard - Celeborn), 6 votes, 60.00%
- Swords created in earlier ages that survied into the Third and Fourth Age (Andýril - Sting - Orcrist and/or Glamdring), 4 votes, 40.00%



For more information about this group, please visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards

For help with Yahoo! Groups, please visit
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/

Msg# 6607

Poll results for MEFAwards Posted by MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com January 05, 2006 - 3:10:06 Topic ID# 123
The following MEFAwards poll is now closed. Here are the
final results:


POLL QUESTION: Which award name do you prefer for third place for "First Age and Before"? First place will be "The Lamps of the Valar Award"; second place will be "The Light of the Two Trees Award". Please vote by Tuesday night.

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- The Creation of the Sun and Moon Award, 6 votes, 60.00%
- The Silmarilli Award, 4 votes, 40.00%



For more information about this group, please visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards

For help with Yahoo! Groups, please visit
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/

Msg# 6608

Poll results for MEFAwards Posted by MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com January 05, 2006 - 3:10:35 Topic ID# 123
The following MEFAwards poll is now closed. Here are the
final results:


POLL QUESTION: Which of these awards do you prefer for for third place in the "Late Third Age" category? Please vote by Tuesday night.

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- The White Council Award, 4 votes, 36.36%
- The Building of Henneth Annýn Award, 1 votes, 9.09%
- The Desertion of Ithilien Award, 0 votes, 0.00%
- The Re-building of Barad-dýr Award, 1 votes, 9.09%
- The Death of the White Tree of Gondor Award, 3 votes, 27.27%
- The Destruction of the Corsair Fleet Award, 0 votes, 0.00%
- The Betrothal of Aragorn and Arwen Award, 2 votes, 18.18%



For more information about this group, please visit
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Msg# 6609

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by Nerwen Calaelen January 05, 2006 - 3:46:25 Topic ID# 6604
On voting by direct character counts:
I don't like thsi idea, because instead of asking myself whethera story is worth 1-10 points, I would end up trying to work out where on the scale 1-1000 it isworth and itwould be much harder.
Also, suppose there were two stories that had about the same level at the moment I might review by saying,
"Interesting story. I like the way you characterised A and B."
For a story that I thought was worth one point. Now if character counts were being used if A&B were Frodo and Sam, that review would be 53 points, but if they were Aragorn and Legolas would be 59 points.
I would feel that this shows one of the problems, that the same comments for a story would be worth more if names etc were mention that are longer in one story. The fact that this difference could be a result where one story gets an award and that would seem to be unfair.
By voting in stages these sort of differences are negated because it is easy to adjust a review to ensure that it is in the right range without too much worrying about exact character counts.

Also, if we are going by points, I can encourage the scale to be arranged so that the catogories have equal width. I think Marta was talking about the fact that one range had fewer reviews in it last year. However, I would have thought that this would not necessarily show anything because the scales were not the same and at least some people were looking at the scale to vote.

Jenn



---------------------------------
Play Santa's Celebrity Xmas Party, an exclusive game from Yahoo!

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

Msg# 6610

Re: Author Award changes Posted by aelfwina@cableone.net January 05, 2006 - 4:59:23 Topic ID# 6605
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Holder" <aaholder@swbell.net>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 11:47 PM
Subject: [MEFAwards] Author Award changes


> (By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed Professional
> Engineer in the State of Texas! I did very well on the exam, not that
> it really matters, because my license and the guy/gal that just
> squeaked by look exactly the same.)

Congratulations! That is a lot of work, and *you* know how well you did.
(And there are always *ways* to get info of that sort into a resume.)
Dreamflower

Msg# 6611

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rhapsody\_the\_bard January 05, 2006 - 5:46:46 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura" <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
>
> -- Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> >> What I *am* suggesting is that a person be able to enter a review
> >> for an author and have it automatically generate reviews with the
> >> same text in all other categories in which that author is
> >> entered.
> >> To give an example... let's say someone has the following
> >> nominations:
> >>
> >> - "The Trouble With Brandybucks" in "Hobbits : Fourth Age"
> >> - "Envinyatar" in "Drama : Drabble"
> >> - "A Dwarf Among Elves" in "LOTR : Lothlorien".
> >>
> >> This author is then entered in the following author categories.
> >>
> >> - Hobbits : General Authors
> >> - LOTR : General Authors
> >> - Drama : Drabble Authors
> >>
> >> Let's say I'm looking at the nominations for "Drama : Drabble". I
> >> see a listing for "Envinyatar", and by that drabble I see a link
> >> to
> >> vote on the story, and a second like to vote for the author. I
> >> click on the second link, and it takes me to a page where I can
> >> enter that vote. What I'm proposing is that we have a check-box
> >> that I could click, and whatever I enter for "Drama : Drabble
> >> Authors" is also entered as a vote for "Hobbits : General
> >> Authors" and "LOTR : General Authors".
>
> Okay, that clears things up. Thanks.
>
<snip>
> Just my two cents for whatever the current economy deems that to be
> worth.

Adding my 2 cents to it, thanks for this Thundera, for voicing this so
clearly. I am sorry not to be able to chip in more, but what I do
would like to see in the new mefa season is just nice and encouraging
reviews for every author who accepts the nomination, no matter how
long and elaborate the review is :)

Maybe.. regarding the author reviews...giving it a seperate part in
the seasons, so that those are written with the same attention as the
story reviews? I get the feeling from the current discussions that
this is preferred (more attention for it).

Rhapsody

Msg# 6612

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 05, 2006 - 12:52:44 Topic ID# 6550
Hi Kathy,

> I was disappointed to see no mention here of Dwym the Evil Twin's
> story, "The Great Adventure of Bingo Baggins and Trotter." ;)

Umm, umm... it was Dwym the Evil Tw*y*n this time, rather than Dwym
the Evil Twin. Yeah, that's it.

> I like your idea, Dwim, though I think we would definitely want to
> look at adding some categories to supplement story forms, as you
> suggested...in addition to characterization, perhaps descriptive
> writing, dialogue, suspense, etc. It might even be fun to have
> author awards for things like "best opening line"...one of
> the most important elements of a story, IMO. It's usually what
> entices me to read a story--or not.

Exactly--think of all the technical skills that go into writing. Some
of these may be worth making into awards categories for authors. It'd
be a question of organization. For example, the characterization bit
obviously applies to every piece of writing in the range of
fiction--so that'd be too big, perhaps, to have as a single
category--way too cutthroat.

So maybe what we would have are the major form-based awards, and then
for additional awards, do something like this:

Best Characterization: drabble, poetry, etc.
Best Dialogue: novel, short story, etc.
Best Description: poetry, etc.


Another way to do it might be to make things like dialogue,
characterization, and descriptive writing into subcategories for
form-based awards, assuming we go with form-based awards for authors.
But to me this solution seems less intuitive, because it would break
up form-based categories when the whole point of using form to
organize the author awards is that it pulls authors together into
natural groups. I'm not sure I'm expressing this very well but
hopefully you get the gist of what I'm saying.

In any case, I'm just trying to think of ways to organize the extras
that wouldn't require still more stuff on the story-forms everyone
will have to fill out, but which would still make sense as categories.

Dwim

Msg# 6613

Re: Author Award changes Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 05, 2006 - 13:03:19 Topic ID# 6605
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Anthony Holder <aaholder@s...> wrote:
>
> I really like the suggestions on how to change the author awards, but...
>
> It does mean that I have a lot more work to do, if it is going to get
> done, and I'm not sure I have time to do that.

Ok, let's assume for the moment that you don't have time--and I hope
that means lots of juicy job prospects from paying customers!

What do you think you would have time to do for the author awards that
might address some of the concerns, even if it means holding onto the
current organization of the author awards for another year (so the
author awards are still based on the story-award categories, with up
to three subcategories)?

That way, there's a contingency plan in place, and you won't get swamped.

<snip>

> I have MEFA2006 and another group (LLL of Texas) to support with
> websites this year, and you all are asking for quite a few changes.
> Hopefully, the LLL folks won't need too much, but I know that I have
> quite a bit to do for them as well, and a similar deadline. On top of
> that, I have a late February RL work deadline that may involve
> overtime.
>
> (By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed Professional
> Engineer in the State of Texas! I did very well on the exam, not that
> it really matters, because my license and the guy/gal that just
> squeaked by look exactly the same.)

Congratulations! That sounds like a nice way to toast the new year.

<snip>
>
> As far as point counting goes, you all have lots of good ideas, and as
> long as it's all based on math and simple if-then statements, I'm OK
> with it.
>
> For honorable mention, again it needs to be a specific mathematical
> formula, with some conditionals, and I can make it work.
>
> I guess I would say that you should get done soon, so I can tell you
> what is possible.

Marta, I know you organized your own list of topics way back when we
were still recovering from voting. How close are we to the end?

> I'll start looking at my list for other issues and compiling them into
> a more succinct to-do list for myself, and just leave specifics of
> Author awards off the list for now.

Thanks, Anthony! I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say I
appreciate the work you've put into this, and on your own time, too.

Dwim

Msg# 6614

Re: Author Award changes Posted by sulriel January 05, 2006 - 14:28:15 Topic ID# 6605
>>> I like your idea, Dwim, though I think we would definitely want
to > look at adding some categories to supplement story forms, as you
> suggested...in addition to characterization, perhaps descriptive >
riting, dialogue, suspense, etc. It might even be fun to have >
author awards for things like "best pening line"...one of > the most
important elements of a story, IMO. It's usually what > entices me to
read a story--or not.

>Exactly--think of all the technical skills that go into writing.
Some of these may be worth making into awards categories for authors.
It'd be a question of organization. For example, the characterization
bit
obviously applies to every piece of writing in the range of fiction--
so that'd be too big, perhaps, to have as a single category--way too
cutthroat.

***

I'm thinking a couple of things, and I know this is an area where
I've put my foot in it in the past, so please read this as I'm
treading lightly and mean NO OFFENSE to *anyone*.

I do believe that writing demands a combination of skills, both
emotional and technical, and author awards are the natural place to
reward those. I would, personally, be happy to go nuts thinking up
good ways to award authors technical and creative achievement
buttons, - and would strongly support Inkling's and Dwim's
suggestions above. - but also we need to remember that this is
specifically a hobbyist fandom and love and professional excellence
don't always go hand in hand. - that, often, striving for technical
correctness simply causes stress rather than an improved story.

Speaking from personal experience, it seems that whenever I've been
part of discussions in this fandom regarding the technical aspects of
writing (as opposed to the emotional and/or creative aspects) is when
I've seen the most hurt and the most vicious backlashings and I'd
like to see these awards stay away from that.


I have a couple of suggestions to throw on the table - first with the
comment that I'm not sure how much work any of this would be for
Anthony.

1. my suggestion would be to have the authors automatically go into
the forms categories when their story's nomination was accepted.
epic, novel, novella, short story, vignette, drabble, poetry. These
will be big categories, what about awarding more than three places -
or like the story awards, award HMs to a percent of the overall
category.

2. my other and/or semi-related suggestion is to have author
nominations separate from the story nominations. This is where you
could have categories on active dialogue, true-to-canon
characterization, engaging original characterizations, style, plots &
well-woven subplot, brilliant first line, satisfying ending, most
surprising yet logical plot twist. - all of those sorts of things.
plot act, character growth, most terrifying use of conflict. (#2
would of course be limited to authors who had stories in the MEFAs)

- so instead of having my #1 and #2 as cate and subcates of each
other, they would all be main cates.

Sulriel

Msg# 6615

Re: Author Award changes Posted by sulriel January 05, 2006 - 14:29:59 Topic ID# 6605
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Anthony Holder <aaholder@s...> wrote:
>
> (By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed
Professional > Engineer in the State of Texas! I did very well on the
exam, not that > it really matters, because my license and the guy/gal
that just > squeaked by look exactly the same.)
>
>


Congrats!!!

Msg# 6616

Re: Author Award changes Posted by sulriel January 05, 2006 - 14:31:54 Topic ID# 6605
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Anthony Holder <aaholder@s...> wrote:
>
> (By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed
Professional > Engineer in the State of Texas! I did very well on the
exam, not that > it really matters, because my license and the guy/gal
that just > squeaked by look exactly the same.)
>
>


Congrats!!!

Msg# 6617

Re: Author Award changes Posted by Kathy January 05, 2006 - 15:53:30 Topic ID# 6605
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Anthony Holder <aaholder@s...> wrote:
>
> I really like the suggestions on how to change the author awards,
> but...It does mean that I have a lot more work to do, if it is going
> to get done, and I'm not sure I have time to do that.

Well, you know, talk is cheap...we have no lack of ideas around here,
so the voice of reality is needed. Whatever you can manage is
appreciated...

> (By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed Professional
> Engineer in the State of Texas!

Great, congratulations!

> I guess I would say that you should get done soon, so I can tell you
> what is possible.

Yeah, guess we'd better shut up soon...what is it, two months before
MEFA 2006 kicks off???

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6618

Re: Author Award changes Posted by Kathy January 05, 2006 - 16:14:34 Topic ID# 6605
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
> I'm thinking a couple of things, and I know this is an area where
> I've put my foot in it in the past, so please read this as I'm
> treading lightly and mean NO OFFENSE to *anyone*.
>
> I do believe that writing demands a combination of skills, both
> emotional and technical, and author awards are the natural place to
> reward those. I would, personally, be happy to go nuts thinking up
> good ways to award authors technical and creative achievement
> buttons, - and would strongly support Inkling's and Dwim's
> suggestions above. - but also we need to remember that this is
> specifically a hobbyist fandom and love and professional excellence
> don't always go hand in hand. - that, often, striving for technical
> correctness simply causes stress rather than an improved story.

The German expressionist artist Emil Nolde proposed three essential
requirements for a work of art: technical skill, imagination, and
poetry. As you say, technical quality isn't everything (though it
sure helps!) Maybe we can think up some awards for the creative
aspects as well (Most original premise? Most poetic prose?--I
actually have a candidate in mind for this one already!)

> I have a couple of suggestions to throw on the table - first with
> the comment that I'm not sure how much work any of this would be
> for Anthony.
>
> 1. my suggestion would be to have the authors automatically go
> into the forms categories when their story's nomination was
> accepted. epic, novel, novella, short story, vignette, drabble,
> poetry. These will be big categories, what about awarding more
> than three places -
> or like the story awards, award HMs to a percent of the overall
> category.

Or maybe don't even rank the winners...just say there will be 10 (or
whatever number seems appropriate) awards in each category, given to
the 10 authors who get the most votes. Would be yet another way to
distinguish them from story awards, which would be a good thing!
>
> 2. my other and/or semi-related suggestion is to have author
> nominations separate from the story nominations. This is where you
> could have categories on active dialogue, true-to-canon
> characterization, engaging original characterizations, style, plots
> & well-woven subplot, brilliant first line, satisfying ending, most
> surprising yet logical plot twist. - all of those sorts of
> things.
> plot act, character growth, most terrifying use of conflict. (#2
> would of course be limited to authors who had stories in the MEFAs)
>
> - so instead of having my #1 and #2 as cate and subcates of each
> other, they would all be main cates.

Sounds good to me...(but what's "plot act"?)

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6619

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 16:36:10 Topic ID# 6550
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of rabidsamfan
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 2:15 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters
>
> Me too. I think of drabbles as being much more closely
> related to poetry than general fiction, actually but that's
> another question.
>
> I'd far rather see a story review duplicated into an author
> review than multiple, identical author reviews. Since the
> two votes are going in different directions, why not?
>

Until I divorce myself completely from the MEFAs (which could happen--Never
planned it that way but it's just kind of heading in that general direction,
sad to say--not because of any dissatisfaction...just other-busy-ness), that
will never happen. Saying why such a story was great is not saying why the
author is great. I am an author. I am not my stories. Oswiecim was great
for different reasons than Myth and Memory was great. Very. And they took
far different skills to write. The depths to which I can take a reader in
realistic and horrific manners (and historically accurately, at that) have
nothing to do with my ability to write Tolkienesqueity. I have a review of
Oswiecim that's 2 pages long. And only part of it talks about me, the
writer. Yes, some writerly bits come into a story review, but an author
review is just about the talent and skill of the writer. It may reference
stories for evidence supporting what is said. The detail in Oswiecim was
great. That's a story review. My ability to take from my head my memories
of being in the camp and put them on the page to share with the reader being
phenomenal (and they are, since I have no visualization capabilities really.
Just a semi-photographic memory) is about me. My ability to make readers
think I've described things I haven't is a writer review. My beautiful
descriptions in Immortal is a story review (and that's where I got the idea
that I can trick readers into thinking I describe things, but I digress.)

You can review a meal and you can review a resaurant and you can review a
chef. They are three different things. One can be terribble and the other
two still be great.

--Gabrielle
God is my strength!

http://gabrielle.sytes.net/trek The Edge of the Frontier
Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com

Msg# 6620

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 16:51:21 Topic ID# 6550
Contrary to popular belief, I'm not totally against using form for
categorizing author awards. Story, yes. But we won't go into that.

My main contention remains one of fruit, however. Apples and Lemons. Both
Fruit. But one will turn your mouth inside out, which the other will only
do that if it's not ripe enough. My point: What about the difference
between humor and drama? Or humor and horror. Sure, they could all be put
in short story. But one makes you laugh until your sides hurt, the other
makes you cry, or makes you jumpy. They're all short stories, but they're
inherently different, and I do argue quite loudly that it takes different
skill.

Heck, if it wasn't for Dwim, I wouldn't have ever even tried my hand at a
humor story. A filk, no less! I didn't think I had it in me. Same thing
with drabbles. I could write 4-pages and 600-pages, but didn't think I had
the skill to write a 100-worder. She talked me into trying.

But still that's just it. Why would a humor write and a horror writer
compete for the same award? Would it be fair? Would you put Apples against
Lemons for Best Fruit? Well, then it would go down to the most popular of
Apples and Lemons in the end, wouldn't it? So which is more popular? Humor
or horror? What if one is widely more popular than the other? Fredita
writes humor. Fred writes horror. You STILL have the same problem.

I know I've said it here before, author reviews are hard. They're harder to
write than story reviews. I like receiving them, but they are tough. And
they are NOT easy to categorize or organize. IF we were to put it to a poll
(and if more than 15 people in this group of 100s voted in said poll) would
we be more willing to let go of them altogether or keep them?

Why were they here in the first place? Because ASC had them and I copied
ASC and tweaked from there to get these Awards up and running in less than 2
months. I'm not sure they're a non-negotiable. I think I might miss them,
but I recognize the hardship and thus the less reviews that come through for
them.

IF we do keep them, I want these things out of them:

*Not comparing Apples to Lemons (Not using "lemon" like we talk about bad
cars, but sour fruit. Good in it's context. I love lemon herb
chicken.....digressing again.)

*Not so few that getting one seems utterly unatainable and thus breaks the
hearts of 90% of the authors.

It's a tricky bit of business, I agree.

(BTW: I'm not even through reading all these e-mails, though I'll try. I may
not reply to each one and I may reply to many in one reply. I just never
know.)

--Ainae
Who needs to get back to work for a few minutes.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of dwimmer_laik
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 5:23 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Author Review Blues

(Snippage: only for space-saving)

>
> What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and looked at
> *forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story,
> novella, novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things
> that authors would have to select when filling out their
> story forms. So it's not like we'd be making any executive
> decisions about how to classify an author's work--the author
> has done it for us. That would be a big benefit, requiring no
> extra work or forms for anyone.
>
> The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of
> authors across the story-awards genres and subgenres into
> logical categories that are specific enough that we have some
> idea of how to compare the authors. The form of their writing
> holds them together across the divisions we'd imposed to
> judge stories against each other, so it wouldn't work to just
> copy a review about an author's skill as a writer of novels
> into the poet category, for example. It makes sense to write
> a different review.
>
> At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis
> of categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction
> that we don't need to deal with author awards in
> subcategories, which would cut down on a sense of pernicious
> repetition. It's also just extending an already existing
> trend (see below).

Msg# 6621

Re: points and various voting matters (Thundera Tiger) Posted by Marta Layton January 05, 2006 - 17:14:39 Topic ID# 6621
>

Hi Thundera,

> Message: 15
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 06:00:02 GMT
> From: "Laura" <thunderalaura@juno.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> "Marta Layton" <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
>>> so feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>>> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at
>>> a lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively
>>> means that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such
>>> spread would be:
>>>
>>> 1-50 1 point
>>> 51-250 2 point
>>> 251-500 3 point
>>> 501-1000 4 point
>>> 1001+ 5 point
>>>
>>> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm
>>> very interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer
>>> ones.
>>> Would this point spread work better?
>
> *chiming in once more as the voice of dissent*
>
> I'm honestly not trying to play devil's advocate. Really, I'm not! And
> I think we've had some excellent ideas out of the post-mortem.

Don't worry about it. If we always agreed, there wouldn't be any point
to discussing.

> But I have to weigh in as _strongly_ opposed to a change in the point
> levels. At least, a change like the one proposed.
>
> Granted, I'm probably among the long-winded reviewers, but be that as
> it may, if I rambled off a review and hit as many aspects of the story
> as I could, I only got up to about 5 points on average. On rare
> occasions, I could hit 6. But that was if I rambled, and I caught most
> of those when I went back through and edited the reviews. That being
> said, I know I gave out several 10-point reviews, quite a few 9-point
> reviews, and even more 8-pointers and 7-pointers. For all of them, I
> went back and put in enough effort to get the story that high because
> I felt that strongly about it. I think there should be a difference
> between a 2-point story and a 10-point story, and I think the margin
> between points should reflect that. Furthermore, if I go to the effort
> to get a 1001-character review, I want it to count. I want the author
> to get those ten points.
>
> Granted again that one of the big appeals of these awards are the
> reviews rather than the points garnered by the reviews. But if the
> point cap is 5 and the difference between a 250-character review and a
> 1001-character review is 3 points, there's really not much of an
> incentive to go the extra mile and give the story you're reviewing
> those extra 3. Competition-wise, it doesn't make that much of a
> difference. But as far as the quality of the reviews is concerned, I
> think there is a difference. happen to think that the 1000+ reviews
> are good ego boosters. I like receiving them, and I like giving them.
> And I think there's more incentive to give them if it actually makes a
> difference in the competition.
>
> In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In my
> opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points) encourages
> longer reviews and rewards stories that deserve said reviews. A lower
> point cap (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more reviews,
> but on average, they would be shorter as the competitive advantage
> gained by long reviews would be lost. I think someone once mentioned
> reviews that were quick blips. With a lower cap, I think we'd see a
> lot more of those. So do we want our focus on quality or on quantity?
> I vote for quality. I think it does more for writing. Personally, I
> would much rather have one in-depth 6- or 7-point review than five
> quick blips of "Thanks, that was great." I'm grateful for both, don't
> get me wrong. But I learn more from the former than I do for the
> latter.
>

I have to admit, I hadn't thought of it that way. I know no one had to
encourage me to write longer reviews, but that I didn't feel nearly as
inclined to write shorter reviews in the 2-3 pt range because it didn't
feel like they mattered much.

To be honest, this is why I'm so in favor of using something based
purely on character counts. Point counts won't discourage or encourage
anyone in particular.

>>> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
>>> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
>>> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
>>> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%
>
> For what it's worth, I like this formula for Honorable Mentions.
>

Thanks for weighing in on this.

Marta

Msg# 6622

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 17:51:26 Topic ID# 6550
Perhaps answered before me, but here it is anyway:

We had decided that quotes longer than 2 lines were to be blockquoted.
Quoting the story was not saying why you liked it. A reader can read those
lines and decide for themselves in the story itself. It just amounts to
stuffing a vote. We decided on a compromise because yes, sometimes you want
to say "My favorite part was when Aragorn said, "....". So we set a length
at which block quotes would have to be used, and yes, they were not counted.


--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 Marta Layton
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 7:32 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> > Message: 10
> > Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 20:26:31 -0500
> > From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> > Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
> >
> > On 1/2/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
> >>>
> >>> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
> >> that
> >>> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> >>> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published
> author? Did
> >>> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
> >>
> >>
> >> oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.
> >
> >
> >
> > Yes. I'd say anything and everything from within the story under
> > review should be inside <blockquotes> tags, but for stuff
> from JRRT or
> > other sources... hmm. That's tougher. Might be a judgment
> call for
> > the admins.
> > Is the quote filler, or pertinent to the review? I'd think
> it would
> > be a situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't
> know. Did it
> > happen this year?
> >
>
> I don't want to make this an admin judgement call because if
> we do this, then it leaves the admins open to criticism.
> Whether a quote counts or not affects how many points a story
> gets which controls who wins -- and I don't want someone
> second-guessing the results. That's why for this I want a
> rule we can apply objectively and can point to as a reason
> for why we make a certain decision.
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6623

Re: Quotes Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 17:53:48 Topic ID# 6550
I'm not against that. It did come up. That's when we had to decide the rule
in the first place. Quotes were abused to the point of looking like vote
stuffing.

--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: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 8:21 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Quotes
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
> >> Seems like the simplest rule--and I think this has already been
> > suggested--is to just say that ALL quotes, not matter what
> the source,
> > have to be inside blockquote tags.
> >
> > Kathy (Inkling)
>
>
> As the person who personally managed the quote/blockquote
> situation last year, I *highly* recommend that any and all
> quotes from any source must be blockquoted.
>
> It's a simple rule, easy to remember and allows for as much
> quotage as
> anyone wants to use.
>
>
> Sulriel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6624

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 17:59:32 Topic ID# 6550
I like the idea in theory. It's the imagining of "in practice" that scares
the daylights out of me. How would you decide which authors would be in
those "best opening line" categories? And really that's a story issue, not
an author one unless you're commening on all the opening lines an author
wrote....

But my point is, every author. Every author of every story wrote an opening
line. Thus every author would be eligible in that category. And every
other category like "characterization" or "plotting" (okay, except the PWP's
but unless I missed that in th epost-mortem--and I've missed a lot--those
aren't likely to be here anyway.)

Every author would elibigle for nearly every category. Not so for form,
true. But I still worry about the Fruit problem.

--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: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 10:01 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Author Review Blues
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
> >> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...>> > I like your idea, Dwim, though
> I think we would definitely want to
> > > look at adding some categories to supplement story forms, as you
> > > suggested...in addition to characterization, perhaps descriptive
> > > writing, dialogue, suspense, etc. It might even be fun to have
> > > author awards for things like "best opening line"...one
> of the most
> > > important elements of a story, IMO. It's usually what
> entices me to
> > > read a story--or not.
> >
> > Oh my! I *really like this: speaking to an author's strengths *as
> an > author*, and not simply within the confines of a single story.
> Forms would > be one way, but adding such things as
> characterization, dialogue, > descriptive writing, plotting,
> and so forth would add a whole new element to > voting for
> the author awards--it would increase the number of categories
> of > author awards from just drabble, poem, short story,
> vignette, novel and so > open it up to be more author awards
> that could be given <<snipped>>
> > Yes, I do indeed like *this* idea very much!
> > > Dreamflower
> > (Barbara)
>
>
> I third this - wonderful idea!
>
> Sulriel
> >
> > >
> > > Kathy (Inkling)
> > >
> > > --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik"
> <dwimmer_laik@y...>
> > > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Ok, so with author reviews, we've got the problem of the Freds of
> > > the
> > >> world versus the Freditas, and the sense that author awards are
> > >> artificially fragmenting an author's work, encouraging
> meaningless
> > >> repetition of reviews which then results in bizarre rankings,
> where
> > >> someone wins an author award for "The Hobbit" drabbles on the
> basis
> > > of
> > >> work s/he did as a novelist in the Horror category and
> some humor
> > >> pieces. Also, it's not always clear how to distinguish
> the author
> > >> review from the story review, leading to questions about why we
> > > should
> > >> allow copying author reviews and not copying of story reviews.
> > >>
> > >> We need a compromise that gives us sensible author review
> > > categories that
> > >>
> > >> 1) do not seem artificially to fragment an author's work,
> resulting
> > > in
> > >> weird copy-pastes that result in even weirder rankings;
> > >>
> > >> 2) are distinct enough from story reviews that we don't just
> repeat
> > > or
> > >> extend story reviews;
> > >>
> > >> 3) are not so all-inclusive as to make competition absolutely
> > > cutthroat;
> > >>
> > >> 4) are organized in a manner that is less confusing all around,
> > >> thereby encouraging more people to actually review authors.
> > >>
> > >> What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and
> looked
> > > at
> > >> *forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story,
> > > novella,
> > >> novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things that authors
> > > would
> > >> have to select when filling out their story forms. So it's not
> like
> > >> we'd be making any executive decisions about how to classify an
> > >> author's work--the author has done it for us. That would
> be a big
> > >> benefit, requiring no extra work or forms for anyone.
> > >>
> > >> The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of authors
> > >> across the story-awards genres and subgenres into logical
> categories
> > >> that are specific enough that we have some idea of how to compare
> > > the
> > >> authors. The form of their writing holds them together
> across the
> > >> divisions we'd imposed to judge stories against each
> other, so it
> > >> wouldn't work to just copy a review about an author's skill as a
> > >> writer of novels into the poet category, for example. It makes
> sense
> > >> to write a different review.
> > >>
> > >> At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis of
> > >> categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction that
> we
> > >> don't need to deal with author awards in subcategories, which
> would
> > >> cut down on a sense of pernicious repetition. It's also just
> > > extending
> > >> an already existing trend (see below).
> > >>
> > >> Now, it is true, there's a reason we split the stories into
> > > different
> > >> categories and subcategories--but we've got the story awards to
> deal
> > >> with recognizing merits of specific content. Author awards are (I
> > >> think) about assessing individual style and a more general sense
> of
> > >> substance within certain, more abstract bounds
> than "Silmarillion:
> > >> drabble cycle", for example. So we're not doing an injustice by
> > >> comparing incomparables here.
> > >>
> > >> Would it be more competitive than the current scenario? Yes, it
> > > would
> > >> be. There would be more people competing for author awards under
> any
> > >> form-based category than in any individual story category since
> > >> *every* drabbler and *every* novelist would be elligible for an
> > > author
> > >> award for writing drabbles or novels, irrespective of whether
> they
> > >> wrote the novel about Silm characters of Ring-war characters,
> > > whether
> > >> they wrote the drabbles about hobbits or dragons.
> > >>
> > >> Also, by moving away from category/subcategory combinations
> > > currently
> > >> used for author awards, we would have fewer categories to compete
> > > in.
> > >> However, there are only three subcategories within any given
> author
> > >> awards category anyway: general, drabble, and poetry, which
> already
> > >> tends in the direction of recognizing *form*, but does not go all
> > > the
> > >> way and recognize that novels are a unique form or that vignettes
> > > are
> > >> a unique form, each requiring different skills to pull
> off. Those
> > >> kinds of stories compete together under "general." So this would
> > >> rectify that situation in a way by recognizing different skill
> > > sets.
> > >>
> > >> Against the fear that this would be too cutthroat, it's
> much more
> > >> competitive (and I think a fairer competition in some cases,
> where
> > >> maybe only two poets make up an entire
> category/subcategory combo
> > >> elligible for author awards, whereas a different c/s combo might
> pit
> > >> twenty poets against each other) than being allowed only
> a single
> > >> author review for any given author.
> > >>
> > >> So I think (I hope) this would meet all four of what I
> see as the
> > >> major problems we currently have with author reviews and awards.
> I'm
> > >> fairly certain that we could come up with a few more categories
> that
> > >> wouldn't repeat the story award categories if desired (maybe an
> > > award
> > >> for characterization, for example, or splitting non-fiction into
> > > essay
> > >> and research article since those do require totally different
> > > skills).
> > >> But the basic idea hopefully would be a way out of our current
> > >> difficulties.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Taking the above sketch as a possibility for reorganizing author
> > >> reviews, and combining it with my request for a simpler user
> > > interface
> > >> when it comes to writing those author reviews, I could
> see a page
> > >> somewhat like this (and I hope yahoo doesn't destroy the
> formatting)
> > >> to try and streamline things, make them clearer, and hopefully
> > >> encourage more author reviewing because it would be less
> confusing:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Author Name: Dwym the Evil Twyn
> > >>
> > >> Story Title Story Type Have I
> > > Reviewed?
> > >>
> > >> <link>Gimli's Gift</link> Short Story
> > > <link>Yes</link>
> > >>
> > >> <link>Oops, I Sued It Again!</link> Short Story No
> > >>
> > >> _____________________________________
> > >>
> > >> Enter Author Review for Short Story: [text box]
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> <link>Fear and Loathing Novel
> > > <link>Yes</link>
> > >> in the White City</link>
> > >>
> > >> ______________________________________
> > >>
> > >> Enter Author Review for Novel:[text box]
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> <link>Grey</link> Drabble No
> > >>
> > >> <link>Purposive</link> Drabble No
> > >>
> > >> _____________________________________
> > >>
> > >> Enter Author Review for Drabble: [text box]
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Etc., etc., and alphabetically by review category (as I failed to
> > > do).
> > >>
> > >> This I am taking as a possible modification of the author's main
> > > page
> > >> on the website. It would give us every story the author has
> written,
> > >> links to the story (so we can read it if we want to before
> writing
> > > the
> > >> author review), the category it is listed under *for the
> purposes of
> > >> author reviews*, and a notice whether I've reviewed the story
> (and
> > > if
> > >> I have, a quick way to see what I'd said and so refresh my
> > >> memory--best if opens in a new screen). It automatically breaks
> up
> > > the
> > >> stories into the appropriate groups and offers us an immediate
> > >> opportunity to write an author review. It'd be easy to see in
> what
> > >> categories we had already reviewed the author since they'd be
> right
> > >> there. No fuss, no bother, no reloads.
> > >>
> > >> If we did revamp author pages this way, there'd have to
> be a more
> > >> obvious pointer towards them so that people would actually go
> there
> > > to
> > >> review the author as an author, of course, but that's another
> issue
> > >> that can be handled if something like this page revision were to
> go
> > >> through. I'm mainly using it as an illustration of how to
> simplify
> > > the
> > >> process of reviewing authors and to show how the category change
> I'd
> > >> proposed could be easily fitted into that revision.
> > >>
> > >> What do you all think?
> > >>
> > >> Dwim
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6625

Re: points and various voting matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 18:00:23 Topic ID# 6582
I do like a rounder 1000. And a bigger cap than 5.

--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: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 10:04 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters
> (Rabidsamfan)
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> > The problem is that whether it's pertinent is a judgment call, and
> so > open to critique. I think things will run smoother all
> around if we > just don't count any quotes. Actually, if we
> did that, it would make me > feel more friendly to Kathy's
> point system of
> >
> > CHARS --- POINTS
> > 1-150 --- 1
> > 151-300 --- 2
> > 301-450 --- 3
> > 451-600 --- 4
> > 601+ --- 5
> >
> > I still think it's a little low, but not so much when you consider
> it > wouldn't be counting any quotes.
> > > Cheers,
> > Marta
>
>
> I think this is a reasonable point spread and division,
> especially if, as you say, *all* quotes from any source are
> blockquoted.
>
> Sulriel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6626

Re: points and various voting matters (Thundera Tiger) Posted by Marta Layton January 05, 2006 - 18:02:11 Topic ID# 6621
> Message: 18
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 09:13:40 GMT
> From: "Laura" <thunderalaura@juno.com>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> -- "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>> I heartily agree that review quality is more important than
>>> quantity. But are short reviews necessarily of lesser quality than
>>> long ones? While I'll admit that my reviews got progressively
>>> shorter as the voting deadline approached, I tried to say
>>> something substantive in each of them, and don't believe that my 3-
>>> and 4-pointers were inferior to my longer ones.
>
> Dreamflower made the same point, and I agree with you. You can fit a
> lot into 3- and 4 point reviews. Quality does not necessarily imply
> length.
>
> However...
>
> You can fit MORE into a 10-point review. More to the point, you can
> fit in specifics. I think part of this might be coming from how people
> went about making reviews bigger. For what I felt was a good story, I
> would comment on overall feel, some characterization points, and
> things like that. For what I felt was a GREAT story, I went through
> and found specifics. I'd comment on the overall feel and then point to
> why the feel was there, how it was achieved, and why it was such an
> effective use of style, tone, characterization, or whatever it was the
> author did so well. It's the specifics that I find most valuable when
> getting reviews. I have no idea what other people think of them, but I
> can point to several reviews I received where the reviewer listed out
> specifics they liked, specifics they didn't like, what worked, what
> didn't work, etc. And to me, that was the most valuable kind of
> review.
>
> Anyway, the need to get a story up to 10 points was often what drove
> me to find those specifics. Otherwise, pressed for time, I would leave
> it at an overall impression, maybe point out a few instances, and then
> move on. But for stories that I thought really deserved a closer look,
> I tried to get them up to 7, 8, 9, or 10 points by picking out the
> why. I'm NOT saying my reviews are examples of quality. I'm known for
> being long-winded and I do tend to ramble. What I'm saying, though, is
> that the stories that inspired me to go back through and figure out
> just why they impacted me the way they did deserve more recognition
> than what a 3-point margin can give.
>
> At least, that's my opinion.
>
> So were some of the 10-point reviews inflated? Artificially padded?
> Sure. Some of them probably were. But if the reviewer felt strongly
> enough to go through and pad the review, I think that story needs to
> receive a bit more recognition than the proposed five points.
>
> Again, just my opinion.
>
>
Thank you for pointing this out - I was going to make a post much to
this same point.

It seems that a lot of people think that a longer review has to be
rambly and inflated somehow; that's the feeling I'm getting, at least.
But a longer review doesn't have to be less focused, it could just have
more meat to it, like you said. To give some reference I just took two
professional book reviews from the New York Times; one is 3,276
characthers and the other is 6,897.

Now, I'm not saying that longer reviews are necessarily better -- I
don't think one length will always be better than the other. And
there's the rub. Unfortunately, there's not a nice neat way to gauge
the quality of a review. I think the best we can do is stick with what
we have to give the most points to the longest rweviews, and encourage
people to write good-quality reviews whatever other ways we can.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6627

Re: Author Award changes Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 18:10:13 Topic ID# 6605
Congrats on the degree, Anthony! I myself have an MA in Museum Studies. And
I don't use it much at all..... I do have a Clue: Museum Caper game I got at
a garage sale for $.25.

As I'm mainly commening on Author Reviews, here, I'll keep your technical
stuff in mind. I very much understand busy-ness and RL. That's what pulled
me away from this Awards program that I created and really do love.

--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 Anthony Holder
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 11:47 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Author Award changes
>
> I really like the suggestions on how to change the author
> awards, but...
>
> It does mean that I have a lot more work to do, if it is
> going to get done, and I'm not sure I have time to do that.
>
> In some ways, the suggestions make the process simpler (in
> many ways), but it's different, and that means changing
> things around, which means more work.
>
> I have MEFA2006 and another group (LLL of Texas) to support
> with websites this year, and you all are asking for quite a
> few changes.
> Hopefully, the LLL folks won't need too much, but I know that
> I have quite a bit to do for them as well, and a similar
> deadline. On top of that, I have a late February RL work
> deadline that may involve overtime.
>
> (By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed
> Professional Engineer in the State of Texas! I did very well
> on the exam, not that it really matters, because my license
> and the guy/gal that just squeaked by look exactly the same.)
>
> I haven't even started working on things, because you're
> still discussing it (and I haven't wanted to work on it yet).
> I have been taking notes, and my note list is pretty long.
> Once the PM is done, I'll look through my list and I'll see
> what's important, what can wait, and what can be left out,
> and I'll summarize it all for you.
>
> As far as point counting goes, you all have lots of good
> ideas, and as long as it's all based on math and simple
> if-then statements, I'm OK with it.
>
> For honorable mention, again it needs to be a specific
> mathematical formula, with some conditionals, and I can make it work.
>
> I guess I would say that you should get done soon, so I can
> tell you what is possible.
>
> I'll start looking at my list for other issues and compiling
> them into a more succinct to-do list for myself, and just
> leave specifics of Author awards off the list for now.
>
> Later,
> Anthony
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6628

Re: Author Award changes Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 18:16:58 Topic ID# 6605
> Yeah, guess we'd better shut up soon...what is it, two months
> before MEFA 2006 kicks off???
>

Is it really? I know it's just 1 day under 2 months until my wedding....

--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

Msg# 6629

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 05, 2006 - 18:27:08 Topic ID# 6550
Whoops, didn't mean it like that -- I meant that if you were going to use
the computer to automatically propogate copies, I'd rather start my thinking
about the author review from the place where I'm writing the story review in
that category. Marta objected to the notion that she didn't want duplicates
of the story reviews, and while I agree with you that apples aren't oranges,
I've read and written enough reviews to know that there are times when the
descriptions can come pretty close. Anyway, let me explain...

Assuming the author categories don't go another direction entirely (the most
popular option under discussion right now, but the most complicated to
enact) due to lack of time for coding, whatever, as I understand it the
other three present suggestions are:

B. leave things as they are
C. be able to automatically distribute an author review to all (or some) of
the categories where an author has entries via checkbox.
D. to have the option to go from the story review entry process to an author
review entry box which does (but doesn't have to) duplicate the story review
to give the reviewer a chance to edit and change things around to make it
more appropriate as an author review.

Option B works, obviously, although it was a little clunky.

I think option C preserves the most annoying aspect of option B, (getting
five identical reviews even if they were in different categories) and adds
some more difficulties, some of which are solvable if you have to choose
which categories to disperse the copies to and the copies are automatically
entered as something besides "final" so they can be edited.

Option D -- and I'll be honest, it was my idea -- is technically possible
according to Anthony, and in my mind it puts the process of creating an
author review into greater prominence, which should mean more
participation.

Say I read a lovely story by Fred, and wrote a story review that went

"'Babbling Balrogs' is a delightful look at the home life of the
balrog family where they live deep under the mines of Moria. In a few deft
lines Fred creates an idyll which is waiting to be shattered when a falling
stone lands in the bowl of porridge that Mrs. Balrog is about to serve to
her rambunctious, but cute twins. Fred has a mastery of humorous situations
and characters that is worth a good deal of envy, and can write dialogue
that is outrageously forsooth without being unintelligible."

With a way to go straight to the author review -- a button right at the
"submit review" page -- I might take that same paragraph and delete
everything above "Fred has a mastery of ..." and then append a sentence or
two about characterization.

If I had written a story review which was mostly gushing about the writing,
it probably could serve as an author review as well, but I think if the
process of creating the author review is that close in time, most reviewers
will edit a bit. And since the story reviews are counted in one contest and
the author reviews are counted in a different contest, I don't think that
it's that horrible if they're very similar.



On 1/5/06, Ainaechoiriel <mefaadmin@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of rabidsamfan
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 2:15 PM
> > To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters
> >
> > Me too. I think of drabbles as being much more closely
> > related to poetry than general fiction, actually but that's
> > another question.
> >
> > I'd far rather see a story review duplicated into an author
> > review than multiple, identical author reviews. Since the
> > two votes are going in different directions, why not?
> >
>
> Until I divorce myself completely from the MEFAs (which could
> happen--Never
> planned it that way but it's just kind of heading in that general
> direction,
> sad to say--not because of any dissatisfaction...just other-busy-ness),
> that
> will never happen. Saying why such a story was great is not saying why
> the
> author is great. I am an author. I am not my stories. Oswiecim was great
> for different reasons than Myth and Memory was great. Very. And they
> took
> far different skills to write. The depths to which I can take a reader
> in
> realistic and horrific manners (and historically accurately, at that) have
> nothing to do with my ability to write Tolkienesqueity. I have a review
> of
> Oswiecim that's 2 pages long. And only part of it talks about me, the
> writer. Yes, some writerly bits come into a story review, but an author
> review is just about the talent and skill of the writer. It may reference
> stories for evidence supporting what is said. The detail in Oswiecim was
> great. That's a story review. My ability to take from my head my
> memories
> of being in the camp and put them on the page to share with the reader
> being
> phenomenal (and they are, since I have no visualization capabilities
> really.
> Just a semi-photographic memory) is about me. My ability to make readers
> think I've described things I haven't is a writer review. My beautiful
> descriptions in Immortal is a story review (and that's where I got the
> idea
> that I can trick readers into thinking I describe things, but I digress.)
>
>
> You can review a meal and you can review a resaurant and you can review a
> chef. They are three different things. One can be terribble and the other
> two still be great.
>
> --Gabrielle
> God is my strength!
>
> http://gabrielle.sytes.net/trek The Edge of the Frontier
> Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com
>
>
>
> SPONSORED LINKS
> Writing a book report<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+a+book+report&w1=Writing+a+book+report&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Creative+writing+book&w4=Writing+child+book&w5=Book+writing+software&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=150&.sig=lR46b2yY3fjtLuEF-cPrOQ> Business
> writing book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Business+writing+book&w1=Writing+a+book+report&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Creative+writing+book&w4=Writing+child+book&w5=Book+writing+software&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=150&.sig=bVUL2qcPvT_BxOIqgxkxVw> Creative
> writing book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Creative+writing+book&w1=Writing+a+book+report&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Creative+writing+book&w4=Writing+child+book&w5=Book+writing+software&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=150&.sig=3Gtsy8qVITSIVlWyRzfNDA> Writing
> child book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+child+book&w1=Writing+a+book+report&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Creative+writing+book&w4=Writing+child+book&w5=Book+writing+software&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=150&.sig=EYzyBlCKCUDi_DoKgXTO4w> Book
> writing software<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Book+writing+software&w1=Writing+a+book+report&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Creative+writing+book&w4=Writing+child+book&w5=Book+writing+software&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=150&.sig=a4SDza6lVyW6oL7NUnwP-w> Writing
> book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+book&w1=Writing+a+book+report&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Creative+writing+book&w4=Writing+child+book&w5=Book+writing+software&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=150&.sig=ZhdyzZXdVQ_Bepmw4tehkw>
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> ------------------------------
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Msg# 6630

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 05, 2006 - 18:28:18 Topic ID# 6550
IIRC last year we had a problem because it was hard to decide what
constituted "2 lines". Blocking everything quoted with tags seems easier
for the admins and everyone else.

On 1/5/06, Ainaechoiriel <mefaadmin@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Perhaps answered before me, but here it is anyway:
>
> We had decided that quotes longer than 2 lines were to be blockquoted.
> Quoting the story was not saying why you liked it. A reader can read those
> lines and decide for themselves in the story itself. It just amounts to
> stuffing a vote. We decided on a compromise because yes, sometimes you
> want
> to say "My favorite part was when Aragorn said, "....". So we set a
> length
> at which block quotes would have to be used, and yes, they were not
> counted.
>
>
> --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 Marta Layton
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 7:32 PM
> > To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: Re: points and various voting matters
> >
> > > Message: 10
> > > Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 20:26:31 -0500
> > > From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> > > Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
> > >
> > > On 1/2/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
> > >>>
> > >>> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
> > >> that
> > >>> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
> > >>> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published
> > author? Did
> > >>> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> oh -yikes, yes... that's a biggie.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yes. I'd say anything and everything from within the story under
> > > review should be inside <blockquotes> tags, but for stuff
> > from JRRT or
> > > other sources... hmm. That's tougher. Might be a judgment
> > call for
> > > the admins.
> > > Is the quote filler, or pertinent to the review? I'd think
> > it would
> > > be a situation which wouldn't often arise, but I don't
> > know. Did it
> > > happen this year?
> > >
> >
> > I don't want to make this an admin judgement call because if
> > we do this, then it leaves the admins open to criticism.
> > Whether a quote counts or not affects how many points a story
> > gets which controls who wins -- and I don't want someone
> > second-guessing the results. That's why for this I want a
> > rule we can apply objectively and can point to as a reason
> > for why we make a certain decision.
> >
> > Marta
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
> 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:
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> Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>


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

Msg# 6631

Re: points and various voting matters (Thundera Tiger) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 18:31:29 Topic ID# 6621
My philosophy on reviews and maybe points will come into it:

I like any review I get. Well, not the bad ones. But I diligently keep
them. Anyway, I like an "I loved it!" But I LOVE a big, juicy 3-paragraph
long e-mail telling me WHY you loved it. I CHERISH the 3-pagers. Or even
just the one paragraph that said how the reader learned something about the
Holocaust by reading my Star Trek story. That's juicy.

Meaty, or juicy does not necessarily equal length, but you're more likely to
find juice in a long review. Conversely, you're more likely to find
pointless padding in a long review, too. Not much room for it in a short
one.

I used to write long reviews. I noticed a trend in 2004 and more in 2005
(when I found the time to write a review or heck, even read a story) that my
reviews were shortening. This was also when I was having bouts of aphasia
and growing a year older, so maybe that's part of it.

Anyway, any review counts! Longer ones are savored more by the author. And
yes, they gain more points. Remember that we're not just giving the author
a banner, we're giving him/her the reviews that earned them that banner.

The way I review (ideally) is to write more for stories I like better. To
write at least something, even if just one sentence for stories I liked at
all. And to keep my pen silent when I didn't have anything nice to say. In
the MEFA's anyway. And that's, I think, the main way stories should be
reviewed. I know it's hard sometimes to come up with 500 characters of why
you liked a story. I experienced that this year. Just putting things into
words was sometimes hard, but the philosophy is still there. Maybe my
longest vote only garnered 5 points. But it was more than the 1 I gave
stories I could only think of one thing to say for. Or the 3's I liked but
didn't LOVE.

Now, on the math of voting. Not every 10-point getter wins. 5 3-point
reviews beat out 1 10-point review. So, yes, Fredita could beat Fred, even
in the same category. But if Fred got 3 10-pointers, and Fredita only got
10 3-pointers, even a 1 point vote would break that tie. So even a short
vote can decide a winner. Like Rhode Island may some day have the deciding
vote in the Electoral College. (It COULD happen, I suppose.)

Why points instead of straight character count? I don't know right off. Is
there some mathmetician or statistician out there who can give us the pros
and cons? At first glance, I'm saying "why not?" but I wonder if there's
not a deeper issue I'm not seeing.

--Ainae



> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Marta Layton
> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 6:09 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: Re: points and various voting
> matters (Thundera Tiger)
>
> > Message: 18
> > Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 09:13:40 GMT
> > From: "Laura" <thunderalaura@juno.com>
> > Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
> >
> > -- "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> >>> I heartily agree that review quality is more important than
> >>> quantity. But are short reviews necessarily of lesser
> quality than
> >>> long ones? While I'll admit that my reviews got progressively
> >>> shorter as the voting deadline approached, I tried to say
> something
> >>> substantive in each of them, and don't believe that my 3- and
> >>> 4-pointers were inferior to my longer ones.
> >
> > Dreamflower made the same point, and I agree with you. You
> can fit a
> > lot into 3- and 4 point reviews. Quality does not necessarily imply
> > length.
> >
> > However...
> >
> > You can fit MORE into a 10-point review. More to the point, you can
> > fit in specifics. I think part of this might be coming from
> how people
> > went about making reviews bigger. For what I felt was a
> good story, I
> > would comment on overall feel, some characterization points, and
> > things like that. For what I felt was a GREAT story, I went through
> > and found specifics. I'd comment on the overall feel and
> then point to
> > why the feel was there, how it was achieved, and why it was such an
> > effective use of style, tone, characterization, or whatever
> it was the
> > author did so well. It's the specifics that I find most
> valuable when
> > getting reviews. I have no idea what other people think of
> them, but I
> > can point to several reviews I received where the reviewer
> listed out
> > specifics they liked, specifics they didn't like, what worked, what
> > didn't work, etc. And to me, that was the most valuable kind of
> > review.
> >
> > Anyway, the need to get a story up to 10 points was often
> what drove
> > me to find those specifics. Otherwise, pressed for time, I
> would leave
> > it at an overall impression, maybe point out a few
> instances, and then
> > move on. But for stories that I thought really deserved a
> closer look,
> > I tried to get them up to 7, 8, 9, or 10 points by picking out the
> > why. I'm NOT saying my reviews are examples of quality. I'm
> known for
> > being long-winded and I do tend to ramble. What I'm saying,
> though, is
> > that the stories that inspired me to go back through and figure out
> > just why they impacted me the way they did deserve more recognition
> > than what a 3-point margin can give.
> >
> > At least, that's my opinion.
> >
> > So were some of the 10-point reviews inflated? Artificially padded?
> > Sure. Some of them probably were. But if the reviewer felt strongly
> > enough to go through and pad the review, I think that story
> needs to
> > receive a bit more recognition than the proposed five points.
> >
> > Again, just my opinion.
> >
> >
> Thank you for pointing this out - I was going to make a post
> much to this same point.
>
> It seems that a lot of people think that a longer review has
> to be rambly and inflated somehow; that's the feeling I'm
> getting, at least.
> But a longer review doesn't have to be less focused, it could
> just have more meat to it, like you said. To give some
> reference I just took two professional book reviews from the
> New York Times; one is 3,276 characthers and the other is 6,897.
>
> Now, I'm not saying that longer reviews are necessarily
> better -- I don't think one length will always be better than
> the other. And there's the rub. Unfortunately, there's not a
> nice neat way to gauge the quality of a review. I think the
> best we can do is stick with what we have to give the most
> points to the longest rweviews, and encourage people to write
> good-quality reviews whatever other ways we can.
>
> Cheers,
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6632

Re: Author Reviews (Was: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 18:39:42 Topic ID# 6550
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of rabidsamfan
> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 6:26 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters

>
> Assuming the author categories don't go another direction
> entirely (the most popular option under discussion right now,
> but the most complicated to
> enact) due to lack of time for coding, whatever, as I
> understand it the other three present suggestions are:
>
> B. leave things as they are
> C. be able to automatically distribute an author review to
> all (or some) of the categories where an author has entries
> via checkbox.
> D. to have the option to go from the story review entry
> process to an author review entry box which does (but doesn't
> have to) duplicate the story review to give the reviewer a
> chance to edit and change things around to make it more
> appropriate as an author review.
>
> Option B works, obviously, although it was a little clunky.

Agreed.

> I think option C preserves the most annoying aspect of option
> B, (getting five identical reviews even if they were in
> different categories) and adds some more difficulties, some
> of which are solvable if you have to choose which categories
> to disperse the copies to and the copies are automatically
> entered as something besides "final" so they can be edited.
>
> Option D -- and I'll be honest, it was my idea -- is
> technically possible according to Anthony, and in my mind it
> puts the process of creating an author review into greater
> prominence, which should mean more participation.

But it also leaves it VERY likely someone will just leave their "story"
review AS IS and submit it as an "author" review. If the story review
automatically propogates into that box, it will happen. I don't mind being
taken to a form for Author review immediately (and pulling up what you
previously put there if there is an existing review). But I do mind copying
story reviews as author reviews.

> Say I read a lovely story by Fred, and wrote a story review that went
>
> "'Babbling Balrogs' is a delightful look at the home life of
> the balrog family where they live deep under the mines of
> Moria. In a few deft lines Fred creates an idyll which is
> waiting to be shattered when a falling stone lands in the
> bowl of porridge that Mrs. Balrog is about to serve to her
> rambunctious, but cute twins. Fred has a mastery of humorous
> situations and characters that is worth a good deal of envy,
> and can write dialogue that is outrageously forsooth without
> being unintelligible."
>
> With a way to go straight to the author review -- a button
> right at the "submit review" page -- I might take that same
> paragraph and delete everything above "Fred has a mastery of
> ..." and then append a sentence or two about characterization.
>
> If I had written a story review which was mostly gushing
> about the writing, it probably could serve as an author
> review as well, but I think if the process of creating the
> author review is that close in time, most reviewers will edit
> a bit. And since the story reviews are counted in one
> contest and the author reviews are counted in a different
> contest, I don't think that it's that horrible if they're
> very similar.

2 issues. 1 mentioned above (I think NOT editing will happen more often than
you think.). 2 being that an author may have 3 stories gaining them
eligibility in an author category. You read the first one, write your
review and up comes that box. Let's say you DO edit it. Then you go and
read another one. You write your review and up comes that box again and
...what?

Did it overwrite what you previously had? Did it append your second story
vote to it?

There's no cap on the number of stories an author could have to make them
eligible for one author category. They still only get one nomination in
that category. That part won't change. So that makes a technical issue.
The first issue is more an ethical one.

--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

Msg# 6633

Re: Author Award changes Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 05, 2006 - 18:50:40 Topic ID# 6605
Probably the last one before I leave work. My hand is beginning to cramp.
And I go home in 20 minutes.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of sulriel
> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 2:28 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Author Award changes
>

> ***
>
> I'm thinking a couple of things, and I know this is an area
> where I've put my foot in it in the past, so please read this
> as I'm treading lightly and mean NO OFFENSE to *anyone*.
>
> I do believe that writing demands a combination of skills,
> both emotional and technical, and author awards are the
> natural place to reward those. I would, personally, be happy
> to go nuts thinking up good ways to award authors technical
> and creative achievement buttons, - and would strongly
> support Inkling's and Dwim's suggestions above. - but also we
> need to remember that this is specifically a hobbyist fandom
> and love and professional excellence don't always go hand in
> hand. - that, often, striving for technical correctness
> simply causes stress rather than an improved story.
>
> Speaking from personal experience, it seems that whenever
> I've been part of discussions in this fandom regarding the
> technical aspects of writing (as opposed to the emotional
> and/or creative aspects) is when I've seen the most hurt and
> the most vicious backlashings and I'd like to see these
> awards stay away from that.

In discussion groups yes, but there is the "if you can't say something nice,
don't say it" thing about the MEFAs. Bad reviews count for just as many +
points as do glowing ones. There are no - points. So if you go on for 1000
characters on how a particular writer was nothing but a wanna-be hack, you
might just hand that hack an award. Not what you want to do. So, ideally,
there won't be any flames in the reviews. I have been known to slip in a
constructive phrase here and there but always move on to the positive: Like
"Despite the many typos, this story was delightful...." If the author likes
all the positive, she/he might also take to heart the need to spell check.
If they don't care, they can just take the ego-boost and go on from there.

> I have a couple of suggestions to throw on the table - first
> with the comment that I'm not sure how much work any of this
> would be for Anthony.
>
> 1. my suggestion would be to have the authors automatically go into
> the forms categories when their story's nomination was accepted.
> epic, novel, novella, short story, vignette, drabble, poetry.
> These will be big categories, what about awarding more than
> three places - or like the story awards, award HMs to a
> percent of the overall category.
>
> 2. my other and/or semi-related suggestion is to have author
> nominations separate from the story nominations. This is
> where you could have categories on active dialogue,
> true-to-canon characterization, engaging original
> characterizations, style, plots & well-woven subplot,
> brilliant first line, satisfying ending, most surprising yet
> logical plot twist. - all of those sorts of things.
> plot act, character growth, most terrifying use of conflict.
> (#2 would of course be limited to authors who had stories in
> the MEFAs)

Sorry, gotta veto that one from the start. I'd LOVE to have this be a
little clost to ASC in this regard: If you post, your nominated. Unless you
say otherwise. But we don't post stories or store them in an archive and
that is the ONLY reason why we have nominations at all. But wouldn't you
feel bad if your story was nominated and you weren't?

That's just like in ASC when I go NO votes for DS9 Author. And man, it did
hurt.

I realize that pleasing everyone, all the time, is impossible, but I ideally
don't want to design the MEFAs in ways that will hurt.

> - so instead of having my #1 and #2 as cate and subcates of
> each other, they would all be main cates.

If it's easiest to write an author review right after you've read the story,
having them too separate rather negates that. If I wanted to comment on
Dwim as a horror author (as opposed to Dwim as a humor author), I'd want to
go to her horror-related author review right after reviewing her horror
story. Especially as my memory isn't so good.

Incidentally, this goes to my Fruit point. I'd have to read all Dwim's
short stories before I could comment on her as a short story author. And I'd
probably have to go reread them in order to remember them. And thus I'd be
less likely to write a review. For me, reading all her Humor stories is
easier (probably less of them in the breakdown) and then writing my review
of her as humor author.

--Ainaechoiriel
I used to have a very powerful mind. Really.

"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

Msg# 6634

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by Chris Grzonka January 05, 2006 - 19:17:08 Topic ID# 6604
I didn't want to get into this discussion but as someone who writes
notoriously short reviews I think I have to weigh in.

>If there's a voting system that will make it easier to write these
>short reviews as well, I think this will make it easier for those
>people who would write primarily short reviews to get involved. It
>would also make them feel like their contribution is valued -- both of
>which I think will make the awards run better.

I think Marta you hit here on the main point for me. I felt bad because, as
much as I tried, I was not able to write a 10 point review which would fit
my writing style and not feel inflated to me. I tried for one story but
couldn't do it. After that I gave up and didn't think about any point count.
The reviews got as long or as short as they would flow out of my keyboard.
When I looked over them, the majority ranged in the 3-5 point count and
there were some stories in there I would have loved to give more points. But
that would have taken the fun out of the awards for me. It would have felt
more like a dreaded paper had to be delivered in school.

Chris

Msg# 6635

Re: Author Reviews (Was: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting Posted by rabidsamfan January 05, 2006 - 20:33:15 Topic ID# 6550
Hmm. Hadn't thought of that... I mean, authors with more than one story in
a category. Yup, you're right, a blank or the previous author review in that
category to edit works better than my notion. I still like the idea of
having the author review get nudged when you're finishing a story review
better than the idea of propagating the same review over several categories,
but in the end I think what ever we do will have to conform more to
Anthony's time for coding than anything else.

On 1/5/06, Ainaechoiriel <mefaadmin@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of rabidsamfan
> > Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 6:26 PM
> > To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters
>
> >
> > Assuming the author categories don't go another direction
> > entirely (the most popular option under discussion right now,
> > but the most complicated to
> > enact) due to lack of time for coding, whatever, as I
> > understand it the other three present suggestions are:
> >
> > B. leave things as they are
> > C. be able to automatically distribute an author review to
> > all (or some) of the categories where an author has entries
> > via checkbox.
> > D. to have the option to go from the story review entry
> > process to an author review entry box which does (but doesn't
> > have to) duplicate the story review to give the reviewer a
> > chance to edit and change things around to make it more
> > appropriate as an author review.
> >
> > Option B works, obviously, although it was a little clunky.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > I think option C preserves the most annoying aspect of option
> > B, (getting five identical reviews even if they were in
> > different categories) and adds some more difficulties, some
> > of which are solvable if you have to choose which categories
> > to disperse the copies to and the copies are automatically
> > entered as something besides "final" so they can be edited.
> >
> > Option D -- and I'll be honest, it was my idea -- is
> > technically possible according to Anthony, and in my mind it
> > puts the process of creating an author review into greater
> > prominence, which should mean more participation.
>
> But it also leaves it VERY likely someone will just leave their "story"
> review AS IS and submit it as an "author" review. If the story review
> automatically propogates into that box, it will happen. I don't mind
> being
> taken to a form for Author review immediately (and pulling up what you
> previously put there if there is an existing review). But I do mind
> copying
> story reviews as author reviews.
>
> > Say I read a lovely story by Fred, and wrote a story review that went
> >
> > "'Babbling Balrogs' is a delightful look at the home life of
> > the balrog family where they live deep under the mines of
> > Moria. In a few deft lines Fred creates an idyll which is
> > waiting to be shattered when a falling stone lands in the
> > bowl of porridge that Mrs. Balrog is about to serve to her
> > rambunctious, but cute twins. Fred has a mastery of humorous
> > situations and characters that is worth a good deal of envy,
> > and can write dialogue that is outrageously forsooth without
> > being unintelligible."
> >
> > With a way to go straight to the author review -- a button
> > right at the "submit review" page -- I might take that same
> > paragraph and delete everything above "Fred has a mastery of
> > ..." and then append a sentence or two about characterization.
> >
> > If I had written a story review which was mostly gushing
> > about the writing, it probably could serve as an author
> > review as well, but I think if the process of creating the
> > author review is that close in time, most reviewers will edit
> > a bit. And since the story reviews are counted in one
> > contest and the author reviews are counted in a different
> > contest, I don't think that it's that horrible if they're
> > very similar.
>
> 2 issues. 1 mentioned above (I think NOT editing will happen more often
> than
> you think.). 2 being that an author may have 3 stories gaining them
> eligibility in an author category. You read the first one, write your
> review and up comes that box. Let's say you DO edit it. Then you go and
> read another one. You write your review and up comes that box again and
> ...what?
>
> Did it overwrite what you previously had? Did it append your second story
> vote to it?
>
> There's no cap on the number of stories an author could have to make them
> eligible for one author category. They still only get one nomination in
> that category. That part won't change. So that makes a technical issue.
> The first issue is more an ethical one.
>
> --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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Msg# 6636

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by rabidsamfan January 05, 2006 - 20:47:34 Topic ID# 6604
I'd guess that some people probably tend to range in reviews from 1 to
about six pointers and others range from three to ten, but it doesn't matter
much because each reviewers range still weights their choices fairly among
the stories. So a person who usually writes short reviews might be lower in
the numbers but still be giving an accurate indication of their opinion
overall.

If it wouldn't be such a pain in the arse to figure out how to do it, I'd
say don't tell reviewers how many points they've given out when
they're composing or editing reviews -- just show them the list of stories
from that subcategory ranked in order with "unreviewed" at the bottom of the
list. That way you could adjust your reviews to get the stories in the
preferred order if you really wanted to, and ignore the whole "number of
points" question if you felt like it too. You'd only be comparing your own
efforts to your own efforts as a reviewer.

Obviously I am getting too tired to be allowed at a keyboard. Goodnight
all!

On 1/5/06, Chris Grzonka <grzonka@adelphia.net> wrote:

> I didn't want to get into this discussion but as someone who writes
> notoriously short reviews I think I have to weigh in.
>
> >If there's a voting system that will make it easier to write these
> >short reviews as well, I think this will make it easier for those
> >people who would write primarily short reviews to get involved. It
> >would also make them feel like their contribution is valued -- both of
> >which I think will make the awards run better.
>
> I think Marta you hit here on the main point for me. I felt bad because,
> as
> much as I tried, I was not able to write a 10 point review which would fit
> my writing style and not feel inflated to me. I tried for one story but
> couldn't do it. After that I gave up and didn't think about any point
> count.
> The reviews got as long or as short as they would flow out of my keyboard.
> When I looked over them, the majority ranged in the 3-5 point count and
> there were some stories in there I would have loved to give more points.
> But
> that would have taken the fun out of the awards for me. It would have felt
> more like a dreaded paper had to be delivered in school.
>
> Chris
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> 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:
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> <MEFAwards-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>
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> ------------------------------
>


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

Msg# 6637

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by Kathy January 06, 2006 - 1:26:23 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...>
wrote:
>
> I like the idea in theory. It's the imagining of "in practice" that
> scares the daylights out of me. How would you decide which authors
> would be in those "best opening line" categories? And really that's
> a story issue, not an author one unless you're commening on all the
> opening lines an author wrote....
>
> But my point is, every author. Every author of every story wrote
> an opening line. Thus every author would be eligible in that
> category. And every other category like "characterization"
> or "plotting" (okay, except the PWP's but unless I missed that in
> the post-mortem--and I've missed a lot--those aren't likely to be
> here anyway.)
>
> Every author would elibigle for nearly every category.

Yeah, I guess that's how I would do it. And I now realize that may
not be what Sulriel was suggesting when she said "separate
nominations" for author categories...I didn't really focus on the
implications of that. Sure, you could do it, but I kind of favor the
inclusive approach, saying everyone is eligible and having a bunch of
awards--perhaps unranked--within each category to accommodate the
number of nominees. I know this is kind of radical and may present
all sorts of conceptual and logistical problems, but it seemed worth
trying to think outside the box. And I do think there are lots of fun
categories we could come up with in this area...

I also realize it may be too close to the opening of the 06 Awards to
implement such a drastic change, but maybe it's something we can
continue to think about for 07. I would be happy to keep
brainstorming ways to do it with anyone else who was interested over
the course of the next year.

As for the current author award system, as I've said before, I just
don't understand it...or rather, I don't see it being practiced the
way it's explained. I saw way too many author reviews that read just
like story reviews, and while some may not think that's a problem, my
question is, what's the point? It just becomes nothing more than a
duplicate/parallel awards system.

So if it came down to a poll about whether to retain the author
awards in their current form, I guess I'd vote no. But since I
didn't participate in them last year and most likely won't this year
(unless they changed in some way that worked for me), as a
nonparticipant I feel kind of uncomfortable advocating their demise…
so will leave that to others to decide!

Kathy (Inkling)

> >
> > --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
> > >> > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...>> > I like your idea, Dwim,
though
> > I think we would definitely want to
> > > > look at adding some categories to supplement story forms, as
you
> > > > suggested...in addition to characterization, perhaps
descriptive
> > > > writing, dialogue, suspense, etc. It might even be fun to
have
> > > > author awards for things like "best opening line"...one
> > of the most
> > > > important elements of a story, IMO. It's usually what
> > entices me to
> > > > read a story--or not.
> > >
> > > Oh my! I *really like this: speaking to an author's strengths
*as
> > an > author*, and not simply within the confines of a single
story.
> > Forms would > be one way, but adding such things as
> > characterization, dialogue, > descriptive writing, plotting,
> > and so forth would add a whole new element to > voting for
> > the author awards--it would increase the number of categories
> > of > author awards from just drabble, poem, short story,
> > vignette, novel and so > open it up to be more author awards
> > that could be given <<snipped>>
> > > Yes, I do indeed like *this* idea very much!
> > > > Dreamflower
> > > (Barbara)
> >
> >
> > I third this - wonderful idea!
> >
> > Sulriel
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Kathy (Inkling)
> > > >
> > > > --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik"
> > <dwimmer_laik@y...>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Ok, so with author reviews, we've got the problem of the
Freds of
> > > > the
> > > >> world versus the Freditas, and the sense that author awards
are
> > > >> artificially fragmenting an author's work, encouraging
> > meaningless
> > > >> repetition of reviews which then results in bizarre rankings,
> > where
> > > >> someone wins an author award for "The Hobbit" drabbles on the
> > basis
> > > > of
> > > >> work s/he did as a novelist in the Horror category and
> > some humor
> > > >> pieces. Also, it's not always clear how to distinguish
> > the author
> > > >> review from the story review, leading to questions about why
we
> > > > should
> > > >> allow copying author reviews and not copying of story
reviews.
> > > >>
> > > >> We need a compromise that gives us sensible author review
> > > > categories that
> > > >>
> > > >> 1) do not seem artificially to fragment an author's work,
> > resulting
> > > > in
> > > >> weird copy-pastes that result in even weirder rankings;
> > > >>
> > > >> 2) are distinct enough from story reviews that we don't just
> > repeat
> > > > or
> > > >> extend story reviews;
> > > >>
> > > >> 3) are not so all-inclusive as to make competition absolutely
> > > > cutthroat;
> > > >>
> > > >> 4) are organized in a manner that is less confusing all
around,
> > > >> thereby encouraging more people to actually review authors.
> > > >>
> > > >> What if we changed things up somewhat for author awards and
> > looked
> > > > at
> > > >> *forms* of writing? Poetry, non-fiction, ficlet, short story,
> > > > novella,
> > > >> novel, drabble, drabble cycle: these are all things that
authors
> > > > would
> > > >> have to select when filling out their story forms. So it's
not
> > like
> > > >> we'd be making any executive decisions about how to classify
an
> > > >> author's work--the author has done it for us. That would
> > be a big
> > > >> benefit, requiring no extra work or forms for anyone.
> > > >>
> > > >> The other benefit would be that we consolidate groups of
authors
> > > >> across the story-awards genres and subgenres into logical
> > categories
> > > >> that are specific enough that we have some idea of how to
compare
> > > > the
> > > >> authors. The form of their writing holds them together
> > across the
> > > >> divisions we'd imposed to judge stories against each
> > other, so it
> > > >> wouldn't work to just copy a review about an author's skill
as a
> > > >> writer of novels into the poet category, for example. It
makes
> > sense
> > > >> to write a different review.
> > > >>
> > > >> At the same time, using form instead of content as the basis
of
> > > >> categorizing the author awards gives us enough abstraction
that
> > we
> > > >> don't need to deal with author awards in subcategories, which
> > would
> > > >> cut down on a sense of pernicious repetition. It's also just
> > > > extending
> > > >> an already existing trend (see below).
> > > >>
> > > >> Now, it is true, there's a reason we split the stories into
> > > > different
> > > >> categories and subcategories--but we've got the story awards
to
> > deal
> > > >> with recognizing merits of specific content. Author awards
are (I
> > > >> think) about assessing individual style and a more general
sense
> > of
> > > >> substance within certain, more abstract bounds
> > than "Silmarillion:
> > > >> drabble cycle", for example. So we're not doing an injustice
by
> > > >> comparing incomparables here.
> > > >>
> > > >> Would it be more competitive than the current scenario? Yes,
it
> > > > would
> > > >> be. There would be more people competing for author awards
under
> > any
> > > >> form-based category than in any individual story category
since
> > > >> *every* drabbler and *every* novelist would be elligible for
an
> > > > author
> > > >> award for writing drabbles or novels, irrespective of whether
> > they
> > > >> wrote the novel about Silm characters of Ring-war characters,
> > > > whether
> > > >> they wrote the drabbles about hobbits or dragons.
> > > >>
> > > >> Also, by moving away from category/subcategory combinations
> > > > currently
> > > >> used for author awards, we would have fewer categories to
compete
> > > > in.
> > > >> However, there are only three subcategories within any given
> > author
> > > >> awards category anyway: general, drabble, and poetry, which
> > already
> > > >> tends in the direction of recognizing *form*, but does not
go all
> > > > the
> > > >> way and recognize that novels are a unique form or that
vignettes
> > > > are
> > > >> a unique form, each requiring different skills to pull
> > off. Those
> > > >> kinds of stories compete together under "general." So this
would
> > > >> rectify that situation in a way by recognizing different
skill
> > > > sets.
> > > >>
> > > >> Against the fear that this would be too cutthroat, it's
> > much more
> > > >> competitive (and I think a fairer competition in some cases,
> > where
> > > >> maybe only two poets make up an entire
> > category/subcategory combo
> > > >> elligible for author awards, whereas a different c/s combo
might
> > pit
> > > >> twenty poets against each other) than being allowed only
> > a single
> > > >> author review for any given author.
> > > >>
> > > >> So I think (I hope) this would meet all four of what I
> > see as the
> > > >> major problems we currently have with author reviews and
awards.
> > I'm
> > > >> fairly certain that we could come up with a few more
categories
> > that
> > > >> wouldn't repeat the story award categories if desired (maybe
an
> > > > award
> > > >> for characterization, for example, or splitting non-fiction
into
> > > > essay
> > > >> and research article since those do require totally different
> > > > skills).
> > > >> But the basic idea hopefully would be a way out of our
current
> > > >> difficulties.
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> Taking the above sketch as a possibility for reorganizing
author
> > > >> reviews, and combining it with my request for a simpler user
> > > > interface
> > > >> when it comes to writing those author reviews, I could
> > see a page
> > > >> somewhat like this (and I hope yahoo doesn't destroy the
> > formatting)
> > > >> to try and streamline things, make them clearer, and
hopefully
> > > >> encourage more author reviewing because it would be less
> > confusing:
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >
> Author Name: Dwym the Evil Twyn
> > > >>
> > > >> Story Title Story Type Have I
> > > > Reviewed?
> > > >>
> > > >> <link>Gimli's Gift</link> Short Story
> > > > <link>Yes</link>
> > > >>
> > > >> <link>Oops, I Sued It Again!</link> Short Story No
> > > >>
> > > >> _____________________________________
> > > >>
> > > >> Enter Author Review for Short Story: [text box]
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> <link>Fear and Loathing Novel
> > > > <link>Yes</link>
> > > >> in the White City</link>
> > > >>
> > > >> ______________________________________
> > > >>
> > > >> Enter Author Review for Novel:[text box]
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> <link>Grey</link> Drabble No
> > > >>
> > > >> <link>Purposive</link> Drabble No
> > > >>
> > > >> _____________________________________
> > > >>
> > > >> Enter Author Review for Drabble: [text box]
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> Etc., etc., and alphabetically by review category (as I
failed to
> > > > do).
> > > >>
> > > >> This I am taking as a possible modification of the author's
main
> > > > page
> > > >> on the website. It would give us every story the author has
> > written,
> > > >> links to the story (so we can read it if we want to before
> > writing
> > > > the
> > > >> author review), the category it is listed under *for the
> > purposes of
> > > >> author reviews*, and a notice whether I've reviewed the story
> > (and
> > > > if
> > > >> I have, a quick way to see what I'd said and so refresh my
> > > >> memory--best if opens in a new screen). It automatically
breaks
> > up
> > > > the
> > > >> stories into the appropriate groups and offers us an
immediate
> > > >> opportunity to write an author review. It'd be easy to see in
> > what
> > > >> categories we had already reviewed the author since they'd be
> > right
> > > >> there. No fuss, no bother, no reloads.
> > > >>
> > > >> If we did revamp author pages this way, there'd have to
> > be a more
> > > >> obvious pointer towards them so that people would actually go
> > there
> > > > to
> > > >> review the author as an author, of course, but that's another
> > issue
> > > >> that can be handled if something like this page revision
were to
> > go
> > > >> through. I'm mainly using it as an illustration of how to
> > simplify
> > > > the
> > > >> process of reviewing authors and to show how the category
change
> > I'd
> > > >> proposed could be easily fitted into that revision.
> > > >>
> > > >> What do you all think?
> > > >>
> > > >> Dwim
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Msg# 6638

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by sulriel January 06, 2006 - 7:08:42 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
>> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...>
> wrote:
> >> > I like the idea in theory. It's the imagining of "in practice"
that > > scares the daylights out of me. How would you decide which
authors > > would be in those "best opening line" categories? And
really that's > > a story issue, not an author one unless you're
commening on all the > opening lines an author wrote....
> >
> > But my point is, every author. Every author of every story wrote
> > an opening line. Thus every author would be eligible in that
> > category. And every other category like "characterization"
> > or "plotting" (okay, except the PWP's but unless I missed that in
> > the post-mortem--and I've missed a lot--those aren't likely to be
> > here anyway.)
> >
> > Every author would elibigle for nearly every category.
>
> Yeah, I guess that's how I would do it. And I now realize that may
> not be what Sulriel was suggesting when she said "separate
> nominations" for author categories...I didn't really focus on the
> implications of that. Sure, you could do it, but I kind of favor
the > inclusive approach, saying everyone is eligible and having a
bunch of > awards--perhaps unranked--within each category to
accommodate the > number of nominees. I


Sorry I wasn't clearer, I was more about tossing out ideas than
making firm proposals.

What I had in mind was that every author would automatically go in
the form categories as their story nominations were confirmed. - #2
was an 'and/or', and meant for readers to nominate authors in the
technical, creative and fun categories.

I would be ok for every author to be automatically entered in the fun
cates, but it's not what I had in mind when I suggested it. What I
had in mind was that readers would have to nominate authors for these
categories. - I suspect that this, if wanted and possible, will need
to be put off until 2007, but I do like the idea.

Some of what was suggested, gripping opening line, satisfying ending,
would necessarily be associated with a particular story -
probably ... but I still think belongs as the author cate because
it's more about the writing than the individual story. As has been
pointed out, characterization, plotting, etc crosses all forms which
is why I see these as their own main cates.

... Inkling ... LOL re: "plot act" ... I have no idea! probably has
something to do with declination! :) ... I'm sure I must have
meant "plot arc" (a problem/conflict/resolution cycle)


- as an aside, I would be ok with either keeping the author awards
the same for this year or scrapping them entirely and maybe bringing
back a revamped system next year. I do think they're valid because
even though there is a lot of parallel, - if I remember - there were
some authors who did ok in the story awards, but earned more
recognition in the author awards, and I think that's saying good
things about the overall quality of the writing.


Sulriel

Msg# 6639

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by rabidsamfan January 06, 2006 - 7:16:14 Topic ID# 6550
On 1/6/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
>
>
> - as an aside, I would be ok with either keeping the author awards
> the same for this year or scrapping them entirely and maybe bringing
> back a revamped system next year. I do think they're valid because
> even though there is a lot of parallel, - if I remember - there were
> some authors who did ok in the story awards, but earned more
> recognition in the author awards, and I think that's saying good
> things about the overall quality of the writing.
>
>
> Sulriel


Now I want statistics. How many story awards were there? How many author
awards? How often did the top author award go to someone who hadn't won the
top story award, etc?

Data is a good thing. If no one has these numbers easily, I might be able
to hand count them if people ask for it, but I'm hoping that someone knows.


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

Msg# 6640

more about author reviews Posted by sulriel January 06, 2006 - 7:25:50 Topic ID# 6640
>>>Some of what was suggested, gripping opening line, satisfying
ending, would necessarily be associated with a particular story -
probably ... but I still think belongs as the author cate because
it's more about the writing than the individual story. As has been
pointed out, characterization, plotting, etc crosses all forms which
is why I see these as their own main cates.


I wanted to add, - I like these cates because while the form cates
should reward authors who have overall complete skillsets or strong
combinations. - these very awards (in my mind) would focus on very
specific strengths in the authors. I know these are the things that
should be commented on in the current author review system, - great OC
characterization or whatever, but I think it would help the reviewers
focus and would be fun and rewarding category titles.

Sulriel.

Msg# 6641

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by sulriel January 06, 2006 - 7:31:14 Topic ID# 6604
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...> wrote:
>
> I'd guess that some people probably tend to range in reviews from 1
to> about six pointers and others range from three to ten, but it
doesn't matter> much because each reviewers range still weights their
choices fairly among> the stories. So a person who usually writes
short reviews might be lower in> the numbers but still be giving an
accurate indication of their opinion> overall.
>


I do think reviewes tend to have a ranger they're comfortable in, and
that is mainly why I support the 1-5 spread, because I think that
helps to level the field between reviewers *styles* while still
rewarding authors that the authors like enough to write more about.

Sulriel

Msg# 6642

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by sulriel January 06, 2006 - 7:46:22 Topic ID# 6550
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...> wrote:
>> On 1/6/06, sulriel <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> >> >> > - as an aside, I would be ok with either keeping the author
awards> > the same for this year or scrapping them entirely and maybe
bringing> > back a revamped system next year. I do think they're
valid because> > even though there is a lot of parallel, - if I
remember - there were> > some authors who did ok in the story awards,
but earned more> > recognition in the author awards, and I think
that's saying good> > things about the overall quality of the writing.
> >> >> > Sulriel
>
>
> Now I want statistics. How many story awards were there? How many
author> awards? How often did the top author award go to someone who
adn't won the> top story award, etc?> > Data is a good thing. If no
one has these numbers easily, I might be able> to hand count them if
people ask for it, but I'm hoping that someone knows.


agreed, it might be a good idea to look at the numbers, but I'm not
sure exactly what to look at or what they would show.

If the author of the first place story also got the first place author
award ... ? ... I do think that's *good* because the author awards
were only recongized for the main categories, that's like getting
first in your division (sub-cate) and first in your region (main
cate). and I think that's a good kind of icing for the authors who
can do it. :)

OTOH, I can understand the arguement that the author has already been
recognized through the story award and so why give them a second award
for the same work? ((which would be an arguement for the seperate
nominations in basically unrelated categories))


Sulriel

Msg# 6643

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by rabidsamfan January 06, 2006 - 10:36:31 Topic ID# 6604
On the other hand, narrowing the number of points makes it harder for a
single reviewer to give different votes to stories in the same subcategory.


With a ten point spread, it was fairly easy to write a little more and make
it to the next "point" zone, but with only a five point spread over the same
number of characters, a reviewer who really wanted to make one or two
stories stand out over the others has to shell out a lot more characters to
make any difference. Personally, I think that's a disadvantage for the
people who naturally write short reviews, not an advantage. Which is one of
the reasons why I'd rather do straight, or weighted character counts. Then
when I'm looking at a drabble subcategory I can easily write five reviews of

70, 90, 110, 115 and 150 characters or so and still convey how much better I
thought the last one was to the first one. With the point system, I'd be
looking at five reviews which either split into two groups or even all seem
to be equivalent.


On 1/6/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...> wrote:
> >
> > I'd guess that some people probably tend to range in reviews from 1
> to> about six pointers and others range from three to ten, but it
> doesn't matter> much because each reviewers range still weights their
> choices fairly among> the stories. So a person who usually writes
> short reviews might be lower in> the numbers but still be giving an
> accurate indication of their opinion> overall.
> >
>
>
> I do think reviewes tend to have a ranger they're comfortable in, and
> that is mainly why I support the 1-5 spread, because I think that
> helps to level the field between reviewers *styles* while still
> rewarding authors that the authors like enough to write more about.
>
> Sulriel
>
>
>
>
>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Msg# 6644

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 06, 2006 - 14:47:35 Topic ID# 6550
>
> Now I want statistics. How many story awards were there? How many
author
> awards?

A lot. I've just moved everything to a spreadsheet. Story awards, both
ranked and with honorable mentions, are over 550 (haven't allowed for
skipped lines or the column titles). Author awards are far fewer. At
best, you would have 207 ranked author awards (23 categories x a
maximum of three subcategories x 3 ranked places), but (1) not every
category has 3 subcategories for author awards, (2) not every main
category had thee ranked placements (some only had first place or the
first two places), and (3) I haven't counted honorable mentions in the
figure of 207.

How often did the top author award go to someone who hadn't won the
> top story award, etc?

I've started the process of marking author awards that...

1) went to someone who didn't win a story award at all within the
entire category

2) went to someone who won a ranked award but in a different
subcategory (a little weird since 'general' covers any category that
isn't a drabble or poetry, so technically, there are more of these
than I can actually think of counting)

3) went to someone who had won an honorable mention but not a ranked
award in the story awards.

There are a fair number in each of the three categories, though I
haven't finished counting yet, and I'm getting tired already.

It is also the case that the top author award did go a few times to
someone who didn't place first in the story awards categories, but
that's a different statistic.

It's a giant spreadsheet. I'll post it when I'm done with it for the
list's perusal.

Dwim

Msg# 6645

Author/Story Awards comparison Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 06, 2006 - 16:23:04 Topic ID# 6645
Just uploaded the spreadsheet: Author Awards.xls is now in the Files
section.

Hopefully, there aren't too many errors, but my fingers and eyes are
tired after all this!

General notes:

Ranked award-- 1, 2, or 3

Placed, placing-- honorable mention (HM). Placing is more general than
ranking.

It happens relatively frequently that the person placing first in the
author awards did not place first in the story awards. It also has
happened several times that someone would win a ranked author award or
place in the author awards who did not place at all in the story awards.

Dwim

Msg# 6646

Re: Author/Story Awards comparison Posted by rabidsamfan January 06, 2006 - 17:15:59 Topic ID# 6645
Excellent! Thank you. Now we just have to mumble over the numbers and
decide what they mean.

On 1/6/06, dwimmer_laik <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Just uploaded the spreadsheet: Author Awards.xls is now in the Files
> section.
>
> Hopefully, there aren't too many errors, but my fingers and eyes are
> tired after all this!
>
> General notes:
>
> Ranked award-- 1, 2, or 3
>
> Placed, placing-- honorable mention (HM). Placing is more general than
> ranking.
>
> It happens relatively frequently that the person placing first in the
> author awards did not place first in the story awards. It also has
> happened several times that someone would win a ranked author award or
> place in the author awards who did not place at all in the story awards.
>
> Dwim
>
>
>
>
>
> SPONSORED LINKS
> Writing child book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+child+book&w1=Writing+child+book&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Book+writing+software&w4=Creative+writing+book&w5=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=158&.sig=XF7itAg9xE-iINmuetTQxQ> Business
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> writing book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Creative+writing+book&w1=Writing+child+book&w2=Business+writing+book&w3=Book+writing+software&w4=Creative+writing+book&w5=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w6=Writing+book&c=6&s=158&.sig=uqC4OrceiGS0YdRXR2_e2g> Writing
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> ------------------------------
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> - To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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Msg# 6647

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by Anthony Holder January 06, 2006 - 17:33:57 Topic ID# 6604
On Jan 5, 2006, at 8:47 PM, rabidsamfan wrote:

> If it wouldn't be such a pain in the arse to figure out how to do it,
> I'd
> say don't tell reviewers how many points they've given out when
> they're composing or editing reviews -- just show them the list of
> stories
> from that subcategory ranked in order with "unreviewed" at the bottom
> of the
> list. That way you could adjust your reviews to get the stories in the
> preferred order if you really wanted to, and ignore the whole "number
> of
> points" question if you felt like it too. You'd only be comparing
> your own
> efforts to your own efforts as a reviewer.

RSF, this'll be at the bottom of the list, but it might be possible.
Sorting is fairly easy, as is linking the review character count to the
story so it can be sorted.

About the story review showing up in the Author review box, I was
thinking that I could put it on the page, but not in the box. I might
be able to show all your reviews in that category, as well. If you want
(and I have time to) to change the Author Reviews around so they aren't
category-based, then which Author review should you be taken to?
There'd have to be a page with links to all the possible author reviews
for that author.

Anthony

Msg# 6648

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 06, 2006 - 20:08:28 Topic ID# 6604
Secret point count: coded so Staff can see it to be sure it's legit and
shown after?

Interesting idea....

--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 rabidsamfan
> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 8:48 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: Re: points and various voting
> matters (Anthony)
>
> I'd guess that some people probably tend to range in reviews
> from 1 to about six pointers and others range from three to
> ten, but it doesn't matter much because each reviewers range
> still weights their choices fairly among the stories. So a
> person who usually writes short reviews might be lower in the
> numbers but still be giving an accurate indication of their
> opinion overall.
>
> If it wouldn't be such a pain in the arse to figure out how
> to do it, I'd say don't tell reviewers how many points
> they've given out when they're composing or editing reviews
> -- just show them the list of stories from that subcategory
> ranked in order with "unreviewed" at the bottom of the list.
> That way you could adjust your reviews to get the stories in
> the preferred order if you really wanted to, and ignore the
> whole "number of points" question if you felt like it too.
> You'd only be comparing your own efforts to your own efforts
> as a reviewer.
>
> Obviously I am getting too tired to be allowed at a keyboard.
> Goodnight all!
>
> On 1/5/06, Chris Grzonka <grzonka@adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> > I didn't want to get into this discussion but as someone who writes
> > notoriously short reviews I think I have to weigh in.
> >
> > >If there's a voting system that will make it easier to write these
> > >short reviews as well, I think this will make it easier for those
> > >people who would write primarily short reviews to get involved. It
> > >would also make them feel like their contribution is
> valued -- both
> > >of which I think will make the awards run better.
> >
> > I think Marta you hit here on the main point for me. I felt bad
> > because, as much as I tried, I was not able to write a 10
> point review
> > which would fit my writing style and not feel inflated to
> me. I tried
> > for one story but couldn't do it. After that I gave up and didn't
> > think about any point count.
> > The reviews got as long or as short as they would flow out
> of my keyboard.
> > When I looked over them, the majority ranged in the 3-5 point count
> > and there were some stories in there I would have loved to
> give more points.
> > But
> > that would have taken the fun out of the awards for me. It
> would have
> > felt more like a dreaded paper had to be delivered in school.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > 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]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6649

Re: Author/Story Awards comparison Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 06, 2006 - 20:50:16 Topic ID# 6645
Same thing in ASC, though I'm saying that without statistics. But thus my
big wins, 4 years out of 8 in Story categories but never in Author ones.

--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 dwimmer_laik
> Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 4:23 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Author/Story Awards comparison
>
> Just uploaded the spreadsheet: Author Awards.xls is now in
> the Files section.
>
> Hopefully, there aren't too many errors, but my fingers and
> eyes are tired after all this!
>
> General notes:
>
> Ranked award-- 1, 2, or 3
>
> Placed, placing-- honorable mention (HM). Placing is more
> general than ranking.
>
> It happens relatively frequently that the person placing
> first in the author awards did not place first in the story
> awards. It also has happened several times that someone would
> win a ranked author award or place in the author awards who
> did not place at all in the story awards.
>
> Dwim
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6650

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim) Posted by Marta Layton January 06, 2006 - 23:19:19 Topic ID# 6581
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 10:08:35 -0000
> From: "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
>>
>> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura" <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>> In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In
>> my opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points) encourages
>> longer reviews and rewards stories that deserve said reviews. A lower
>> point cap (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more reviews,
>> but on average, they would be shorter as the competitive advantage
>> gained by long reviews would be lost.
>> latter.
>
>> I heartily agree that review quality is more important than quantity.
>> But are short reviews necessarily of lesser quality than
>> long ones?
>
> Two things seem to be going on here:
>
> Firstly:
>
> On the one hand, against Thundera's position, the question is raised:
> on what basis do we think that longer reviews are qualitatively
> superior to shorter ones, such that they merit being recognized by a
> wider points spread? Valid question, but I'd point out that just
> raising that as a question does not entitle us to conclude that in
> fact, shorter reviews are either superior to longer ones *or* that
> they are equal in value, and so it's a good idea to alter the points
> scale to give them more weight.
>

Very good question. As I thought about it, it occurred to me that while
longer reviews may not be better than shorter reviews, they at least
have the potential to cover more. Let's say that in 150 points I can do
a good job explaining why I like a certain element of a story - the
plot, canonicity, pacing, characterisation, theme, whatever. So in a
2-3 point review i can cover one or two of these areas. In a 7-point
review I can probably manage 4-5 if I want to. It's entirely possible
that I will have a lot of padding, but the *potential* is at least
there. Shorter reviews just can't cover as much material as a longer
review can (note I say can, not will).

Also I think for most people, it will take longer to write a longer
review than a shorter one. I may be able to write a 7-point review
quicker than you can write a 3-pointer, but I will spend longer on the
average 7-point review than I would to write a 3-point review. Simply
because there's less to write in the latter. So whether the longer
review is intrinsically better, we give more points to recognise the
greater investment of time.

> On the other hand, against the position that we should change the
> points scale to privilege shorter reviews, the underlying assumption
> that seems to be at work is that a long review is likely to be padded
> and so 'fake' in some sense, based on the fact that the questioner
> felt like s/he was padding his/her reviews when s/he tried to do
> longer ones. That may be very true sometimes and the rules in fact
> encourage this, or at least I recall that when questions came up about
> not having anything more to say but wanting to give more points to a
> story, the advice was: Stretch it out. Find a way to say more, even if
> it is fluffifying the review.
>
> However, that isn't true of every long review, and personal experience
> doesn't seem terribly helpful here. Personally, I found that taking
> the time to analyze a piece and saying to myself, "I think this is a
> ten-pointer and need to write about that much," made me see things
> about the story I wouldn't have been able to articulate on a first
> reaction. I've also found that in general, a more thought-out response
> is nicer than one that seems to be an immediate outpouring of raw
> reaction.
>

For the record, I know I proposed a point system that might favor
shorter reviews. But this isn't because I think longer reviews are
inflated. It's a very pragmatic concern - I've never heard any
complaints that longer reviews are too much work ffor the number of
points, but I have heard lots of complaints that people don't feel like
short reviews are worthwhile. If there's something in the point system
that can be changed to help solve this problem that's a change I'm
willing to consider - because that's where I saw the problem this year.

> Secondly, and I think more importantly, the issue has been almost
> immediately transformed from "What would be the advantages and
> disadvantages of changing the points thresholds *and* lowering the
> points cap by half?" into "How long does a review have to be before it
> is good?" We can't answer the second question (other than that they
> are as long as they need to be to say what you think you need to say
> about the story's good qualities, whether that's 1 word or 2,000+
> characters), but the first one strikes me as answerable without having
> to go through the quality argument.
>

I agree here - I'm a bit of a pragmatist here, and which type is
"better" is really immaterial to what the point limits would be isn't
really that material. I want people who tend to write reviews of all
lengths to feel like their reviewing is valued and important at the
MEFAs.

Marta

Msg# 6651

Author Awards, one more thought Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 06, 2006 - 23:55:02 Topic ID# 6651
Setting asside the Fruit problem, I was just thinking of a compromise with
the Form plan and the Fruit problem. But I came back to another problem,
which I think can't quite override the Story-Category-Shadowing we do now.

Let's say we went to Form plan, leaving aside (is that one s or 2?--I really
used to be a wonderful speller.), and we look at the Short Story category.
In which we have just 3 authors. (As if.) Say the breakdown in reading
stories was the same as it is now, even though we're only talking about
three authors here. These three authors specialize. A writes only Silm
stuff. B writes only The Hobbit. And C writes LOTR. I could tell you
right now who would win the Short Story category, barring some unforeseen
occurance. C. Awould come in 2nd. And B would get 3rd.

Because LOTR gets more readers than Silm and both get more than The Hobbit.
And even if I'm wrong, it really could be as simple as that no matter how we
cut it. Genres. Cultures. How many people read Dwarf stories? Ent
stories? Elf stories? So who is likely to get the most author comments?
Elf stories, out of those three. What about characters? Well, we really
might have some contention between Aragorn writers and Legolas writers and
maybe some Hobbit writers. But what about those who specialize in unsung
heroes?

But do you see where I'm going? The only place Silm writers really have a
fair playing field is against other Silm writers. For example. I'm not
picking on Silm writers. Someone write me a Voronwe fic. I really grew to
like him in the UT.

Anyway, that's the problem I came to. My compromise idea was that we have
Shadowing right now with 3 or 4 major forms as subcats, so my compromise
idea was to have Forms with 3 or 4 major genres as subcats, but I hit on the
popularity problem. The more popular story categories will bring more
readers to those stories in those categories and thus more potential author
votes. And thus it disadvantages writers of less popular story categories.

So what can we do about that? That's the main reason we can't move away
from Shadowing. Is there some we around it?

--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> http://gabrielle.sytes.net/mefa The
Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards

Blog: <http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com/>
http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com



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

Msg# 6652

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 07, 2006 - 0:04:02 Topic ID# 6581
I think there's a simple question that if we can answer it, will solve the
point issue:

How can we change the points (yes points, not straight character count) to
give more advantage to smaller reviews and less to longer ones? Ah this
brings me back to some history. Help me with the memory. In 2004, I
borrowed the scale directly from ASC. I don't think the point spread was
evenly spaced. Maybe they did it on purpose. We found it confusing and
straightened it out in 2005, right?

Maybe it was weighted when it was uneven. Maybe the spaces between 1, 2, and
3 points should be lower (closer together) than the spacing between 8, 9,
and 10.

Straight character count has it's advantages but it doesn't give any weight
anywhere. Which could be good, too. But if we want to let people of
smaller reviews feel they have an impact (which I think they do
mathmatically anyway because there are a lot more short reviews written than
long ones, thus they add volume.) weighting them would do that better.

I think for people who write long reviews (which if I can manage I will for
a story I love even if it goes beyond the cap), we'll write them because
they are what we want to say not just because we're trying to reach a point.
If we feel a story is good enough to get a 10, we're going to expound on it
because we love it, not just because we're thinking, 10 more characters will
bring it to the cap! So if I write a long one, I won't feel bad that
pointing weights to the smaller.

Thoughts?

--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 Marta Layton
> Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 11:26 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim)
>
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 10:08:35 -0000
> > From: "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
> >
> > --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
> >>
> >> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura"
> <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
> >>> <snip>
> >>> In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In
> >> my opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points)
> encourages
> >> longer reviews and rewards stories that deserve said
> reviews. A lower
> >> point cap (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more
> reviews,
> >> but on average, they would be shorter as the competitive advantage
> >> gained by long reviews would be lost.
> >> latter.
> >
> >> I heartily agree that review quality is more important
> than quantity.
> >> But are short reviews necessarily of lesser quality than long ones?
> >
> > Two things seem to be going on here:
> >
> > Firstly:
> >
> > On the one hand, against Thundera's position, the question
> is raised:
> > on what basis do we think that longer reviews are qualitatively
> > superior to shorter ones, such that they merit being
> recognized by a
> > wider points spread? Valid question, but I'd point out that just
> > raising that as a question does not entitle us to conclude that in
> > fact, shorter reviews are either superior to longer ones *or* that
> > they are equal in value, and so it's a good idea to alter
> the points
> > scale to give them more weight.
> >
>
> Very good question. As I thought about it, it occurred to me
> that while longer reviews may not be better than shorter
> reviews, they at least have the potential to cover more.
> Let's say that in 150 points I can do a good job explaining
> why I like a certain element of a story - the plot,
> canonicity, pacing, characterisation, theme, whatever. So in a
> 2-3 point review i can cover one or two of these areas. In a
> 7-point review I can probably manage 4-5 if I want to. It's
> entirely possible that I will have a lot of padding, but the
> *potential* is at least there. Shorter reviews just can't
> cover as much material as a longer review can (note I say
> can, not will).
>
> Also I think for most people, it will take longer to write a
> longer review than a shorter one. I may be able to write a
> 7-point review quicker than you can write a 3-pointer, but I
> will spend longer on the average 7-point review than I would
> to write a 3-point review. Simply because there's less to
> write in the latter. So whether the longer review is
> intrinsically better, we give more points to recognise the
> greater investment of time.
>
> > On the other hand, against the position that we should change the
> > points scale to privilege shorter reviews, the underlying
> assumption
> > that seems to be at work is that a long review is likely to
> be padded
> > and so 'fake' in some sense, based on the fact that the questioner
> > felt like s/he was padding his/her reviews when s/he tried to do
> > longer ones. That may be very true sometimes and the rules in fact
> > encourage this, or at least I recall that when questions
> came up about
> > not having anything more to say but wanting to give more
> points to a
> > story, the advice was: Stretch it out. Find a way to say
> more, even if
> > it is fluffifying the review.
> >
> > However, that isn't true of every long review, and personal
> experience
> > doesn't seem terribly helpful here. Personally, I found that taking
> > the time to analyze a piece and saying to myself, "I think
> this is a
> > ten-pointer and need to write about that much," made me see things
> > about the story I wouldn't have been able to articulate on a first
> > reaction. I've also found that in general, a more
> thought-out response
> > is nicer than one that seems to be an immediate outpouring of raw
> > reaction.
> >
>
> For the record, I know I proposed a point system that might
> favor shorter reviews. But this isn't because I think longer
> reviews are inflated. It's a very pragmatic concern - I've
> never heard any complaints that longer reviews are too much
> work ffor the number of points, but I have heard lots of
> complaints that people don't feel like short reviews are
> worthwhile. If there's something in the point system that can
> be changed to help solve this problem that's a change I'm
> willing to consider - because that's where I saw the problem
> this year.
>
> > Secondly, and I think more importantly, the issue has been almost
> > immediately transformed from "What would be the advantages and
> > disadvantages of changing the points thresholds *and* lowering the
> > points cap by half?" into "How long does a review have to
> be before it
> > is good?" We can't answer the second question (other than that they
> > are as long as they need to be to say what you think you
> need to say
> > about the story's good qualities, whether that's 1 word or 2,000+
> > characters), but the first one strikes me as answerable
> without having
> > to go through the quality argument.
> >
>
> I agree here - I'm a bit of a pragmatist here, and which type
> is "better" is really immaterial to what the point limits
> would be isn't really that material. I want people who tend
> to write reviews of all lengths to feel like their reviewing
> is valued and important at the MEFAs.
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6653

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim) Posted by rabidsamfan January 07, 2006 - 3:47:51 Topic ID# 6581
On 1/7/06, Ainaechoiriel <mefaadmin@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I think there's a simple question that if we can answer it, will solve the
> point issue:
>
> How can we change the points (yes points, not straight character count) to
> give more advantage to smaller reviews and less to longer ones? Ah this
> brings me back to some history. Help me with the memory. In 2004, I
> borrowed the scale directly from ASC. I don't think the point spread was
> evenly spaced. Maybe they did it on purpose. We found it confusing and
> straightened it out in 2005, right?
>
> Maybe it was weighted when it was uneven. Maybe the spaces between 1, 2,
> and
> 3 points should be lower (closer together) than the spacing between 8, 9,
> and 10.
>
> Straight character count has it's advantages but it doesn't give any
> weight
> anywhere. Which could be good, too. But if we want to let people of
> smaller reviews feel they have an impact (which I think they do
> mathmatically anyway because there are a lot more short reviews written
> than
> long ones, thus they add volume.) weighting them would do that better.
>
> I think for people who write long reviews (which if I can manage I will
> for
> a story I love even if it goes beyond the cap), we'll write them because
> they are what we want to say not just because we're trying to reach a
> point.
> If we feel a story is good enough to get a 10, we're going to expound on
> it
> because we love it, not just because we're thinking, 10 more characters
> will
> bring it to the cap! So if I write a long one, I won't feel bad that
> pointing weights to the smaller.
>
> Thoughts?
> --Ainaechoiriel
> MEFA Admin and Founder


This comes close to Anthony's suggestion that we use weighted character
counts, where the first 100 characters count 100%, the next batch count 75%,
etc. and over 1000 you continue with 5% ad infinitum.

I very much agree that the solution to making shorter reviews more
significant is to make it easier at that end of the scale to give different
levels of approval.

i.e. a scale which looks like

1 point -- 1 to 75 characters
2 points 76 to 150 characters
3 points 151 to 250 characters
4 points 251 to 350 characters
5 points 351 to 475 characters...etc.

is going to be easier for succinct reviewers to give reviews that have a
range of point values than one which spaces the points at 100 or 200
character intervals.

I also still very much prefer a ten point spread over a 5 point spread, if
we don't use weighted character counts. I know I'm in the minority there,
but as an author it was very satisfying to get a review over five points
value in among the others, and as a reviewer, I liked having the broad range
to express my levels of satisfaction.


Is it possible to use the character counts from this year and apply the
different scale proposals to them, just to see what happens to the results?


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

Msg# 6654

Re: points and various voting matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 9:24:05 Topic ID# 6582
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 08:50:31 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> I like Anthony's idea of counting 100% of the first so many characters,
> 2/3rds of the next so many, etc. and giving 5% of the characters over
> 1000.

I like all of this except for the last bit. I'm strongly against not
having any maximum at which we stop counting points; it just seems like
a bad idea. But I do think 100% up to a certain character count and
then a fraction up to another higher character count would work well.
And it's not that out-of-line with what we currently do -- the first
five points are each 100 characters, the last five for 150 characters.

> And I like the ten point spread much better than a lower spread, too.
>

That's good to know. I personally think a lower point spread would help
if we're going to keep counting points at all, but that's far from a
deal-breaker with me. It seems that many people *don't* want a lower
point spread, which helps me realise my opinion wasn't representative
of the group. Always a good thing!

> To me, the goal is to get reviews which aren't puffed or trimmed
> according
> to how many points awarded, but rather to get reviews which took a
> little
> thought and effort on the part of the reviewer -- encouraging more
> thought
> and more effort for good stories by awarding points. With a really
> good
> story I do want to go and point out specifics, and if I can tag quotes
> to
> keep my conscience clear, I'll be very happy to point out precisely
> what
> made me bounce up and down in my chair going "ooh! ooh! ooh!"
>

This is basically what I want to encourage as well. I want the good
stories to get longer reviews (and so more points), but I don't want
the process to be such a task that no one enjoys it. The fun is key,
and if I thought the MEFAs were becoming a chore I'd have to seriously
question why I was doing all that we do.

> If the point system is weighted a little toward short reviews, but not
> so
> heavily that there's no reward for longer reviews, I think that most
> reviewers will be less point obsessed not more. And that's not a bad
> thing.
>

Nope, not a bad thing at all! I do think we need some way to quantify
what story pewople like the best and points (whether by what we have
now or based more purely on character counts) will let us do that. but
I don't think it needs to become an obsession and it certainly doesn't
need to become more important than writing a good review.

Marta

Msg# 6655

Re: points and various voting matters (Rhapsody) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 10:07:14 Topic ID# 6655
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 16:44:44 -0000
> From: "rhapsody_the_bard" <rhapsody74@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Laura" <thunderalaura@j...> wrote:
>>
>> "Marta Layton" <melayton@g...> wrote:
>>>> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
>>>> so feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>>>> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at
>>>> a lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively
>>>> means that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such
>>>> spread would be:
>>>>
>>>> 1-50 1 point
>>>> 51-250 2 point
>>>> 251-500 3 point
>>>> 501-1000 4 point
>>>> 1001+ 5 point
>>>>
>>>> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm
>>>> very interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer
>>>> ones.
>>>> Would this point spread work better?
>>
>> *chiming in once more as the voice of dissent*
>>
>> I'm honestly not trying to play devil's advocate. Really, I'm not!
>>
> And I think we've had some excellent ideas out of the post-mortem. But
> I have to weigh in as _strongly_ opposed to a change in the point
> levels. At least, a change like the one proposed.

Fair enough. Is it the uneven point spread that you're opposed to, or
would you still be against it if the point spread was more even -- say
one point for every 250 characters up to 1000 characters (five points
for anything over 1,000)?

>> Granted, I'm probably among the long-winded reviewers, but be that
>> as it may, if I rambled off a review and hit as many aspects of the
>> story as I could, I only got up to about 5 points on average. On
>> rare occasions, I could hit 6. But that was if I rambled, and I
>> caught most of those when I went back through and edited the
>> reviews. That being said, I know I gave out several 10-point
>> reviews, quite a few 9-point reviews, and even more 8-pointers and
>> 7-pointers. For all of them, I went back and put in enough effort to
>> get the story that high because I felt that strongly about it. I
>> think there should be a difference between a 2-point story and a
>> 10-point story, and I think the margin between points should reflect
>> that. Furthermore, if I go to the effort to get a 1001-character
>> review, I want it to count. I want the author to get those ten
>> points.
>
> I am a rambler as well, but when I leave reviews in general, they
> *are* long. No matter where I leave them. Story archives, MEFA's..
> While for the MEFA's, I only finalised them after I checked spelling,
> I really didn't care for the points, I was merely aiming at leaving a
> nice review that would make the author in question smile or for an ego
> boost. So if I really loved a story, wanted to pass back to the author
> how good it felt to have read the story, and I left a glowing review
> (since I did leave long glowing reviews to stories with just one
> review for the MEFAs I guess).. it feels like being ticked on my
> fingers for doing so. Weren't these the Feel good awards? So why not
> leave a story a glowing review (a glowing review can be either short
> or long) if my aim is to make a writer feel good about their work? Is
> that so wrong?
>
> *scratches her head* Just please, don't loose sight of the aim to make
> author's feel good about their work before it boils down to a points
> debate.
>

You know, it's funny -- I can be quite long-winded, too (not rambly, I
don't think - there's a difference) but only when I'm in the mood to
be. Sometimes when I just don't have the energy I will get to the point
and just not say loads. And yes, this is true for my reviewing at
archives as well.

I don't want to lose sight of the aim, either; like I said to RSF a
minute ago I don't want the points to make reviewing not fun, and I
don't want them to get in the way of encouraging good reviews. But I
also don't want people to forget about them either completely - if you
really like a story and want to do your best to make sure it's
recognised in the form of an award, then a longer review will do more
good than a shorter one. This doesn't mean you have to write 10 points,
but it might be a good idea to try to make it longer than most of your
reviews.

How do you do this without rambling? I found the simplest way was to
get into more specific aspects of the story. Maybe the story had some
simply beautiful turns of phrase, so you want to talk a little bit
about some simply beautiful turns of phrase. Then after you've talked
on that for 200 characters or so (which is what naturally came to me -
other people will be comfortable with different amounts) you move on to
how the author created a whole world with details that hinted at events
not told in the story, and that made it feel real. Maybe then go on to
how the pacing was just right, never too fast or too slow, and how the
story used a convincing real world historical model that made it that
much more believable. by going itno these different areas you have more
to talk about and the review will by default be longer - yet you
haven't spent that many more characters than you would have in a
shorter review. It's just that in a shorter review I wouldn't have gone
into as many specific areas.

>> Competition-wise, it doesn't make that much of a difference. But as
>> far as the quality of the reviews is concerned, I think there is a
>> difference. happen to think that the 1000+ reviews are good ego
>> boosters. I like receiving them, and I like giving them. And I think
> < there's more incentive to give them if it actually makes a
>> difference in the competition.
>
> I agree completely, changing the points system won't stop me from
> leaving long reviews since I didn't pay much attention to the number
> of points a story got in the first place.
>
> As for quoting from stories... isn't it an idea to add a button to the
> system, review form where a reviewer can click on (telling or putting
> it in the faq that you have to put the <blockquote> code around it
> will not work...). Let's say you want to quote from a story, a quick
> click, in which it automatically adds the quote-code (or maybe a java
> script kind of thing where you can paste the part in, click on ok and
> it gets inserted)...
>

Anthony, is this possible? I wouldn't mind having a piece of code that
automatically inserted the blockquotes, but it's up to you whether you
want to do this.

Rhapsody, would it work if we put a note *on the form where you insert
the vote* that said something like:

All quotes must be surrounded by tags so that they are not counted when
determining points. Please place "<blockquote>" before the beginning of
any quote you include in your review and "</blockquote>" at the end of
the quote. If you have any questions about this do not hesitate to
email the administrators at <link>mefasupport@gmail.com</link>.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6656

Re: points and various voting matters (Ainae) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 10:25:33 Topic ID# 6656
>

Hi Ainae,

> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 00:52:14 -0000
> From: "ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> <snippage>
>> I have to say that I wouldn't be in favor of using straight character
>> counts because one long glowing review could effectively keep the
>> other stories out of the running. I like the point system because
>> while it allows for more or less points, it also somewhat levels the
>> playing field. I think that using a straight character would would
>> have the effect of lessening the motivation of the readers leaving
>> the shorter reviews because (I'm guessing) they'd feel that it
>> wouldn't make any difference.
>
> I agree wholeheartedly.
>

See my earlier post (which I realise wasn't posted until after you
posted this): I'm not in favor of character count with no limits, I'm
in favor of character count up to a certain limit just like we have
points up to a certain limit (ten) and no more.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6657

Re: points (sulriel) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 14:02:27 Topic ID# 6657
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 13:20:53 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: re: points
>
>
> If I remember, someone mentioned the potential of ties as a reason not
> to lower the point spread to 1-5, but if I remember, that shouldn't be
> an issue, because the system automatically ranks the stories by
> points, then those with the same number of points by (?) number of
> reviews and those with the same number of reviews by character count.
>

That's correct. Stories were ranked by three factors:

1. Number of points received.
2. Number of people who voted for them. (Only considered if #1 resulted
in a tie.)
3. The sum of the number of characters in all of those reviews. (Only
considered if both #1 and #2 resulted in a tie.)

Check out http://www.freewebs.com/aure/faq5voting.htm#61366601 if you'd
like more info on this.

> I think it'd be highly unlikely to have ties once those steps had been
> taken.
>
> it would also give the potential to reward those reviews that were
> longer than the point cap on character count.
>

I agree -- we didn't have a tie this year and I don't think we had one
last year. And if two stories are that close, I really don't have a
huge problem giving both the award.

Marta

Msg# 6658

Re: points and various voting matters (sulriel) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 14:12:39 Topic ID# 6583
Hi Sulriel,

> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 14:37:47 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> <snippage>
>
>> I think these are likely to overly favor a smaller subcategory if
>> there's a "power-house" in a small category that drives the number
> of > points the first place story received way up. Let's say we want
> to > award within 20% of the points awarded to first place, and first
> place > receives 50 points. That means everything that receives 40 or
> more > points gets an honourable mention. <snipped>>
>
>
> *** oops - I didn't think of it working backwards like that. You're
> right. (although I think you mean *dis*favor a small subcate by your
> example?)

Yep, that's exactly what I meant! You have no idea how many times I
reworked that sentence as I worked through the example.

> ... I withdrawn my support from this option (unless someone
> else raises another point that changes my mind back :) )
>

Great. Does that mean that you're now in favor of awarding a certain
number of stories (0-4, depending on the size of the category)? Or is
there some other option I'm forgetting about (entirely possible!)?

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6659

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 14:29:22 Topic ID# 6550
>

Hi Sulriel,

> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 14:38:48 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>

>>>> I can think of several possible solutions. One is to award an
>>>> honorable mention to all the stories that get a certain number of
>>>> points and aren't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. For xample, we
>>>> could set the threshold at 20 points; if your story gets 20 points
>>>> but isn't awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it gets an honorable
>>>> mention.
>>>>
>>> I think this is an overall good idea and would be ok if it were
>>> implemented, but I think it would be a difficult call to set that
>>> number, especially if we change the point system.
>>>
>> You're right, this would be a problem, but I'm not sure it's any more
>> random than the current three-point rules. One solution might be to
>> wait to determine this limit until we have the actual figures from
>> next year. Anthony, would it be possible to see the number of points
>> that the top third (or half, or whatever percent of stories we want
>> to award) scored above? Say we decide we want to give honourable
>> mention to the top third of stories. I guess this would in effect be
>> recognising the top % of stories instead of within a certain point
>> range. The only problem is it wouldn't necessarily be an honourable
>> mention in a certain category, as which stories get an HM id
>> etermined by the *overall* pointspread, across all the categories.

>
> *** I don't support making point decisions after the fact.
>
> I think your previous example of smaller subcate would work against
> this proposal as well ... what if none of the stories received that
> number of points. It's easy to say that there would be no HMs in that
> subcate, but you could easily end up with 1st, 2nd, 3rd places with a
> lower point count than HMs in other categories and that seems
> inconsistent with the rest of the system.
>
>

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. You're right, it doesn't seem
like the best system for that reason. I don't want to encourage people
to try to get their stories into less competitive category because the
whole categorisation issue could become a whole lot more political
("all of X's stories are ending up in small category and so have a
better chance of winning, you guys must like X more than you like m.")
I don't seriously think this would havppen, and I really hope it
wouldn't, but I don't want to put a system in place that makes it more
likely.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6660

Re: points and various voting matters (sulriel) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 14:58:28 Topic ID# 6583
> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 14:54:51 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters

>> How is this not in keeping with the spirit of the awards? Is
>> it that there could be some stories that place very close to the
>> last honourable mentions that just don't get recognised? If so, I
>> wonder if some hybrid situation might be doable:
>
>> 1. Give honourable mentions to enough stories so that 50% get either
>> 1st, 2nd, 3rd place or an honourable mention.
>
>> 2. Give honourable mentions to any stories with the same number of
>> points as the last story to win an honourable mention by (1) above.
>
>> I have to admit that this is my favourite option, provided it's
>> codeable. But I can see the merit of either, and so I'm flexible.
>
> I'm not adamantly opposed to this option. My reluctance comes from -
> in a backwards kind of way - my support of how well this works in a
> *judged* system.... which this isn't, not in the strictest sense. I
> feel like, in a judged system, it's quite legit for a judge to pick
> the 1st and top placing and put the rest in order and award the top
> percent HMs.
>
> But I feel like, these awards are more 'voters choice' and I think
> that if it's a close race, it should be reflected in the awards.
>

Well, it is voter's choice in that it's not just one person being a
judge and I suspect anyone who wants to can become a judge. But it's
also not purely voter's choice because the voter isn't really making a
choice. If we're talking about the same thing, voter's choice is where
I am given a list of 5 or so shortlisted stories and I choose the one I
like best. Then the one that the most people choose as the best wins
that category, the one that the second most choose gets second place,
and so on. But in this type of situation I can vote for as many stories
as I like, and given them as many points (up to ten) as I want to.
Because theoretically I could write a ten-point review for every story
nominated, or even just in a subcategory. I'd never do this of course
because it would a.) take too much time, and b.) effectively negate all
of my votes, but it's theoretically possible. Perhaps if we allowed a
certain number of points per category that each reviewer was allowed to
distribute as they liked... but that's not what they have.

What's happening is that in effect we are ranking every story we
review. When I write a really long review I am in effect saying "I
really, really like this story". When I write a 5-6 pointer I'm saying
"I like this story, but not as much as that one or I just wrote a
10-point review for. So in this sense it really is a judged type of
competition.

> JMO, but I don't think it dilutes the awards if we set the rules that
> any story within some% of first (or third) place's points get HM and
> the entire cate has a small point spread. A close race is a close
> race. .... IMO it's *totally* difference from an 'everybody' wins
> kind of mentality where you give every kid a purple ribbon for walking
> around the ring regardless of skill or whatever is being judged.
>
> If you set a certain number of HMs, you might have one cate with a
> point spread of only 5 points between third place and the lowest
> number of points, and those close stories not recognized and another
> category with a 20 point difference where a story does get HM.
>
> I feel like, (as opposed to the judged system mentioned above), when
> the readers/voters are putting so much effort into their reviews, it
> doesn't seem quite right not to reward those that are so close.
>

Here's my problem: a category where all the stories that don't place
are within five points doesn't mean that all or even some of those
stories will get an honourable mention. It all depends on how
high-scoring the third-place story is. Let's say we give honourable
mentions to every story that scores within 10% of 3rd place. In a
category of where all the stories score high -- where 3rd place is 40
points and every other story is within five points of that -- then we
can give an honourable mention to those stories that score within four
points of third, which could be most of the stories. And that's okay
because it's a really tight field of stories. But suppose on the other
hand that all the stories score low -- that 3rd place gets ten points
and the lowest story gets five points. We can only give an honourable
mention to the stories scoring within one point of 3rd. Yet that field
was just as tight as the one in the previous example, it's just that
they all scored lower.

> again, I would support many of the difference combinations that have
> been mentioned, and I don't mean to argue strongly one way or the
> other, I'm just trying to put my thoughts out.
>

Don't worry about it. This is why we toss around ideas. :-)

> in summary: I'm 'ok' with the 'HM within three points of third
> place' - isn't that what we used in '05.? I'd prefer to use some%
> of points within THIRD place (not first as I said before because of
> the problem Marta pointed out) - and I think it's ok if all the
> stories get HM if they earn it, or none if they don't come within the
> percent.
>

Yes, we used the within 3 points rule in '05. The problem I saw was
when eyeballing the stats I saw several authors who had several stories
with around thirty points each - but because of the sub-cats they were
in, some of those stories won first place and others didn't even win an
honourable mention. That didn't seem horribly fair to me.

Marta

Msg# 6661

Re: points and various voting matters (sulriel) Posted by rabidsamfan January 07, 2006 - 15:42:51 Topic ID# 6583
On 1/7/06, Marta Layton <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Message: 8
>
> Yes, we used the within 3 points rule in '05. The problem I saw was
> when eyeballing the stats I saw several authors who had several stories
> with around thirty points each - but because of the sub-cats they were
> in, some of those stories won first place and others didn't even win an
> honourable mention. That didn't seem horribly fair to me.
>
> Marta



I know what you mean, and if the MEFAs were "one BIG contest" instead of "a
whole bunch of little contests under one roof" the discrepancy would be
important. But each subcategory is measured by its own standards, and that
makes the difference.

Back when I was trying to figure out if short stories had an advantage over
long ones I did some number crunching, and while I'd have to dig to find the
numbers, it worked out that the averages were similar, even though raw
numbers looked out of whack. It's probably the same here.

I like the suggestion that had 1 or 2 honorable mentions for small
subcategories and 3 or 4 HMs for larger subcategories.


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

Msg# 6662

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwimordene) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 16:03:00 Topic ID# 6662
> Message: 18
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:34:45 -0000
> From: "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim)
>

Hi Dwim,

I'm going to snip a lot of the comments on specific point brackets,
because as you say:

>> A good way to avoid all of this would be to go with Rabidsamfan's
>> suggestion to do away with points and just go with character counts up
>> to a certain cap. 1000 characters or whatever. The more I think about
>> it, the more I like that idea - though I'm not so sold on it as to
>> insist on it.
>
> I'd go for this. It'd make things easier, I think, so long as there
> was a cap in place. I'm happy with 1000 being the cap--that seems
> reasonable to me and appears to have worked well as a cap the past two
> years.
>

I'm increasingly in favor of this option, or some other option like the
one Anthony proposed, with each character worth a point up to some
threshold and then worth a fraction of a point up to some higher
threshold. I think it will be easier to do that than to argue over what
type of review should constitute what points bracket. Besides I think
it's actually a lot more straightforward, so easier to understand and
easier to write toward when you're actually doing reviews.

>>> So for me, having a single author review, where I could use all the
>>> stories at once, without having to figure out how to carve them up
>>> and
>>> write two reviews without being repetitive, would be a significant
>>> improvement.
>>>
>>
>> Well, technically you can enter the same author review for every
>> category an author is entered in. But this does get repetitive when
>> trying to read through author reviews, I agree. It would be nice to
>> not
>> display duplicate reviews; I'm not sure how we'd program this.
>>
>> Short of that, the only way I can see this suggestion working would be
>> to have all the authors in a single category - and I'm not crazy about
>> that idea.
>
> I just posted on Author Awards, so you can see how I'd try to modify
> them to suit the concerns raised on the list. The Author Awards are
> undoubtedly the part of the MEFAs that works least well, since it's
> just plain confusing and results in weird mismatches between the
> category in which a person wins an Author Awards and the content of
> the actual review.
>

I know I promised I'd stay out of author's reviews, but I do think it's
important I at least give my opinion on this.

First off, I *really* like Dwim's suggestions about having author
reviews by form instead of by category. I think it's definitely the way
we want to go in the future, though I have read Anthony's post saying
that it's not going to be feasible for this year. That's fine; we're
asking for a lot of changes, and I don't want to ask for more work than
he can handle. So keeping in mind that it doesn't look like we'll be
able to have it at least this year, I have to wonder whether we want to
have authors' reviews at all next year. I really liked receiving them,
but it it does seem like there are too much confusions and too many
author categories with too few authors competing to really make sense.

One temporary solution I can think of is requiring that subcategories
be a bit larger -- for example 7 stories by 5 authors. That would
ensure that each author sub-category had at least 5 authors. But I'm
not sure if that's a good or a bad idea by other criteria.

>>> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
>>>
>>> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
>>> that
>>> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
>>> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
>>> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
>>>
>>
>> I think we decided that all reviews, regardless of source or length,
>> had to be within blockquote tags. You can include them but they won't
>> count for scoring purposes. Am I misremembering this?
>
> I'm not sure. That's why I asked!

Fair enough... ;-)

> I'm happy if all quotes, regardless
> of their source, get treated the same, so long as we *can* quote
> freely, and so long as it's made clear in the rules how to handle them.
>

I don't want all quotes to be thrown out the window, either. I like
using them in my reviews. But under the rule I'm proposing, you can use
all the quotes you like, they just won't count toward the number of
points your review gets.

Marta

Msg# 6663

Re: Quotes (Inkling) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 16:16:06 Topic ID# 6663
> Message: 22
> Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 02:03:10 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Quotes
>
> Seems like the simplest rule--and I think this has already been
> suggested--is to just say that ALL quotes, not matter what the
> source, have to be inside blockquote tags.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>

Yep, that's definitely the way I'm leaning.

Is anyone against this? Do I need to set up a poll, or can we just make
it a rule.

Marta

Msg# 6664

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwimordene) Posted by Nerwen Calaelen January 07, 2006 - 16:23:27 Topic ID# 6662
Just wanted to weigh in to restate my objections to using straight character counts.
There are basically 2, firstly that it is harder to decide how many characters eg how many points out of 1000 that a story is worth than how many points out of 10. I would certainly find this very hard as I would find it very hard to keep track of how many characters I had read for every story and where in the rating a new story would come. With the currect system, when I read a story I can easily decide the number of points I want to give it and ensure that I write the review in enough detail.
2) It would be very hard to ensure that two equally good stories got exactly the same vote from me, ie it would take much longer to write reviews as I would have to be rewriting to get the right number of characters, not merely within the right range. It could also be seen to benifit stories about characters with longer names as the same comment would then have more characters....

Basically, I think if this option is accepted, I, for one, am like;ly to participate far less next year as it would make reviewing much harder.

Jenn

Marta Layton <melayton@gmail.com> wrote: > Message: 18
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:34:45 -0000
> From: "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (Dwim)
>

Hi Dwim,

I'm going to snip a lot of the comments on specific point brackets,
because as you say:

>> A good way to avoid all of this would be to go with Rabidsamfan's
>> suggestion to do away with points and just go with character counts up
>> to a certain cap. 1000 characters or whatever. The more I think about
>> it, the more I like that idea - though I'm not so sold on it as to
>> insist on it.
>
> I'd go for this. It'd make things easier, I think, so long as there
> was a cap in place. I'm happy with 1000 being the cap--that seems
> reasonable to me and appears to have worked well as a cap the past two
> years.
>

I'm increasingly in favor of this option, or some other option like the
one Anthony proposed, with each character worth a point up to some
threshold and then worth a fraction of a point up to some higher
threshold. I think it will be easier to do that than to argue over what
type of review should constitute what points bracket. Besides I think
it's actually a lot more straightforward, so easier to understand and
easier to write toward when you're actually doing reviews.

>>> So for me, having a single author review, where I could use all the
>>> stories at once, without having to figure out how to carve them up
>>> and
>>> write two reviews without being repetitive, would be a significant
>>> improvement.
>>>
>>
>> Well, technically you can enter the same author review for every
>> category an author is entered in. But this does get repetitive when
>> trying to read through author reviews, I agree. It would be nice to
>> not
>> display duplicate reviews; I'm not sure how we'd program this.
>>
>> Short of that, the only way I can see this suggestion working would be
>> to have all the authors in a single category - and I'm not crazy about
>> that idea.
>
> I just posted on Author Awards, so you can see how I'd try to modify
> them to suit the concerns raised on the list. The Author Awards are
> undoubtedly the part of the MEFAs that works least well, since it's
> just plain confusing and results in weird mismatches between the
> category in which a person wins an Author Awards and the content of
> the actual review.
>

I know I promised I'd stay out of author's reviews, but I do think it's
important I at least give my opinion on this.

First off, I *really* like Dwim's suggestions about having author
reviews by form instead of by category. I think it's definitely the way
we want to go in the future, though I have read Anthony's post saying
that it's not going to be feasible for this year. That's fine; we're
asking for a lot of changes, and I don't want to ask for more work than
he can handle. So keeping in mind that it doesn't look like we'll be
able to have it at least this year, I have to wonder whether we want to
have authors' reviews at all next year. I really liked receiving them,
but it it does seem like there are too much confusions and too many
author categories with too few authors competing to really make sense.

One temporary solution I can think of is requiring that subcategories
be a bit larger -- for example 7 stories by 5 authors. That would
ensure that each author sub-category had at least 5 authors. But I'm
not sure if that's a good or a bad idea by other criteria.

>>> Topic we possibly have forgotten:
>>>
>>> How do we treat quotes in reviews? What about quotes from sources
>>> that
>>> are not from the fanfic under review, but which are either from
>>> Tolkien's own writing or else from a different published author? Did
>>> we decide how to treat these already? I'm afraid I can't recall.
>>>
>>
>> I think we decided that all reviews, regardless of source or length,
>> had to be within blockquote tags. You can include them but they won't
>> count for scoring purposes. Am I misremembering this?
>
> I'm not sure. That's why I asked!

Fair enough... ;-)

> I'm happy if all quotes, regardless
> of their source, get treated the same, so long as we *can* quote
> freely, and so long as it's made clear in the rules how to handle them.
>

I don't want all quotes to be thrown out the window, either. I like
using them in my reviews. But under the rule I'm proposing, you can use
all the quotes you like, they just won't count toward the number of
points your review gets.

Marta



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Msg# 6665

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by sulriel January 07, 2006 - 16:26:40 Topic ID# 6662
I think I've figured out how to verbalize why I prefer the lower
point spread and/or the graduated point system.

because the BIGGEST deal is the fact that the reader took the time to
open the story, read it, click on the MEFA review link and say
something nice.

I like and agree with that if they liked it a lot and had a lot of
nice things to say that counted for more points.

but the difference between no review and any review is infinite. The
*1st* point is the most important one and I believe, to some extent,
we lose sight of that.


I think the five point spread, with the character count wieghted to
the lower points would help keep this in the minds of the reviewers. -
those that wanted to write more could, and a very long review could
make the difference in a points-tie.

Msg# 6666

Re: Quotes (Inkling) Posted by Kathy January 07, 2006 - 18:00:01 Topic ID# 6663
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> >
> > Seems like the simplest rule--and I think this has already been
> > suggested--is to just say that ALL quotes, not matter what the
> > source, have to be inside blockquote tags.
> >
> > Kathy (Inkling)
> >
>
> Yep, that's definitely the way I'm leaning.
>
> Is anyone against this? Do I need to set up a poll, or can we just
> make
> it a rule.

I don't think I've seen anyone object to this (wow, have we actually
achieved consensus for once? :D), so I'd so just go ahead and do it.

Kathy

Msg# 6667

Re: Author Award changes (Anthony) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 18:01:22 Topic ID# 6667
>

Hi Anthony,

> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 23:47:14 -0600
> From: Anthony Holder <aaholder@swbell.net>
> Subject: Author Award changes
>
> I really like the suggestions on how to change the author awards,
> but...
>
> It does mean that I have a lot more work to do, if it is going to get
> done, and I'm not sure I have time to do that.
>
> In some ways, the suggestions make the process simpler (in many ways),
> but it's different, and that means changing things around, which means
> more work.
>
> I have MEFA2006 and another group (LLL of Texas) to support with
> websites this year, and you all are asking for quite a few changes.
> Hopefully, the LLL folks won't need too much, but I know that I have
> quite a bit to do for them as well, and a similar deadline. On top of
> that, I have a late February RL work deadline that may involve
> overtime.
>

First, I think we all owe you a huge thank you for all that you do for
the MEFAs. Obviously programming the website, but also you've made
several policy suggestions that I've found very helpful. I'm actually
quite amazed with how much time you've invested in a fandom that you're
not even involved in.

That said, I don't want this to grow to something you end up feeling is
too much. In the course of this post mortem ideas have popped up that
suggest more programming work than I envisioned before we started
discussing. If we're requesting too much please feel free to tell us as
much.

I'm wondering whether different deadlines might help you. For example I
think we began on April 1 this year; would pushing back the opening of
nomination season to April 15 for 2006 help? I think we can be flexible
on this.

> (By the way, I passed the PE exam, and am now a Licensed Professional
> Engineer in the State of Texas! I did very well on the exam, not that
> it really matters, because my license and the guy/gal that just
> squeaked by look exactly the same.)
>

Well done! I'm really pleased to hear you got through that - not that I
ever doubted, of course.

> I haven't even started working on things, because you're still
> discussing it (and I haven't wanted to work on it yet). I have been
> taking notes, and my note list is pretty long. Once the PM is done,
> I'll look through my list and I'll see what's important, what can wait,
> and what can be left out, and I'll summarize it all for you.
>

That sounds like a very good idea.

> As far as point counting goes, you all have lots of good ideas, and as
> long as it's all based on math and simple if-then statements, I'm OK
> with it.
>
> For honorable mention, again it needs to be a specific mathematical
> formula, with some conditionals, and I can make it work.
>

I think both of these should be doable. For the honourable mentions,
would it be possible for the code to refer to either the ranking of the
story or the score received by third place? For example:

if(category size=7 or 8) assign honourable mention to fourth-ranked
story
if(category size=9 or 10) assign honourable mention to fifth-ranked
story

and so on?

> I guess I would say that you should get done soon, so I can tell you
> what is possible.
>

This is the last topic that I see generating any coding for you beyond
what the site currently has. I can think of one more topic we may want
to talk about, but it will be strictly policy.

Marta

Msg# 6668

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by Kathy January 07, 2006 - 18:12:43 Topic ID# 6662
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
>
> I think I've figured out how to verbalize why I prefer the lower
> point spread and/or the graduated point system.
>
> because the BIGGEST deal is the fact that the reader took the time
> to
> open the story, read it, click on the MEFA review link and say
> something nice.
>
> I like and agree with that if they liked it a lot and had a lot of
> nice things to say that counted for more points.
>
> but the difference between no review and any review is infinite.
> The
> *1st* point is the most important one and I believe, to some
> extent,
> we lose sight of that.
>
>
> I think the five point spread, with the character count wieghted to
> the lower points would help keep this in the minds of the
> reviewers. -
> those that wanted to write more could, and a very long review
> could
> make the difference in a points-tie.
>

Good point and well said, Sulriel. Whether we go with a 5-point
spread, 10-point spread, or character count, I *think* the majority
of posts I've seen on the subject seem to be OK with a system that
gives slightly more weight to the shorter reviews.

The more contentious issue seems to be which of those three options
to go with. Just for the record, I could live with any of them.
Maybe, given the variety of opinions on the subject, this is
something that should be put to a poll?

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6669

Re: points and various voting matters (Ainae) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 18:40:40 Topic ID# 6656
> Message: 12
> Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 17:51:22 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> Perhaps answered before me, but here it is anyway:
>
> We had decided that quotes longer than 2 lines were to be blockquoted.
> Quoting the story was not saying why you liked it. A reader can read
> those
> lines and decide for themselves in the story itself. It just amounts
> to
> stuffing a vote. We decided on a compromise because yes, sometimes
> you want
> to say "My favorite part was when Aragorn said, "....". So we set a
> length
> at which block quotes would have to be used, and yes, they were not
> counted.
>

Hi Ainae,

That was the rule last year. We've decided for this year that *all*
quotes will be blockquoted. That's largely because this year there was
LOADS of confusion over what exactly constituted a line, and just
having a simple rule without exceptions will be easier all around.

Marta

Msg# 6670

Re: Poll Results (Combined totals) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 18:57:18 Topic ID# 6670
> Message: 9
> Date: 5 Jan 2006 09:10:03 -0000
> From: MEFAwards
> Subject: Poll results for MEFAwards
>
>
> The following MEFAwards poll is now closed. Here are the
> final results:
>
>
> POLL QUESTION: For the "Multi-Age" awards, which theme do you prefer?
> Please vote by Tuesday night.
>
> CHOICES AND RESULTS
> - Characters that appeared in all four ages (Tom Bombadil - Treebeard
> - Celeborn),

6 votes (Yahoo) + 5 votes (LJ) = 11 votes total

> - Swords created in earlier ages that survied into the Third and
> Fourth Age (Andúril - Sting - Orcrist and/or Glamdring),
>

4 votes (Yahoo) + 3 votes (LJ) = 7 votes total

So the characters win this one.

> Message: 10
> Date: 5 Jan 2006 09:10:05 -0000
> From: MEFAwards
> Subject: Poll results for MEFAwards
>
>
> The following MEFAwards poll is now closed. Here are the
> final results:
>
>
> POLL QUESTION: Which award name do you prefer for third place for
> "First Age and Before"? First place will be "The Lamps of the Valar
> Award"; second place will be "The Light of the Two Trees Award".
> Please vote by Tuesday night.
>
> CHOICES AND RESULTS
> - The Creation of the Sun and Moon Award,

6 votes (Yahoo) + 3 votes (LJ) = 9 votes total

> - The Silmarilli Award

4 votes (Yahoo) + 5 votes (LJ) = 9 votes total

I'm honestly not sure how to handle this. Would a tie-breaker poll make
a difference?

> Message: 11
> Date: 5 Jan 2006 09:10:35 -0000
> From: MEFAwards
> Subject: Poll results for MEFAwards
>
>
> The following MEFAwards poll is now closed. Here are the
> final results:
>
>
> POLL QUESTION: Which of these awards do you prefer for for third place
> in the "Late Third Age" category? Please vote by Tuesday night.
>
> CHOICES AND RESULTS
> - The White Council Award,

4 votes (Yahoo) + 6 votes (LJ) = 10 votes

> - The Building of Henneth Annûn Award

1 vote (Yahoo) + 1 vote (LJ) = 2 votes

> - The Desertion of Ithilien Award

0 votes (Yahoo)

> - The Re-building of Barad-dûr Award

1 vote (Yahoo)

> - The Death of the White Tree of Gondor Award

3 votes (Yahoo) + 1 vote (LJ) = 4 votes

So the White Council is a clear winner on that one.

Marta

Msg# 6671

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 07, 2006 - 19:22:23 Topic ID# 6662
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
>
> I think I've figured out how to verbalize why I prefer the lower
> point spread and/or the graduated point system.
>
> because the BIGGEST deal is the fact that the reader took the time to
> open the story, read it, click on the MEFA review link and say
> something nice.
>
> I like and agree with that if they liked it a lot and had a lot of
> nice things to say that counted for more points.
>
> but the difference between no review and any review is infinite. The
> *1st* point is the most important one and I believe, to some extent,
> we lose sight of that.
>
>
> I think the five point spread, with the character count wieghted to
> the lower points would help keep this in the minds of the reviewers. -
> those that wanted to write more could, and a very long review could
> make the difference in a points-tie.
>

Is the basic reason for the reduction of the scale to a five point cap
that we are forgetting the "infinite" distance between no review and
one review? (In other words, we want to solve the problem of
non-participation.)

Or is the basic reason for that proposed reduction that we should
remember to value the fact that someone took the time to review the
story... as opposed to what? This does not clearly seem to be in
opposition to the first possibility; they seem rather to complement
each other like two sides of the very same coin. However, it does
sound like it's an opposite position to, perhaps, being upset that
someone didn't leave a ten point review. To being what some would say
is "overly competitive"--a complaint that seems to come up at regular
intervals, and in fact I think occurred this very week.

If the first is true, I don't think the reduced points cap will solve
the problem. We don't even know that the points scale is at all
related to the problem of non-participation, unless there's been a
poll of non-participants that I've missed. It seems more likely that
the problem of non-participation is due to the sheer number of stories
entered combined with exhaustion from real life that has other
priorities than a fanfic competition, plain and simple.

If it *does* have something to do with the points scale, however, then
the difference between zero and one, though infinite, is far less than
the multiply infinite difference between one and ten, so why would
reducing the points scale affect non-participation by making it happen
less often? The only way I can see it having that effect is if the
mind of the non-participator says something like this:

"Geez, that's a lot of stories. I'm overwhelmed. I want to
participate, but I'm just too tired. I feel bad. But look, even if I
tried, I could only write a one point review. And that's not worth
anything at all! So really, it doesn't matter if I don't
participate--I shouldn't feel bad about not leaving that one review,
it wouldn't have counted anyway."

The problem here is not the points cap, it's the cynicism. If someone
feels his or her vote makes no difference, then five points or ten,
s/he will always find a reason not to vote. Always.

So if number one is the motivation for the points scale change, then
I'd be very concerned that we might be dealing with an imaginary
problem, and being lazy like I am, I don't like to deal with problems
that I'm not convinced are very real. I need a lot more convincing to
be done on behalf of the points scale reduction if this is the reason
for it.


The second problem is itself problematic to me because I'm not sure
why it's a problem--thus the effort to find something for it to
oppose. I'm not sure whether it's intended to locate the problem on
the side of those *receiving* the reviews, or on the side of those
*giving* them. My version locates it on the side of the authors, not
on the side of the reviewers. But I can't be sure that's what's
intended. I'm not even sure I should be reading it as a separate
problem or if it's supposed to be there as the intuition that lies
behind the articulation of the problem as one of non-participation,
the difference between zero and one.

So I'm really not sure what to think about possibility two as a reason
for changing the points scale if I'm looking at the original e-mail,
which is the same as saying I think it's not a good reason to do so
since I'm not sure what I should understand by it, assuming it's a
separate reason at all. If I'm looking at my extrapolation from it, I
see another problem we can't solve--no one can make someone refuse to
make comparisons that will upset him or her, or make someone grateful
for what s/he actually receives.


The reason I keep saying I think a curve would work best is that it
addresses a definite, identifiable problem raised by people who *have
actually reviewed* and participated in the post-mortem discussion. I
can see why it's worth it to make it easier to score points with fewer
words, but it doesn't eliminate the challenge of writing that 1,001
char review for the occasional gem that you think deserves it, or a 9
ponter, or an 8 pointer. So it retains a motivation for people to
stretch a little or even a lot, to try making an analysis that (let's
be honest) the author is *likely* to enjoy more because it's more than
a two line expression of reader enjoyment.

This is not an example of ingratitude to other reviewers or of a nasty
competitive streak whose only focus is winning instead of the fun and
the joy of a good story. The Yahoo page has it in all caps: the awards
are based on FEEDBACK. All kinds count, and all are good (except the
flamey variety), but let's be honest: we as authors want detailed,
thoughtful feedback that can go into the guts of our stories and tell
us how they worked, why they were effective, how those highlighted
moments contribute to the effect that the story had on the reviewer,
and what the reader has taken away from the story (if anything). We
want the whole shebang--though that's not to say we're not happy to
receive nice notes and short but encouraging reviews.

But if we want to have a hope of getting something more than that, we
need to build some kind of incentive into the points structure that
will encourage more people to stretch for that level of more detailed
reviewing than simply those people who, by dint of practice or
personality, are predisposed to respond in that manner.

A curved points structure (whether it's based on straight character
counts and percentage levels or a modification of the current points
system) that has a broader range than five points acknowledges both
the pressure of real life that doesn't always allow us to make those
detailed analyses. The curved systme would let our shorter efforts
express *more* accurately what we would wish for the story to receive,
but without succumbing to a purely quantitative rubric (rank this
story on a scale of one to ten, no written feedback involved) or a one
point per vote schema. So you have to make an effort to say what you
want to say and not just say, "I meant for it to be more than that,
really." But it also acknowledges that authors like longer, more
detailed reviews, while providing reviewers with the incentive to
stretch for that level of analysis.

Without the incentive, sure, there may be a few who would do it
anyway, but it will cut out most of the motivation to try for it for
those who are less likely to review at length or in detail. And even
the more wordy ones might at some point get tired of writing a lot for
very little 'recognition' via the points structure and so stop doing
it and start moving towards the lowered maximum.

Dwim

Msg# 6672

Re: points and various voting matters (Dwimordene) Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 07, 2006 - 19:36:19 Topic ID# 6662
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Nerwen Calaelen
<nerwen_calaelen@y...> wrote:
>
> Just wanted to weigh in to restate my objections to using straight
character counts.
> There are basically 2, firstly that it is harder to decide how many
characters eg how many points out of 1000 that a story is worth than
how many points out of 10. <snip>

> 2) It would be very hard to ensure that two equally good stories
got exactly the same vote from me, ie it would take much longer to
write reviews as I would have to be rewriting to get the right number
of characters, not merely within the right range. It could also be
seen to benifit stories about characters with longer names as the same
comment would then have more characters....

Good points, both, and I think you are right. And I would be happier,
for the record, with a sort of scale, not the absolute character
counts. I think it can be done and done fairly and well, but not with
a lower point cap than 10. Anything lower seems harder to work with to
create that scale, plus, seems far too easy and likely to lead to a
lot of tie breakers based on absolute character counts.

Dwim

Msg# 6673

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by Marta Layton January 07, 2006 - 19:45:20 Topic ID# 6604
Hi Nerwen,

Sorry that you felt like you had to repeat this post. I just hadn't
gotten a chance to reply to it.

> Message: 12
> Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 09:46:19 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Nerwen Calaelen <nerwen_calaelen@yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: Re: Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony)
>
> On voting by direct character counts:
> I don't like thsi idea, because instead of asking myself whethera
> story is worth 1-10 points, I would end up trying to work out where on
> the scale 1-1000 it isworth and itwould be much harder.

I think you'll find that this is actually a lot simpler. If you want to
think your way through reviewing on a ten-point scale, you can still do
that -- just whatever you decide a story is worth, multiply that number
by one hundred and aim for about that many characters. It will work out
the same because the maximum number of points per story will be 1000
instead of 10.

> Also, suppose there were two stories that had about the same level at
> the moment I might review by saying,
> "Interesting story. I like the way you characterised A and B."
> For a story that I thought was worth one point. Now if character
> counts were being used if A&B were Frodo and Sam, that review would be
> 53 points, but if they were Aragorn and Legolas would be 59 points.
> I would feel that this shows one of the problems, that the same
> comments for a story would be worth more if names etc were mention
> that are longer in one story. The fact that this difference could be
> a result where one story gets an award and that would seem to be
> unfair.
> By voting in stages these sort of differences are negated because it
> is easy to adjust a review to ensure that it is in the right range
> without too much worrying about exact character counts.
>

I think you're thinking just a bit too hard about this. Yes, there's a
six-point difference between the two, but think how many points the
average story will be getting. To give you an example -- there's a
drabble this year that got 31 points by 11 people reviewing it, for a
total of 2,457 characters. I haven't looked at the exact reviews for
this drabble, so I can't be sure, but I think with that many reviewers
giving those number of points, I'm almost certain none of those is
longer than 1,000 characters. If the hypothetical review you mention
was cast for this story, the Frodo & Sam one would have resulted in
2.16% of that story's total points, and the Aragorn & Legolas one would
have resulted in 2.40% . That's less than one quarter of one percent of
the total points -- really not that significant. And this wasn't by any
means an especially high scorer. In the stories that will be competing
for places the overall score will probably be even higher.

Oh, and one other things -- I went and saw the number of characters
that separated the stories in a subcategory with eleven stories in it.
The closest stories were separated by 164 characters, and most were
separated by more than 1,000. And for what it's worth, this was a
pretty competitive sub-category.

> Also, if we are going by points, I can encourage the scale to be
> arranged so that the catogories have equal width. I think Marta was
> talking about the fact that one range had fewer reviews in it last
> year. However, I would have thought that this would not necessarily
> show anything because the scales were not the same and at least some
> people were looking at the scale to vote.
>

I don't think we'll ever get exactly equal sub-category sizes, but we
can certainly try to make them more equal. For instance, I'm really in
favor this year of making sure no sub-cat has more than 15 stories in
it.

Marta

Msg# 6674

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by Kathy January 07, 2006 - 20:09:31 Topic ID# 6662
More good points…I guess this is why I feel like I could live with
any of the options on the table: 5-point spread, 10-point spread, or
character count—as long as it was weighted in some way. Math is not
my strong suit, but to me a 5-point spread would inherently give more
weight to a 1-point review—even if the points were evenly spaced—
because 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I can also
understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as less
ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough incentive to write
long reviews.

The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently pointed
out…but not very much. Maybe the compromise here is to stick with
it, but to increase the weight for lower-point reviews. I wouldn't
mind a weighted character count system either, but as some in the
group seem strongly opposed to it, it might be best to stick as
closely as possibly to the current system, with a few tweaks…?

Kathy (Inkling)


--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:
> Is the basic reason for the reduction of the scale to a five point
cap
> that we are forgetting the "infinite" distance between no review and
> one review? (In other words, we want to solve the problem of
> non-participation.)
>
> Or is the basic reason for that proposed reduction that we should
> remember to value the fact that someone took the time to review the
> story... as opposed to what? This does not clearly seem to be in
> opposition to the first possibility; they seem rather to complement
> each other like two sides of the very same coin. However, it does
> sound like it's an opposite position to, perhaps, being upset that
> someone didn't leave a ten point review. To being what some would
say
> is "overly competitive"--a complaint that seems to come up at
regular
> intervals, and in fact I think occurred this very week.
>
> If the first is true, I don't think the reduced points cap will
solve
> the problem. We don't even know that the points scale is at all
> related to the problem of non-participation, unless there's been a
> poll of non-participants that I've missed. It seems more likely that
> the problem of non-participation is due to the sheer number of
stories
> entered combined with exhaustion from real life that has other
> priorities than a fanfic competition, plain and simple.
>
> If it *does* have something to do with the points scale, however,
then
> the difference between zero and one, though infinite, is far less
than
> the multiply infinite difference between one and ten, so why would
> reducing the points scale affect non-participation by making it
happen
> less often? The only way I can see it having that effect is if the
> mind of the non-participator says something like this:
>
> "Geez, that's a lot of stories. I'm overwhelmed. I want to
> participate, but I'm just too tired. I feel bad. But look, even if I
> tried, I could only write a one point review. And that's not worth
> anything at all! So really, it doesn't matter if I don't
> participate--I shouldn't feel bad about not leaving that one review,
> it wouldn't have counted anyway."
>
> The problem here is not the points cap, it's the cynicism. If
someone
> feels his or her vote makes no difference, then five points or ten,
> s/he will always find a reason not to vote. Always.
>
> So if number one is the motivation for the points scale change, then
> I'd be very concerned that we might be dealing with an imaginary
> problem, and being lazy like I am, I don't like to deal with
problems
> that I'm not convinced are very real. I need a lot more convincing
to
> be done on behalf of the points scale reduction if this is the
reason
> for it.
>
>
> The second problem is itself problematic to me because I'm not sure
> why it's a problem--thus the effort to find something for it to
> oppose. I'm not sure whether it's intended to locate the problem on
> the side of those *receiving* the reviews, or on the side of those
> *giving* them. My version locates it on the side of the authors, not
> on the side of the reviewers. But I can't be sure that's what's
> intended. I'm not even sure I should be reading it as a separate
> problem or if it's supposed to be there as the intuition that lies
> behind the articulation of the problem as one of non-participation,
> the difference between zero and one.
>
> So I'm really not sure what to think about possibility two as a
reason
> for changing the points scale if I'm looking at the original e-mail,
> which is the same as saying I think it's not a good reason to do so
> since I'm not sure what I should understand by it, assuming it's a
> separate reason at all. If I'm looking at my extrapolation from it,
I
> see another problem we can't solve--no one can make someone refuse
to
> make comparisons that will upset him or her, or make someone
grateful
> for what s/he actually receives.
>
>
> The reason I keep saying I think a curve would work best is that it
> addresses a definite, identifiable problem raised by people who
*have
> actually reviewed* and participated in the post-mortem discussion. I
> can see why it's worth it to make it easier to score points with
fewer
> words, but it doesn't eliminate the challenge of writing that 1,001
> char review for the occasional gem that you think deserves it, or a
9
> ponter, or an 8 pointer. So it retains a motivation for people to
> stretch a little or even a lot, to try making an analysis that
(let's
> be honest) the author is *likely* to enjoy more because it's more
than
> a two line expression of reader enjoyment.
>
> This is not an example of ingratitude to other reviewers or of a
nasty
> competitive streak whose only focus is winning instead of the fun
and
> the joy of a good story. The Yahoo page has it in all caps: the
awards
> are based on FEEDBACK. All kinds count, and all are good (except the
> flamey variety), but let's be honest: we as authors want detailed,
> thoughtful feedback that can go into the guts of our stories and
tell
> us how they worked, why they were effective, how those highlighted
> moments contribute to the effect that the story had on the reviewer,
> and what the reader has taken away from the story (if anything). We
> want the whole shebang--though that's not to say we're not happy to
> receive nice notes and short but encouraging reviews.
>
> But if we want to have a hope of getting something more than that,
we
> need to build some kind of incentive into the points structure that
> will encourage more people to stretch for that level of more
detailed
> reviewing than simply those people who, by dint of practice or
> personality, are predisposed to respond in that manner.
>
> A curved points structure (whether it's based on straight character
> counts and percentage levels or a modification of the current points
> system) that has a broader range than five points acknowledges both
> the pressure of real life that doesn't always allow us to make those
> detailed analyses. The curved systme would let our shorter efforts
> express *more* accurately what we would wish for the story to
receive,
> but without succumbing to a purely quantitative rubric (rank this
> story on a scale of one to ten, no written feedback involved) or a
one
> point per vote schema. So you have to make an effort to say what you
> want to say and not just say, "I meant for it to be more than that,
> really." But it also acknowledges that authors like longer, more
> detailed reviews, while providing reviewers with the incentive to
> stretch for that level of analysis.
>
> Without the incentive, sure, there may be a few who would do it
> anyway, but it will cut out most of the motivation to try for it for
> those who are less likely to review at length or in detail. And even
> the more wordy ones might at some point get tired of writing a lot
for
> very little 'recognition' via the points structure and so stop doing
> it and start moving towards the lowered maximum.
>
> Dwim
>

Msg# 6675

Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony) Posted by Anthony Holder January 07, 2006 - 23:18:15 Topic ID# 6604
On Jan 6, 2006, at 8:08 PM, Ainaechoiriel wrote:

> Secret point count: coded so Staff can see it to be sure it's legit and
> shown after?
>
> Interesting idea....
>
> --Ainaechoiriel
> MEFA Admin and Founder

Unless you're talking about something else, that's how it worked in
2005, but I think it was only admins that could see the points.

A.

Msg# 6676

Review Quotes, Preview Posted by Anthony Holder January 08, 2006 - 2:20:13 Topic ID# 6676
>> As for quoting from stories... isn't it an idea to add a button to the
>> system, review form where a reviewer can click on (telling or putting
>> it in the faq that you have to put the <blockquote> code around it
>> will not work...). Let's say you want to quote from a story, a quick
>> click, in which it automatically adds the quote-code (or maybe a java
>> script kind of thing where you can paste the part in, click on ok and
>> it gets inserted)...
>>
>
> Anthony, is this possible? I wouldn't mind having a piece of code that
> automatically inserted the blockquotes, but it's up to you whether you
> want to do this.
>
> Rhapsody, would it work if we put a note *on the form where you insert
> the vote* that said something like:
>
> All quotes must be surrounded by tags so that they are not counted when
> determining points. Please place "<blockquote>" before the beginning of
> any quote you include in your review and "</blockquote>" at the end of
> the quote. If you have any questions about this do not hesitate to
> email the administrators at <link>mefasupport@gmail.com</link>.
>

I am planning, time permitting, to do a 'review preview' page before
you submit your review. On that preview page, I will mark any quotes
that I see, make sure they have start/end tags, and show the parts that
count in one color and the parts that don't in another color, and give
you a total character count (minus the quotes) and a point score.

I think this, combined with some clear instructions on how to do quotes
will work just fine.

I also am planning to change the quote marking to something like [This
stuff's a quote], that offsets the quotes but isn't very intrusive, so
it can be used inline, and allows dialog quotes " and ' inside it to
work well.

Anthony

Msg# 6677

Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems Posted by Anthony Holder January 08, 2006 - 2:51:16 Topic ID# 6655
Someone asked about checking the scoring system that we have against
the other possible methods.

Here is a breakdown of how the reviews would have scored with the 2004
system vs. how they were scored in 2005.

2005 2004 2004 system
1 810 40 0 to 20 char
2 1390 504 21 to 80
3 1179 2332 81 to 250
4 821
5 532 1856 251 to 500
6 495
7 270 697 501 to 750
8 155
9 104 327 751 to 1100
10 267 267 1101+

As you can see, the 2004 system was more heavily weighted toward the
smaller reviews. The vast majority of the reviews were 3, 5, or 7
pointers.

Above 5 points, the two systems are very similar, but they differ quite
a bit on the lower end. Essentially the change in 2005 made it much
harder to get a 3+ point review.

If one were to go back to essentially the 2004 system, but with a
continuous system with no discontinuities, the equation would be:

0 to 20: 100% of chars
21 to 80: 33.3% of chars
81 to 250: 11.76% of chars
251 to 750: 8% of chars
751 to 1100: 5.71% of chars

This is all relative to those first 20 characters getting one point in
the old system, so they had the most impact. After that point, it went
down pretty rapidly.

The 2005 system breaks down to:

0 to 500: 100% of chars
501 to 1100: 66.6% of chars

From this, you can see that in 2005, the longer reviews were more
heavily weighted, as compared to the very short reviews. Compared to
the medium-sized reviews, though, it was more similar. If you use the
'81 to 250' range as the standard, you get:

0 to 20: 850% of chars
21 to 80: 283% of chars
81 to 250: 100% of chars
251 to 750: 68% of chars
751 to 1100: 49% of chars

So the relative 'worth' of the 250 to 500 group was substantially
increased, while the 501 to 750 group was almost unchanged, relative to
the 3 point review.

I also split the reviews into groups of 20, and calculated point totals
via the two methods. In doing so, these groups showed that for the
lower point totals, the 2004 scoring system would have increased the
scores by about 45-50%, but for the higher point totals, the increase
was 6 to 15%. Everybody would have gotten higher points, but the
stories with lots of smaller reviews would have fared better than those
stories with a few longer reviews.

I think the basic idea behind the 2004 point system is that if you get
lots of reviews that should count somewhat better than someone that got
a few long reviews, if the total character count is similar between the
two. Thus, having the 'minimum score' (essentially) be 3 points, except
for those ultra-short <20-character or pretty darn short <80 character
reviews.

Assuming that this behavior is what you want, I propose the following:

Do a more continuous points scale, as follows:

characters percentage calculated score
0 to 20: 20% of characters 4 pts for a 20 character review
21 to 100: 10% of characters 4+8 = 12 pts for an 80 char review
100 to 300: 5% of characters 12 + 10 = 22 pts for a 300 char
review
300 to 700: 4% of characters 22 + 16 = 38 pts for a 700 char
review
700 to 1100: 3% of characters 38 + 12 = 50 pts for a 1100 char
review

Round up to the nearest 1 pt.

Here's how the reviews would have broken down this year using my
suggested system.

Pts num reviews at that score
1 0
2 4
3 9
4 27
5 44
6 49
7 76
8 109
9 114
10 112
11 127
12 139
13 295
14 285
15 313
16 235
17 262
18 301
19 252
20 241
21 204
22 181
23 246
24 228
25 189
26 158
27 145
28 154
29 117
30 116
31 113
32 93
33 78
34 83
35 67
36 61
37 70
38 44
39 58
40 59
41 39
42 34
43 33
44 49
45 27
46 19
47 34
48 18
49 11
50 301

This is similar to the 2004 system, but weights a bit higher for longer
reviews. It does not weight nearly as high as the 2005 system, though.

The maximum review is a nice round number, 50 points.

Total scores would be much higher (stroke those egos, now!).

year/total points awarded using that system and the 2005 reviews.
2004 27,816
2005 22,777
2006 138,403

Now that I've given you this data, I suspect that you'll need to decide
which sort of system you prefer (weight the shorter reviews or weight
the longer reviews).

I've put my spreadsheet on the Yahoo Group! files section. I haven't
documented it very well, but I think you can understand what I did. I
even graphed the proposed 2006 scores, and they look like a nice bell
curve with a long tail to the right. and a big bump at 50.

Didn't I say something about deciding things soon? I'm not helping that
along, I guess!

Later,
Anthony

Msg# 6678

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by sulriel January 08, 2006 - 18:54:15 Topic ID# 6662
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...>
wrote:> >> > > > I think I've figured out how to verbalize why I
prefer the lower > > point spread and/or the graduated point system.
> >
> > because the BIGGEST deal is the fact that the reader took the
time to > > open the story, read it, click on the MEFA review link
and say > > something nice.
> > <<snipped>>>

> Is the basic reason for the reduction of the scale to a five point
cap> that we are forgetting the "infinite" distance between no review
and> one review? (In other words, we want to solve the problem of>
non-participation.)



No, it's not for the non-participates. I agree with your below
points on that issues. (basically that we're not sure why they didn't
participate and without knowing that we can't take steps to try to
fix it, and also that some things (human nature) can't be fixed)



> Or is the basic reason for that proposed reduction that we should
> remember to value the fact that someone took the time to review the
> story... as opposed to what? This does not clearly seem to be in
> opposition to the first possibility; they seem rather to complement
> each other like two sides of the very same coin. However, it does
> sound like it's an opposite position to, perhaps, being upset that
> someone didn't leave a ten point review. To being what some would
say
> is "overly competitive"--a complaint that seems to come up at
regular
> intervals, and in fact I think occurred this very week.


I *personally* like to 'play hard'. I like to tumble across the
finish line bloody and bruised and exhausted, have a group hug with
the people who kicked my but*, and those but*s I kicked, and all of
us meet at the inn for a pint.

But in a group as mixed as this, with such different backgrounds,
strengths, weakness, etc. ... those who like to play hard typically
come off as bullies (or 'overly competitive'), other people are
shocked and/or hurt and/or upset and/or scream and/or quietly slink
away ... and that's no fun. It's kinda like playing roller derby
when half the group is doing the hokey-pokey. I DO NOT believe that
we should be set up for the lowest common denominator, but I do think
we need balance.

If that comes across as harsh to some people, I apologize ... I'm
trying to say that I appreciate our differences, that I know that
people have different kind of fun.

<<<more snippage>>
> If it *does* have something to do with the points scale, however,
then> the difference between zero and one, though infinite, is far
less than> the multiply infinite difference between one and ten,

what about this? .... what about making the point scale from 5-10?

0-100 characters = 5 pts
101-250 characters = 6pts
251-450 ch = 7pts
451-700 = 8pts
701-1000 = 9pts
1001+ = 10 pts

the purpose of starting with 5 pts being to recognize the effort of a
11 character review (great story!) is not in the keyboard, but in the
reading and the clicking and the reviewing. ... the effort of
registering with the MEFAs and leaving any review at all.

I know that as a reviewer, I didn't review any that I noted that I
needed to keep the review short. .... I worked from the other
side... those that excited me as I read got the mental notes that it
needed a longer review.

in essence, this isn't so much for the authors, because the character
counts and the words for the reviews are going to be the same no
matter what the points are. it's more for the reviewers, that are
pressed for time, or stressed by RL but still want to participate, to
be able to feel that their 100 or 200 character review *does* make a
difference, not just to make the author feel good, but to give them
points toward the award.


> "Geez, that's a lot of stories. I'm overwhelmed. I want to
> participate, but I'm just too tired. I feel bad. But look, even if I
> tried, I could only write a one point review. And that's not worth
> anything at all! So really, it doesn't matter if I don't
> participate--I shouldn't feel bad about not leaving that one review,
> it wouldn't have counted anyway."

> The problem here is not the points cap, it's the cynicism. If
someone
> feels his or her vote makes no difference, then five points or ten,
> s/he will always find a reason not to vote. Always.

I agree to a point. There is cynicism and there are easy excuses for
not doing what you didn't want to do anyway, but I also know that we
all have a Real Life, and also that there was a lot of real hurt last
year.

- is changing the point system going to fix all that - no - I don't
have that illusion. But if I can think of ways to make it easier to
make a difference for those reviewers who *are* honestly pressed for
time and energy, I'm going to make those suggestions.


> > I'd be very concerned that we might be dealing with an imaginary
> problem, and being lazy like I am, I don't like to deal with
problems
> that I'm not convinced are very real. I need a lot more convincing
to
> be done on behalf of the points scale reduction if this is the
reason
> for it.


I can't express to you the depth and the reality of the emotional
hurt that I saw during these awards last year. I absolutely refuse
to name names or specifics, - some was public most was not - the
domino effect and the reverberations were pretty incredible.

Most of the participants enjoyed it and the fun and feedback and all
worked well. - and that's great. I also know that there's no way to
please everyone and I'm not trying to do that either. - I'm just
trying to make small adjustments that I think will alleviate some of
the problems I saw that I think can be helped.

><<snipped>>>

The reason I keep saying I think a curve would work best is that it
> addresses a definite, identifiable problem raised by people who
*have
> actually reviewed* and participated in the post-mortem discussion. I
> can see why it's worth it to make it easier to score points with
fewer
> words, but it doesn't eliminate the challenge of writing that 1,001
> char review for the occasional gem that you think deserves it, or a
9
> pointer, or an 8 pointer. So it retains a motivation for people to
> stretch a little or even a lot, to try making an analysis that
(let's
> be honest) the author is *likely* to enjoy more because it's more
than
> a two line expression of reader enjoyment.
>
> This is not an example of ingratitude to other reviewers or of a
nasty
> competitive streak whose only focus is winning instead of the fun
and
> the joy of a good story. The Yahoo page has it in all caps: the
awards
> are based on FEEDBACK. All kinds count, and all are good (except the
> flamey variety), but let's be honest: we as authors want detailed,
> thoughtful feedback that can go into the guts of our stories and
tell
> us how they worked, why they were effective, how those highlighted
> moments contribute to the effect that the story had on the reviewer,
> and what the reader has taken away from the story (if anything). We
> want the whole shebang--though that's not to say we're not happy to
> receive nice notes and short but encouraging reviews.

does my 5-10 pt scale address most of that?

> <more snipped>

... sorry to be so slow to answer, yahoo was being wonky yesterday.


Sulriel

Msg# 6679

Re: Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems Posted by rabidsamfan January 08, 2006 - 22:29:53 Topic ID# 6655
Oooh, someone who actually "gets" math! It took me three readings to
understand this all, but I'm impressed.

I didn't participate in the 2004 awards, so it looks to me like you almost
had to be deliberately terse to give a one point review. And I take it some
numbers were skipped entirely? I kind of like the idea, but would prefer a
slightly higher number as the "base" 100% zone (like 75 characters). That
way you could give a one point review without having to say nothing more
than "Nice story."

I like the distribution curve of the 50 point system, although I'll admit to
wondering what would happen to that tail if you took it to 100. It would be
very hard to get ties in that too.

Would it be easy to check Marta's suggestion of a 5 point scale in the same
way? And would there be more "ties" with a five point scale? (If this is
more math than you need to do right now, please don't worry about it.)

On 1/8/06, Anthony Holder <aaholder@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> Someone asked about checking the scoring system that we have against
> the other possible methods.
>
> Here is a breakdown of how the reviews would have scored with the 2004
> system vs. how they were scored in 2005.
>
> 2005 2004 2004 system
> 1 810 40 0 to 20 char
> 2 1390 504 21 to 80
> 3 1179 2332 81 to 250
> 4 821
> 5 532 1856 251 to 500
> 6 495
> 7 270 697 501 to 750
> 8 155
> 9 104 327 751 to 1100
> 10 267 267 1101+
>
> As you can see, the 2004 system was more heavily weighted toward the
> smaller reviews. The vast majority of the reviews were 3, 5, or 7
> pointers.
>
> Above 5 points, the two systems are very similar, but they differ quite
> a bit on the lower end. Essentially the change in 2005 made it much
> harder to get a 3+ point review.
>
> If one were to go back to essentially the 2004 system, but with a
> continuous system with no discontinuities, the equation would be:
>
> 0 to 20: 100% of chars
> 21 to 80: 33.3% of chars
> 81 to 250: 11.76% of chars
> 251 to 750: 8% of chars
> 751 to 1100: 5.71% of chars
>
> This is all relative to those first 20 characters getting one point in
> the old system, so they had the most impact. After that point, it went
> down pretty rapidly.
>
> The 2005 system breaks down to:
>
> 0 to 500: 100% of chars
> 501 to 1100: 66.6% of chars
>
> From this, you can see that in 2005, the longer reviews were more
> heavily weighted, as compared to the very short reviews. Compared to
> the medium-sized reviews, though, it was more similar. If you use the
> '81 to 250' range as the standard, you get:
>
> 0 to 20: 850% of chars
> 21 to 80: 283% of chars
> 81 to 250: 100% of chars
> 251 to 750: 68% of chars
> 751 to 1100: 49% of chars
>
> So the relative 'worth' of the 250 to 500 group was substantially
> increased, while the 501 to 750 group was almost unchanged, relative to
> the 3 point review.
>
> I also split the reviews into groups of 20, and calculated point totals
> via the two methods. In doing so, these groups showed that for the
> lower point totals, the 2004 scoring system would have increased the
> scores by about 45-50%, but for the higher point totals, the increase
> was 6 to 15%. Everybody would have gotten higher points, but the
> stories with lots of smaller reviews would have fared better than those
> stories with a few longer reviews.
>
> I think the basic idea behind the 2004 point system is that if you get
> lots of reviews that should count somewhat better than someone that got
> a few long reviews, if the total character count is similar between the
> two. Thus, having the 'minimum score' (essentially) be 3 points, except
> for those ultra-short <20-character or pretty darn short <80 character
> reviews.
>
> Assuming that this behavior is what you want, I propose the following:
>
> Do a more continuous points scale, as follows:
>
> characters percentage calculated score
> 0 to 20: 20% of characters 4 pts for a 20 character review
> 21 to 100: 10% of characters 4+8 = 12 pts for an 80 char review
> 100 to 300: 5% of characters 12 + 10 = 22 pts for a 300 char
> review
> 300 to 700: 4% of characters 22 + 16 = 38 pts for a 700 char
> review
> 700 to 1100: 3% of characters 38 + 12 = 50 pts for a 1100 char
> review
>
> Round up to the nearest 1 pt.
>
> Here's how the reviews would have broken down this year using my
> suggested system.
>
> Pts num reviews at that score
> 1 0
> 2 4
> 3 9
> 4 27
> 5 44
> 6 49
> 7 76
> 8 109
> 9 114
> 10 112
> 11 127
> 12 139
> 13 295
> 14 285
> 15 313
> 16 235
> 17 262
> 18 301
> 19 252
> 20 241
> 21 204
> 22 181
> 23 246
> 24 228
> 25 189
> 26 158
> 27 145
> 28 154
> 29 117
> 30 116
> 31 113
> 32 93
> 33 78
> 34 83
> 35 67
> 36 61
> 37 70
> 38 44
> 39 58
> 40 59
> 41 39
> 42 34
> 43 33
> 44 49
> 45 27
> 46 19
> 47 34
> 48 18
> 49 11
> 50 301
>
> This is similar to the 2004 system, but weights a bit higher for longer
> reviews. It does not weight nearly as high as the 2005 system, though.
>
> The maximum review is a nice round number, 50 points.
>
> Total scores would be much higher (stroke those egos, now!).
>
> year/total points awarded using that system and the 2005 reviews.
> 2004 27,816
> 2005 22,777
> 2006 138,403
>
> Now that I've given you this data, I suspect that you'll need to decide
> which sort of system you prefer (weight the shorter reviews or weight
> the longer reviews).
>
> I've put my spreadsheet on the Yahoo Group! files section. I haven't
> documented it very well, but I think you can understand what I did. I
> even graphed the proposed 2006 scores, and they look like a nice bell
> curve with a long tail to the right. and a big bump at 50.
>
> Didn't I say something about deciding things soon? I'm not helping that
> along, I guess!
>
> Later,
> Anthony
>
>
>
> SPONSORED LINKS
> Writing and publishing a book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w1=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w2=Writing+book&w3=Writing+child+book&w4=Writing+a+book+report&w5=Business+writing+book&w6=Creative+writing+book&c=6&s=158&.sig=OWB7vxgAbRkTahBRXFLnXw> Writing
> book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+book&w1=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w2=Writing+book&w3=Writing+child+book&w4=Writing+a+book+report&w5=Business+writing+book&w6=Creative+writing+book&c=6&s=158&.sig=6Z1Zky8D0GhX4r1EuyACDA> Writing
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> a book report<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Writing+a+book+report&w1=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w2=Writing+book&w3=Writing+child+book&w4=Writing+a+book+report&w5=Business+writing+book&w6=Creative+writing+book&c=6&s=158&.sig=TdlXhRsskXLKJt7xiPw7-w> Business
> writing book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Business+writing+book&w1=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w2=Writing+book&w3=Writing+child+book&w4=Writing+a+book+report&w5=Business+writing+book&w6=Creative+writing+book&c=6&s=158&.sig=7jDWw1GqY7lYHvBM5Y6uUA> Creative
> writing book<http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Creative+writing+book&w1=Writing+and+publishing+a+book&w2=Writing+book&w3=Writing+child+book&w4=Writing+a+book+report&w5=Business+writing+book&w6=Creative+writing+book&c=6&s=158&.sig=3YxX5Su32OpxFDrWNs7PCg>
> ------------------------------
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> on the web.
>
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> ------------------------------
>


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

Msg# 6680

What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the answe Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 09, 2006 - 11:01:52 Topic ID# 6662
Sulriel,

Thank you for responding, and I appreciate that you're concerned for
fellow participants--though whether they were reviewers or authors, I
can't tell. I don't even know whether making that distinction would be
important, such is the level of darkness into which I am plunged.

The which being so, I'm afraid I'm beginning to get more than just
slightly frustrated, and that is going to result in some fairly blunt
phrasing. It is my hope that this will destroy the need to do any
guesswork about what I am asking for in terms of an explanation of
your position in favor of reducing the points scale. There are some
very specific questions I need answered if I'm going to be convinced
your position is the best solution for MEFAs, but I keep getting
answers that are too general to be of any use to me, since I can claim
that same general interest in acknowledging the pressures of RL for my
own position as easily and with as much justification (so far as I can
see) as you can claim it for yours.

> > Or is the basic reason for that proposed reduction that we should
> > remember to value the fact that someone took the time to review the
> > story... as opposed to what? This does not clearly seem to be in
> > opposition to the first possibility; they seem rather to complement
> > each other like two sides of the very same coin. However, it does
> > sound like it's an opposite position to, perhaps, being upset that
> > someone didn't leave a ten point review. To being what some would
> say
> > is "overly competitive"--a complaint that seems to come up at
> regular
> > intervals, and in fact I think occurred this very week.
>
>
> I *personally* like to 'play hard'. I like to tumble across the
> finish line bloody and bruised and exhausted, have a group hug with
> the people who kicked my but*, and those but*s I kicked, and all of
> us meet at the inn for a pint.
>
> But in a group as mixed as this, with such different backgrounds,
> strengths, weakness, etc. ... those who like to play hard typically
> come off as bullies (or 'overly competitive')
> other people are
> shocked and/or hurt and/or upset and/or scream and/or quietly slink
> away ... and that's no fun. It's kinda like playing roller derby
> when half the group is doing the hokey-pokey. I DO NOT believe that
> we should be set up for the lowest common denominator, but I do think
> we need balance.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing any of this, so I'm not seeing balance
in this effort to reduce the points scale, I'm seeing an effort to
move towards some "solution" to a problem that doesn't seem to exist
except on the level of "feelings" that are being filtered through a
third party, which third party feels bound to reveal absolutely no
specifics. I appreciate that you're keeping confidences, but something
has to give here.

I can't make any judgments about the proposed solution being balanced
or reasonable, or not, here. I just have no data on which to base a
judgment of balance/reasonability. Zero. None. Also, I'm extremely
confused here: what is it that constitutes "playing hard" at MEFAs?
Writing a lot of reviews? Writing a long review? Writing reviews
consistently higher than some average I'm unaware of? Thinking we need
a larger scale than five points? Trying to abide by the rules that
make the reviewing competitive, by saying "*I* think this is worth 2
points and another story is worth 5 points and this one over here
worth 10 points?" If I don't know the answer to these questions, how
am I supposed to recognize who's playing hard, and (more importantly)
whether that is an unfair way of playing?

Do you see the problem I'm having here? There's some floating standard
of reasonable competition based on some nebulous (to me) and anonymous
(certainly to me) sense of "hurt feelings" that no one will specify,
quantify, or correlate with the specific set up of the awards. Saying
that lowering the points scale is a possible solution to that sense of
hurt is not sufficient--it doesn't tell me what the problem is or how
it relates to the points scale. And where we start talking about those
specifics, it seems as if the hurt feelings drop out and it becomes a
question of which proposal is more attractive--but that's not the
question that's getting answered so far, unfortunately.

> If that comes across as harsh to some people, I apologize ...
> I'm
> trying to say that I appreciate our differences, that I know that
> people have different kind of fun.

Yes, of course, but the relevant question, if I'm not mistaken, is
exactly what kind of fun was it that the rest of us have had by virtue
of the way MEFAs is set up that is causing significant problems for an
apparently vast number of other people? And how does it relate to the
points structure? Are we talking about authors speaking from the
receiving end of things or reviewers speaking from the giving end of
things, or both? And if both, how should we see them in relation to
each other through the points scale?

I need answers to these questions if we're going to maintain this
sense of hurt is relevant to *this* discussion. Otherwise, I'm bowing
out of this discussion because there's nothing to be meaningfully
talked about, I don't think, unless we can get an accurate fix on what
the problem is supposed to be, so we can start assessing it and any
possible solutions properly.

> <<<more snippage>>
> > If it *does* have something to do with the points scale, however,
> then> the difference between zero and one, though infinite, is far
> less than> the multiply infinite difference between one and ten,
>
> what about this? .... what about making the point scale from 5-10?
>
> 0-100 characters = 5 pts
> 101-250 characters = 6pts
> 251-450 ch = 7pts
> 451-700 = 8pts
> 701-1000 = 9pts
> 1001+ = 10 pts
>
> the purpose of starting with 5 pts being to recognize the effort of a
> 11 character review (great story!) is not in the keyboard, but in the
> reading and the clicking and the reviewing. ... the effort of
> registering with the MEFAs and leaving any review at all.

Well, recall that I am not a math person, but this looks like the same
5 point spread, it's just that instead of 1-5, we're looking at 5-10,
with some weighting thrown in for good measure. The difference between
a three point review and a one point review is exactly the same as the
difference between a seven point review and a five point review.

So we award five times as much, under this schema, to the first level
of char counts, and only two times as much to the highest level if we
compare it with the proposed 1-5 points scale schema, while
maintaining the same five point scale. Furthermore, comparing this
proposed range to the last five point range proposed, the difference
between the bottom and the top was a multiple of five originally, and
with this new proposal, it's a multiple of two. In addition, there's
an internal points threshold change that means you can hit the
midpoint of the scoring range with just 1/5, or about 20% of the total
possible countable characters. That's a pretty heavy weight on a much
reduced scale for the lower char-count reviews, and I think it's too
much of a weight to be fair, and too restricted a range to allow for a
fair weighting. I will defer, however, to those who are more
mathematically sophisticated if they say I'm reading this incorrectly
from a mathematical standpoint.

But in any case, whether I'm right or wrong mathematically, please
explain how this is going to make people less pained by comparison to
their current pained state in such a way that it is clearly better to
*both* reduce the points spread *and* weight the char thresholds, than
to simply curve the points spread.

That is what I need in order to be convinced that we should go with
this schema; I do not need a general assertion that this will better
reflect recognition for that great indefinable, "effort." After all,
I'm also trying to address the fact that we all have other things to
do than write reviews, so some greater allowance should be made for
that in the points structure, as I've repeatedly said *and tried to
show how that assertion links up to my proposed solution*. If my
demonstration fails to convince, I need you to explain *why*.

> I know that as a reviewer, I didn't review any that I noted that I
> needed to keep the review short. .... I worked from the other
> side... those that excited me as I read got the mental notes that it
> needed a longer review.

Different reviewing habits, then. I did both, since the point to me
was to try and say what I liked or thought was good about a story,
while keeping a mindful eye on the fact that it is still a competition
where length of review counts.

<snip>

> > The problem here is not the points cap, it's the cynicism. If
> someone
> > feels his or her vote makes no difference, then five points or ten,
> > s/he will always find a reason not to vote. Always.
>
> I agree to a point. There is cynicism and there are easy excuses for
> not doing what you didn't want to do anyway, but I also know that we
> all have a Real Life, and also that there was a lot of real hurt last
> year.

See paragraphs above; please also note that I've said the exact same
thing about wanting to make a consideration for RL stresses multiple
times, so please do not read my observation of the cynicism of that
hypothetical non-participator's position as my overlooking the point
about having RL issues to contend with. I'm arguing with your specific
solution, not with your general perspective for viewing the question
of whether we should reorganize the points structure--not when that
perspective is that of RL business that consumes most of our energy,
at least.

Where I disagree with your general perspective is the incorporation of
this hidden set of complaints that you claim are informing your
position. I really don't mean to be rude, snotty, b*tchy, bratty,
arrogant, bullying OR 'overly competitive', here, all of which I have
the feeling I'll be considered, but I am getting extremely frustrated
with the vagueness here. I feel like it is almost not worth making a
comment at this point, because really, what am I even talking about if
I'm trying to address changes to the way MEFAs work that are based on
some reports of utterly unspecific complaints?

> - is changing the point system going to fix all that - no - I don't
> have that illusion. But if I can think of ways to make it easier to
> make a difference for those reviewers who *are* honestly pressed for
> time and energy, I'm going to make those suggestions.

<paste>

> I'm just
> trying to make small adjustments that I think will alleviate some of
> the problems I saw that I think can be helped.

I understand all that, but you're not answering my question when I say
show me how *your* schema is clearly superior to simply curving the
points structure in the way either Anthony (increase range and alter
thresholds) or I have suggested (keep 10 point range and alter
thresholds). Instead, I get appeals to general statements I've clearly
already agreed to, or else appeals to privately received complaints,
the relevant nature of which is not disclosed, as justifications for
your position. So we haven't even uncovered the specific things
generating disagreement between us, which means we can't possibly
settle the matter reasonably.

What does cutting down the scale bring to this party that curving the
points structure fails to do, and how does it relate to these
complaints you've been receiving? If this isn't explained to me, then
I can't do anything but throw up my hands over here and say I can't
agree with your proposal since it's more drastic than mine while not
clearly addressing anything that my position can't address. Why should
that much weight be given to shorter reviews, and why should we
artificially depress competition by narrowing the points range (or, if
you prefer, make it more 'competitive' since we'll probably (I stress
again I'm not a mathematically savvy person, so I could be wrong here,
either due to inadequate theory or simply due to what just happens to
fall out next year) need more tie-breakers based on absolute character
counts if we lower the points scale, and a tie is, according to common
conceptions, the result of qualitatively very evenly matched
competitors)?

> > > I'd be very concerned that we might be dealing with an imaginary
> > problem, and being lazy like I am, I don't like to deal with
> problems
> > that I'm not convinced are very real. I need a lot more convincing
> to
> > be done on behalf of the points scale reduction if this is the
> reason
> > for it.
>
>
> I can't express to you the depth and the reality of the emotional
> hurt that I saw during these awards last year. I absolutely refuse
> to name names or specifics, - some was public most was not - the
> domino effect and the reverberations were pretty incredible.

Now we get down to what should be the brass tacks of your position,
yet I at least find there's really nothing here that would let us
decide between your proposal and mine, or even come to a reasonable
and reasoned disagreement that would allow us each to walk away in
peace over whatever decision is made, even if it wasn't in favor of
our preferred position.

A third party report that is that unspecific is enough to make me say,
ok some people had deep problems, and I'm sorry that it wasn't nearly
as much fun for some as for others. But such a report in no way makes
me think it is time to rework the points structure in the specific way
that you have suggested, because all you've told me is *that* people
are hurt. I don't know why they were hurt, so I can't make any
judgment based on that about whether your solution is the right one to
remedy it. I don't think anyone should make a judgment based on total
ignorance of relvant particulars. Nor do I think it's fair of anyone
to ask us to make a decision on those grounds, if you'll pardon my
uncensored opinion.

If the admins have all this data from injured parties, they should
present an anonymous and very careful paraphrase of it so we can all
make decisions about what seems the best way to handle the problem.
Either that, or they should just make an executive decision by virtue
of being the only ones with any actual data to work with, and stop
asking the rest of us to participate in this decision since we could
only participate irresponsibly if the major reason to change the
points scale is to bind up wounds we can't even see.

And now that I've been an annoying broken record for several long
paragraphs, I'm going to sign off.

Dwim

Msg# 6681

What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the answe Posted by sulriel January 09, 2006 - 18:23:32 Topic ID# 6662
>>>Thank you for responding, and I appreciate that you're concerned
forfellow participants

that's my main concern

>>>-though whether they were reviewers or authors, I
can't tell. I don't even know whether making that distinction would be
important,

doesn't really matter. all are participants and needed to make the
awards work.


>>>such is the level of darkness into which I am plunged.


offers Dwim a candle.


>>>The which being so, I'm afraid I'm beginning to get more than just
slightly frustrated,


one thing I'd like to make clear is that I'm not frustrated or upset
in any way with this conversation. - I'm not fighting to convince
anyone else of my viewpoint so much as I am trying to explain why I
feel and think the way I do about this issue. If people empathize,
or understand or agree or not is up to each individual, and how the
admin feel about what I say, and if they put it up to a vote - all
that is out of my hands. .... I'm just trying to present a
viewpoint that I personally feel would help improve the awards and
I'm trying to answer questions raised by my posts. I'm not even sure
it would help, but it's the best I can come up with.


>>>acknowledging the pressures of RL for my
own position as easily and with as much justification (so far as I can
see) as you can claim it for yours.

yes, my RL is quite full. but I make fanfiction and the MEFAs a
priority in my spotty downtime. but you and I aren't the issue.
we're here, debating - reading and reviewing as need be. ... I'm
trying to speak for others who spoke to me in confidence. I don't
have a lot to stand on that case.... all I mean to do is present
what I think would have helped them to see if other people agree.


<<<much snipped>>

>>>Do you see the problem I'm having here? There's some floating
standardof reasonable competition based on some nebulous (to me) and
anonymous(certainly to me) sense of "hurt feelings" that no one will
specify,quantify, or correlate with the specific set up of the
awards.


yes. I understand. but as I said. I'm simply presenting an idea
that I think will help a few people a little.

you and other individual have to decide to agree or not. I don't
have the answers to a lot of your questions.

as I've said before, I believe these awards have an awful lot going
right - that's why I'm still here - I saw some great upset from a
few and I'm looking around for ways to help *those people also* maybe
have as much fun as the rest of us.

that's all. I'm not trying to change the world. if you don't
agree with my ideas, I'm ok with that. - maybe most people don't
agree. I'm ok with that too.



>>>Yes, of course, but the relevant question, if I'm not mistaken, is
exactly what kind of fun was it that the rest of us have had by virtue
of the way MEFAs is set up that is causing significant problems for an
apparently vast number of other people?


no. not a vast number. I heard from a few ( ... 'more than
three' ... ) but not a vast number. I think with the vastness a
great time was had by all.

but how many did anyone not hear from that didn't have a good time?
that's the unknown quantity - and really nothing can be done about
that but acknowledge the possibility of their existence.

in regards to the vastness Vs the few. If we can tweak the point
system to help those few without depriving that number of the
vastness, I see that as worthwhile.



> what about this? .... what about making the point scale from 5-10?
>
> 0-100 characters = 5 pts
> 101-250 characters = 6pts
> 251-450 ch = 7pts
> 451-700 = 8pts
> 701-1000 = 9pts
> 1001+ = 10 pts
>
> the purpose of starting with 5 pts being to recognize the effort of
a
> 11 character review (great story!) is not in the keyboard, but in
the
> reading and the clicking and the reviewing. ... the effort of
> registering with the MEFAs and leaving any review at all.

>>>>Well, recall that I am not a math person, but this looks like the
same5 point spread, it's just that instead of 1-5, we're looking at 5-
10,with some weighting thrown in for good measure. The difference
betweena three point review and a one point review is exactly the
same as thedifference between a seven point review and a five point
review.


starting at five points acknowledges that the FIRST point is the
most important one.



>>But in any case, whether I'm right or wrong mathematically, please
explain how this is going to make people less pained by comparison to
their current pained state in such a way that it is clearly better to
*both* reduce the points spread *and* weight the char thresholds, than
to simply curve the points spread.


it's more of an emotional thing than a mathematical thing. My hope
is that it will keep in the forefront a reminder of the amount of
effort each review takes in logging on the system, selecting a story,
reading the story, reviewing the story - the length of the review is
gravy.

it also weights the reviews more than just the point spread. two
minimum reviews at 5 pts each equal one long review of 10 pts, - as
opposed to the previous system of needing ten minimum reviews needed
to match one long review. .. so it also weights it in favor of the
number of reviewers, which I think is a good thing and will help
level out the difference in reviewers styles. - although keep in
mind that character count will be the final tie breaker so ultimately
those very long reviews could still tip the scale.



> > Where I disagree with your general perspective is the
incorporation ofthis hidden set of complaints that you claim are
informing yourposition. I really don't mean to be rude, snotty,
b*tchy, bratty,arrogant, bullying OR 'overly competitive', here, all
of which I havethe feeling I'll be considered, but I am getting
extremely frustratedwith the vagueness here. I feel like it is almost
not worth making acomment at this point, because really, what am I
even talking about ifI'm trying to address changes to the way MEFAs
work that are based osome reports of utterly unspecific complaints?


it is what it is. if you choose to discount what I've said that's
your choice, and I don't make any of the above judgements on you. I
have a great deal of respect for your pragmatic attitude in most
cases - and even, really, in this case, in standing up against the
vague 'touchy-feely'. I don't have any way to convince you
otherwise, although I'm curious what purpose you imagine I would have
going on about this if I didn't feel strongly about it.



>> If the admins have all this data from injured parties, they should
present an anonymous and very careful paraphrase of it so we can all
make decisions about what seems the best way to handle the problem.
Either that, or they should just make an executive decision by virtue
of being the only ones with any actual data to work with, and stop
asking the rest of us to participate in this decision since we could
only participate irresponsibly if the major reason to change the
points scale is to bind up wounds we can't even see.
>>>And now that I've been an annoying broken record for several long
paragraphs, I'm going to sign off.>>>Dwim


I don't know what was said to anyone else and no one else has stepped
into this discussion, maybe no one else will. I really think I've
said all I have to say about it, and I have tired-head from working
on RL - abused horse (so-called 'training') on one hand and a starved
herd on the other. - ... tends to keep all this 'fun' stuff in
perspective for me.


Sulriel

Msg# 6682

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Laura January 09, 2006 - 22:36:46 Topic ID# 6662
-- "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
>> it's more of an emotional thing than a mathematical thing. My hope
>> is that it will keep in the forefront a reminder of the amount of
>> effort each review takes in logging on the system, selecting a
>> story, reading the story, reviewing the story - the length of the
>> review is gravy.
>>
>> it also weights the reviews more than just the point spread. two
>> minimum reviews at 5 pts each equal one long review of 10 pts, - as
>> opposed to the previous system of needing ten minimum reviews
>> needed to match one long review. .. so it also weights it in favor
>> of the number of reviewers, which I think is a good thing and will
>> help level out the difference in reviewers styles. - although
>> keep in mind that character count will be the final tie breaker so
>> ultimately those very long reviews could still tip the scale.

I hope no one minds if I jump in really quickly, because I think Sulriel has hit upon a fundamental difference in the way that some of us are approaching this issue. She's addressed it more clearly than I did, anyway, and I wanted to highlight two things.

1) Quantity vs. Length

If I understand this correctly, Sulriel is putting forth the opinion that two short reviews should be the equal of one long review. If I understand others correctly, this opinion is shared.

Here, I think, is at least one of the basic differences in our approach because I disagree. I think one giant review ought to be worth *more* than two short reviews. I think the problem with quick, short reviews is that it favors the well-known authors and ignores the authors who might be REALLY good but just aren't widely known. I think giving unknown authors who are able to inspire gushing reviews an edge in this is a good thing.

Should a single person writing enormous reviews be able to change the outcome of a subcategory where many are participating? No. But I think that longer reviews should have more of an influence than shorter reviews. I think the margin between the shortest review and the longest counted review should be more than five points.

2) The worth of a short review

The proposal for a 5-10 scale caught my attention. Initially, I had the same reaction Dwim did: How is that any different than a point scale of 1-5 aside from extra weight at the low end of the scale? Sulriel's explanation, though, intrigues me, because I do see psychological merit to it. Even though reviewers know that a 5 point review is the lowest, it's still a bigger number than 1 and that means something. The most practical among us will shrug and say lowest is still lowest, but others will look at a 5 point review in the 5-10 scale and still be able to feel good about it.

But it doesn't solve the problem of quantity vs. length. In fact, if anything, it makes it worse. Under the current scale, it takes ten of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal one of the highest (10 points). Under the proposed 1-5 scale, it would take five of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal one of the longest reviews (5 points). Under the 5-10 scale, it would only take TWO of the lowest reviews (5 points) to equal the highest (10 points).

Let's return, for a moment, to our scenario of Fred and Fredita. So Fred, our incredible but unknown Silm writer, has caught the attention of a reviewer and garnered an enormous and gushing review in which the reviewer confesses his/her inability to sleep at night due to the sheer power of such an incredible story. In the meantime, two of Fredita's faithful fans have wandered over from the adventure category and taken a chance on her good but not necessarily great Silm story. They both leave reviews saying something like, "Good job, I liked this." Under the 5-10 scale, Fredita's story is now tied with Fred's, and under a tie-breaker, Fredita would win because her story has more reviews than Fred's does.

I was uncomfortable with the weight given in the 1-5 scale. I'm even more uncomfortable with the 5-10. However, I do see the psychological merit in raising the worth of the lower reviews. Like Sulriel, I was also privy to a few complaints about the inability to give long reviews. Some felt their input wouldn't count for much as they weren't overly verbose and couldn't fill a page of gush without padding.

But can I submit that there might be a few other reasons? We had an ENORMOUS number of competitors this year. I was very overwhelmed initially and wondered if I would be able to make any dent in the number of stories out there to review. And I wondered if I would be able to leave any long reviews because I would be so pressed for time. I know others felt the same way. I don't think we'll have the same problem this coming year. We might still have quite a few stories competing, but it doesn't feel to me as though we're going to have something on the order of 1200. Can I suggest waiting this debate out one more year to see if the problem really is the point scale? And if it is, we can revisit this topic with a clearer picture of what people are really having trouble with. Because the main problem this year (to my mind, at least) was the author reviews and the sheer number of stories entered in the competition. Once we solve that, it will be easier to tweak the other concerns.

If people are convinced that this is one of the primary problems, though, may I suggest an alternative to those already proposed? What if we ordered the point scale by odd numbers? Something along these lines:

0-100 characters = 1 pt
101-250 characters = 3pts
251-450 ch = 5pts
451-700 = 7pts
701-1000 = 9pts
1001+ = 10 pts

The baseline reviews (those consisting of "Great job, I liked this") are still only worth one point. But if people choose to put a bit more effort into their review ("Great job! I liked this. I can see Frodo feeling this way after the War of the Ring, and I liked what you did with Sam, too.") will be able to boost their review up into the 3-point range. So although the lowest is still 1, it doesn't take much to pull it up two points. But it does require four of the 3-point reviews to overtake a 10 point review, which makes me a bit more comfortable than the 5-10 scale. And there's still a baseline of 1 for the "Nice work, cute story" reviews, so that it takes ten of them to beat a 10-point review.

I like the system we have now more than I like this alternative, but if people feel that strongly about changing the points around, maybe we could think about this possibility.

Just a thought.

Thundera

-------------------------------------------------------------
- No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
no harm will come to you.
- Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
how any harm could come to me there, either.
William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
-------------------------------------------------------------

Msg# 6683

scoring systems Posted by Marta January 09, 2006 - 23:09:49 Topic ID# 6683
Hey guys,

I've read through a lot of the posts that have been made about the different scoring
systems that have been proposed (10-pt, 5-pt, pure character count, etc.) I'm receiving
the posts by digest but I happened to read at the website today, so I'm caught up through
Dwim's last post.

Originally I was prepared to set up a poll and was actually going to do that tonight. But I've
been thinking about it. There seems to be a lot of disagreement on this, too much for me
to be comfortable changing what's a pretty fundamental part of these awards.

There are some things that are so central that I doubt they'll ever change. I'm talking about
things like having voting be done by making comments. Then there are other things that
are pretty cosmetic and I'm happy to go with what the majority wants, like the name of an
award or whether to have a certain category. Then there's a third category of issues, and I
think the scoring issue falls into this group: things that are pretty central to the awards,
but not so much so that I don't think we can change them if there's a consensus that they
need to be changed. Another example of this would be the authors awards. How we
handle those is definitely up for debate, but there has to be a stronger consensus than a
simple majority.

So we have this issue of how exactly to count votes. It's not something I'm willing to
change unless there's a consensus here, and I don't think we're likely to get that. So I think
we should just stick with the 10-point system that we had this year. Debating the others
isn't likely to move us forward.

I'll try to get through some more emails tonight. We still need to decide how exactly to
work the points.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6684

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is the an Posted by MarigoldCotton@aol.com January 10, 2006 - 0:39:24 Topic ID# 6684
I was going to write my lengthy opinion of this issue, but Thundera did it for me! I agre wholeheartedly with what she says here, and with her proposals.

I strongly disagree with a 5 pt minimum review. I work very hard on my reviews because it is a way that I can pay back the author for a story that I enjoyed. The author works hard to write the story in the first place, I should be willing to put the effort in, and write a review touching on all of the things that I liked about the story. Some reviews might be very long, some of moderate length, but I write what I feel.

Yes, these are the Feel Good Awards, but in my opinion, this idea to raise the worth of a minimum vote is rather defeating the whole point of giving awards to the stories that folks like the best, and take the time to write the longest reviews for.

I acknowledge that at the end of Voting Season this year that I was rushing, and not able to write reviews of the length I wanted for every story that I had hoped to. I agree with Thundera though that we will have far fewer stories this year. We have already acted to ensure that. So this next Awards I should be able to write the full reviews that I think a story deserves.

And I think too that voters have to take responsibility for their votes - I read every story in a given category, and wrote my reviews based on my enjoyment of each story in that category. I felt that that way I was being fair to all of the authors in the category. I wasn't just picking out Author X that I know, and reviewing their story without reading the stories that were entered alongside hers. I didn't go to a category, pick out only authors and stories that I knew, and write reviews only for them. And I finished a category before I went to the next one, I didn't skip through the categories looking for authors I knew so that I could vote for them. That practice seems to be hinted at in some of these many e-mails, and I hope that is not the case.

If it *is* the case, changing the point system in the way that had been suggested will just perpetuate that, and load the voting in favour of those very authors.

I would definitely go along with the scale that Thundera suggests:

>0-100 characters = 1 pt
>101-250 characters = 3pts
>251-450 ch = 5pts
>451-700 = 7pts
>701-1000 = 9pts
>1001+ = 10 pts

I hope that was coherent...I worked all night and just got home and I am knackered!

Marigold



>-- "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
>>> it's more of an emotional thing than a mathematical thing.  My hope
>>> is that it will keep in the forefront a reminder of the amount of
>>> effort each review takes in logging on the system, selecting a
>>> story, reading the story, reviewing the story - the length of the
>>> review is gravy.
>>>
>>> it also weights the reviews more than just the point spread.  two
>>> minimum reviews at 5 pts each equal one long review of 10 pts, - as
>>> opposed to the previous system of needing ten minimum reviews
>>> needed to match one long review.  .. so it also weights it in favor
>>> of the number of reviewers, which I think is a good thing and will
>>> help level out the difference in reviewers styles.     - although
>>> keep in mind that character count will be the final tie breaker so
>>> ultimately those very long reviews could still tip the scale.
>
>I hope no one minds if I jump in really quickly, because I think Sulriel has hit upon a fundamental difference in the way that some of us are approaching this issue. She's addressed it more clearly than I did, anyway, and I wanted to highlight two things.
>
>1) Quantity vs. Length
>
>If I understand this correctly, Sulriel is putting forth the opinion that two short reviews should be the equal of one long review. If I understand others correctly, this opinion is shared.
>
>Here, I think, is at least one of the basic differences in our approach because I disagree. I think one giant review ought to be worth *more* than two short reviews. I think the problem with quick, short reviews is that it favors the well-known authors and ignores the authors who might be REALLY good but just aren't widely known. I think giving unknown authors who are able to inspire gushing reviews an edge in this is a good thing.
>
>Should a single person writing enormous reviews be able to change the outcome of a subcategory where many are participating? No. But I think that longer reviews should have more of an influence than shorter reviews. I think the margin between the shortest review and the longest counted review should be more than five points.
>
>2) The worth of a short review
>
>The proposal for a 5-10 scale caught my attention. Initially, I had the same reaction Dwim did: How is that any different than a point scale of 1-5 aside from extra weight at the low end of the scale? Sulriel's explanation, though, intrigues me, because I do see psychological merit to it. Even though reviewers know that a 5 point review is the lowest, it's still a bigger number than 1 and that means something. The most practical among us will shrug and say lowest is still lowest, but others will look at a 5 point review in the 5-10 scale and still be able to feel good about it.
>
>But it doesn't solve the problem of quantity vs. length. In fact, if anything, it makes it worse. Under the current scale, it takes ten of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal one of the highest (10 points). Under the proposed 1-5 scale, it would take five of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal one of the longest reviews (5 points). Under the 5-10 scale, it would only take TWO of the lowest reviews (5 points) to equal the highest (10 points).
>
>Let's return, for a moment, to our scenario of Fred and Fredita. So Fred, our incredible but unknown Silm writer, has caught the attention of a reviewer and garnered an enormous and gushing review in which the reviewer confesses his/her inability to sleep at night due to the sheer power of such an incredible story. In the meantime, two of Fredita's faithful fans have wandered over from the adventure category and taken a chance on her good but not necessarily great Silm story. They both leave reviews saying something like, "Good job, I liked this." Under the 5-10 scale, Fredita's story is now tied with Fred's, and under a tie-breaker, Fredita would win because her story has more reviews than Fred's does.
>
>I was uncomfortable with the weight given in the 1-5 scale. I'm even more uncomfortable with the 5-10. However, I do see the psychological merit in raising the worth of the lower reviews. Like Sulriel, I was also privy to a few complaints about the inability to give long reviews. Some felt their input wouldn't count for much as they weren't overly verbose and couldn't fill a page of gush without padding.
>
>But can I submit that there might be a few other reasons? We had an ENORMOUS number of competitors this year. I was very overwhelmed initially and wondered if I would be able to make any dent in the number of stories out there to review. And I wondered if I would be able to leave any long reviews because I would be so pressed for time. I know others felt the same way. I don't think we'll have the same problem this coming year. We might still have quite a few stories competing, but it doesn't feel to me as though we're going to have something on the order of 1200. Can I suggest waiting this debate out one more year to see if the problem really is the point scale? And if it is, we can revisit this topic with a clearer picture of what people are really having trouble with. Because the main problem this year (to my mind, at least) was the author reviews and the sheer number of stories entered in the competition. Once we solve that, it will be easier to tweak the other concerns.
>
>If people are convinced that this is one of the primary problems, though, may I suggest an alternative to those already proposed? What if we ordered the point scale by odd numbers? Something along these lines:
>
>0-100 characters = 1 pt
>101-250 characters = 3pts
>251-450 ch = 5pts
>451-700 = 7pts
>701-1000 = 9pts
>1001+ = 10 pts
>
>The baseline reviews (those consisting of "Great job, I liked this") are still only worth one point. But if people choose to put a bit more effort into their review ("Great job! I liked this. I can see Frodo feeling this way after the War of the Ring, and I liked what you did with Sam, too.") will be able to boost their review up into the 3-point range. So although the lowest is still 1, it doesn't take much to pull it up two points. But it does require four of the 3-point reviews to overtake a 10 point review, which makes me a bit more comfortable than the 5-10 scale. And there's still a baseline of 1 for the "Nice work, cute story" reviews, so that it takes ten of them to beat a 10-point review.
>
>I like the system we have now more than I like this alternative, but if people feel that strongly about changing the points around, maybe we could think about this possibility.
>
>Just a thought.
>
>Thundera
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>- No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
>  no harm will come to you.
>- Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
>  how any harm could come to me there, either.
>     William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


--
Marigold's Red Book
http://marigold.tolkienshire.com

Marigold's Recommendations Page
http://www.geocities.com/marigoldsrecommendations/

Marigold's Live Journal
http://www.livejournal.com/users/marigoldg/

Tales of The Red Book
http://www.livejournal.com/users/talesofredbook/




There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.
>
>Sam, in Mordor, RoTK

Msg# 6685

Re: Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems Posted by Anthony Holder January 10, 2006 - 1:09:21 Topic ID# 6655
I can see that the discussion is trending more to the 'why' than the
'what', and that you all have more clearly identified what the
discussion is. I've got some more statistics here that may help you see
what the impact of certain scoring systems could be.

RSF, Here's the breakdown you've asked for, with the 2004 and 2005, and
Thundera's suggestion for comparison.

2005 2004 1 to 5 5 to 10 Thundera
pts scale scale scale scale scale
1 809 40 209 0 809
2 1389 504 2664 0 0
3 1178 2329 1856 0 2064
4 821 0 961 0 0
5 532 1856 330 809 1623
6 495 0 0 2064 0
7 270 697 0 1623 842
8 155 0 0 842 0
9 104 327 0 352 352
10 267 267 0 330 330

Dividing the reviews into groups of 20 more or less at random, here are
some statistics:

2005 2004 AH/5 5-10 1-5
Min 35 51 48 112 34
Max 136 144 146.8 168 78
Range 101 93 98.8 56 44
Mean 75.7 92.4 91.9 136.2 55.1
StdDev 19.8 18.1 19.0 11.1 8.1

Remembering that these are all assuming that each group (story) gets 20
votes. It's not very realistic, but gives some indication of how the
scores might fall.

What I see here is that the 2005 and 2004 systems had similar standard
deviations (a measure of how much variation between groupings). This
indicates that the two systems, while weighted much differently, will
provide a range of scores that are similar. From last time, the lower
totals increased about 40-50%, and the higher totals increased 10-15%,
showing the influence of the higher weighting on the lower scores.

The two 5 point systems, however, have much smaller standard
deviations, indicating that there would be much less variation between
the top and bottom scorers.

To compare the 'AH' (my initials) system to the others, I divided the
numbers by 5, since the max score was 50 instead of 10. The system
compares fairly well to the 2004 and 2005 systems in variability,
minimum and maximum, which makes sense, because it doesn't really
change much except multiply the scores by 5 and increase the number of
categories.

The AH system does weight more heavily toward shorter reviews than the
2005 system (a 91 character review is 12 points, about 25% of the max,
and a 341 character review is 50% of the max), but there isn't an
immediate jump from 0 to any number. It is possible to write a 1 point
review ("Nice!" would be 1 pt.). If I was writing a review like that, I
would expect it not to count as much as a 1000 character review in this
sort of system. It does count, though, and it could make the difference
between first and second place for the story, but with the 5-10 system,
that review would count half as much as a 1001 character review.

Everyone seems to agree that there should be a weighted system. The
question is how to weight it.

Very little weighting (like 2005) gives more 'power' to those who
can/do write longer reviews, as theirs count proportionally more than
the shorter reviews. With both the 2004 and 2005 systems, about half of
these reviews are 3 points or less, with more being less in 2005. Over
3/4 were 5 or less with both systems.

So 1/4 of the reviews are > 5 pts with both systems.

Here's a calculation of the percentage of the total points given vs.
the point level.

2005 2004
1 4% 0%
2 12% 4%
3 16% 25%
4 14% 0%
5 12% 33%
6 13% 0%
7 8% 18%
8 5% 0%
9 4% 11%
10 12% 10%

From this, you can see that the 2004 and 2005 systems give 29 and 32%
of the 'power' to the 1-3 point reviews, the 33% and 26% to the 4-5
point reviews, 18% and 21% to the 6 and 7 point reviews, 11% and 9% to
the 8 and 9 point reviews and 10 and 12% to the 10 point reviews. Based
on this analysis, it appears that in both systems, the fact that there
are many more shorter reviews plays a significant role in the voting
outcome. In other words, don't worry that your review is shorter than
someone else's, because several short reviews can beat out a few long
reviews.

In fact, of the about 408 awards over all the categories, comparing 1st
to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd, only 61 stories with fewer reviews beat stories
with more reviews. In fact, in 97 of the 408, stories with lower
average length reviews beat stories with longer average length reviews.
In 95 cases, stories with lower average review scores beat stories with
higher average review scores.

For most stories, of course, more and longer reviews beat fewer and
shorter reviews.

I can not do the same statistics assuming the 2004 system had been in
place, but from earlier calculations, I can assure you that there would
have been far fewer stories winning with fewer/longer reviews over
more/shorter reviews, because the shorter ones got proportionally more
points in 2004. I would expect to see the 61 down to about 10-20, and
the 97 up to 150-200 of the 408 stories.

Anthony

Msg# 6686

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by rhapsody\_the\_bard January 10, 2006 - 4:54:50 Topic ID# 6662
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
<snip>

>>Yes, of course, but the relevant question, if I'm not mistaken,
>>is exactly what kind of fun was it that the rest of us have had by
>>virtue of the way MEFAs is set up that is causing significant
>>problems for an apparently vast number of other people?
>
> no. not a vast number. I heard from a few ( ... 'more than
> three' ... ) but not a vast number. I think with the vastness a
> great time was had by all.

I am sorry but I am getting very tired from this shadowdancing. A
few months ago, when I adressed the concerns of the Fred's out there
who I left glowing reviews while in the categories they ran they
were literally overrun by Freditta's... there were some names
*openly* thrown on the table (it was about hurt feelings by author's
hardly getting reviews). Not only was that highly uncomfortable for
a person who thought she could address her concerns to me in
private, but also she got dragged out into the open about something
people assumed she complained about. Not once, but a couple of
times. Yeah great, so much for keeping things in confidence. I felt
so embarressed when that happened. And now I read of 'others', just
a few, who feel hurt of not getting a long review, because Fred's
out there did get them. Or being beaten in the 'competition' by a
Fred who indeed just beat a person by getting long reviews. So first
I am being told, some months ago, that it is part of the MEFA's &
competing in it and yes it was a pity people rather reviewed those
they knew because of the time pressure. Just bad luck, maybe it
works better next year. But those persons won't run next year again
because basically, Freditta's win, so why should the Fred's out
there bother to participate. Sure, I can understand that, being a
Fred myself (as in before the MEFA's very unknown with hardly any
feedback).

By now I just wonder why people get upset if people decide to choose
to read those they didn't knew *also* given the time pressure. This
is just too much. Also because I remember very clearly the moment
people signalled there were stories still unreviewed, reviewers like
me thought, we can't let that happen and left, in most cases a long
review so that the author didn't feel excluded from the MEFA's.
Also, it was openly encouraged by the admin to do so.

I got overjoyed reactions from authors with that just one review,
and they were so happy: precious feedback that made them glow so
much. Now it is thrown back in those reviewers faces because, well
you never can win around here can you?

I agree with Marigold, Dwim and Thundera (again), but I don't think
I will participate next year. Why, because one moment something is
said and the next thing something else. First we want to do
something also for those unknown authors, sure we can cut back on
nominations, now we want to change a *fair* points system because
long review seem to outbalance short reviews and discourage people
to review. Is this really the case, because I have seen stories win
with loads of small reviews from a story with two long reviews.

I truly wonder, like Dwim, if there isn't another problem that is
lying under the surface. I don't think changing the point system
will encourage people leaving more reviews. It is more about reading
habits, remaining close to what you like and feel the need to leave
a review on. Hey, and that people admitted that, I do appreciate the
honesty. But right now I feel over and over again being bashed for
leaving long reviews, or that people think I padded them for getting
to the ten points. Those people can look up and see that I left
reviews ranging from 10 to 2 or 3 points reviews where ever I
thought I could leave feedback. Because that is what was important
to me: giving the author that. Heck that is the whole reason why I
wanted to participate in the MEFA's. And not watching how author's
roll over the finish line in a competition or being such an author.

Back to the proposed points system. Like Thundera said, it will
encourage the Fredita fans because, hey, a short review gives their
Freditta an extra guaranteed 5 points with not so much effort. Just
type a few lines and your done. Move on to the next one, a friend is
helped. Very easily done. With the current and fair system in place,
still those Freditta fans can leave a quick and short review, move
along, while the Fred discoverers sit down, take their time to type
a review telling why they loved this particular work. Reading
stories was for me the time consuming thing, but I can't read a
story without having so much thoughts about it that I want to say
why I loved it so much. But I disgress. With a tie, the nr's of
characters left (I believe) will tip the scale, but it at least
sounds more honest than the proposed new points system. To me it
feels too easy to rig the competition.

Maybe making the review season longer helps, or as we discussed
earlier, allowing and encouraging people to leave reviews earlier
does work. But not this. Good luck with whatever you decide on.

Rhapsody
(sorry to be rambling, but I needed to get this off my chest)

Msg# 6687

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Nerwen Calaelen January 10, 2006 - 5:23:18 Topic ID# 6662
There are several points I want to make in this debate.
Before anyone accuses me of not understanding how it can hurt to get no reviews, I had a story nominated in 2004 which got no reviews, so I can see that side of the issue. However, in 2005 I looked at EVERY story entered in the awards. I am sure that due to time preasure some of the stories I did not review deserved a review, but I am also aware that there were a lot of stories that I read through and then decided not to review. I think that it has to be acknoledged that there is no quality control on stories being entered for the awards and so there could well be stories that have been read by several people and not reviewed. (assuming I am not the only person who does this). I am concerned that there is pressure being put on people to review stories that they feel do not deserve it. If a lower point scheme or a sceme with higher starting points was introduced, I know that I for one would actually submit fewer reviews as this year I reviewed any story that was interesting
enough for me to read through it and that I could think of anything complementary to say about it.
These are awards, so someone has to win in every catogory. If people are being hurt by not winning, they should not allow their stories to enter. The only way to solve this problem would be to turn the whole awards into a total feedback exercise ie not giving out awards.
Another fact that I would like to point out is that sometimes, Fredetta deserves the award - just because an author is well know does not meen that she/he can not write well (I could give examples but I am sure that everyone can think of someon their own).

Overall, it seems that some people are unhappy about awards because they lose, or perceive unfairness. If they are unhappy because they lose, I don't think we can do anything about that, it is an inherant part of giving awards. If they are unhappy because they think it is unfair, then their concerns should be brought up, BUT if the group does not agree with them, then it is up to them what to do. Changing things to please one complainer, rather than at the decision of an open participation group is very clique and would lose the awads more participants, I would have thought.

Just my thoughts.

Jenn





---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail

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

Msg# 6688

Re: scoring systems Posted by sulriel January 10, 2006 - 7:16:34 Topic ID# 6683
I appreciate the discussion, :) great points on all sides -
especially (who?) mentioned that so many other things have changed -
I think Marta's made a good decision on this and we can discuss it
again next year if it still seems to be a problem.

Sulriel


--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Marta" <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> Hey guys,
>
> I've read through a lot of the posts that have been made about the
different scoring > systems that have been proposed (10-pt, 5-pt,
pure character count, etc.) I'm receiving > the posts by digest but I
happened to read at the website today, so I'm caught up through
> Dwim's last post.
>
> Originally I was prepared to set up a poll and was actually going
to do that tonight. But I've > been thinking about it. There seems to
be a lot of disagreement on this, too much for me > to be comfortable
changing what's a pretty fundamental part of these awards.
>
> There are some things that are so central that I doubt they'll ever
change. I'm talking about > things like having voting be done by
making comments. Then there are other things that > are pretty
cosmetic and I'm happy to go with what the majority wants, like the
name of an > award or whether to have a certain category. Then
there's a third category of issues, and I > think the scoring issue
falls into this group: things that are pretty central to the awards,
> but not so much so that I don't think we can change them if there's
a consensus that they > need to be changed. Another example of this
would be the authors awards. How we > handle those is definitely up
for debate, but there has to be a stronger consensus than a
> simple majority.>
> So we have this issue of how exactly to count votes. It's not
something I'm willing to > change unless there's a consensus here,
and I don't think we're likely to get that. So I think > we should
just stick with the 10-point system that we had this year. Debating
the others > isn't likely to move us forward.
>
> I'll try to get through some more emails tonight. We still need to
decide how exactly to > work the points.
>
> Cheers,> Marta
>

Msg# 6689

Re: scoring systems Posted by rabidsamfan January 10, 2006 - 8:24:16 Topic ID# 6683
Looking at the numbers that Anthony's given us, I think it's clear that the
current system worked just fine. A really extensive review could pull a
story into placing, and a lot of smaller reviews could do the same, which is
about right. I think his "fifty point" system would also work well, but I
also think that the debate has grown too contentious for any change in how
points are gathered to be put into place gracefully.

The one possibility that occurs to me is that we might make the "honorable
mention" slot be for the story with the highest average if it did not place
first, second, or third.


On 1/10/06, Marta <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hey guys,
>
> I've read through a lot of the posts that have been made about the
> different scoring
> systems that have been proposed (10-pt, 5-pt, pure character count, etc.)
> I'm receiving
> the posts by digest but I happened to read at the website today, so I'm
> caught up through
> Dwim's last post.
>
> Originally I was prepared to set up a poll and was actually going to do
> that tonight. But I've
> been thinking about it. There seems to be a lot of disagreement on this,
> too much for me
> to be comfortable changing what's a pretty fundamental part of these
> awards.
>
> There are some things that are so central that I doubt they'll ever
> change. I'm talking about
> things like having voting be done by making comments. Then there are other
> things that
> are pretty cosmetic and I'm happy to go with what the majority wants, like
> the name of an
> award or whether to have a certain category. Then there's a third category
> of issues, and I
> think the scoring issue falls into this group: things that are pretty
> central to the awards,
> but not so much so that I don't think we can change them if there's a
> consensus that they
> need to be changed. Another example of this would be the authors awards.
> How we
> handle those is definitely up for debate, but there has to be a stronger
> consensus than a
> simple majority.
>
> So we have this issue of how exactly to count votes. It's not something
> I'm willing to
> change unless there's a consensus here, and I don't think we're likely to
> get that. So I think
> we should just stick with the 10-point system that we had this year.
> Debating the others
> isn't likely to move us forward.
>
> I'll try to get through some more emails tonight. We still need to decide
> how exactly to
> work the points.
>
> Cheers,
> Marta
>
>
>
>
>
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Msg# 6690

Re: Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems Posted by rabidsamfan January 10, 2006 - 10:04:03 Topic ID# 6655
Thank you, Anthony, for providing the actual numbers. It makes it much
easier to look at the question dispassionately.

While I really like your fifty point system, I doubt we'll go that way this
year, as the 2005 system seems to have worked pretty well -- long reviews
had some good weight, but enough short reviews could lift a story too. That
seems like a good balance to me, as favoring short reviews too much would
make it seem like there wasn't any point in writing the longer ones, and as
an author I did like getting the longer ones. They were a lot more likely
to give me insights into why the story was liked and what I did right.

For that matter, I liked your idea of continuing to accrue points at a slow
rate for very very long reviews. I didn't see any reviews that felt "puffed
up" to me this year, and I don't really think it's that much of a problem,
especially since we're going to block all the quotes. But I know that one's
not going to fly. *grin*

And just think of all the things I've learned about statistics from working
my way through your posts!


On 1/10/06, Anthony Holder <aaholder@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> I can see that the discussion is trending more to the 'why' than the
> 'what', and that you all have more clearly identified what the
> discussion is. I've got some more statistics here that may help you see
> what the impact of certain scoring systems could be.
>
> RSF, Here's the breakdown you've asked for, with the 2004 and 2005, and
> Thundera's suggestion for comparison.
>
> 2005 2004 1 to 5 5 to 10 Thundera
> pts scale scale scale scale scale
> 1 809 40 209 0 809
> 2 1389 504 2664 0 0
> 3 1178 2329 1856 0 2064
> 4 821 0 961 0 0
> 5 532 1856 330 809 1623
> 6 495 0 0 2064 0
> 7 270 697 0 1623 842
> 8 155 0 0 842 0
> 9 104 327 0 352 352
> 10 267 267 0 330 330
>
> Dividing the reviews into groups of 20 more or less at random, here are
> some statistics:
>
> 2005 2004 AH/5 5-10 1-5
> Min 35 51 48 112 34
> Max 136 144 146.8 168 78
> Range 101 93 98.8 56 44
> Mean 75.7 92.4 91.9 136.2 55.1
> StdDev 19.8 18.1 19.0 11.1 8.1
>
> Remembering that these are all assuming that each group (story) gets 20
> votes. It's not very realistic, but gives some indication of how the
> scores might fall.
>
> What I see here is that the 2005 and 2004 systems had similar standard
> deviations (a measure of how much variation between groupings). This
> indicates that the two systems, while weighted much differently, will
> provide a range of scores that are similar. From last time, the lower
> totals increased about 40-50%, and the higher totals increased 10-15%,
> showing the influence of the higher weighting on the lower scores.
>
> The two 5 point systems, however, have much smaller standard
> deviations, indicating that there would be much less variation between
> the top and bottom scorers.
>
> To compare the 'AH' (my initials) system to the others, I divided the
> numbers by 5, since the max score was 50 instead of 10. The system
> compares fairly well to the 2004 and 2005 systems in variability,
> minimum and maximum, which makes sense, because it doesn't really
> change much except multiply the scores by 5 and increase the number of
> categories.
>
> The AH system does weight more heavily toward shorter reviews than the
> 2005 system (a 91 character review is 12 points, about 25% of the max,
> and a 341 character review is 50% of the max), but there isn't an
> immediate jump from 0 to any number. It is possible to write a 1 point
> review ("Nice!" would be 1 pt.). If I was writing a review like that, I
> would expect it not to count as much as a 1000 character review in this
> sort of system. It does count, though, and it could make the difference
> between first and second place for the story, but with the 5-10 system,
> that review would count half as much as a 1001 character review.
>
> Everyone seems to agree that there should be a weighted system. The
> question is how to weight it.
>
> Very little weighting (like 2005) gives more 'power' to those who
> can/do write longer reviews, as theirs count proportionally more than
> the shorter reviews. With both the 2004 and 2005 systems, about half of
> these reviews are 3 points or less, with more being less in 2005. Over
> 3/4 were 5 or less with both systems.
>
> So 1/4 of the reviews are > 5 pts with both systems.
>
> Here's a calculation of the percentage of the total points given vs.
> the point level.
>
> 2005 2004
> 1 4% 0%
> 2 12% 4%
> 3 16% 25%
> 4 14% 0%
> 5 12% 33%
> 6 13% 0%
> 7 8% 18%
> 8 5% 0%
> 9 4% 11%
> 10 12% 10%
>
> From this, you can see that the 2004 and 2005 systems give 29 and 32%
> of the 'power' to the 1-3 point reviews, the 33% and 26% to the 4-5
> point reviews, 18% and 21% to the 6 and 7 point reviews, 11% and 9% to
> the 8 and 9 point reviews and 10 and 12% to the 10 point reviews. Based
> on this analysis, it appears that in both systems, the fact that there
> are many more shorter reviews plays a significant role in the voting
> outcome. In other words, don't worry that your review is shorter than
> someone else's, because several short reviews can beat out a few long
> reviews.
>
> In fact, of the about 408 awards over all the categories, comparing 1st
> to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd, only 61 stories with fewer reviews beat stories
> with more reviews. In fact, in 97 of the 408, stories with lower
> average length reviews beat stories with longer average length reviews.
> In 95 cases, stories with lower average review scores beat stories with
> higher average review scores.
>
> For most stories, of course, more and longer reviews beat fewer and
> shorter reviews.
>
> I can not do the same statistics assuming the 2004 system had been in
> place, but from earlier calculations, I can assure you that there would
> have been far fewer stories winning with fewer/longer reviews over
> more/shorter reviews, because the shorter ones got proportionally more
> points in 2004. I would expect to see the 61 down to about 10-20, and
> the 97 up to 150-200 of the 408 stories.
>
> Anthony
>
>
>
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Msg# 6691

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is the an Posted by rabidsamfan January 10, 2006 - 10:23:03 Topic ID# 6684
On 1/10/06, MarigoldCotton@aol.com <MarigoldCotton@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> And I think too that voters have to take responsibility for their votes -
> I read every story in a given category, and wrote my reviews based on my
> enjoyment of each story in that category. I felt that that way I was being
> fair to all of the authors in the category. I wasn't just picking out Author
> X that I know, and reviewing their story without reading the stories that
> were entered alongside hers. I didn't go to a category, pick out only
> authors and stories that I knew, and write reviews only for them. And I
> finished a category before I went to the next one, I didn't skip through the
> categories looking for authors I knew so that I could vote for them. That
> practice seems to be hinted at in some of these many e-mails, and I hope
> that is not the case.



*raises hand sheepishly*

Guilty as charged. I looked for stories with Sam first, and then Aragorn,
and then at least one of the stories by anyone who had nominated or reviewed
one of mine, and then drabbles and then other stories that a reviewer who
liked the things I liked liked and then... well, I didn't go by category
anyway. Although I did make a few stabs at going through subcategories near
the end of voting season to try catch up the remaining stories in any area
where I had read most of them. Part of the reason was that, as a newbie, I
wasn't entirely sure at first which stories were in direct competition with
each other, and later it was because I kept discovering stuff I'd never even
knew existed and was leaping from clue to clue to clue and having fun.

It's one of the reasons why I'd prefer a straight character count, or only
mildly weighted one -- because I think that if the really long
reviews don't have a good bit of influence then we've got all the problems
of a popularity contest. And there's another factor at work besides the
name of the author! Because we don't split categories by length, except for
drabbles, short stories and epics can be in direct competition, and I think
short stories and vignettes drew more of the peripatetic folks like me, even
if we did tend to write shorter reviews for them than the epics. I don't
think we can enforce "read the whole category" on the reviewers, so giving
weight to the longer reviews balances things out.

It looks like we're going to stick with this year's system, and I can live
with that...


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

Msg# 6692

Re: Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 10, 2006 - 11:44:29 Topic ID# 6655
<snip first batch of stats>

Thanks, Anthony. This batch of statistics and the accompanying
explanation makes more sense to me than the previous one, and also
answers a key question: namely, are short reviews competitive?

> Everyone seems to agree that there should be a weighted system. The
> question is how to weight it.
>

<paste>

> For most stories, of course, more and longer reviews beat fewer and
> shorter reviews.

That makes sense, but it also seems the least controversial case. I
doubt anyone is going to complain in that scenario. Do you know off
hand what percentage of stories placed first on this basis?

> Very little weighting (like 2005) gives more 'power' to those who
> can/do write longer reviews, as theirs count proportionally more than
> the shorter reviews. With both the 2004 and 2005 systems, about half of
> these reviews are 3 points or less, with more being less in 2005. Over
> 3/4 were 5 or less with both systems.
>
> So 1/4 of the reviews are > 5 pts with both systems.
>
> Here's a calculation of the percentage of the total points given vs.
> the point level.
>
> 2005 2004
> 1 4% 0%
> 2 12% 4%
> 3 16% 25%
> 4 14% 0%
> 5 12% 33%
> 6 13% 0%
> 7 8% 18%
> 8 5% 0%
> 9 4% 11%
> 10 12% 10%
>
> From this, you can see that the 2004 and 2005 systems give 29 and 32%
> of the 'power' to the 1-3 point reviews, the 33% and 26% to the 4-5
> point reviews, 18% and 21% to the 6 and 7 point reviews, 11% and 9% to
> the 8 and 9 point reviews and 10 and 12% to the 10 point reviews. Based
> on this analysis, it appears that in both systems, the fact that there
> are many more shorter reviews plays a significant role in the voting
> outcome. In other words, don't worry that your review is shorter than
> someone else's, because several short reviews can beat out a few long
> reviews.

>In fact, of the about 408 awards over all the categories, comparing
1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd, only 61 stories with fewer reviews beat
stories with more reviews.

In other words, if you vote, even if you don't give a lengthy review,
your vote has a substantial impact; in only 15% of cases (rounding to
400 and 60) do fewer but longer reviews trump more plentiful short
reviews. So what we're dealing with when there's fear that a short
review doesn't count is just that: fear.

In which case, I'm inclined to say, if it isn't broken, don't "fix"
the points system. I'd go with Marta, given this analysis, and say
let's put this discussion aside until next year. Let's see how things
fall out, get a set of numbers that is clearly and immediately
comparable to the numbers from 2005, with no need for adjustment, and
then see what happens. If the results are similar, I think we don't
need to fuss with how points are distributed, even by curving the
system, although if people really were in favor of changing the points
system at that point, I'd still hold out for a curve over a reduced
scale range.

Dwim

Msg# 6693

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is the an Posted by Chris Grzonka January 10, 2006 - 17:56:31 Topic ID# 6684
Marigold wrote:

>
> And I think too that voters have to take responsibility for their
> votes - I read every story in a given category, and wrote my
> reviews based on my enjoyment of each story in that category. I
> felt that that way I was being fair to all of the authors in the
> category. I wasn't just picking out Author X that I know, and
> reviewing their story without reading the stories that were
> entered alongside hers. I didn't go to a category, pick out only
> authors and stories that I knew, and write reviews only for them.
> And I finished a category before I went to the next one, I didn't
> skip through the categories looking for authors I knew so that I
> could vote for them. That practice seems to be hinted at in some
> of these many e-mails, and I hope that is not the case.

If you have the feeling as a reviewer I have to read all the stories in a
category to write reviews, than I have to bow out of this award. My time is
very limited as it is, and last year there were some RL issues which cut
even more into my time. What you describe is an ideal world. I would love to
do what you suggest, but I learned very quickly that is not going to happen.
Since I wanted to get to know new stories, I basically skipped most stories
I already knew with some exceptions and read stories which seemed
interesting, but which I hadn't read before. I felt kind of guilty for not
voting on some of my favorite stories, but I hoped the authors were known
enough to garner reviews from others.

I think Laura had the right idea. If we manage to cut down on nominated
stories, the chances are bigger that I can read all the stories in a
category and write reviews for them.

Chris

Msg# 6694

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by Marta Layton January 10, 2006 - 22:22:26 Topic ID# 6550
>

Hi RSF,

> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 08:16:13 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: Author Review Blues
>
> On 1/6/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> - as an aside, I would be ok with either keeping the author awards
>> the same for this year or scrapping them entirely and maybe bringing
>> back a revamped system next year. I do think they're valid because
>> even though there is a lot of parallel, - if I remember - there were
>> some authors who did ok in the story awards, but earned more
>> recognition in the author awards, and I think that's saying good
>> things about the overall quality of the writing.
>>
>>
>> Sulriel
>
>
> Now I want statistics. How many story awards were there? How many
> author
> awards? How often did the top author award go to someone who hadn't
> won the
> top story award, etc?

> Data is a good thing. If no one has these numbers easily, I might be
> able
> to hand count them if people ask for it, but I'm hoping that someone
> knows.
>

Hi Rabidsamfan,

I don't have those numbers available easily, unfortunately. If you're
interested in investigating it yourself you might look at

http://home.earthlink.net/~ainae/mefa/2005swin.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~ainae/mefa/2005awin.html

My gut feeling is that there are a lot of stories that placed whose
authors didn't get author awards simply because there's more
competition for those spots. Maybe not so much for drabbles and poetry
but definitely for stories -- just because there are a lot more of
story categories all competing for the same awards. I also think it
really depends on the category (not sub-category). Something like
Mystery where there's only one subcategory or even Movie-verse where
there were I think three subcategories will have about the same
competition for the author awards, but a large category like Post-Ring
War would be very competitive.

Not stats, I know. Sorry I don't have more concrete numbers to offer.

Marta

Msg# 6695

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by rabidsamfan January 10, 2006 - 22:42:45 Topic ID# 6550
Actually, someone did come up with numbers, which, IIRC, showed that
sometimes authors won as authors even when stories didn't. It sounded like
this years system worked fairly well, to tell the truth, as far as how
author awards are grouped and all.

I'd still like to go from the story review to the author review via a link
if I could, though. *grin*


On 1/10/06, Marta Layton <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> Hi RSF,
>
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 08:16:13 -0500
> > From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> > Subject: Re: Re: Author Review Blues
> >
> > On 1/6/06, sulriel <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> - as an aside, I would be ok with either keeping the author awards
> >> the same for this year or scrapping them entirely and maybe bringing
> >> back a revamped system next year. I do think they're valid because
> >> even though there is a lot of parallel, - if I remember - there were
> >> some authors who did ok in the story awards, but earned more
> >> recognition in the author awards, and I think that's saying good
> >> things about the overall quality of the writing.
> >>
> >>
> >> Sulriel
> >
> >
> > Now I want statistics. How many story awards were there? How many
> > author
> > awards? How often did the top author award go to someone who hadn't
> > won the
> > top story award, etc?
>
> > Data is a good thing. If no one has these numbers easily, I might be
> > able
> > to hand count them if people ask for it, but I'm hoping that someone
> > knows.
> >
>
> Hi Rabidsamfan,
>
> I don't have those numbers available easily, unfortunately. If you're
> interested in investigating it yourself you might look at
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~ainae/mefa/2005swin.html
> http://home.earthlink.net/~ainae/mefa/2005awin.html
>
> My gut feeling is that there are a lot of stories that placed whose
> authors didn't get author awards simply because there's more
> competition for those spots. Maybe not so much for drabbles and poetry
> but definitely for stories -- just because there are a lot more of
> story categories all competing for the same awards. I also think it
> really depends on the category (not sub-category). Something like
> Mystery where there's only one subcategory or even Movie-verse where
> there were I think three subcategories will have about the same
> competition for the author awards, but a large category like Post-Ring
> War would be very competitive.
>
> Not stats, I know. Sorry I don't have more concrete numbers to offer.
>
> Marta
>
>
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Msg# 6696

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by Marta Layton January 10, 2006 - 22:49:14 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:46:20 -0000
> From: "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Author Review Blues
>
>
>>
>> Now I want statistics. How many story awards were there? How many
> author
>> awards?
>
> A lot. I've just moved everything to a spreadsheet.

<snip>
> It's a giant spreadsheet. I'll post it when I'm done with it for the
> list's perusal.
>

I think I spoke too soon. Thanks, Dwim, for doing this. Things are
fairly busy around here right now, but I look forward to finding the
time to really sink my teeth into this.

Marta

Msg# 6697

Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 10, 2006 - 23:23:31 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 10
> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 17:33:55 -0600
> From: Anthony Holder <aaholder@swbell.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: Re: points and various voting matters (Anthony)
>
>
> On Jan 5, 2006, at 8:47 PM, rabidsamfan wrote:
>
>> If it wouldn't be such a pain in the arse to figure out how to do it,
>> I'd
>> say don't tell reviewers how many points they've given out when
>> they're composing or editing reviews -- just show them the list of
>> stories
>> from that subcategory ranked in order with "unreviewed" at the bottom
>> of the
>> list. That way you could adjust your reviews to get the stories in
>> the
>> preferred order if you really wanted to, and ignore the whole "number
>> of
>> points" question if you felt like it too. You'd only be comparing
>> your own
>> efforts to your own efforts as a reviewer.
>
> RSF, this'll be at the bottom of the list, but it might be possible.
> Sorting is fairly easy, as is linking the review character count to the
> story so it can be sorted.
>

I think this would be a good idea if we end up having enough time, but
I do think we should display the points somewhere. Nothing fancy, just
what we already have this year. I just don't want to get rid of that
altogether. I don't think we're considering that, but I wanted to be
clear on that point.

> About the story review showing up in the Author review box, I was
> thinking that I could put it on the page, but not in the box. I might
> be able to show all your reviews in that category, as well.

I wouldn't have a problem with doing this. It's not something I feel
that strongly about one way or the other, but if the story review is on
the page instead of actually in the field to submit the author review,
I think it sends the message that the story review is there to refresh
your memory, not to copy wholesale.

> If you want
> (and I have time to) to change the Author Reviews around so they aren't
> category-based, then which Author review should you be taken to?
> There'd have to be a page with links to all the possible author reviews
> for that author.

My understanding is that we're proposing author categories based on
story form or length -- vignette, poem, drabble, short story, novel,
etc. In which case you should be taken to the review for the category
that story fits in. For example, if you review a drabble series of
mine, you would be taken to a form that would submit a review for me in
the Drabble Authors category. Alternately, if it's possible, we could
maybe have one page that had a field to enter a vote for all the
applicable author categories. For example, let's say I have a drabble,
a poem, and a vignette entered in the awards. You vote for the drabble
and then the website directs you to a form something like:

*****

Author Review: Drabbles

[list of titles of drabbles I have entered]

[field to enter drabble review]

-----

Author Review: Poems

[list of titles of poemsI have entered]

-----

[...]
Author Review: Novels

This author has no novels entered in the awards.

[button to submit all reviews]

*****

You'd see this same page if you voted for a poem or anything else I
have entered. SThat's one option, if you'd like to go this way.

Marta

Msg# 6698

Re: Author Awards, one more thought Posted by Marta Layton January 10, 2006 - 23:36:45 Topic ID# 6651
> Message: 14
> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:54:37 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Author Awards, one more thought
>
> Setting asside the Fruit problem, I was just thinking of a compromise
> with
> the Form plan and the Fruit problem. But I came back to another
> problem,
> which I think can't quite override the Story-Category-Shadowing we do
> now.
>
> Let's say we went to Form plan, leaving aside (is that one s or 2?--I
> really
> used to be a wonderful speller.), and we look at the Short Story
> category.
> In which we have just 3 authors. (As if.) Say the breakdown in reading
> stories was the same as it is now, even though we're only talking about
> three authors here. These three authors specialize. A writes only
> Silm
> stuff. B writes only The Hobbit. And C writes LOTR. I could tell you
> right now who would win the Short Story category, barring some
> unforeseen
> occurance. C. Awould come in 2nd. And B would get 3rd.
>
> Because LOTR gets more readers than Silm and both get more than The
> Hobbit.
> And even if I'm wrong, it really could be as simple as that no matter
> how we
> cut it. Genres. Cultures. How many people read Dwarf stories? Ent
> stories? Elf stories? So who is likely to get the most author
> comments?
> Elf stories, out of those three. What about characters? Well, we
> really
> might have some contention between Aragorn writers and Legolas writers
> and
> maybe some Hobbit writers. But what about those who specialize in
> unsung
> heroes?
>
> But do you see where I'm going? The only place Silm writers really
> have a
> fair playing field is against other Silm writers. For example. I'm not
> picking on Silm writers. Someone write me a Voronwe fic. I really
> grew to
> like him in the UT.
>
> Anyway, that's the problem I came to. My compromise idea was that we
> have
> Shadowing right now with 3 or 4 major forms as subcats, so my
> compromise
> idea was to have Forms with 3 or 4 major genres as subcats, but I hit
> on the
> popularity problem. The more popular story categories will bring more
> readers to those stories in those categories and thus more potential
> author
> votes. And thus it disadvantages writers of less popular story
> categories.
>
> So what can we do about that? That's the main reason we can't move
> away
> from Shadowing. Is there some we around it?
>

Hi Ainae,

I think you might be overestimating how divisive the fandom is. I know
a lot of people -- even most -- read stories outside of their comfort
areas. I certainly did. And when I discovered a new author who I was
previously unfamiliar with who I really liked, I was more likely to go
on about them just because I was surprised by their skills.

Also, if a Silm writer is truly concerned about them not getting a fair
shake there's an easy way around it -- just get more Silm-readers to
get involved in writing.

Marta

Msg# 6699

Re: points (sulriel) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 11, 2006 - 17:42:40 Topic ID# 6657
Sorry, I haven't been around for awhile. Had a guest at my house and busy
days at work. Not a lot of time now, but I'll try to get to some of this.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Marta Layton
> Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 2:09 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] re: points (sulriel)
>
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 13:20:53 -0000
> > From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> > Subject: re: points
> >
> >
> > If I remember, someone mentioned the potential of ties as a
> reason not

> That's correct. Stories were ranked by three factors:
>
> 1. Number of points received.
> 2. Number of people who voted for them. (Only considered if
> #1 resulted in a tie.) 3. The sum of the number of characters
> in all of those reviews. (Only considered if both #1 and #2
> resulted in a tie.)
>
> Check out
> http://www.freewebs.com/aure/faq5voting.htm#61366601 if you'd
> like more info on this.
>
> > I think it'd be highly unlikely to have ties once those
> steps had been
> > taken.
> >
> > it would also give the potential to reward those reviews that were
> > longer than the point cap on character count.
> >
>
> I agree -- we didn't have a tie this year and I don't think
> we had one last year. And if two stories are that close, I
> really don't have a huge problem giving both the award.

I think I remember some that came down to character count in 2004. One of
them was very close. 1 character or something like that. But in the end, no
ties. I think.

Just to weigh in here in case I don't get it elsewhere, I too am in favor of
keeping the 10-point spread, however we spread it. I think flattening it to
5 is too flat and will also lead toa lot of ties that need breaking as there
will be an overload of 5-pointrers where there used to be a variety of
5-10-pointers.

--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

Msg# 6700

Re: points and various voting matters (sulriel) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 11, 2006 - 17:56:13 Topic ID# 6583
>
> Yes, we used the within 3 points rule in '05. The problem I
> saw was when eyeballing the stats I saw several authors who
> had several stories with around thirty points each - but
> because of the sub-cats they were in, some of those stories
> won first place and others didn't even win an honourable
> mention. That didn't seem horribly fair to me.

Tha'ts not really an issiue of fairness. It's an issue of competition
within their categories. Because point totals don't matter at all outside
the categories. A story can win one category with just 5 points if there
was little competition. Whereas it may take 45 to win in another category
of high competition. There's no bar set on how many points it takes to win
an award. Just the top three in the category. No matter what that top
three is.

If it's a feeling of "it's unfair because of the subcategories" they are in,
well, that's the biggest issue facing these awards: categorization. Maybe
in ASC they have it easier, except for the one person insufficiently
reluctant to do it: the Administrator assigns the categories. Though,
admitedly, she has the support of the headers the authors used and thus the
category suggestions pulled from those headers by the SOS maintainers.

But then some peole can still quibble about which category she put them in.
I think having th authors choose their categories is best, but subcats are
harder . We can't have 75 or 120 story categories so they have to be broken
up. What is the best way to do that? And that is our biggest issue.

Okay, times is almost up. I'll have to leave work and try to get back to
these later. Besides, my hand is hurting.

--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

Msg# 6701

Re: Quotes (Inkling) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 11, 2006 - 17:59:27 Topic ID# 6663
I'm fine with it.

Now I really must stop typing.

Really

--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 Marta Layton
> Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 4:23 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Quotes (Inkling)
>
> > Message: 22
> > Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 02:03:10 -0000
> > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> > Subject: Quotes
> >
> > Seems like the simplest rule--and I think this has already been
> > suggested--is to just say that ALL quotes, not matter what
> the source,
> > have to be inside blockquote tags.
> >
> > Kathy (Inkling)
> >
>
> Yep, that's definitely the way I'm leaning.
>
> Is anyone against this? Do I need to set up a poll, or can we
> just make it a rule.
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6702

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 11, 2006 - 19:39:51 Topic ID# 6662
<it is what it is. if you choose to discount what I've said that's
your choice, and I don't make any of the above judgements on you. I
have a great deal of respect for your pragmatic attitude in most
cases - and even, really, in this case, in standing up against the
vague 'touchy-feely'. I don't have any way to convince you
otherwise, although I'm curious what purpose you imagine I would have
going on about this if I didn't feel strongly about it.>

Well, to be perfectly blunt, I *thought* your purpose was to make an
argument that would show me why you think your proposed solution is
actually helpful given the problem you were seeing, and better than
the other proposal of instituting some kind of points curve. It had, I
thought, all the hallmarks of an argument--an effort to articulate why
you thought such and such a way about X, which led you to adopt such
and such a view about how to handle X, and the publicity of that
explanation, in the context of an on-going debate about how or whether
to alter the way we handle X, seemed to be serving notice that you
thought we should take up your position and analyze it like any other
proposal for fairness, logic, and likely efficacy.

If that's not what you were doing, then I don't know how to respond to
those posts, since I thought you were trying to make a case to me and
to everyone that your idea was something to consider seriously as a
means of solving a problem you believed was significantly impairing
MEFA's functioning.

Your implied question quoted above, "I'm curious what purpose you
imagine I would have going on about this if I didn't feel strongly
about it" just brings out the fact that we are clearly operating on
very different assumptions about what is at stake and *how* it is at
stake. This is not a question that would ever have occurred to me to
pose, because it doesn't enter into my equation to question whether or
not you personally had strong feelings about the matter, since that
isn't relevant to making the case for or against a points scale
reduction. You keep couching your objections and responses to me in
terms of feelings--your feelings towards me, your feelings for those
who have expressed private hurt, your feelings (and the strength of
them) for the idea of reducing the points scale, the feelings of
privately injured parties. Feelings, and keeping them from being hurt,
seem to be the horizon that informs your major posts as the most
important thing. You speak about feelings as if that's what's at stake
in every decision, and should be in a very DIRECT manner.

For me, feelings are at stake but indirectly and secondarily: the only
time it's worth considering them in the context of an awards project
is when they are demonstrably the result of an unfair structure,
"unfair" to be determined relative to the acknowledged limits of the
awards. If that can't be demonstrated, I have nothing to say about
feelings that is relevant to a post-mortem discussion of what should
and should not be changed next year. Privately, I can offer to buy the
hurt parties a drink if they're ever in my neck of the woods and over
legal drinking age, but that's a private thing having nothing to do
(nor should it have anything to do) with any official structure of the
MEFAs.

I'm not saying that I make no appeal to feelings or have no place for
them, but it's clear that by comparison with your posts, they don't
have the same place or function in how I address the issue of how
points should be awarded. This is fouling things up, just as my
assumption, that the argumentative features of your own posts meant
you were making an argument, was fouling things up.

That's why I was frustrated. I thought you were asking me to treat
your posts as an argument in favor of your proposal to reduce the
points scale, and to consider it seriously when from what I could see,
you hadn't given me any relevant argument or evidence to work with in
comparing the two proposed systems.

Now that I've read your latest post, I can see that that wasn't what
you were asking me or anyone else to do. I confess, I still don't
understand how your proposal, in its form and intent, fits into a
debate about what is to be done, or what sort of response you would
expect of me or anyone to your previous posts. But that's a different
kind of question, one that has nothing to do with MEFAs at all, even
tangentially, so I'm happy to leave that be.

Hopefully, we can now move usefully onward having figured out (I
think) why the disconnect was happening.

Dwim

Msg# 6703

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by sulriel January 11, 2006 - 21:26:08 Topic ID# 6662
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:>>>>>>><snipped>privately injured parties. Feelings, and
keeping them from being hurt,seem to be the horizon that informs your
major posts as the mostimportant thing. You speak about feelings as
if that's what's at stakein every decision, and should be in a very
DIRECT manner. >>>>>>>>>For me, feelings are at stake but indirectly
and secondarily: the onlytime it's worth considering them in the
context of an awards projectis when they are demonstrably the result
of an unfair structur


hmmmmm... this is a good point. - because for me, the MEFAs are about
feelings. Feeling good, - reading stories that make you feel good or
some other strong emotion, or make you thoughtful - it makes me feel
good to leave reviews that will make people feel good. - and I like
feeling good about any reviews I get. - and it makes me feel good to
think that other people are mostly the same. Yes, it is a contest
and I agree that we can't lose sight of that, but IMO, a feel-good
contest should revolve around feelings. - too many things in life
don't, and I come here to feel good for a couple hours a day.



>>That's why I was frustrated. I thought you were asking me to treat
your posts as an argument in favor of your proposal to reduce the


ah! no - ... it wasn't an argument. It was a proposal to
consider. ...a thought tossed on the table to be chewed on. the
dog didn't hunt. - time to move on. no frustration, no argument,
just tick it off the list and move to the next subject.


>>> I confess, I still don't understand how your proposal, in its
form and intent, fits into adebate about what is to be done, or what
sort of response you would

I know that and apologize for the lack of clarity in my articulation.


<much snippage>

>>Hopefully, we can now move usefully onward having figured out (I
think) why the disconnect was happening.

Agreed. A decision's been made on this issue and it's time to move
on. - unless you want to have a group hug or something, but I
normally like to get good and drunk before that sort of thing so give
me a couple hours warning. ;)

Sulriel

Msg# 6704

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by dwimmer\_laik January 12, 2006 - 3:12:58 Topic ID# 6662
>
> hmmmmm... this is a good point. - because for me, the MEFAs are about
> feelings. Feeling good, - reading stories that make you feel good or
> some other strong emotion, or make you thoughtful - it makes me feel
> good to leave reviews that will make people feel good. - and I like
> feeling good about any reviews I get. - and it makes me feel good to
> think that other people are mostly the same. Yes, it is a contest
> and I agree that we can't lose sight of that, but IMO, a feel-good
> contest should revolve around feelings. - too many things in life
> don't, and I come here to feel good for a couple hours a day.
>

I realize that it's no fun to deal with a tense discussion or get a
bad review or give a bad review, and I understand that yes, these are
the "feel good" awards. But I can't think you mean that awards
revolving around feelings means that *everyone* must be happy or that
it's possible to please everyone or that we should try to. But if the
awards revolve around feelings to a more limited degree than that, I'm
not seeing in this or any other statement you've made anything that
gives us a means of determining how to meaningfully discuss those
limits in terms of MEFA procedural review.

To be clear, I'm not asking for an argument, here, just pointing out
what will clearly play a significant role in any similar disagreements
we may have.

> >>> I confess, I still don't understand how your proposal, in its
> form and intent, fits into adebate about what is to be done, or what
> sort of response you would
>
> I know that and apologize for the lack of clarity in my articulation.

Rather than the apology, in the future, even if you're not originally
making an argument, I'd really appreciate it if you'd at least meet me
halfway when I say I need an argument or an explanation in very
specific terms for your position. I'm not trying to evade the
responsibility to make a choice about how I stand w.r.t. a suggestion,
I'm trying to put myself in a good position to do so, by understanding
what it is you're proposing and why, and how that compares with other
possibilities. If I can't get an argument or an explanation that seems
relevant in that situation, my only option is to reject the idea. But
I wouldn't be rejecting it on any other grounds than that it's hardly
reasonable or fair to let whim rule my choices.

<snip>

>unless you want to have a group hug or something, but I
> normally like to get good and drunk before that sort of thing so give
> me a couple hours warning. ;)

I'd be happy to do a round of white russians, but I've not yet been
the type of person to get drunk and get all tactile... unless we're
playing darts, in which case, watch your ribs, my elbows are sharp.

Dwim

Msg# 6705

Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy) Posted by Marta Layton January 12, 2006 - 6:36:58 Topic ID# 6705
>

I'm trying to catch up on some posts where I think the points made
haven't already been resolved as far as I can tell.

> Message: 21
> Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:08:14 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (general reply)
>
> <snip>
> More good points&I guess this is why I feel like I could live with
> any of the options on the table: 5-point spread, 10-point spread, or
> character countas long as it was weighted in some way. Math is not
> my strong suit, but to me a 5-point spread would inherently give more
> weight to a 1-point revieweven if the points were evenly spaced
> because 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I can also
> understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as less
> ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough incentive to write
> long reviews.
>

Yes, this was the incentive behind proposing a 5-point spread. Actually
in effect it gives another point to each review worth an odd number of
points, but this is definitely most noticeable with short reviews like
1-pointers.

> The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently pointed
> out&but not very much. Maybe the compromise here is to stick with
> it, but to increase the weight for lower-point reviews. I wouldn't
> mind a weighted character count system either, but as some in the
> group seem strongly opposed to it, it might be best to stick as
> closely as possibly to the current system, with a few tweaks&?
>

I think you're right about this. So the question now becomes, how
weighted do we want this to be? I'll try to address that more fully
when I get through the messages still in my inbox.

Thanks,
Marta

Msg# 6706

Re: Review Quotes, Preview Posted by Marta Layton January 12, 2006 - 6:38:49 Topic ID# 6676
> Message: 23
> Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 02:19:09 -0600
> From: Anthony Holder <aaholder@swbell.net>
> Subject: Review Quotes, Preview
>
>>> As for quoting from stories... isn't it an idea to add a button to
>>> the
>>> system, review form where a reviewer can click on (telling or putting
>>> it in the faq that you have to put the <blockquote> code around it
>>> will not work...). Let's say you want to quote from a story, a quick
>>> click, in which it automatically adds the quote-code (or maybe a java
>>> script kind of thing where you can paste the part in, click on ok and
>>> it gets inserted)...
>>>
>>
>> Anthony, is this possible? I wouldn't mind having a piece of code that
>> automatically inserted the blockquotes, but it's up to you whether you
>> want to do this.
>>
>> Rhapsody, would it work if we put a note *on the form where you insert
>> the vote* that said something like:
>>
>> All quotes must be surrounded by tags so that they are not counted
>> when
>> determining points. Please place "<blockquote>" before the beginning
>> of
>> any quote you include in your review and "</blockquote>" at the end of
>> the quote. If you have any questions about this do not hesitate to
>> email the administrators at <link>mefasupport@gmail.com</link>.
>>
>
> I am planning, time permitting, to do a 'review preview' page before
> you submit your review. On that preview page, I will mark any quotes
> that I see, make sure they have start/end tags, and show the parts that
> count in one color and the parts that don't in another color, and give
> you a total character count (minus the quotes) and a point score.
>
> I think this, combined with some clear instructions on how to do quotes
> will work just fine.
>
> I also am planning to change the quote marking to something like [This
> stuff's a quote], that offsets the quotes but isn't very intrusive, so
> it can be used inline, and allows dialog quotes " and ' inside it to
> work well.
>
> Anthony
>

Anthony, all of this sounds excellent. I think it will really help
alleviate confusion.

Thanks,
Marta

Msg# 6707

Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy) Posted by rabidsamfan January 12, 2006 - 7:18:49 Topic ID# 6705
We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the process. As
the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread reminded
me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths of the
different stories. A good long review for a story which has had fewer
readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story which is
more widely known.

Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories which
hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews which were a
lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were unnoticed gems.

We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions about
weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an implication
that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in the large
sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next level is
not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at the MEFAs
were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the professional
reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the same kind of
effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were the kinds
of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories that
reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.


On 1/12/06, Marta Layton <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> I'm trying to catch up on some posts where I think the points made
> haven't already been resolved as far as I can tell.
>
> > Message: 21
> > Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:08:14 -0000
> > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> > Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (general reply)
> >
> > <snip>
> > More good pointsýI guess this is why I feel like I could live with
> > any of the options on the table: 5-point spread, 10-point spread, or
> > character countýas long as it was weighted in some way. Math is not
> > my strong suit, but to me a 5-point spread would inherently give more
> > weight to a 1-point reviewýeven if the points were evenly spacedý
> > because 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I can also
> > understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as less
> > ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough incentive to write
> > long reviews.
> >
>
> Yes, this was the incentive behind proposing a 5-point spread. Actually
> in effect it gives another point to each review worth an odd number of
> points, but this is definitely most noticeable with short reviews like
> 1-pointers.
>
> > The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently pointed
> > outýbut not very much. Maybe the compromise here is to stick with
> > it, but to increase the weight for lower-point reviews. I wouldn't
> > mind a weighted character count system either, but as some in the
> > group seem strongly opposed to it, it might be best to stick as
> > closely as possibly to the current system, with a few tweaksý?
> >
>
> I think you're right about this. So the question now becomes, how
> weighted do we want this to be? I'll try to address that more fully
> when I get through the messages still in my inbox.
>
> Thanks,
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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

Msg# 6708

Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy) Posted by aelfwina@cableone.net January 12, 2006 - 7:44:29 Topic ID# 6705
----- Original Message -----
From: "rabidsamfan" <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:18 AM
Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy)


We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the process. As
the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread reminded
me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths of the
different stories. A good long review for a story which has had fewer
readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story which is
more widely known.

Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories which
hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews which were a
lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were unnoticed gems.

We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions about
weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an implication
that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in the large
sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next level is
not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at the MEFAs
were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the professional
reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the same kind of
effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were the kinds
of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories that
reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.

:: I think that I may have been the first to mention adding to my reviews
and then feeling that they did not seem as sincere. I can be extremely
verbose in reviews (or replies) as anyone can tell you. I've been known to
wax philosophical and write reviews longer than the stories or chapters that
inspired them, LOL! But occasionally a story moves me so much that my
response is actually shorter, with less thought, more emotional. To have to
add to a response like that did feel a bit like padding. Now, maybe that's
just me, and the way I review--in which case it's not a problem for anyone
else, and I apologize for opening the can of worms in the first place--I'll
just have to deal with it.

:: Perhaps a kind of curve in giving weight to reviews, with a bit extra at
the low end and a bit extra at the high end, with the spread more consistent
in the middle, kind of like the old grading curve teachers used to use? I
don't know. Anyway, as I said, if I'm the only one with the problem, just
let me blather.

Dreamflower
(Barbara)

Msg# 6709

Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy) Posted by rabidsamfan January 12, 2006 - 7:57:35 Topic ID# 6705
*grinning*

And you're one of the reviewers I most admired for your skills too,
Dreamflower! Ah, another illusion shattered...

No, seriously, whether you felt like you were "padding" or not, you still
gave a great deal of thought to the words you chose to expand the review,
and that's not a bad thing.


On 1/12/06, aelfwina@cableone.net <aelfwina@cableone.net> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rabidsamfan" <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:18 AM
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy)
>
>
> We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the process. As
> the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread
> reminded
> me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
> subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths of the
> different stories. A good long review for a story which has had fewer
> readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story which
> is
> more widely known.
>
> Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories which
> hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews which were
> a
> lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were unnoticed gems.
>
> We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions about
> weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an implication
> that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in the large
> sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next level is
> not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at the
> MEFAs
> were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the professional
> reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the same kind
> of
> effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were the
> kinds
> of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories that
> reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.
>
> :: I think that I may have been the first to mention adding to my reviews
> and then feeling that they did not seem as sincere. I can be extremely
> verbose in reviews (or replies) as anyone can tell you. I've been known to
>
> wax philosophical and write reviews longer than the stories or chapters
> that
> inspired them, LOL! But occasionally a story moves me so much that my
> response is actually shorter, with less thought, more emotional. To have
> to
> add to a response like that did feel a bit like padding. Now, maybe
> that's
> just me, and the way I review--in which case it's not a problem for anyone
>
> else, and I apologize for opening the can of worms in the first
> place--I'll
> just have to deal with it.
>
> :: Perhaps a kind of curve in giving weight to reviews, with a bit extra
> at
> the low end and a bit extra at the high end, with the spread more
> consistent
> in the middle, kind of like the old grading curve teachers used to use? I
>
> don't know. Anyway, as I said, if I'm the only one with the problem, just
>
> let me blather.
>
> Dreamflower
> (Barbara)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> 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]

Msg# 6710

Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy) Posted by aelfwina@cableone.net January 12, 2006 - 8:06:49 Topic ID# 6705
----- Original Message -----
From: "rabidsamfan" <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:55 AM
Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy)


> *grinning*
>
> And you're one of the reviewers I most admired for your skills too,
> Dreamflower! Ah, another illusion shattered...
>
> No, seriously, whether you felt like you were "padding" or not, you still
> gave a great deal of thought to the words you chose to expand the review,
> and that's not a bad thing.
>
::*blushes* Thanks. I *do* like to give some thought to these things. And I
suppose it's not all that bad--we edit stories all the time. Yet for some
reason, I always feel that in a review, my first gut response is the most
sincere, and sometimes it's long and sometimes it's short. And trying to get
the word count just so seems harder than trying to do that for a drabble.
Go figure.
Dreamflower

>
> On 1/12/06, aelfwina@cableone.net <aelfwina@cableone.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "rabidsamfan" <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
>> To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:18 AM
>> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy)
>>
>>
>> We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the process.
>> As
>> the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread
>> reminded
>> me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
>> subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths of
>> the
>> different stories. A good long review for a story which has had fewer
>> readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story which
>> is
>> more widely known.
>>
>> Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories which
>> hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews which
>> were
>> a
>> lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were unnoticed
>> gems.
>>
>> We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions about
>> weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an implication
>> that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in the
>> large
>> sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next level
>> is
>> not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at the
>> MEFAs
>> were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the professional
>> reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the same kind
>> of
>> effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were the
>> kinds
>> of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories that
>> reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.
>>
>> :: I think that I may have been the first to mention adding to my reviews
>> and then feeling that they did not seem as sincere. I can be extremely
>> verbose in reviews (or replies) as anyone can tell you. I've been known
>> to
>>
>> wax philosophical and write reviews longer than the stories or chapters
>> that
>> inspired them, LOL! But occasionally a story moves me so much that my
>> response is actually shorter, with less thought, more emotional. To have
>> to
>> add to a response like that did feel a bit like padding. Now, maybe
>> that's
>> just me, and the way I review--in which case it's not a problem for
>> anyone
>>
>> else, and I apologize for opening the can of worms in the first
>> place--I'll
>> just have to deal with it.
>>
>> :: Perhaps a kind of curve in giving weight to reviews, with a bit extra
>> at
>> the low end and a bit extra at the high end, with the spread more
>> consistent
>> in the middle, kind of like the old grading curve teachers used to use?
>> I
>>
>> don't know. Anyway, as I said, if I'm the only one with the problem,
>> just
>>
>> let me blather.
>>
>> Dreamflower
>> (Barbara)
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> 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]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6711

Weighty matters Posted by Kathy January 12, 2006 - 16:27:31 Topic ID# 6705
There seems to be a widely held perception that long reviews are
being criticized or devalued by the idea of giving more weight to
short reviews (weight being defined as how many characters are needed
to reach a certain points threshold) than they would receive in an
even points spread. However, I don't think that was the intent when
the idea was first proposed.

Here's what Marta said in her initial post on the subject on Jan. 1:

"First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
points
they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight."

I thought the concern she raised seemed reasonable at the time, and I
still do. But since then many objections have been raised to the
initial proposed solution—a 5-point spread—and they are also valid
concerns. So now that it seems settled that we are staying with the
10-point scoring system, the remaining question seems to be simply
whether the initial issue Marta raised is one that we should address
to a greater (or lesser) degree than the current system does. It's
already looking like this question may be as debatable as the 5-pt.
vs. 10-pt. vs. character count question.

As I understand the facts, the 2005 MEFAs gave slightly more weight
to short reviews than they otherwise would have received in a
completely even point spread. I'm not sure why this was done, as it
happened before I became involved with the MEFAs. According to
Anthony, the 2004 MEFAs gave even *more* weight to the short reviews,
so there seems to have been a decision to move away from that, but
again, I don't know why.

In the interests of moving the discussion along, to Rabidsamfan and
anyone else who is concerned about long reviews being devalued, I put
the question directly: are you opposed to *any* kind of weighting
that allows short reviews to count for more than they would if the
points were evenly distributed? If not, what level of weighting are
you comfortable with: the current system? Something more? Or
something less? I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I'd just
like to know where people stand on this so we can come to a decision
soon.

Kathy (Inkling)



--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
wrote:
>
> We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the
process. As
> the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread
reminded
> me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
> subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths
of the
> different stories. A good long review for a story which has had
fewer
> readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story
which is
> more widely known.
>
> Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories
which
> hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews
which were a
> lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were
unnoticed gems.
>
> We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions
about
> weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an
implication
> that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in
the large
> sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next
level is
> not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at
the MEFAs
> were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the
professional
> reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the
same kind of
> effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were
the kinds
> of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories
that
> reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.
>
>
> On 1/12/06, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> >
> > >
> >
> > I'm trying to catch up on some posts where I think the points made
> > haven't already been resolved as far as I can tell.
> >
> > > Message: 21
> > > Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:08:14 -0000
> > > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...>
> > > Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (general reply)
> > >
> > > <snip>
> > > More good points…I guess this is why I feel like I could live
with
> > > any of the options on the table: 5-point spread, 10-point
spread, or
> > > character count—as long as it was weighted in some way. Math
is not
> > > my strong suit, but to me a 5-point spread would inherently
give more
> > > weight to a 1-point review—even if the points were evenly
spaced—
> > > because 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I can
also
> > > understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as less
> > > ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough incentive to
write
> > > long reviews.
> > >
> >
> > Yes, this was the incentive behind proposing a 5-point spread.
Actually
> > in effect it gives another point to each review worth an odd
number of
> > points, but this is definitely most noticeable with short reviews
like
> > 1-pointers.
> >
> > > The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently
pointed
> > > out…but not very much. Maybe the compromise here is to stick
with
> > > it, but to increase the weight for lower-point reviews. I
wouldn't
> > > mind a weighted character count system either, but as some in
the
> > > group seem strongly opposed to it, it might be best to stick as
> > > closely as possibly to the current system, with a few tweaks…?
> > >
> >
> > I think you're right about this. So the question now becomes, how
> > weighted do we want this to be? I'll try to address that more
fully
> > when I get through the messages still in my inbox.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Marta
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Msg# 6712

Re: Weighty matters Posted by rabidsamfan January 12, 2006 - 18:18:25 Topic ID# 6705
On 1/12/06, Kathy <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> There seems to be a widely held perception that long reviews are
> being criticized or devalued by the idea of giving more weight to
> short reviews (weight being defined as how many characters are needed
> to reach a certain points threshold) than they would receive in an
> even points spread. However, I don't think that was the intent when
> the idea was first proposed.
>
> Here's what Marta said in her initial post on the subject on Jan. 1:
>
> "First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
> points
> they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
> level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
> those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight."
>
> I thought the concern she raised seemed reasonable at the time, and I
> still do. But since then many objections have been raised to the
> initial proposed solutionýa 5-point spreadýand they are also valid
> concerns. So now that it seems settled that we are staying with the
> 10-point scoring system, the remaining question seems to be simply
> whether the initial issue Marta raised is one that we should address
> to a greater (or lesser) degree than the current system does. It's
> already looking like this question may be as debatable as the 5-pt.
> vs. 10-pt. vs. character count question.
>
> As I understand the facts, the 2005 MEFAs gave slightly more weight
> to short reviews than they otherwise would have received in a
> completely even point spread. I'm not sure why this was done, as it
> happened before I became involved with the MEFAs. According to
> Anthony, the 2004 MEFAs gave even *more* weight to the short reviews,
> so there seems to have been a decision to move away from that, but
> again, I don't know why.
>
> In the interests of moving the discussion along, to Rabidsamfan and
> anyone else who is concerned about long reviews being devalued, I put
> the question directly: are you opposed to *any* kind of weighting
> that allows short reviews to count for more than they would if the
> points were evenly distributed? If not, what level of weighting are
> you comfortable with: the current system? Something more? Or
> something less? I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I'd just
> like to know where people stand on this so we can come to a decision
> soon.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)



I can live quite happily with the 2005 system. In 2004, I suspect that some
reviews were edited into shreds to keep them at the "one point" level, since
without that very low number (20) as a cutoff point, no one wrote anything
quite that short in 2005.

I'm not opposed to the idea of weighting the system towards shorter reviews,
but my reasoning is probably not the same as most folks, which is why I like
straight or weighted character counts and was intrigued with Anthony's fifty
point system. Within a subcategory, when I'm in "thinking about
subcategories" mode, what I want to do is set the stories into approximate
order by how well I liked them. It's easier to do that if it's not a big
step from one "place" to another.

For people who are trying to get a lot of stories read in short order, or
who aren't comfortable writing pages of review for a drabble, having the
steps "smaller" at the lower end of the scale makes a certain amount of
sense. If it were my druthers, there wouldn't be a cutoff at the top of the
scale, but the steps would be higher to go from 10 to 11 than they were to
go from 1 to 2.

Gosh, I hope that made sense!


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

Msg# 6713

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 18:25:05 Topic ID# 6662
Suffice it to say, I agree with Dwim. I don't know that I've ever managed a
10-pointer, but I feel like I like the openness to it isf I should come
across a great gem and find the time to expound. By leveling the scale to
5, that's all the gem it can be. Takes some of the sparkle off.

Let's look again at why there is a cap: to prevent vote-stacking. Nothing
else. Yes, ASC had a problem with someone babbling on saying nothing to
beef up a vote. Putting a cap means you can blather on all you want, but it
won't get you any more than 10. It's not to encourage longer votes or
discourage shorter ones. It's only to make sure vote-stuffing votes don't
get out of hand.

--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 dwimmer_laik
> Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 7:21 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters
> (general reply)
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I think I've figured out how to verbalize why I prefer the
> lower point
> > spread and/or the graduated point system.
> >
> > because the BIGGEST deal is the fact that the reader took
> the time to
> > open the story, read it, click on the MEFA review link and say
> > something nice.
> >
> > I like and agree with that if they liked it a lot and had a lot of
> > nice things to say that counted for more points.
> >
> > but the difference between no review and any review is infinite. The
> > *1st* point is the most important one and I believe, to
> some extent,
> > we lose sight of that.
> >
> >
> > I think the five point spread, with the character count wieghted to
> > the lower points would help keep this in the minds of the
> reviewers. -
> > those that wanted to write more could, and a very long review could
> > make the difference in a points-tie.
> >
>
> Is the basic reason for the reduction of the scale to a five
> point cap that we are forgetting the "infinite" distance
> between no review and one review? (In other words, we want to
> solve the problem of
> non-participation.)
>
> Or is the basic reason for that proposed reduction that we
> should remember to value the fact that someone took the time
> to review the story... as opposed to what? This does not
> clearly seem to be in opposition to the first possibility;
> they seem rather to complement each other like two sides of
> the very same coin. However, it does sound like it's an
> opposite position to, perhaps, being upset that someone
> didn't leave a ten point review. To being what some would say
> is "overly competitive"--a complaint that seems to come up at
> regular intervals, and in fact I think occurred this very week.
>
> If the first is true, I don't think the reduced points cap
> will solve the problem. We don't even know that the points
> scale is at all related to the problem of non-participation,
> unless there's been a poll of non-participants that I've
> missed. It seems more likely that the problem of
> non-participation is due to the sheer number of stories
> entered combined with exhaustion from real life that has
> other priorities than a fanfic competition, plain and simple.
>
> If it *does* have something to do with the points scale,
> however, then the difference between zero and one, though
> infinite, is far less than the multiply infinite difference
> between one and ten, so why would reducing the points scale
> affect non-participation by making it happen less often? The
> only way I can see it having that effect is if the mind of
> the non-participator says something like this:
>
> "Geez, that's a lot of stories. I'm overwhelmed. I want to
> participate, but I'm just too tired. I feel bad. But look,
> even if I tried, I could only write a one point review. And
> that's not worth anything at all! So really, it doesn't
> matter if I don't participate--I shouldn't feel bad about not
> leaving that one review, it wouldn't have counted anyway."
>
> The problem here is not the points cap, it's the cynicism. If
> someone feels his or her vote makes no difference, then five
> points or ten, s/he will always find a reason not to vote. Always.
>
> So if number one is the motivation for the points scale
> change, then I'd be very concerned that we might be dealing
> with an imaginary problem, and being lazy like I am, I don't
> like to deal with problems that I'm not convinced are very
> real. I need a lot more convincing to be done on behalf of
> the points scale reduction if this is the reason for it.
>
>
> The second problem is itself problematic to me because I'm
> not sure why it's a problem--thus the effort to find
> something for it to oppose. I'm not sure whether it's
> intended to locate the problem on the side of those
> *receiving* the reviews, or on the side of those
> *giving* them. My version locates it on the side of the
> authors, not on the side of the reviewers. But I can't be
> sure that's what's intended. I'm not even sure I should be
> reading it as a separate problem or if it's supposed to be
> there as the intuition that lies behind the articulation of
> the problem as one of non-participation, the difference
> between zero and one.
>
> So I'm really not sure what to think about possibility two as
> a reason for changing the points scale if I'm looking at the
> original e-mail, which is the same as saying I think it's not
> a good reason to do so since I'm not sure what I should
> understand by it, assuming it's a separate reason at all. If
> I'm looking at my extrapolation from it, I see another
> problem we can't solve--no one can make someone refuse to
> make comparisons that will upset him or her, or make someone
> grateful for what s/he actually receives.
>
>
> The reason I keep saying I think a curve would work best is
> that it addresses a definite, identifiable problem raised by
> people who *have actually reviewed* and participated in the
> post-mortem discussion. I can see why it's worth it to make
> it easier to score points with fewer words, but it doesn't
> eliminate the challenge of writing that 1,001 char review
> for the occasional gem that you think deserves it, or a 9
> ponter, or an 8 pointer. So it retains a motivation for
> people to stretch a little or even a lot, to try making an
> analysis that (let's be honest) the author is *likely* to
> enjoy more because it's more than a two line expression of
> reader enjoyment.
>
> This is not an example of ingratitude to other reviewers or
> of a nasty competitive streak whose only focus is winning
> instead of the fun and the joy of a good story. The Yahoo
> page has it in all caps: the awards are based on FEEDBACK.
> All kinds count, and all are good (except the flamey
> variety), but let's be honest: we as authors want detailed,
> thoughtful feedback that can go into the guts of our stories
> and tell us how they worked, why they were effective, how
> those highlighted moments contribute to the effect that the
> story had on the reviewer, and what the reader has taken away
> from the story (if anything). We want the whole
> shebang--though that's not to say we're not happy to receive
> nice notes and short but encouraging reviews.
>
> But if we want to have a hope of getting something more than
> that, we need to build some kind of incentive into the points
> structure that will encourage more people to stretch for that
> level of more detailed reviewing than simply those people
> who, by dint of practice or personality, are predisposed to
> respond in that manner.
>
> A curved points structure (whether it's based on straight
> character counts and percentage levels or a modification of
> the current points
> system) that has a broader range than five points
> acknowledges both the pressure of real life that doesn't
> always allow us to make those detailed analyses. The curved
> systme would let our shorter efforts express *more*
> accurately what we would wish for the story to receive, but
> without succumbing to a purely quantitative rubric (rank this
> story on a scale of one to ten, no written feedback involved)
> or a one point per vote schema. So you have to make an effort
> to say what you want to say and not just say, "I meant for it
> to be more than that, really." But it also acknowledges that
> authors like longer, more detailed reviews, while providing
> reviewers with the incentive to stretch for that level of analysis.
>
> Without the incentive, sure, there may be a few who would do
> it anyway, but it will cut out most of the motivation to try
> for it for those who are less likely to review at length or
> in detail. And even the more wordy ones might at some point
> get tired of writing a lot for very little 'recognition' via
> the points structure and so stop doing it and start moving
> towards the lowered maximum.
>
> Dwim
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6714

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 18:27:58 Topic ID# 6662
I'm good with that.

Someone who likes math more than me would have to do the tweaking though.

--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 Kathy
> Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 8:08 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters
> (general reply)
>
> More good points.I guess this is why I feel like I could live
> with any of the options on the table: 5-point spread,
> 10-point spread, or character count-as long as it was
> weighted in some way. Math is not my strong suit, but to me
> a 5-point spread would inherently give more weight to a
> 1-point review-even if the points were evenly spaced- because
> 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I can also
> understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as
> less ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough
> incentive to write long reviews.
>
> The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently
> pointed out.but not very much. Maybe the compromise here is
> to stick with it, but to increase the weight for lower-point
> reviews. I wouldn't mind a weighted character count system
> either, but as some in the group seem strongly opposed to it,
> it might be best to stick as closely as possibly to the
> current system, with a few tweaks.?
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
> wrote:
> > Is the basic reason for the reduction of the scale to a five point
> cap
> > that we are forgetting the "infinite" distance between no
> review and
> > one review? (In other words, we want to solve the problem of
> > non-participation.)
> >
> > Or is the basic reason for that proposed reduction that we should
> > remember to value the fact that someone took the time to review the
> > story... as opposed to what? This does not clearly seem to be in
> > opposition to the first possibility; they seem rather to complement
> > each other like two sides of the very same coin. However, it does
> > sound like it's an opposite position to, perhaps, being upset that
> > someone didn't leave a ten point review. To being what some would
> say
> > is "overly competitive"--a complaint that seems to come up at
> regular
> > intervals, and in fact I think occurred this very week.
> >
> > If the first is true, I don't think the reduced points cap will
> solve
> > the problem. We don't even know that the points scale is at all
> > related to the problem of non-participation, unless there's been a
> > poll of non-participants that I've missed. It seems more
> likely that
> > the problem of non-participation is due to the sheer number of
> stories
> > entered combined with exhaustion from real life that has other
> > priorities than a fanfic competition, plain and simple.
> >
> > If it *does* have something to do with the points scale, however,
> then
> > the difference between zero and one, though infinite, is far less
> than
> > the multiply infinite difference between one and ten, so why would
> > reducing the points scale affect non-participation by making it
> happen
> > less often? The only way I can see it having that effect is if the
> > mind of the non-participator says something like this:
> >
> > "Geez, that's a lot of stories. I'm overwhelmed. I want to
> > participate, but I'm just too tired. I feel bad. But look,
> even if I
> > tried, I could only write a one point review. And that's not worth
> > anything at all! So really, it doesn't matter if I don't
> > participate--I shouldn't feel bad about not leaving that
> one review,
> > it wouldn't have counted anyway."
> >
> > The problem here is not the points cap, it's the cynicism. If
> someone
> > feels his or her vote makes no difference, then five points or ten,
> > s/he will always find a reason not to vote. Always.
> >
> > So if number one is the motivation for the points scale
> change, then
> > I'd be very concerned that we might be dealing with an imaginary
> > problem, and being lazy like I am, I don't like to deal with
> problems
> > that I'm not convinced are very real. I need a lot more convincing
> to
> > be done on behalf of the points scale reduction if this is the
> reason
> > for it.
> >
> >
> > The second problem is itself problematic to me because I'm not sure
> > why it's a problem--thus the effort to find something for it to
> > oppose. I'm not sure whether it's intended to locate the problem on
> > the side of those *receiving* the reviews, or on the side of those
> > *giving* them. My version locates it on the side of the
> authors, not
> > on the side of the reviewers. But I can't be sure that's what's
> > intended. I'm not even sure I should be reading it as a separate
> > problem or if it's supposed to be there as the intuition that lies
> > behind the articulation of the problem as one of non-participation,
> > the difference between zero and one.
> >
> > So I'm really not sure what to think about possibility two as a
> reason
> > for changing the points scale if I'm looking at the
> original e-mail,
> > which is the same as saying I think it's not a good reason to do so
> > since I'm not sure what I should understand by it, assuming it's a
> > separate reason at all. If I'm looking at my extrapolation from it,
> I
> > see another problem we can't solve--no one can make someone refuse
> to
> > make comparisons that will upset him or her, or make someone
> grateful
> > for what s/he actually receives.
> >
> >
> > The reason I keep saying I think a curve would work best is that it
> > addresses a definite, identifiable problem raised by people who
> *have
> > actually reviewed* and participated in the post-mortem
> discussion. I
> > can see why it's worth it to make it easier to score points with
> fewer
> > words, but it doesn't eliminate the challenge of writing
> that 1,001
> > char review for the occasional gem that you think deserves it, or a
> 9
> > ponter, or an 8 pointer. So it retains a motivation for people to
> > stretch a little or even a lot, to try making an analysis that
> (let's
> > be honest) the author is *likely* to enjoy more because it's more
> than
> > a two line expression of reader enjoyment.
> >
> > This is not an example of ingratitude to other reviewers or of a
> nasty
> > competitive streak whose only focus is winning instead of the fun
> and
> > the joy of a good story. The Yahoo page has it in all caps: the
> awards
> > are based on FEEDBACK. All kinds count, and all are good
> (except the
> > flamey variety), but let's be honest: we as authors want detailed,
> > thoughtful feedback that can go into the guts of our stories and
> tell
> > us how they worked, why they were effective, how those highlighted
> > moments contribute to the effect that the story had on the
> reviewer,
> > and what the reader has taken away from the story (if anything). We
> > want the whole shebang--though that's not to say we're not happy to
> > receive nice notes and short but encouraging reviews.
> >
> > But if we want to have a hope of getting something more than that,
> we
> > need to build some kind of incentive into the points structure that
> > will encourage more people to stretch for that level of more
> detailed
> > reviewing than simply those people who, by dint of practice or
> > personality, are predisposed to respond in that manner.
> >
> > A curved points structure (whether it's based on straight character
> > counts and percentage levels or a modification of the current points
> > system) that has a broader range than five points acknowledges both
> > the pressure of real life that doesn't always allow us to
> make those
> > detailed analyses. The curved systme would let our shorter efforts
> > express *more* accurately what we would wish for the story to
> receive,
> > but without succumbing to a purely quantitative rubric (rank this
> > story on a scale of one to ten, no written feedback involved) or a
> one
> > point per vote schema. So you have to make an effort to say
> what you
> > want to say and not just say, "I meant for it to be more than that,
> > really." But it also acknowledges that authors like longer, more
> > detailed reviews, while providing reviewers with the incentive to
> > stretch for that level of analysis.
> >
> > Without the incentive, sure, there may be a few who would do it
> > anyway, but it will cut out most of the motivation to try
> for it for
> > those who are less likely to review at length or in detail.
> And even
> > the more wordy ones might at some point get tired of writing a lot
> for
> > very little 'recognition' via the points structure and so
> stop doing
> > it and start moving towards the lowered maximum.
> >
> > Dwim
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6715

Re: Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 18:32:21 Topic ID# 6655
Thank you for the spread! That helped. So the folks at ASC were on to
something with thir spread that I basically stole (with permission).

However, I do not want to go over 10 points. So definitely, I prefer
weighting but not quite as you suggested.

--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 Anthony Holder
> Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 2:51 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems
>
> Someone asked about checking the scoring system that we have
> against the other possible methods.
>
> Here is a breakdown of how the reviews would have scored with
> the 2004 system vs. how they were scored in 2005.
>
> 2005 2004 2004 system
> 1 810 40 0 to 20 char
> 2 1390 504 21 to 80
> 3 1179 2332 81 to 250
> 4 821
> 5 532 1856 251 to 500
> 6 495
> 7 270 697 501 to 750
> 8 155
> 9 104 327 751 to 1100
> 10 267 267 1101+
>
> As you can see, the 2004 system was more heavily weighted
> toward the smaller reviews. The vast majority of the reviews
> were 3, 5, or 7 pointers.
>
> Above 5 points, the two systems are very similar, but they
> differ quite a bit on the lower end. Essentially the change
> in 2005 made it much harder to get a 3+ point review.
>
> If one were to go back to essentially the 2004 system, but
> with a continuous system with no discontinuities, the
> equation would be:
>
> 0 to 20: 100% of chars
> 21 to 80: 33.3% of chars
> 81 to 250: 11.76% of chars
> 251 to 750: 8% of chars
> 751 to 1100: 5.71% of chars
>
> This is all relative to those first 20 characters getting one
> point in the old system, so they had the most impact. After
> that point, it went down pretty rapidly.
>
> The 2005 system breaks down to:
>
> 0 to 500: 100% of chars
> 501 to 1100: 66.6% of chars
>
> From this, you can see that in 2005, the longer reviews were
> more heavily weighted, as compared to the very short reviews.
> Compared to the medium-sized reviews, though, it was more
> similar. If you use the
> '81 to 250' range as the standard, you get:
>
> 0 to 20: 850% of chars
> 21 to 80: 283% of chars
> 81 to 250: 100% of chars
> 251 to 750: 68% of chars
> 751 to 1100: 49% of chars
>
> So the relative 'worth' of the 250 to 500 group was
> substantially increased, while the 501 to 750 group was
> almost unchanged, relative to the 3 point review.
>
> I also split the reviews into groups of 20, and calculated
> point totals via the two methods. In doing so, these groups
> showed that for the lower point totals, the 2004 scoring
> system would have increased the scores by about 45-50%, but
> for the higher point totals, the increase was 6 to 15%.
> Everybody would have gotten higher points, but the stories
> with lots of smaller reviews would have fared better than
> those stories with a few longer reviews.
>
> I think the basic idea behind the 2004 point system is that
> if you get lots of reviews that should count somewhat better
> than someone that got a few long reviews, if the total
> character count is similar between the two. Thus, having the
> 'minimum score' (essentially) be 3 points, except for those
> ultra-short <20-character or pretty darn short <80 character reviews.
>
> Assuming that this behavior is what you want, I propose the following:
>
> Do a more continuous points scale, as follows:
>
> characters percentage calculated score
> 0 to 20: 20% of characters 4 pts for a 20 character review
> 21 to 100: 10% of characters 4+8 = 12 pts for an 80 char review
> 100 to 300: 5% of characters 12 + 10 = 22 pts for a 300 char
> review
> 300 to 700: 4% of characters 22 + 16 = 38 pts for a 700 char
> review
> 700 to 1100: 3% of characters 38 + 12 = 50 pts for a 1100 char
> review
>
> Round up to the nearest 1 pt.
>
> Here's how the reviews would have broken down this year using
> my suggested system.
>
> Pts num reviews at that score
> 1 0
> 2 4
> 3 9
> 4 27
> 5 44
> 6 49
> 7 76
> 8 109
> 9 114
> 10 112
> 11 127
> 12 139
> 13 295
> 14 285
> 15 313
> 16 235
> 17 262
> 18 301
> 19 252
> 20 241
> 21 204
> 22 181
> 23 246
> 24 228
> 25 189
> 26 158
> 27 145
> 28 154
> 29 117
> 30 116
> 31 113
> 32 93
> 33 78
> 34 83
> 35 67
> 36 61
> 37 70
> 38 44
> 39 58
> 40 59
> 41 39
> 42 34
> 43 33
> 44 49
> 45 27
> 46 19
> 47 34
> 48 18
> 49 11
> 50 301
>
> This is similar to the 2004 system, but weights a bit higher
> for longer reviews. It does not weight nearly as high as the
> 2005 system, though.
>
> The maximum review is a nice round number, 50 points.
>
> Total scores would be much higher (stroke those egos, now!).
>
> year/total points awarded using that system and the 2005 reviews.
> 2004 27,816
> 2005 22,777
> 2006 138,403
>
> Now that I've given you this data, I suspect that you'll need
> to decide which sort of system you prefer (weight the shorter
> reviews or weight the longer reviews).
>
> I've put my spreadsheet on the Yahoo Group! files section. I
> haven't documented it very well, but I think you can
> understand what I did. I even graphed the proposed 2006
> scores, and they look like a nice bell curve with a long tail
> to the right. and a big bump at 50.
>
> Didn't I say something about deciding things soon? I'm not
> helping that along, I guess!
>
> Later,
> Anthony
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6716

Re: points and various voting matters (general reply) Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 18:36:31 Topic ID# 6662
It still flattens it. 5-10 is still just 5. And I don't think a 2 word
review needs to be rewarded by generating 5 points. Yes, the effort of
producing any review is good, but really, a drabble can be written in a few
minutes, and that's 100 words, probably more than 500 characters. If I
write a review that's only 50 characters long, I'll be doing so on purpose.
Because I was able to find something good in the story. Not because I
thought it should win. If I think a story should win, I'm going to write
more about it. Even ifI only manage a 3. Sometimes I mean to only give a
1.

Weighted, not scewed.

--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: Sunday, January 08, 2006 6:52 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: points and various voting matters
> (general reply)
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik"
> <dwimmer_laik@y...> wrote:> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com,
> "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:> >> > > > I think I've
> figured out how to verbalize why I prefer the lower > > point
> spread and/or the graduated point system.
> > >
> > > because the BIGGEST deal is the fact that the reader took the
> time to > > open the story, read it, click on the MEFA review
> link and say > > something nice.
> > > <<snipped>>>
>
> > Is the basic reason for the reduction of the scale to a five point
> cap> that we are forgetting the "infinite" distance between no review
> and> one review? (In other words, we want to solve the problem of>
> non-participation.)
>
>
>
> No, it's not for the non-participates. I agree with your below
> points on that issues. (basically that we're not sure why they didn't
> participate and without knowing that we can't take steps to try to
> fix it, and also that some things (human nature) can't be fixed)
>
>
>
> > Or is the basic reason for that proposed reduction that we should
> > remember to value the fact that someone took the time to review the
> > story... as opposed to what? This does not clearly seem to be in
> > opposition to the first possibility; they seem rather to complement
> > each other like two sides of the very same coin. However, it does
> > sound like it's an opposite position to, perhaps, being upset that
> > someone didn't leave a ten point review. To being what some would
> say
> > is "overly competitive"--a complaint that seems to come up at
> regular
> > intervals, and in fact I think occurred this very week.
>
>
> I *personally* like to 'play hard'. I like to tumble across the
> finish line bloody and bruised and exhausted, have a group hug with
> the people who kicked my but*, and those but*s I kicked, and all of
> us meet at the inn for a pint.
>
> But in a group as mixed as this, with such different backgrounds,
> strengths, weakness, etc. ... those who like to play hard typically
> come off as bullies (or 'overly competitive'), other people are
> shocked and/or hurt and/or upset and/or scream and/or quietly slink
> away ... and that's no fun. It's kinda like playing roller derby
> when half the group is doing the hokey-pokey. I DO NOT believe that
> we should be set up for the lowest common denominator, but I do think
> we need balance.
>
> If that comes across as harsh to some people, I apologize ... I'm
> trying to say that I appreciate our differences, that I know that
> people have different kind of fun.
>
> <<<more snippage>>
> > If it *does* have something to do with the points scale, however,
> then> the difference between zero and one, though infinite, is far
> less than> the multiply infinite difference between one and ten,
>
> what about this? .... what about making the point scale from 5-10?
>
> 0-100 characters = 5 pts
> 101-250 characters = 6pts
> 251-450 ch = 7pts
> 451-700 = 8pts
> 701-1000 = 9pts
> 1001+ = 10 pts
>
> the purpose of starting with 5 pts being to recognize the effort of a
> 11 character review (great story!) is not in the keyboard, but in the
> reading and the clicking and the reviewing. ... the effort of
> registering with the MEFAs and leaving any review at all.
>
> I know that as a reviewer, I didn't review any that I noted that I
> needed to keep the review short. .... I worked from the other
> side... those that excited me as I read got the mental notes that it
> needed a longer review.
>
> in essence, this isn't so much for the authors, because the character
> counts and the words for the reviews are going to be the same no
> matter what the points are. it's more for the reviewers, that are
> pressed for time, or stressed by RL but still want to participate, to
> be able to feel that their 100 or 200 character review *does* make a
> difference, not just to make the author feel good, but to give them
> points toward the award.
>
>
> > "Geez, that's a lot of stories. I'm overwhelmed. I want to
> > participate, but I'm just too tired. I feel bad. But look, even if I
> > tried, I could only write a one point review. And that's not worth
> > anything at all! So really, it doesn't matter if I don't
> > participate--I shouldn't feel bad about not leaving that one review,
> > it wouldn't have counted anyway."
>
> > The problem here is not the points cap, it's the cynicism. If
> someone
> > feels his or her vote makes no difference, then five points or ten,
> > s/he will always find a reason not to vote. Always.
>
> I agree to a point. There is cynicism and there are easy excuses for
> not doing what you didn't want to do anyway, but I also know that we
> all have a Real Life, and also that there was a lot of real hurt last
> year.
>
> - is changing the point system going to fix all that - no - I don't
> have that illusion. But if I can think of ways to make it easier to
> make a difference for those reviewers who *are* honestly pressed for
> time and energy, I'm going to make those suggestions.
>
>
> > > I'd be very concerned that we might be dealing with an imaginary
> > problem, and being lazy like I am, I don't like to deal with
> problems
> > that I'm not convinced are very real. I need a lot more convincing
> to
> > be done on behalf of the points scale reduction if this is the
> reason
> > for it.
>
>
> I can't express to you the depth and the reality of the emotional
> hurt that I saw during these awards last year. I absolutely refuse
> to name names or specifics, - some was public most was not - the
> domino effect and the reverberations were pretty incredible.
>
> Most of the participants enjoyed it and the fun and feedback and all
> worked well. - and that's great. I also know that there's no way to
> please everyone and I'm not trying to do that either. - I'm just
> trying to make small adjustments that I think will alleviate some of
> the problems I saw that I think can be helped.
>
> ><<snipped>>>
>
> The reason I keep saying I think a curve would work best is that it
> > addresses a definite, identifiable problem raised by people who
> *have
> > actually reviewed* and participated in the post-mortem discussion. I
> > can see why it's worth it to make it easier to score points with
> fewer
> > words, but it doesn't eliminate the challenge of writing that 1,001
> > char review for the occasional gem that you think deserves it, or a
> 9
> > pointer, or an 8 pointer. So it retains a motivation for people to
> > stretch a little or even a lot, to try making an analysis that
> (let's
> > be honest) the author is *likely* to enjoy more because it's more
> than
> > a two line expression of reader enjoyment.
> >
> > This is not an example of ingratitude to other reviewers or of a
> nasty
> > competitive streak whose only focus is winning instead of the fun
> and
> > the joy of a good story. The Yahoo page has it in all caps: the
> awards
> > are based on FEEDBACK. All kinds count, and all are good (except the
> > flamey variety), but let's be honest: we as authors want detailed,
> > thoughtful feedback that can go into the guts of our stories and
> tell
> > us how they worked, why they were effective, how those highlighted
> > moments contribute to the effect that the story had on the reviewer,
> > and what the reader has taken away from the story (if anything). We
> > want the whole shebang--though that's not to say we're not happy to
> > receive nice notes and short but encouraging reviews.
>
> does my 5-10 pt scale address most of that?
>
> > <more snipped>
>
> ... sorry to be so slow to answer, yahoo was being wonky yesterday.
>
>
> Sulriel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6717

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 18:51:47 Topic ID# 6662
That's better than the 5-point scale. And see my more recent post about why
I post 1 point reviews. It's not for lack of time. I don't think I've seen
anyone (up to this point) admit to that. If I'm rushed for time, I'll
probably at least give a 3 to a story I liked fairly well. But a 1 is given
for a reason. And a 0 (no vote) is left for a reason too. Not every story
is a gem. Not a fun thing to hear, but it's truth. And while this awards
program is based on feedback that means a lot of SUBJECTIVITY goes into it.
We can't take the subjectivity out of it. That would be the most fair,
wouldn't it? To give everyone equal feedback so that no one feels bad for
not getting a review or only getting a few short ones. But we can't and
won't do that.

Some stories are better than others. My idea of which are which may differ
from the next person. The only control I have over that is my votes for
those stories. None for those that I don't feel are good. Short for those
that are somewhat good. Long for ones that are very good.

So, I'm okay with weighting, but maybe not so much to the 1 point as to
making it easier to get to the 2 (or 3 as you suggest).

--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 Laura
> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 10:34 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] What is the problem to which "reduce
> the points scale" is the answer?
>
> -- "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
> >> it's more of an emotional thing than a mathematical thing.
> My hope
> >> is that it will keep in the forefront a reminder of the amount of
> >> effort each review takes in logging on the system,
> selecting a story,
> >> reading the story, reviewing the story - the length of the
> review is
> >> gravy.
> >>
> >> it also weights the reviews more than just the point spread. two
> >> minimum reviews at 5 pts each equal one long review of 10
> pts, - as
> >> opposed to the previous system of needing ten minimum
> reviews needed
> >> to match one long review. .. so it also weights it in
> favor of the
> >> number of reviewers, which I think is a good thing and will
> >> help level out the difference in reviewers styles. - although
> >> keep in mind that character count will be the final tie breaker so
> >> ultimately those very long reviews could still tip the scale.
>
> I hope no one minds if I jump in really quickly, because I
> think Sulriel has hit upon a fundamental difference in the
> way that some of us are approaching this issue. She's
> addressed it more clearly than I did, anyway, and I wanted to
> highlight two things.
>
> 1) Quantity vs. Length
>
> If I understand this correctly, Sulriel is putting forth the
> opinion that two short reviews should be the equal of one
> long review. If I understand others correctly, this opinion is shared.
>
> Here, I think, is at least one of the basic differences in
> our approach because I disagree. I think one giant review
> ought to be worth *more* than two short reviews. I think the
> problem with quick, short reviews is that it favors the
> well-known authors and ignores the authors who might be
> REALLY good but just aren't widely known. I think giving
> unknown authors who are able to inspire gushing reviews an
> edge in this is a good thing.
>
> Should a single person writing enormous reviews be able to
> change the outcome of a subcategory where many are
> participating? No. But I think that longer reviews should
> have more of an influence than shorter reviews. I think the
> margin between the shortest review and the longest counted
> review should be more than five points.
>
> 2) The worth of a short review
>
> The proposal for a 5-10 scale caught my attention. Initially,
> I had the same reaction Dwim did: How is that any different
> than a point scale of 1-5 aside from extra weight at the low
> end of the scale? Sulriel's explanation, though, intrigues
> me, because I do see psychological merit to it. Even though
> reviewers know that a 5 point review is the lowest, it's
> still a bigger number than 1 and that means something. The
> most practical among us will shrug and say lowest is still
> lowest, but others will look at a 5 point review in the 5-10
> scale and still be able to feel good about it.
>
> But it doesn't solve the problem of quantity vs. length. In
> fact, if anything, it makes it worse. Under the current
> scale, it takes ten of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal
> one of the highest (10 points). Under the proposed 1-5 scale,
> it would take five of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal
> one of the longest reviews (5 points). Under the 5-10 scale,
> it would only take TWO of the lowest reviews (5 points) to
> equal the highest (10 points).
>
> Let's return, for a moment, to our scenario of Fred and
> Fredita. So Fred, our incredible but unknown Silm writer, has
> caught the attention of a reviewer and garnered an enormous
> and gushing review in which the reviewer confesses his/her
> inability to sleep at night due to the sheer power of such an
> incredible story. In the meantime, two of Fredita's faithful
> fans have wandered over from the adventure category and taken
> a chance on her good but not necessarily great Silm story.
> They both leave reviews saying something like, "Good job, I
> liked this." Under the 5-10 scale, Fredita's story is now
> tied with Fred's, and under a tie-breaker, Fredita would win
> because her story has more reviews than Fred's does.
>
> I was uncomfortable with the weight given in the 1-5 scale.
> I'm even more uncomfortable with the 5-10. However, I do see
> the psychological merit in raising the worth of the lower
> reviews. Like Sulriel, I was also privy to a few complaints
> about the inability to give long reviews. Some felt their
> input wouldn't count for much as they weren't overly verbose
> and couldn't fill a page of gush without padding.
>
> But can I submit that there might be a few other reasons? We
> had an ENORMOUS number of competitors this year. I was very
> overwhelmed initially and wondered if I would be able to make
> any dent in the number of stories out there to review. And I
> wondered if I would be able to leave any long reviews because
> I would be so pressed for time. I know others felt the same
> way. I don't think we'll have the same problem this coming
> year. We might still have quite a few stories competing, but
> it doesn't feel to me as though we're going to have something
> on the order of 1200. Can I suggest waiting this debate out
> one more year to see if the problem really is the point
> scale? And if it is, we can revisit this topic with a clearer
> picture of what people are really having trouble with.
> Because the main problem this year (to my mind, at least) was
> the author reviews and the sheer number of stories entered in
> the competition. Once we solve that, it will be easier to
> tweak the other concerns.
>
> If people are convinced that this is one of the primary
> problems, though, may I suggest an alternative to those
> already proposed? What if we ordered the point scale by odd
> numbers? Something along these lines:
>
> 0-100 characters = 1 pt
> 101-250 characters = 3pts
> 251-450 ch = 5pts
> 451-700 = 7pts
> 701-1000 = 9pts
> 1001+ = 10 pts
>
> The baseline reviews (those consisting of "Great job, I liked
> this") are still only worth one point. But if people choose
> to put a bit more effort into their review ("Great job! I
> liked this. I can see Frodo feeling this way after the War of
> the Ring, and I liked what you did with Sam, too.") will be
> able to boost their review up into the 3-point range. So
> although the lowest is still 1, it doesn't take much to pull
> it up two points. But it does require four of the 3-point
> reviews to overtake a 10 point review, which makes me a bit
> more comfortable than the 5-10 scale. And there's still a
> baseline of 1 for the "Nice work, cute story" reviews, so
> that it takes ten of them to beat a 10-point review.
>
> I like the system we have now more than I like this
> alternative, but if people feel that strongly about changing
> the points around, maybe we could think about this possibility.
>
> Just a thought.
>
> Thundera
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> - No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
> no harm will come to you.
> - Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
> how any harm could come to me there, either.
> William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6718

Re: scoring systems Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 18:52:56 Topic ID# 6683
Just finishing Monday, but if it comes to that, Marta, I say we tweak the
2004, as Anthony showed it did a better job of weighting to shorter votes.

--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 Marta
> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 11:10 PM
> To: mefawards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] scoring systems
>
> Hey guys,
>
> I've read through a lot of the posts that have been made
> about the different scoring systems that have been proposed
> (10-pt, 5-pt, pure character count, etc.) I'm receiving the
> posts by digest but I happened to read at the website today,
> so I'm caught up through Dwim's last post.
>
> Originally I was prepared to set up a poll and was actually
> going to do that tonight. But I've been thinking about it.
> There seems to be a lot of disagreement on this, too much for
> me to be comfortable changing what's a pretty fundamental
> part of these awards.
>
> There are some things that are so central that I doubt
> they'll ever change. I'm talking about things like having
> voting be done by making comments. Then there are other
> things that are pretty cosmetic and I'm happy to go with what
> the majority wants, like the name of an award or whether to
> have a certain category. Then there's a third category of
> issues, and I think the scoring issue falls into this group:
> things that are pretty central to the awards, but not so much
> so that I don't think we can change them if there's a
> consensus that they need to be changed. Another example of
> this would be the authors awards. How we handle those is
> definitely up for debate, but there has to be a stronger
> consensus than a simple majority.
>
> So we have this issue of how exactly to count votes. It's not
> something I'm willing to change unless there's a consensus
> here, and I don't think we're likely to get that. So I think
> we should just stick with the 10-point system that we had
> this year. Debating the others isn't likely to move us forward.
>
> I'll try to get through some more emails tonight. We still
> need to decide how exactly to work the points.
>
> Cheers,
> Marta
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6719

Re: Weighty matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by Kathy January 12, 2006 - 20:40:08 Topic ID# 6705
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
wrote:
>
> <snip>
> Gosh, I hope that made sense!

Yep, it did...thanks!

Kathy

Msg# 6720

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is the an Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 22:48:23 Topic ID# 6684
I think it's great that you read every story in a category, but it's not a
requirement. I don't think we can expect anyone to read all 1200 stories.
The idea is you read the stories you want to read. Plain and simple. If the
summary doesn't get me, I probably won't read a story unless I have extra
time on my hands.

--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 MarigoldCotton@aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 12:39 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] What is the problem to which "reduce
> the points scale"is the answer?
>
> I was going to write my lengthy opinion of this issue, but
> Thundera did it for me! I agre wholeheartedly with what she
> says here, and with her proposals.
>
> I strongly disagree with a 5 pt minimum review. I work very
> hard on my reviews because it is a way that I can pay back
> the author for a story that I enjoyed. The author works hard
> to write the story in the first place, I should be willing to
> put the effort in, and write a review touching on all of the
> things that I liked about the story. Some reviews might be
> very long, some of moderate length, but I write what I feel.
>
> Yes, these are the Feel Good Awards, but in my opinion, this
> idea to raise the worth of a minimum vote is rather defeating
> the whole point of giving awards to the stories that folks
> like the best, and take the time to write the longest reviews for.
>
> I acknowledge that at the end of Voting Season this year that
> I was rushing, and not able to write reviews of the length I
> wanted for every story that I had hoped to. I agree with
> Thundera though that we will have far fewer stories this
> year. We have already acted to ensure that. So this next
> Awards I should be able to write the full reviews that I
> think a story deserves.
>
> And I think too that voters have to take responsibility for
> their votes - I read every story in a given category, and
> wrote my reviews based on my enjoyment of each story in that
> category. I felt that that way I was being fair to all of the
> authors in the category. I wasn't just picking out Author X
> that I know, and reviewing their story without reading the
> stories that were entered alongside hers. I didn't go to a
> category, pick out only authors and stories that I knew, and
> write reviews only for them. And I finished a category before
> I went to the next one, I didn't skip through the categories
> looking for authors I knew so that I could vote for them.
> That practice seems to be hinted at in some of these many
> e-mails, and I hope that is not the case.
>
> If it *is* the case, changing the point system in the way
> that had been suggested will just perpetuate that, and load
> the voting in favour of those very authors.
>
> I would definitely go along with the scale that Thundera suggests:
>
> >0-100 characters = 1 pt
> >101-250 characters = 3pts
> >251-450 ch = 5pts
> >451-700 = 7pts
> >701-1000 = 9pts
> >1001+ = 10 pts
>
> I hope that was coherent...I worked all night and just got
> home and I am knackered!
>
> Marigold
>
>
>
> >-- "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
> >>> it's more of an emotional thing than a mathematical
> thing.  My hope
> >>> is that it will keep in the forefront a reminder of the amount of
> >>> effort each review takes in logging on the system, selecting a
> >>> story, reading the story, reviewing the story - the length of the
> >>> review is gravy.
> >>>
> >>> it also weights the reviews more than just the point spread.  two
> >>> minimum reviews at 5 pts each equal one long review of 10
> pts, - as
> >>> opposed to the previous system of needing ten minimum
> reviews needed
> >>> to match one long review.  .. so it also weights it in
> favor of the
> >>> number of reviewers, which I think is a good thing and will help
> >>> level out the difference in reviewers styles.     -
> although keep in
> >>> mind that character count will be the final tie breaker so
> >>> ultimately those very long reviews could still tip the scale.
> >
> >I hope no one minds if I jump in really quickly, because I
> think Sulriel has hit upon a fundamental difference in the
> way that some of us are approaching this issue. She's
> addressed it more clearly than I did, anyway, and I wanted to
> highlight two things.
> >
> >1) Quantity vs. Length
> >
> >If I understand this correctly, Sulriel is putting forth the
> opinion that two short reviews should be the equal of one
> long review. If I understand others correctly, this opinion is shared.
> >
> >Here, I think, is at least one of the basic differences in
> our approach because I disagree. I think one giant review
> ought to be worth *more* than two short reviews. I think the
> problem with quick, short reviews is that it favors the
> well-known authors and ignores the authors who might be
> REALLY good but just aren't widely known. I think giving
> unknown authors who are able to inspire gushing reviews an
> edge in this is a good thing.
> >
> >Should a single person writing enormous reviews be able to
> change the outcome of a subcategory where many are
> participating? No. But I think that longer reviews should
> have more of an influence than shorter reviews. I think the
> margin between the shortest review and the longest counted
> review should be more than five points.
> >
> >2) The worth of a short review
> >
> >The proposal for a 5-10 scale caught my attention.
> Initially, I had the same reaction Dwim did: How is that any
> different than a point scale of 1-5 aside from extra weight
> at the low end of the scale? Sulriel's explanation, though,
> intrigues me, because I do see psychological merit to it.
> Even though reviewers know that a 5 point review is the
> lowest, it's still a bigger number than 1 and that means
> something. The most practical among us will shrug and say
> lowest is still lowest, but others will look at a 5 point
> review in the 5-10 scale and still be able to feel good about it.
> >
> >But it doesn't solve the problem of quantity vs. length. In
> fact, if anything, it makes it worse. Under the current
> scale, it takes ten of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal
> one of the highest (10 points). Under the proposed 1-5 scale,
> it would take five of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal
> one of the longest reviews (5 points). Under the 5-10 scale,
> it would only take TWO of the lowest reviews (5 points) to
> equal the highest (10 points).
> >
> >Let's return, for a moment, to our scenario of Fred and
> Fredita. So Fred, our incredible but unknown Silm writer, has
> caught the attention of a reviewer and garnered an enormous
> and gushing review in which the reviewer confesses his/her
> inability to sleep at night due to the sheer power of such an
> incredible story. In the meantime, two of Fredita's faithful
> fans have wandered over from the adventure category and taken
> a chance on her good but not necessarily great Silm story.
> They both leave reviews saying something like, "Good job, I
> liked this." Under the 5-10 scale, Fredita's story is now
> tied with Fred's, and under a tie-breaker, Fredita would win
> because her story has more reviews than Fred's does.
> >
> >I was uncomfortable with the weight given in the 1-5 scale.
> I'm even more uncomfortable with the 5-10. However, I do see
> the psychological merit in raising the worth of the lower
> reviews. Like Sulriel, I was also privy to a few complaints
> about the inability to give long reviews. Some felt their
> input wouldn't count for much as they weren't overly verbose
> and couldn't fill a page of gush without padding.
> >
> >But can I submit that there might be a few other reasons? We
> had an ENORMOUS number of competitors this year. I was very
> overwhelmed initially and wondered if I would be able to make
> any dent in the number of stories out there to review. And I
> wondered if I would be able to leave any long reviews because
> I would be so pressed for time. I know others felt the same
> way. I don't think we'll have the same problem this coming
> year. We might still have quite a few stories competing, but
> it doesn't feel to me as though we're going to have something
> on the order of 1200. Can I suggest waiting this debate out
> one more year to see if the problem really is the point
> scale? And if it is, we can revisit this topic with a clearer
> picture of what people are really having trouble with.
> Because the main problem this year (to my mind, at least) was
> the author reviews and the sheer number of stories entered in
> the competition. Once we solve that, it will be easier to
> tweak the other concerns.
> >
> >If people are convinced that this is one of the primary
> problems, though, may I suggest an alternative to those
> already proposed? What if we ordered the point scale by odd
> numbers? Something along these lines:
> >
> >0-100 characters = 1 pt
> >101-250 characters = 3pts
> >251-450 ch = 5pts
> >451-700 = 7pts
> >701-1000 = 9pts
> >1001+ = 10 pts
> >
> >The baseline reviews (those consisting of "Great job, I
> liked this") are still only worth one point. But if people
> choose to put a bit more effort into their review ("Great
> job! I liked this. I can see Frodo feeling this way after the
> War of the Ring, and I liked what you did with Sam, too.")
> will be able to boost their review up into the 3-point range.
> So although the lowest is still 1, it doesn't take much to
> pull it up two points. But it does require four of the
> 3-point reviews to overtake a 10 point review, which makes me
> a bit more comfortable than the 5-10 scale. And there's still
> a baseline of 1 for the "Nice work, cute story" reviews, so
> that it takes ten of them to beat a 10-point review.
> >
> >I like the system we have now more than I like this
> alternative, but if people feel that strongly about changing
> the points around, maybe we could think about this possibility.
> >
> >Just a thought.
> >
> >Thundera
> >
> >-------------------------------------------------------------
> >- No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
> >  no harm will come to you.
> >- Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
> >  how any harm could come to me there, either.
> >     William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
> >-------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Marigold's Red Book
> http://marigold.tolkienshire.com
>
> Marigold's Recommendations Page
> http://www.geocities.com/marigoldsrecommendations/
>
> Marigold's Live Journal
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/marigoldg/
>
> Tales of The Red Book
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/talesofredbook/
>
>
>
>
> There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up
> in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.
> The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the
> forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft,
> clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the
> Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light
> and high beauty forever beyond its reach.
> >
> >Sam, in Mordor, RoTK
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6721

Re: Weighty matters Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 23:15:09 Topic ID# 6705
Just to clarify about the change from 2004 to 2005, if I remember correctly:

1) 2004 was copied directly from the Alt.StarTrek.Creative Awards' scale
2) In the PM after the 2004 some noted that the spread was confusing and
oddly left out numbers. It was voted on, I think, and it was evened out.
Not necessarily not-weighted, but less funky break-off points.

I don't think the value of short vs. long really came up so much.

--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 Kathy
> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 4:27 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Weighty matters
>
> There seems to be a widely held perception that long reviews
> are being criticized or devalued by the idea of giving more
> weight to short reviews (weight being defined as how many
> characters are needed to reach a certain points threshold)
> than they would receive in an even points spread. However, I
> don't think that was the intent when the idea was first proposed.
>
> Here's what Marta said in her initial post on the subject on Jan. 1:
>
> "First, I think some people find it hard to write long
> reviews and so feel that even stories they really like they
> can't give them the points they're worth. I suggest that we
> have each review cap off at a lower level (say, five points
> instead of ten). This effectively means that those 1- and
> 2-point reviews have more weight."
>
> I thought the concern she raised seemed reasonable at the
> time, and I still do. But since then many objections have
> been raised to the initial proposed solution-a 5-point
> spread-and they are also valid concerns. So now that it
> seems settled that we are staying with the 10-point scoring
> system, the remaining question seems to be simply whether the
> initial issue Marta raised is one that we should address to a
> greater (or lesser) degree than the current system does.
> It's already looking like this question may be as debatable
> as the 5-pt.
> vs. 10-pt. vs. character count question.
>
> As I understand the facts, the 2005 MEFAs gave slightly more
> weight to short reviews than they otherwise would have
> received in a completely even point spread. I'm not sure why
> this was done, as it happened before I became involved with
> the MEFAs. According to Anthony, the 2004 MEFAs gave even
> *more* weight to the short reviews, so there seems to have
> been a decision to move away from that, but again, I don't know why.
>
> In the interests of moving the discussion along, to
> Rabidsamfan and anyone else who is concerned about long
> reviews being devalued, I put the question directly: are you
> opposed to *any* kind of weighting that allows short reviews
> to count for more than they would if the points were evenly
> distributed? If not, what level of weighting are you
> comfortable with: the current system? Something more? Or
> something less? I don't mean that to sound confrontational,
> I'd just like to know where people stand on this so we can
> come to a decision soon.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>
>
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
> wrote:
> >
> > We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the
> process. As
> > the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread
> reminded
> > me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
> > subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths
> of the
> > different stories. A good long review for a story which has had
> fewer
> > readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story
> which is
> > more widely known.
> >
> > Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories
> which
> > hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews
> which were a
> > lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were
> unnoticed gems.
> >
> > We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions
> about
> > weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an
> implication
> > that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in
> the large
> > sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next
> level is
> > not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at
> the MEFAs
> > were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the
> professional
> > reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the
> same kind of
> > effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were
> the kinds
> > of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories
> that
> > reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.
> >
> >
> > On 1/12/06, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > I'm trying to catch up on some posts where I think the
> points made
> > > haven't already been resolved as far as I can tell.
> > >
> > > > Message: 21
> > > > Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:08:14 -0000
> > > > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...>
> > > > Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (general reply)
> > > >
> > > > <snip>
> > > > More good points.I guess this is why I feel like I could live
> with
> > > > any of the options on the table: 5-point spread, 10-point
> spread, or
> > > > character count-as long as it was weighted in some way. Math
> is not
> > > > my strong suit, but to me a 5-point spread would inherently
> give more
> > > > weight to a 1-point review-even if the points were evenly
> spaced-
> > > > because 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I can
> also
> > > > understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as less
> > > > ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough incentive to
> write
> > > > long reviews.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Yes, this was the incentive behind proposing a 5-point spread.
> Actually
> > > in effect it gives another point to each review worth an odd
> number of
> > > points, but this is definitely most noticeable with short reviews
> like
> > > 1-pointers.
> > >
> > > > The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently
> pointed
> > > > out.but not very much. Maybe the compromise here is to stick
> with
> > > > it, but to increase the weight for lower-point reviews. I
> wouldn't
> > > > mind a weighted character count system either, but as some in
> the
> > > > group seem strongly opposed to it, it might be best to stick as
> > > > closely as possibly to the current system, with a few tweaks.?
> > > >
> > >
> > > I think you're right about this. So the question now becomes, how
> > > weighted do we want this to be? I'll try to address that more
> fully
> > > when I get through the messages still in my inbox.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Marta
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6722

Re: Author Awards, one more thought Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 12, 2006 - 23:53:36 Topic ID# 6651
I think it's as valid a concern as Fred's big review vs. Freditta's many
short ones. And I'd like more opinions on the problem. I haven't seen a
lot of response to either of my points on the Form system.

I'm beginning to think we'd be better just to let go of the Author Awards
and try life without this year. It was stated in last year's PM that they
were harder to write. There are less author reviews. Awards even go
unawarded because maybe only two authors even got reviews. We allowed
voters to copy author reviews across categories to make it easier and still
there wasn't a lot of author-vote turnout, right?

So instead of setting up a popularity system or a competition between the
wrong kinds of fruit, maybe we'd be better to call this part of the awards
something we can do better without.

And then we can take the small amount of time we devoted to author reviews
and add it to our story-review time and have more reviews, or longer ones.

And I'm really sorry to Rhapsody go over all this.

--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 Marta Layton
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 11:43 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Author Awards, one more thought
>
> > Message: 14
> > Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:54:37 -0600
> > From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> > Subject: Author Awards, one more thought
> >
> > Setting asside the Fruit problem, I was just thinking of a
> compromise
> > with the Form plan and the Fruit problem. But I came back
> to another
> > problem, which I think can't quite override the
> > Story-Category-Shadowing we do now.
> >
> > Let's say we went to Form plan, leaving aside (is that one
> s or 2?--I
> > really used to be a wonderful speller.), and we look at the Short
> > Story category.
> > In which we have just 3 authors. (As if.) Say the breakdown in
> > reading stories was the same as it is now, even though we're only
> > talking about three authors here. These three authors
> specialize. A
> > writes only Silm stuff. B writes only The Hobbit. And C
> writes LOTR.
> > I could tell you right now who would win the Short Story category,
> > barring some unforeseen occurance. C. Awould come in 2nd. And B
> > would get 3rd.
> >
> > Because LOTR gets more readers than Silm and both get more than The
> > Hobbit.
> > And even if I'm wrong, it really could be as simple as that
> no matter
> > how we cut it. Genres. Cultures. How many people read Dwarf
> > stories? Ent stories? Elf stories? So who is likely to
> get the most
> > author comments?
> > Elf stories, out of those three. What about characters? Well, we
> > really might have some contention between Aragorn writers
> and Legolas
> > writers and maybe some Hobbit writers. But what about those who
> > specialize in unsung heroes?
> >
> > But do you see where I'm going? The only place Silm writers really
> > have a fair playing field is against other Silm writers.
> For example.
> > I'm not picking on Silm writers. Someone write me a
> Voronwe fic. I
> > really grew to like him in the UT.
> >
> > Anyway, that's the problem I came to. My compromise idea
> was that we
> > have Shadowing right now with 3 or 4 major forms as subcats, so my
> > compromise idea was to have Forms with 3 or 4 major genres
> as subcats,
> > but I hit on the popularity problem. The more popular story
> > categories will bring more readers to those stories in those
> > categories and thus more potential author votes. And thus it
> > disadvantages writers of less popular story categories.
> >
> > So what can we do about that? That's the main reason we can't move
> > away from Shadowing. Is there some we around it?
> >
>
> Hi Ainae,
>
> I think you might be overestimating how divisive the fandom
> is. I know a lot of people -- even most -- read stories
> outside of their comfort areas. I certainly did. And when I
> discovered a new author who I was previously unfamiliar with
> who I really liked, I was more likely to go on about them
> just because I was surprised by their skills.
>
> Also, if a Silm writer is truly concerned about them not
> getting a fair shake there's an easy way around it -- just
> get more Silm-readers to get involved in writing.
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6723

FW: [MEFAwards] Weighty matters Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 13, 2006 - 1:21:42 Topic ID# 6723
Since my hard drive filled up and these two messages refused to be sent,
I'm forwarding them again in the hopes that they will actually post this
time.

--Ainaechoiriel


-----Original Message-----
From: Ainaechoiriel [mailto:mefaadmin@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 11:09 PM
To: 'MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [MEFAwards] Weighty matters

Just to clarify about the change from 2004 to 2005, if I remember correctly:

1) 2004 was copied directly from the Alt.StarTrek.Creative Awards' scale
2) In the PM after the 2004 some noted that the spread was confusing and
oddly left out numbers. It was voted on, I think, and it was evened out.
Not necessarily not-weighted, but less funky break-off points.

I don't think the value of short vs. long really came up so much.

--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 Kathy
> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 4:27 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Weighty matters
>
> There seems to be a widely held perception that long reviews are being
> criticized or devalued by the idea of giving more weight to short
> reviews (weight being defined as how many characters are needed to
> reach a certain points threshold) than they would receive in an even
> points spread. However, I don't think that was the intent when the
> idea was first proposed.
>
> Here's what Marta said in her initial post on the subject on Jan. 1:
>
> "First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a
> lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means
> that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight."
>
> I thought the concern she raised seemed reasonable at the time, and I
> still do. But since then many objections have been raised to the
> initial proposed solution-a 5-point spread-and they are also valid
> concerns. So now that it seems settled that we are staying with the
> 10-point scoring system, the remaining question seems to be simply
> whether the initial issue Marta raised is one that we should address
> to a greater (or lesser) degree than the current system does.
> It's already looking like this question may be as debatable as the
> 5-pt.
> vs. 10-pt. vs. character count question.
>
> As I understand the facts, the 2005 MEFAs gave slightly more weight to
> short reviews than they otherwise would have received in a completely
> even point spread. I'm not sure why this was done, as it happened
> before I became involved with the MEFAs. According to Anthony, the
> 2004 MEFAs gave even
> *more* weight to the short reviews, so there seems to have been a
> decision to move away from that, but again, I don't know why.
>
> In the interests of moving the discussion along, to Rabidsamfan and
> anyone else who is concerned about long reviews being devalued, I put
> the question directly: are you opposed to *any* kind of weighting that
> allows short reviews to count for more than they would if the points
> were evenly distributed? If not, what level of weighting are you
> comfortable with: the current system? Something more? Or something
> less? I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I'd just like to
> know where people stand on this so we can come to a decision soon.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>
>
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
> wrote:
> >
> > We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the
> process. As
> > the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread
> reminded
> > me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
> > subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths
> of the
> > different stories. A good long review for a story which has had
> fewer
> > readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story
> which is
> > more widely known.
> >
> > Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories
> which
> > hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews
> which were a
> > lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were
> unnoticed gems.
> >
> > We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions
> about
> > weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an
> implication
> > that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in
> the large
> > sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next
> level is
> > not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at
> the MEFAs
> > were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the
> professional
> > reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the
> same kind of
> > effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were
> the kinds
> > of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories
> that
> > reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.
> >
> >
> > On 1/12/06, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > I'm trying to catch up on some posts where I think the
> points made
> > > haven't already been resolved as far as I can tell.
> > >
> > > > Message: 21
> > > > Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:08:14 -0000
> > > > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...>
> > > > Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (general reply)
> > > >
> > > > <snip>
> > > > More good points.I guess this is why I feel like I could live
> with
> > > > any of the options on the table: 5-point spread, 10-point
> spread, or
> > > > character count-as long as it was weighted in some way. Math
> is not
> > > > my strong suit, but to me a 5-point spread would inherently
> give more
> > > > weight to a 1-point review-even if the points were evenly
> spaced-
> > > > because 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I can
> also
> > > > understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as less
> > > > ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough incentive to
> write
> > > > long reviews.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Yes, this was the incentive behind proposing a 5-point spread.
> Actually
> > > in effect it gives another point to each review worth an odd
> number of
> > > points, but this is definitely most noticeable with short reviews
> like
> > > 1-pointers.
> > >
> > > > The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently
> pointed
> > > > out.but not very much. Maybe the compromise here is to stick
> with
> > > > it, but to increase the weight for lower-point reviews. I
> wouldn't
> > > > mind a weighted character count system either, but as some in
> the
> > > > group seem strongly opposed to it, it might be best to stick as
> > > > closely as possibly to the current system, with a few tweaks.?
> > > >
> > >
> > > I think you're right about this. So the question now becomes, how
> > > weighted do we want this to be? I'll try to address that more
> fully
> > > when I get through the messages still in my inbox.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Marta
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6724

FW: [MEFAwards] What is the problem to which "reduce the points sca Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 13, 2006 - 1:22:00 Topic ID# 6724
-----Original Message-----
From: Ainaechoiriel [mailto:mefaadmin@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 10:42 PM
To: 'MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [MEFAwards] What is the problem to which "reduce the points
scale"is the answer?

I think it's great that you read every story in a category, but it's not a
requirement. I don't think we can expect anyone to read all 1200 stories.
The idea is you read the stories you want to read. Plain and simple. If the
summary doesn't get me, I probably won't read a story unless I have extra
time on my hands.

--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 MarigoldCotton@aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 12:39 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] What is the problem to which "reduce the
> points scale"is the answer?
>
> I was going to write my lengthy opinion of this issue, but Thundera
> did it for me! I agre wholeheartedly with what she says here, and with
> her proposals.
>
> I strongly disagree with a 5 pt minimum review. I work very hard on my
> reviews because it is a way that I can pay back the author for a story
> that I enjoyed. The author works hard to write the story in the first
> place, I should be willing to put the effort in, and write a review
> touching on all of the things that I liked about the story. Some
> reviews might be very long, some of moderate length, but I write what
> I feel.
>
> Yes, these are the Feel Good Awards, but in my opinion, this idea to
> raise the worth of a minimum vote is rather defeating the whole point
> of giving awards to the stories that folks like the best, and take the
> time to write the longest reviews for.
>
> I acknowledge that at the end of Voting Season this year that I was
> rushing, and not able to write reviews of the length I wanted for
> every story that I had hoped to. I agree with Thundera though that we
> will have far fewer stories this year. We have already acted to ensure
> that. So this next Awards I should be able to write the full reviews
> that I think a story deserves.
>
> And I think too that voters have to take responsibility for their
> votes - I read every story in a given category, and wrote my reviews
> based on my enjoyment of each story in that category. I felt that that
> way I was being fair to all of the authors in the category. I wasn't
> just picking out Author X that I know, and reviewing their story
> without reading the stories that were entered alongside hers. I didn't
> go to a category, pick out only authors and stories that I knew, and
> write reviews only for them. And I finished a category before I went
> to the next one, I didn't skip through the categories looking for
> authors I knew so that I could vote for them.
> That practice seems to be hinted at in some of these many e-mails, and
> I hope that is not the case.
>
> If it *is* the case, changing the point system in the way that had
> been suggested will just perpetuate that, and load the voting in
> favour of those very authors.
>
> I would definitely go along with the scale that Thundera suggests:
>
> >0-100 characters = 1 pt
> >101-250 characters = 3pts
> >251-450 ch = 5pts
> >451-700 = 7pts
> >701-1000 = 9pts
> >1001+ = 10 pts
>
> I hope that was coherent...I worked all night and just got home and I
> am knackered!
>
> Marigold
>
>
>
> >-- "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net> wrote:
> >>> it's more of an emotional thing than a mathematical
> thing.  My hope
> >>> is that it will keep in the forefront a reminder of the amount of
> >>> effort each review takes in logging on the system, selecting a
> >>> story, reading the story, reviewing the story - the length of the
> >>> review is gravy.
> >>>
> >>> it also weights the reviews more than just the point spread.  two
> >>> minimum reviews at 5 pts each equal one long review of 10
> pts, - as
> >>> opposed to the previous system of needing ten minimum
> reviews needed
> >>> to match one long review.  .. so it also weights it in
> favor of the
> >>> number of reviewers, which I think is a good thing and will help
> >>> level out the difference in reviewers styles.     -
> although keep in
> >>> mind that character count will be the final tie breaker so
> >>> ultimately those very long reviews could still tip the scale.
> >
> >I hope no one minds if I jump in really quickly, because I
> think Sulriel has hit upon a fundamental difference in the way that
> some of us are approaching this issue. She's addressed it more clearly
> than I did, anyway, and I wanted to highlight two things.
> >
> >1) Quantity vs. Length
> >
> >If I understand this correctly, Sulriel is putting forth the
> opinion that two short reviews should be the equal of one long review.
> If I understand others correctly, this opinion is shared.
> >
> >Here, I think, is at least one of the basic differences in
> our approach because I disagree. I think one giant review ought to be
> worth *more* than two short reviews. I think the problem with quick,
> short reviews is that it favors the well-known authors and ignores the
> authors who might be REALLY good but just aren't widely known. I think
> giving unknown authors who are able to inspire gushing reviews an edge
> in this is a good thing.
> >
> >Should a single person writing enormous reviews be able to
> change the outcome of a subcategory where many are participating? No.
> But I think that longer reviews should have more of an influence than
> shorter reviews. I think the margin between the shortest review and
> the longest counted review should be more than five points.
> >
> >2) The worth of a short review
> >
> >The proposal for a 5-10 scale caught my attention.
> Initially, I had the same reaction Dwim did: How is that any different
> than a point scale of 1-5 aside from extra weight at the low end of
> the scale? Sulriel's explanation, though, intrigues me, because I do
> see psychological merit to it.
> Even though reviewers know that a 5 point review is the lowest, it's
> still a bigger number than 1 and that means something. The most
> practical among us will shrug and say lowest is still lowest, but
> others will look at a 5 point review in the 5-10 scale and still be
> able to feel good about it.
> >
> >But it doesn't solve the problem of quantity vs. length. In
> fact, if anything, it makes it worse. Under the current scale, it
> takes ten of the lowest reviews (1 point) to equal one of the highest
> (10 points). Under the proposed 1-5 scale, it would take five of the
> lowest reviews (1 point) to equal one of the longest reviews (5
> points). Under the 5-10 scale, it would only take TWO of the lowest
> reviews (5 points) to equal the highest (10 points).
> >
> >Let's return, for a moment, to our scenario of Fred and
> Fredita. So Fred, our incredible but unknown Silm writer, has caught
> the attention of a reviewer and garnered an enormous and gushing
> review in which the reviewer confesses his/her inability to sleep at
> night due to the sheer power of such an incredible story. In the
> meantime, two of Fredita's faithful fans have wandered over from the
> adventure category and taken a chance on her good but not necessarily
> great Silm story.
> They both leave reviews saying something like, "Good job, I liked
> this." Under the 5-10 scale, Fredita's story is now tied with Fred's,
> and under a tie-breaker, Fredita would win because her story has more
> reviews than Fred's does.
> >
> >I was uncomfortable with the weight given in the 1-5 scale.
> I'm even more uncomfortable with the 5-10. However, I do see the
> psychological merit in raising the worth of the lower reviews. Like
> Sulriel, I was also privy to a few complaints about the inability to
> give long reviews. Some felt their input wouldn't count for much as
> they weren't overly verbose and couldn't fill a page of gush without
> padding.
> >
> >But can I submit that there might be a few other reasons? We
> had an ENORMOUS number of competitors this year. I was very
> overwhelmed initially and wondered if I would be able to make any dent
> in the number of stories out there to review. And I wondered if I
> would be able to leave any long reviews because I would be so pressed
> for time. I know others felt the same way. I don't think we'll have
> the same problem this coming year. We might still have quite a few
> stories competing, but it doesn't feel to me as though we're going to
> have something on the order of 1200. Can I suggest waiting this debate
> out one more year to see if the problem really is the point scale? And
> if it is, we can revisit this topic with a clearer picture of what
> people are really having trouble with.
> Because the main problem this year (to my mind, at least) was the
> author reviews and the sheer number of stories entered in the
> competition. Once we solve that, it will be easier to tweak the other
> concerns.
> >
> >If people are convinced that this is one of the primary
> problems, though, may I suggest an alternative to those already
> proposed? What if we ordered the point scale by odd numbers? Something
> along these lines:
> >
> >0-100 characters = 1 pt
> >101-250 characters = 3pts
> >251-450 ch = 5pts
> >451-700 = 7pts
> >701-1000 = 9pts
> >1001+ = 10 pts
> >
> >The baseline reviews (those consisting of "Great job, I
> liked this") are still only worth one point. But if people choose to
> put a bit more effort into their review ("Great job! I liked this. I
> can see Frodo feeling this way after the War of the Ring, and I liked
> what you did with Sam, too.") will be able to boost their review up
> into the 3-point range.
> So although the lowest is still 1, it doesn't take much to pull it up
> two points. But it does require four of the 3-point reviews to
> overtake a 10 point review, which makes me a bit more comfortable than
> the 5-10 scale. And there's still a baseline of 1 for the "Nice work,
> cute story" reviews, so that it takes ten of them to beat a 10-point
> review.
> >
> >I like the system we have now more than I like this
> alternative, but if people feel that strongly about changing the
> points around, maybe we could think about this possibility.
> >
> >Just a thought.
> >
> >Thundera
> >
> >-------------------------------------------------------------
> >- No, don't move, mister. You stand where I can see you and
> >  no harm will come to you.
> >- Yes, but if I stand where you can't see me, I don't see
> >  how any harm could come to me there, either.
> >     William and "Deep Bone"--Discworld: The Truth
> >-------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Marigold's Red Book
> http://marigold.tolkienshire.com
>
> Marigold's Recommendations Page
> http://www.geocities.com/marigoldsrecommendations/
>
> Marigold's Live Journal
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/marigoldg/
>
> Tales of The Red Book
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/talesofredbook/
>
>
>
>
> There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the
> mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.
> The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken
> land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the
> thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and
> passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its
> reach.
> >
> >Sam, in Mordor, RoTK
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6725

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 13, 2006 - 1:48:12 Topic ID# 6662
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of rhapsody_the_bard
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 4:55 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: What is the problem to which "reduce
> the points scale" is the answer?
>

> By now I just wonder why people get upset if people decide to
> choose to read those they didn't knew *also* given the time
> pressure. This is just too much. Also because I remember very
> clearly the moment people signalled there were stories still
> unreviewed, reviewers like me thought, we can't let that
> happen and left, in most cases a long review so that the
> author didn't feel excluded from the MEFA's.
> Also, it was openly encouraged by the admin to do so.

Well, I encourage anyone who has the time and gumption to do that. I know I
can't. And I don't want to discourage anyone who can't either. I've said it
from the beginning, and I think it's out there on the main page of the
website: read what you want to read. If you want to read a story because no
one has reviewed it, by all means, do so. If you want to read a story
because it features your favorite character, do so. If you want to read a
story because you are familiar with an author's work, do so. If you want to
read a story because someone else's review made you think outside your usual
box, absolutely do so.


> I got overjoyed reactions from authors with that just one
> review, and they were so happy: precious feedback that made
> them glow so much. Now it is thrown back in those reviewers
> faces because, well you never can win around here can you?
>
> I agree with Marigold, Dwim and Thundera (again), but I don't
> think I will participate next year. Why, because one moment
> something is said and the next thing something else. First we
> want to do something also for those unknown authors, sure we
> can cut back on nominations, now we want to change a *fair*
> points system because long review seem to outbalance short
> reviews and discourage people to review. Is this really the
> case, because I have seen stories win with loads of small
> reviews from a story with two long reviews.

I may not be around much anymore, but I'm still here to veto if need be. I
haven't gotten to that point yet. I would veto a 5-point spread. But it
doesn't seem to be heading in that direction. I would veto anything that
discourages people to write reviews. Long or short. That's the basis of
these awards. These awards will cease to exist before they become a simple
vote structure or anything ressembling it (everyone is guaranteed the same
amount of points would ressemble it). I love getting long reviews. I love
it when people take the time to write them. I wish I could. I used to be
able to write more, pre-MegaStress. Heck, now I can't even spell ressemble.
(Post-GigaStress)

I think what we really want is a balance. A balance where short reviews
aren't short-shrifted or handicapped too much. But long reviews aren't
devalued either.

I meant what I posted before about sometimes there being a reason for a low
score. It may sound harsh when everyone's trying for "feel-good" but the
case is that reviews are subjective and there is not qualifying criteria for
nomination. Sometimes we get stories that aren't so good. (Some opinions
may differ on just which stories those are.) We have to have a low end of
the scale for those stories. Thus the 5-point or the 5-10 just won't work.
It would overly weight the short reviews. If I give someone a 25-character
review, I don't want that story to win.

However, we don't want to devalue them so much that those times when it's
not a matter of story quality that makes the review short but time or RL
pressures does, that the vote still counts for something.

Maybe the Bell curve idea is the right one. Or does that weight to the
middle? We don't want to weight to the middle. I'm not a mathmetician.
But isn't the balance idea in this case one that someone else mentioned,
less space between the first couple of points and more space between the
last couple of points?

> I truly wonder, like Dwim, if there isn't another problem
> that is lying under the surface. I don't think changing the
> point system will encourage people leaving more reviews. It
> is more about reading habits, remaining close to what you
> like and feel the need to leave a review on. Hey, and that
> people admitted that, I do appreciate the honesty. But right
> now I feel over and over again being bashed for leaving long
> reviews, or that people think I padded them for getting to
> the ten points. Those people can look up and see that I left
> reviews ranging from 10 to 2 or 3 points reviews where ever I
> thought I could leave feedback. Because that is what was
> important to me: giving the author that. Heck that is the
> whole reason why I wanted to participate in the MEFA's. And
> not watching how author's roll over the finish line in a
> competition or being such an author.

Admittled competition is part of the awards. Feedback is the heart of them.
But if we just wanted a feedback fest, we needn't hand out points or awards.
There is a competitive streak in most of us. Some more than others. The
awards is part of the draw here. The promise of potential feedback is more
bait on that hook. If it was just a feedback-fest, would we get as much
feedback?

So both of those aspects are part of it.

> Back to the proposed points system. Like Thundera said, it
> will encourage the Fredita fans because, hey, a short review
> gives their Freditta an extra guaranteed 5 points with not so
> much effort. Just type a few lines and your done. Move on to
> the next one, a friend is helped. Very easily done. With the
> current and fair system in place, still those Freditta fans
> can leave a quick and short review, move along, while the
> Fred discoverers sit down, take their time to type a review
> telling why they loved this particular work. Reading stories
> was for me the time consuming thing, but I can't read a story
> without having so much thoughts about it that I want to say
> why I loved it so much. But I disgress. With a tie, the nr's
> of characters left (I believe) will tip the scale, but it at
> least sounds more honest than the proposed new points system.
> To me it feels too easy to rig the competition.

It's looking more and more like the present system will remain. If anything,
it's looking like it will be tweaked but not overhauled.

>
> Maybe making the review season longer helps, or as we
> discussed earlier, allowing and encouraging people to leave
> reviews earlier does work. But not this. Good luck with
> whatever you decide on.

I really hope you don't leave us, Rhapsody. I know it can hurt sometimes to
see something you like change. I pick my battles. See the non-negotiables
list. RL has caused me to back off far sooner than I had ever planned. I
knew someday I'd get married and adopt children. I didn't think of that when
I started the MEFA's though. I'd been single so long.... And voila, Mr.
Time-stealer comes along....

No, really, it's a good thing for me that he's come along. As much as love
fandom and fanfiction, sometimes RL comes first. Most times. I'm starting
a marriage and a family. That will take priority over the MEFAs. I'll try to
make time, at least here and their, and Marta has promised to keep me
aprised of important events.

But now I'm rambling. Sometimes the proposed changes hurt. Sometimes they're
a bit scary. I know I don't want to poke my nose back in here in 5 years
and not recognize the place. But I also have some amount of faith that
because this worked in 2004, the LOTR fandom found out that such an awards
program based on feedback can work and be pleasant and produce positive
feelings, there will be enough people who value it around to keep it from
being destroyed.

--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

Msg# 6726

A peek at how the ASC Awards are working this year Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 13, 2006 - 1:55:11 Topic ID# 6726
Incidentally, the ASC Awards are nearly ready to start for 2005. My secret
alter ego may post the first three chapters of an incomplete story before
Feb. 1st to participate. Here are some updates from their faq (which is
presently up for some comment and tweakability):

The point spread:

1-20 = 1
21-80 = 2
81-250 = 3
251-500 = 5
501-750 = 7
751-1100 = 9
1100+ = 110

(Do you think I should tell them that the 10 should be 1101+?)

And here's categorizing:


1. Categorization shall be based on the headers that the
Author provides. The Awards Coordinator may also choose
to categorize works by other criteria.
2. The lower bound on the categories this year shall require
that all categories contain at least 8 works by at least
2 different authors.
A. The Coordinator will combine categories that are too
small to qualify under the "8x2" rule, with the goal
of fostering meaningful competition between similar
types of works.
B. Any category with 25 or more stories in it will prompt
the coordinator or their designates to look for a division
C. Each work shall be in just one category.
D. A person may challenge the placement of a story once.
The Coordinator's decision is final.
E. All Categories are locked 48 hours before commenting begins

Counting:
11. Counting shall be done by a group of volunteers using a
counting program.

Sounds like we trump them with Anthony on this one.


Perhaps the most amazing thing about the ASC Awards is that one person is
terribly insufficiently reluctant enough to oversee the whole thing. I
couldn't imagine trying to do the whole thing by myself. Thanks to everyone
here who helped out in 2004 and who helped out and then took the biggest
hold on the reins in 2005.

--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> http://gabrielle.sytes.net/mefa The
Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards

Blog: <http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com/>
http://www.ainaechoiriel.blogspot.com



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

Msg# 6727

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Marta Layton January 13, 2006 - 23:00:21 Topic ID# 6662
>

Hey guys,

I'm trying to wade through the reviews that have been made so far, and
frankly it's a bit quagmirish. (Probably my own fault, the fact that
I'm so far behind and simply worn out by some RL-ish things to the
point I don't trust myself to snap at you guys.) I'm not going to
comment on a lot of this, and don't interpret that as me thinking it's
not *worth* commenting. In an ideal world, where my post would actually
be somewhat timely, I'd have a lot to say on these really meaty
comments. But unfrotunately it's a far from ideal world and my
responses would be so behind I think they'd only lead us to rehash old
points which isn't helpful.

> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 11:22:16 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Nerwen Calaelen <nerwen_calaelen@yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points
> scale" is the answer?
>
> <snip>
> However, in 2005 I looked at EVERY story entered in the awards. I am
> sure that due to time preasure some of the stories I did not review
> deserved a review, but I am also aware that there were a lot of
> stories that I read through and then decided not to review. I think
> that it has to be acknoledged that there is no quality control on
> stories being entered for the awards and so there could well be
> stories that have been read by several people and not reviewed.
> (assuming I am not the only person who does this). I am concerned
> that there is pressure being put on people to review stories that they
> feel do not deserve it. If a lower point scheme or a sceme with
> higher starting points was introduced, I know that I for one would
> actually submit fewer reviews as this year I reviewed any story that
> was interesting
> enough for me to read through it and that I could think of anything
> complementary to say about it.

First, on the QC issue -- there isn't in the traditional sense of that
word. Short of a few basic criteria like available without having to
join a website and not having been entered before, every story is
eligible to be entered and there aren't a list of qualifications
related to the writing that we use to screen nominations. I do want to
be clear, though -- I think that every nominator should be exercising
some sort of QC. If you nominate something you should believe it's a
good story. Of course, exactly what qualifies will differ from
nominator to nominator. Tastes vary, and a story that you really like I
might not choose to nominate or even enjoy at all.

Second, I think you're right in that there seems to be a lot of
pressure to review every story. If I liked every story enough to make
it to the end I would give it at least a short revview, but that was
really hard and to be frank next year I will probably be more
discerning in the stories I vote for and the stories I don't.

(Oh, and to anyone whose story I never reviewed - this doesn't mean it
was dull! There were loads of stories I never got to read at all.)

You know, the five-point system was (in my mind) intended to give
shorter reviews more weight. My thinking was that this would
simultaneously make it easier for people to not have to vote for every
story they read, and at the same time give those shorter reviews enough
weight to inspire people to make that jump to writing a review at all.
I don't think we need to bend over backwards to coax four words out of
someone, but at the same time I don't want to make someone feel bad
because they can "only" write one point. but at the same time iit would
give more weight to even a single point, so if you wrote any review
you'd have to do it with the iknowledge that it was worth more.

Obviously the five-point system isn't the direction we want to go in. I
say all of thiwsw mostly to explain that I think you and I are coming
from really similar directions.

> These are awards, so someone has to win in every catogory. If people
> are being hurt by not winning, they should not allow their stories to
> enter. The only way to solve this problem would be to turn the whole
> awards into a total feedback exercise ie not giving out awards.

Again, I agree with you here. With the feedback and everything, I think
this aspect of the awards is sometimes downplayed. And while I don't
want it to be just a contest, I also don't want it to be just a way to
get feedback. I think both aspects are vital.

Perhaps this is something we need to emphasise more in our letters to
nominated authors. Remind them that this is a contest and that means
that some people won't win. And so if an author feels the risk of not
winning outweighs the possible feedback, they should think long and
hard about whether they want to compete, and if they decide not to,
that's really okay.

> Another fact that I would like to point out is that sometimes,
> Fredetta deserves the award - just because an author is well know does
> not meen that she/he can not write well (I could give examples but I
> am sure that everyone can think of someon their own).
>

Granted -- but if Fredetta wins the award it should be *because* she's
a better author than Fred. The fact that she's so insanely popular
should be in some sense coincidental.

There's one thing that people haven't mentioned (at least that I've
seen), and that's the problem of Fredetta's vote getting split. Lets
say Fred writes a story for The Silm, and that's it. Therefore all of
Fred's author votes will de facto be in that one category. Fred, on the
other hand, is entered into seven different author categgories -- he
wrote poems and drabbles in Men, stories and poems in Humor, and
drabbles in Elves, The Hobbit, and Romance. So if I want to write a
review for Fred and I don't want this just to be a copy-and-paste job,
then it will have to be for one of seven categories. It's very possible
that Fred might get more votes but less per category than Fredita. The
popularity thing really cuts both ways.

And I'm afraid that's really all the steam I have tonight. Maybe with
tomorrow being Saturday I'll be able to make some more progress then.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6728

Re: Weighty matters Posted by Kathy January 14, 2006 - 1:00:06 Topic ID# 6705
Thanks for the clarification, Ainae.

Kathy

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...>
wrote:
>
> Just to clarify about the change from 2004 to 2005, if I remember
correctly:
>
> 1) 2004 was copied directly from the Alt.StarTrek.Creative Awards'
scale
> 2) In the PM after the 2004 some noted that the spread was
confusing and
> oddly left out numbers. It was voted on, I think, and it was evened
out.
> Not necessarily not-weighted, but less funky break-off points.
>
> I don't think the value of short vs. long really came up so much.
>
> --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 Kathy
> > Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 4:27 PM
> > To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [MEFAwards] Weighty matters
> >
> > There seems to be a widely held perception that long reviews
> > are being criticized or devalued by the idea of giving more
> > weight to short reviews (weight being defined as how many
> > characters are needed to reach a certain points threshold)
> > than they would receive in an even points spread. However, I
> > don't think that was the intent when the idea was first proposed.
> >
> > Here's what Marta said in her initial post on the subject on Jan.
1:
> >
> > "First, I think some people find it hard to write long
> > reviews and so feel that even stories they really like they
> > can't give them the points they're worth. I suggest that we
> > have each review cap off at a lower level (say, five points
> > instead of ten). This effectively means that those 1- and
> > 2-point reviews have more weight."
> >
> > I thought the concern she raised seemed reasonable at the
> > time, and I still do. But since then many objections have
> > been raised to the initial proposed solution-a 5-point
> > spread-and they are also valid concerns. So now that it
> > seems settled that we are staying with the 10-point scoring
> > system, the remaining question seems to be simply whether the
> > initial issue Marta raised is one that we should address to a
> > greater (or lesser) degree than the current system does.
> > It's already looking like this question may be as debatable
> > as the 5-pt.
> > vs. 10-pt. vs. character count question.
> >
> > As I understand the facts, the 2005 MEFAs gave slightly more
> > weight to short reviews than they otherwise would have
> > received in a completely even point spread. I'm not sure why
> > this was done, as it happened before I became involved with
> > the MEFAs. According to Anthony, the 2004 MEFAs gave even
> > *more* weight to the short reviews, so there seems to have
> > been a decision to move away from that, but again, I don't know
why.
> >
> > In the interests of moving the discussion along, to
> > Rabidsamfan and anyone else who is concerned about long
> > reviews being devalued, I put the question directly: are you
> > opposed to *any* kind of weighting that allows short reviews
> > to count for more than they would if the points were evenly
> > distributed? If not, what level of weighting are you
> > comfortable with: the current system? Something more? Or
> > something less? I don't mean that to sound confrontational,
> > I'd just like to know where people stand on this so we can
> > come to a decision soon.
> >
> > Kathy (Inkling)
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the
> > process. As
> > > the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another
thread
> > reminded
> > > me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in
a
> > > subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the
lengths
> > of the
> > > different stories. A good long review for a story which has had
> > fewer
> > > readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a
story
> > which is
> > > more widely known.
> > >
> > > Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for
stories
> > which
> > > hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews
> > which were a
> > > lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were
> > unnoticed gems.
> > >
> > > We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In
discussions
> > about
> > > weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an
> > implication
> > > that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in
> > the large
> > > sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the
next
> > level is
> > > not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read
at
> > the MEFAs
> > > were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the
> > professional
> > > reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the
> > same kind of
> > > effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those
were
> > the kinds
> > > of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories
> > that
> > > reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 1/12/06, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > I'm trying to catch up on some posts where I think the
> > points made
> > > > haven't already been resolved as far as I can tell.
> > > >
> > > > > Message: 21
> > > > > Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:08:14 -0000
> > > > > From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...>
> > > > > Subject: Re: points and various voting matters (general
reply)
> > > > >
> > > > > <snip>
> > > > > More good points.I guess this is why I feel like I could
live
> > with
> > > > > any of the options on the table: 5-point spread, 10-point
> > spread, or
> > > > > character count-as long as it was weighted in some way.
Math
> > is not
> > > > > my strong suit, but to me a 5-point spread would inherently
> > give more
> > > > > weight to a 1-point review-even if the points were evenly
> > spaced-
> > > > > because 1 out of 5 is worth more than 1 out of 10. But I
can
> > also
> > > > > understand the many objections to a lower spread, such as
less
> > > > > ability to gradate one's reviews, or not enough incentive to
> > write
> > > > > long reviews.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Yes, this was the incentive behind proposing a 5-point
spread.
> > Actually
> > > > in effect it gives another point to each review worth an odd
> > number of
> > > > points, but this is definitely most noticeable with short
reviews
> > like
> > > > 1-pointers.
> > > >
> > > > > The current 10-point spread IS weighted, as Marta recently
> > pointed
> > > > > out.but not very much. Maybe the compromise here is to
stick
> > with
> > > > > it, but to increase the weight for lower-point reviews. I
> > wouldn't
> > > > > mind a weighted character count system either, but as some
in
> > the
> > > > > group seem strongly opposed to it, it might be best to
stick as
> > > > > closely as possibly to the current system, with a few
tweaks.?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > I think you're right about this. So the question now becomes,
how
> > > > weighted do we want this to be? I'll try to address that more
> > fully
> > > > when I get through the messages still in my inbox.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Marta
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Msg# 6729

Re: Author Awards, one more thought Posted by Kathy January 14, 2006 - 2:32:49 Topic ID# 6651
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...
> wrote:
>
> I think it's as valid a concern as Fred's big review vs. Freditta's
> many short ones. And I'd like more opinions on the problem. I
> haven't seen a lot of response to either of my points on the Form
> system.

Well, since it seems unlikely that we could get any radical new type
of author awards off the ground for 2006 at this late stage in the
game, I guess I kind of ran out of gas on the topic. But since you
ask, here are some quick thoughts on the points you raised:

Fruit problem: how can you compare humor to horror?
Either try it as an experiment and see what happens. Or decide you
can't and have a few major genre subcats, as you suggested (Short
story: drama, short story: humor, etc.)

Popularity problem: LOTR vs. Silm vs. Hobbit
- don't rank the awards
- have more than three awards in each cat. Maybe a LOT more…10?
20? Heck, why not? If you're considering doing away with them
entirely, why not try out an "experimental" author awards system with
the disclaimer that no one should complain if they don't work out? ;)

Nominations:
For the form awards: everyone is nominated automatically in the
relevant form categories.

IF there are "special awards" for dialogue, opening lines, etc., I
think they would have to be nominated separately from the
stories...otherwise every single author would be eligible for every
award. But don't see why this would create hurt feelings, because
there wouldn't be a situation where your story was nominated and you
weren't…you are automatically entered in every "form" author award
category for which you qualify (i.e., in which you have a story
entered in the MEFAs). These would be in addition.

These all may be terrible ideas, I don't know. But they're just that--
ideas. If we throw out enough of them, something good may turn up
eventually!
>
> I'm beginning to think we'd be better just to let go of the Author
Awards
> and try life without this year.

Now *that* question I can't comment on...since I have never
participated in the Author Awards, I don't think I should
help decide whether to get rid of them or not. I will say I thought
they were confusing, however.

Kathy (Inkling)


It was stated in last year's PM that they
> were harder to write. There are less author reviews. Awards even go
> unawarded because maybe only two authors even got reviews. We
allowed
> voters to copy author reviews across categories to make it easier
and still
> there wasn't a lot of author-vote turnout, right?
>
> So instead of setting up a popularity system or a competition
between the
> wrong kinds of fruit, maybe we'd be better to call this part of the
awards
> something we can do better without.
>
> And then we can take the small amount of time we devoted to author
reviews
> and add it to our story-review time and have more reviews, or
longer ones.
>
> And I'm really sorry to Rhapsody go over all this.
>
> --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 Marta Layton
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 11:43 PM
> > To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Author Awards, one more thought
> >
> > > Message: 14
> > > Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:54:37 -0600
> > > From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...>
> > > Subject: Author Awards, one more thought
> > >
> > > Setting asside the Fruit problem, I was just thinking of a
> > compromise
> > > with the Form plan and the Fruit problem. But I came back
> > to another
> > > problem, which I think can't quite override the
> > > Story-Category-Shadowing we do now.
> > >
> > > Let's say we went to Form plan, leaving aside (is that one
> > s or 2?--I
> > > really used to be a wonderful speller.), and we look at the
Short
> > > Story category.
> > > In which we have just 3 authors. (As if.) Say the breakdown in
> > > reading stories was the same as it is now, even though we're
only
> > > talking about three authors here. These three authors
> > specialize. A
> > > writes only Silm stuff. B writes only The Hobbit. And C
> > writes LOTR.
> > > I could tell you right now who would win the Short Story
category,
> > > barring some unforeseen occurance. C. Awould come in 2nd. And
B
> > > would get 3rd.
> > >
> > > Because LOTR gets more readers than Silm and both get more than
The
> > > Hobbit.
> > > And even if I'm wrong, it really could be as simple as that
> > no matter
> > > how we cut it. Genres. Cultures. How many people read Dwarf
> > > stories? Ent stories? Elf stories? So who is likely to
> > get the most
> > > author comments?
> > > Elf stories, out of those three. What about characters? Well,
we
> > > really might have some contention between Aragorn writers
> > and Legolas
> > > writers and maybe some Hobbit writers. But what about those who
> > > specialize in unsung heroes?
> > >
> > > But do you see where I'm going? The only place Silm writers
really
> > > have a fair playing field is against other Silm writers.
> > For example.
> > > I'm not picking on Silm writers. Someone write me a
> > Voronwe fic. I
> > > really grew to like him in the UT.
> > >
> > > Anyway, that's the problem I came to. My compromise idea
> > was that we
> > > have Shadowing right now with 3 or 4 major forms as subcats, so
my
> > > compromise idea was to have Forms with 3 or 4 major genres
> > as subcats,
> > > but I hit on the popularity problem. The more popular story
> > > categories will bring more readers to those stories in those
> > > categories and thus more potential author votes. And thus it
> > > disadvantages writers of less popular story categories.
> > >
> > > So what can we do about that? That's the main reason we can't
move
> > > away from Shadowing. Is there some we around it?
> > >
> >
> > Hi Ainae,
> >
> > I think you might be overestimating how divisive the fandom
> > is. I know a lot of people -- even most -- read stories
> > outside of their comfort areas. I certainly did. And when I
> > discovered a new author who I was previously unfamiliar with
> > who I really liked, I was more likely to go on about them
> > just because I was surprised by their skills.
> >
> > Also, if a Silm writer is truly concerned about them not
> > getting a fair shake there's an easy way around it -- just
> > get more Silm-readers to get involved in writing.
> >
> > Marta
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Msg# 6730

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Kathy January 14, 2006 - 2:44:33 Topic ID# 6662
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...
> wrote:
> <snip>
> But now I'm rambling. Sometimes the proposed changes hurt. Sometimes
> they're a bit scary. I know I don't want to poke my nose back in here
> in 5 years and not recognize the place. But I also have some amount
> of faith that because this worked in 2004, the LOTR fandom found out
> that such an awards program based on feedback can work and be
> pleasant and produce positive feelings, there will be enough people
> who value it around to keep it from being destroyed.

Hear hear! And thank you for giving the LOTR fandom such an awards
program.

Kathy

Msg# 6731

Re: scoring systems Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 7:58:27 Topic ID# 6683
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 09:24:14 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: scoring systems
>
> The one possibility that occurs to me is that we might make the
> "honorable
> mention" slot be for the story with the highest average if it did not
> place
> first, second, or third.
>
>
This idea has a lot of merit, but I wouldn't want it to be the only
honourable mention we award because it would only be one story, and in
most categories no stories at all. Provided the programming isn't
infeasible, how would you guys feel about awarding honourable mentions
based on more than one criteria?

Marta

Msg# 6732

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is the an Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 9:10:33 Topic ID# 6684
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:56:20 -0500
> From: "Chris Grzonka" <grzonka@adelphia.net>
> Subject: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is
> the answer?
>
> Marigold wrote:
>
>>
>> And I think too that voters have to take responsibility for their
>> votes - I read every story in a given category, and wrote my
>> reviews based on my enjoyment of each story in that category. I
>> felt that that way I was being fair to all of the authors in the
>> category. I wasn't just picking out Author X that I know, and
>> reviewing their story without reading the stories that were
>> entered alongside hers. I didn't go to a category, pick out only
>> authors and stories that I knew, and write reviews only for them.
>> And I finished a category before I went to the next one, I didn't
>> skip through the categories looking for authors I knew so that I
>> could vote for them. That practice seems to be hinted at in some
>> of these many e-mails, and I hope that is not the case.
>

I missed this email earlier somehow, and so I'm going to reply to this
part Chris quoted.

I think everyone has different reviewing styles. I haven't heard a lot
of people saying they seek out authors they are familiar with -- more
people saying they looked for their favourite characters or some other
element. Is this perfectly fair? No, but it's also not unreasonable
either. After all, stories about more popular characters ared more
likely to get reviews at a general archive, other factors being equal.

If a person is really scared that their story won't get a fair run the
best way to do this is to encourage other people who like to read that
kind of story to get involved with the MEFAs. I'm not talking about
recruiting your friends to come and vote for your stories, but rather
encouraging people who like stories about the Rohirrim to come and
review the stories that they like if you see the stories about the
Rohirrim aren't getting as much attention as you think they deserve.
Because those people are most likely to vote for stories about their
favourite characters and events first (just like everyone else). Though
of course I hope they won't stop there.

I've always encouraged people to try to review independent of the
sub-category a story is placed in. What I mean is, if you find a story
you like, write a review based on how good you thought it was. If you
liked it a lot, write a lot. If you only liked it a little, just write
a little.

I really don't want people to think they have to read a whole
sub-category to review at all. What if you've read an author in the
past (either through these awards or elsewhere) and you've read enough
of their work to know you won't like them? Or a story is about
characters you have no interest in, or for some other reason you
wouldn't read it in any other situation? To make people feel guilty for
not reading every story doesn't seem fair to them.

I see the concern I think you may be getting at, Marigold. If you read
every story in a sub-cat and decide not to review some because you
don't like them, and I just don't read all the stories and so don't
review them, those votes (or absence of votes, really) will count
exactly the same. But I think the solution to this is to get more
people voting, not to put more pressure on people who are really doing
the best they can.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6733

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is the an Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 9:20:20 Topic ID# 6684
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:56:20 -0500
> From: "Chris Grzonka" <grzonka@adelphia.net>
> Subject: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is
> the answer?
>
> Marigold wrote:
>
> <snip>
> If you have the feeling as a reviewer I have to read all the stories
> in a
> category to write reviews, than I have to bow out of this award. My
> time is
> very limited as it is, and last year there were some RL issues which
> cut
> even more into my time. What you describe is an ideal world. I would
> love to
> do what you suggest, but I learned very quickly that is not going to
> happen.
> Since I wanted to get to know new stories, I basically skipped most
> stories
> I already knew with some exceptions and read stories which seemed
> interesting, but which I hadn't read before. I felt kind of guilty for
> not
> voting on some of my favorite stories, but I hoped the authors were
> known
> enough to garner reviews from others.
>
> I think Laura had the right idea. If we manage to cut down on nominated
> stories, the chances are bigger that I can read all the stories in a
> category and write reviews for them.
>
>
Hi Chris,

I agree with you here. I don't want to use guilt to get people to
review because these things are supposed to be fun. As I said in my
earlier email, I think the solution to this problem is getting more
people involvied in voters (even if it's only to do a handful of
stories); lowering the number of nominated stories will definitely
help, too.

As long as people aren't coming to the awards specifically to vote for
their friends (which I don't see happening in past years) I don't have
any real problems with people not reading a certain subcategory. Please
don't feel bad because you couldn't do this.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6734

Re: Author Review Blues Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 9:39:26 Topic ID# 6550
> Message: 10
> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 23:42:44 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Author Review Blues
>
> Actually, someone did come up with numbers, which, IIRC, showed that
> sometimes authors won as authors even when stories didn't. It sounded
> like
> this years system worked fairly well, to tell the truth, as far as how
> author awards are grouped and all.
>
> I'd still like to go from the story review to the author review via a
> link
> if I could, though. *grin*
>

Having read the stats, I agree withb you -- they were complicated and
probably have some room for improvement, but they're not in as critical
of condition as I thought at first.

On the going from story review to author review -- I wouldn't have a
problem with this, if Anthony has time. It would be nice to go to a
form that allowed you to enter all the author reveiws at once like I
described a few days ago, but if that's not possible I sstill wouldn't
have any problem with what you're suggesting. Just so long as the
actual story review isn't entered in the box where you would type the
author review. :-)

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6735

Re: categorization; was: RE: Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 11:36:34 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:55:51 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: Re: points and various voting matters (sulriel)
>
> <snippage>
> If it's a feeling of "it's unfair because of the subcategories" they
> are in,
> well, that's the biggest issue facing these awards: categorization.
> Maybe
> in ASC they have it easier, except for the one person insufficiently
> reluctant to do it: the Administrator assigns the categories. Though,
> admitedly, she has the support of the headers the authors used and
> thus the
> category suggestions pulled from those headers by the SOS maintainers.
>
> But then some peole can still quibble about which category she put
> them in.
> I think having th authors choose their categories is best, but subcats
> are
> harder . We can't have 75 or 120 story categories so they have to be
> broken
> up. What is the best way to do that? And that is our biggest issue.
>

I don't want to let the authors choose the subcategory. Besides being
*way* too hard, logistics-wise, it would make the whole process too
contentious.

One idea I had toyed with was allowing authors to request that a story
be moved if they really thought it didn't belong in a subcategory. We
wouldn't have to tell them what other stories were in a certain
sub-category; we could send an email something like:

****

Greetings Author,

The volunteers working with the MEFAs are organising the nominations
into the categories and sub-categories that will determine what stories
will be competing against which other stories.

Your story [title] was nominated in Drama, and we intend to place it in
the sub-category [sub-category]. If you do not feel this is a good fit
for your story, we can move it to any of the following subcategories
within the Drama category:

[list of eligible sub-categories]

[repeat above for every category author has stories entered in]

If you would like to move your story to a different subcategory please
reply back to this email as soon as possible. We will move stories only
if they will not make the sub-category they are moving out of or into
inviable, so the sooner you reply, the better the chance we will be
able to accommodate your request.

******

Let's say Fourth Age has the subcategories

(no subcat) (6 stories)
Ithilien (5 stories)
Valinor (13 stories)
Drabble (9 stories)
Poetry (5 stories)
Vignette (9 stories)

And I have a story nominated. Not sure what subcategories will be
available I mark both Ithilien and Vignette as possible subcategories.
My story gets placed in Ithilien but I want to move it to Vignette.
That's a problem: if we move a story out of Ithilien, Ithilien only has
four entries and so is inviable. Therefore I can't request that change.
If, however, the situation was changed and my story was in Vignette and
I wanted to move it to Ithilien, the admins could make this move
because that would leave Vignette with 8 stories and Ithilien with 6 --
both viable.

New scenario: My story is in the (no subcat) subcategory and I want to
move it into Valinor. Someone else emails in first and asks that their
story (also in (no subcat)) be moved to Vignette, so at the time I
email in (no subcat) had 5 entries. Moving another one out would make
(no subcat) inviable, so we have to say no.

Obviously you have to move into another *eligible* subcat. You can't
move from Drabble to Ithilien, but if there were two drabbles subcats
(i.e., Shire Drabbles and Gondor Drabbles) you could move from one to
the other if you liked.

I know at one time we were talking about having a maximum size for a
subcat -- 15 stories -- so that every subcat would have at least 5 and
no more than 15 stories. I think this is a really good idea,
personally, but am not sure if it was ever officially decided. Anyway,
if we are going with this the moving from one sub-cat to another would
work both ways: if a move would bump a subcat over 15 stories, then we
won't allow that move either.

Marta

Msg# 6736

categorization Posted by Kathy January 14, 2006 - 14:11:02 Topic ID# 6735
Hi Marta,

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> I don't want to let the authors choose the subcategory. Besides
being
> *way* too hard, logistics-wise, it would make the whole process too
> contentious.
>
> One idea I had toyed with was allowing authors to request that a
story
> be moved if they really thought it didn't belong in a subcategory.
We
> wouldn't have to tell them what other stories were in a certain
> sub-category; we could send an email something like:
>
> ****
>
> Greetings Author,
>
> The volunteers working with the MEFAs are organising the
nominations
> into the categories and sub-categories that will determine what
stories
> will be competing against which other stories.
>
> Your story [title] was nominated in Drama, and we intend to place
it in
> the sub-category [sub-category]. If you do not feel this is a good
fit
> for your story, we can move it to any of the following
subcategories
> within the Drama category:
>
> [list of eligible sub-categories]
>
> [repeat above for every category author has stories entered in]
>
> If you would like to move your story to a different subcategory
please
> reply back to this email as soon as possible. We will move stories
only
> if they will not make the sub-category they are moving out of or
into
> inviable, so the sooner you reply, the better the chance we will be
> able to accommodate your request.
>
> ******
>
> Let's say Fourth Age has the subcategories
>
> (no subcat) (6 stories)
> Ithilien (5 stories)
> Valinor (13 stories)
> Drabble (9 stories)
> Poetry (5 stories)
> Vignette (9 stories)
>
> And I have a story nominated. Not sure what subcategories will be
> available I mark both Ithilien and Vignette as possible
subcategories.
> My story gets placed in Ithilien but I want to move it to Vignette.
> That's a problem: if we move a story out of Ithilien, Ithilien only
has
> four entries and so is inviable. Therefore I can't request that
change.
> If, however, the situation was changed and my story was in Vignette
and
> I wanted to move it to Ithilien, the admins could make this move
> because that would leave Vignette with 8 stories and Ithilien with
6 --
> both viable.
>
> New scenario: My story is in the (no subcat) subcategory and I want
to
> move it into Valinor. Someone else emails in first and asks that
their
> story (also in (no subcat)) be moved to Vignette, so at the time I
> email in (no subcat) had 5 entries. Moving another one out would
make
> (no subcat) inviable, so we have to say no.
>
> Obviously you have to move into another *eligible* subcat. You
can't
> move from Drabble to Ithilien, but if there were two drabbles
subcats
> (i.e., Shire Drabbles and Gondor Drabbles) you could move from one
to
> the other if you liked.
>
> I know at one time we were talking about having a maximum size for
a
> subcat -- 15 stories -- so that every subcat would have at least 5
and
> no more than 15 stories. I think this is a really good idea,
> personally, but am not sure if it was ever officially decided.
Anyway,
> if we are going with this the moving from one sub-cat to another
would
> work both ways: if a move would bump a subcat over 15 stories, then
we
> won't allow that move either.


As a volunteer categorizer last year (as you were too, of course), I
see both pros and cons to this idea:

Pro: It would help address the problem of authors saying after the
fact, "Had I know there would be subcategory x, I would have
suggested it on my nominating form."

Con: Until all authors replied to the proposed email, you would not
be able to determine which subcats were inviable, as they would be in
a state of flux. To use your first example, at the same time that one
author is asking that her story be moved out of Ithilien, thus making
the subcat inviable, three others might be requesting that their
stories be moved *into* Ithilien. This could result in crazy-making,
11th-hour reshuffling for the categorizers...not a pleasant prospect!
At the very least, you'd have to set a deadline for all such
requests. But even then, you'd have authors complaining that they
didn't get the email, etc.

So I don't know...I'd want to hear from some of the other
categorizers about this one.

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6737

Re: points and various voting matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 16:04:59 Topic ID# 6582
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:18:47 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy)
>
> We need to not lose sight of the value of long reviews in the process.
> As
> the discussion coming off of Marigold's comments in another thread
> reminded
> me, not every reader is going to read or review every story in a
> subcategory, either because of popularity of authors or the lengths of
> the
> different stories. A good long review for a story which has had fewer
> readers can give some balance to a lot of short reviews for a story
> which is
> more widely known.
>

I agree with you here. And I don't think this is a bad idea, up to a
point. The goal is balance: long reviews shouldn't dominate, but
neither should short reviews.

> Since one of my "find a story" strategies was to look for stories which
> hadn't gotten any reviews yet, I know I tended to leave reviews which
> were a
> lot more effusive for the ones I found that way which were unnoticed
> gems.
>

Glad to know I'm not the only one who had that experience! I think it's
like when a movie is built up through pre-release advertisements and
you're expecting something great - so even if it's superb, you were
expecting it so you aren't as impressed. On the other hand, I've found
that unexpected films that were excellent or even merely great, I've
raved about to every friend who'd stand still long enough.

Anyway... I found I did this, too. It wasn't a conscious decision, but
it did happen.

> We also need to not lose sight of another problem. In discussions
> about
> weighting the system towards shorter reviews, there's been an
> implication
> that longer reviews are puffed up. I don't think that's true in the
> large
> sense. Adding a word here or there to nudge a review to the next
> level is
> not the same as unthinking verbosity. The long reviews I read at the
> MEFAs
> were usually wonderful -- quite on the same level as the professional
> reviews I read every day as a librarian -- and created with the same
> kind of
> effort that it takes to craft a great story or essay. Those were the
> kinds
> of reviews which prompted me to want to know which other stories that
> reviewer had recommended, and I'd hate to see them devalued.
>

Like I said in an earlier email (much earlier - around a week ago I
think), longer reviews are not necessarily more substantative than
shorter ones, but they certainly have the potential to be. When I
determined how long I wanted a review to be, that determined how long I
wanted a review to be I pretty much grouped them into about four or
five groupings and wrote on some quality on the story like pacing or
characterisation or what-not. I knew that I took about 200 characters
to do each quality justice, so that was how I tried to get my reviews
longer when I wanted to. So it's possible to say more in a longer
review - I know!

Marta

Msg# 6738

Re: points and various voting matters (Dreamflower) -- a new propos Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 16:48:06 Topic ID# 6738
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 07:43:47 -0600
> From: <aelfwina@cableone.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters (Kathy)
>
> <snippage>
> :: I think that I may have been the first to mention adding to my
> reviews
> and then feeling that they did not seem as sincere. I can be extremely
> verbose in reviews (or replies) as anyone can tell you. I've been
> known to
> wax philosophical and write reviews longer than the stories or
> chapters that
> inspired them, LOL! But occasionally a story moves me so much that my
> response is actually shorter, with less thought, more emotional. To
> have to
> add to a response like that did feel a bit like padding. Now, maybe
> that's
> just me, and the way I review--in which case it's not a problem for
> anyone
> else, and I apologize for opening the can of worms in the first
> place--I'll
> just have to deal with it.
>

I can definitely understand that. I think it really has to do with
different approaches to writing a review. Yours probably gave more
uniform feedback to the author, if that makes any sense... not sure how
to explain it more clearly. But what I'm trying to say is, my method
for writing reviews has its drawbacks and is not what I'd use if I was
reviewing at SOA or FF.net or wherever... I would just have said what I
wanted to until I an out of steam or things to say.

> :: Perhaps a kind of curve in giving weight to reviews, with a bit
> extra at
> the low end and a bit extra at the high end, with the spread more
> consistent
> in the middle, kind of like the old grading curve teachers used to
> use? I
> don't know.

That idea might be good. How about something like:

1-75 = 1 pt }
76-150 = 2 pts } --- These two brackets are 75 chars each

151-300 = 3 pts }
301-450 = 4 pts } --- These four brackets are 150 characters each
451-600 = 5 pts }
601-750 = 6 pts }

751-850 = 7 pts } --- This bracket has 100 characters

850-925 = 8 pts } --- These two brackets are 75 characters each
926-1000 = 9 pts }

1001 + = 10 pts.

I was originally going to have 7 be 75 points instead of 100 (to keep
things simpler), but that would mean things would cap off at 975
characters instead of 1000.

What do you guys think?

> Anyway, as I said, if I'm the only one with the problem, just
> let me blather.
>

You're not. You're just one of the few who is participating in the
post-mortem.

Marta

Msg# 6739

Re: Weighty matters (Rabidsamfan) Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 17:12:24 Topic ID# 6705
> Message: 8
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:17:19 -0500
> From: rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: Weighty matters
>
> On 1/12/06, Kathy <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> There seems to be a widely held perception that long reviews are
>> being criticized or devalued by the idea of giving more weight to
>> short reviews (weight being defined as how many characters are needed
>> to reach a certain points threshold) than they would receive in an
>> even points spread. However, I don't think that was the intent when
>> the idea was first proposed.
>>
>> Here's what Marta said in her initial post on the subject on Jan. 1:
>>
>> "First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and so
>> feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>> points
>> they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at a lower
>> level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively means that
>> those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight."
>>
>> I thought the concern she raised seemed reasonable at the time, and I
>> still do. But since then many objections have been raised to the
>> initial proposed solution—a 5-point spread—and they are also valid
>> concerns. So now that it seems settled that we are staying with the
>> 10-point scoring system, the remaining question seems to be simply
>> whether the initial issue Marta raised is one that we should address
>> to a greater (or lesser) degree than the current system does. It's
>> already looking like this question may be as debatable as the 5-pt.
>> vs. 10-pt. vs. character count question.
>>
>> As I understand the facts, the 2005 MEFAs gave slightly more weight
>> to short reviews than they otherwise would have received in a
>> completely even point spread. I'm not sure why this was done, as it
>> happened before I became involved with the MEFAs. According to
>> Anthony, the 2004 MEFAs gave even *more* weight to the short reviews,
>> so there seems to have been a decision to move away from that, but
>> again, I don't know why.
>>
>> In the interests of moving the discussion along, to Rabidsamfan and
>> anyone else who is concerned about long reviews being devalued, I put
>> the question directly: are you opposed to *any* kind of weighting
>> that allows short reviews to count for more than they would if the
>> points were evenly distributed? If not, what level of weighting are
>> you comfortable with: the current system? Something more? Or
>> something less? I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I'd just
>> like to know where people stand on this so we can come to a decision
>> soon.
>>
>> Kathy (Inkling)
>
>
>
> I can live quite happily with the 2005 system. In 2004, I suspect
> that some
> reviews were edited into shreds to keep them at the "one point" level,
> since
> without that very low number (20) as a cutoff point, no one wrote
> anything
> quite that short in 2005.
>
> I'm not opposed to the idea of weighting the system towards shorter
> reviews,
> but my reasoning is probably not the same as most folks, which is why
> I like
> straight or weighted character counts and was intrigued with Anthony's
> fifty
> point system. Within a subcategory, when I'm in "thinking about
> subcategories" mode, what I want to do is set the stories into
> approximate
> order by how well I liked them. It's easier to do that if it's not a
> big
> step from one "place" to another.
>
> For people who are trying to get a lot of stories read in short order,
> or
> who aren't comfortable writing pages of review for a drabble, having
> the
> steps "smaller" at the lower end of the scale makes a certain amount of
> sense. If it were my druthers, there wouldn't be a cutoff at the top
> of the
> scale, but the steps would be higher to go from 10 to 11 than they
> were to
> go from 1 to 2.
>
> Gosh, I hope that made sense!
>

That all makes a lot of sense to me. I agree with most of it (the
notable exception being no upper limit). It's certainly a very clear
statement of what you think, which I find very helpful.

How do you feel about the point spread I suggested in my post to I
think Katy a few minutes ago? It makes it fairly easy to move from one
point range to the next at both the lower and upper end of the scale,
but you'd have to make a big effort to get from one to the other.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6740

Re: Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems (Ainae) Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 17:28:42 Topic ID# 6740
> Message: 11
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:32:16 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: Comparison of 2004 and 2005 points systems
>
> Thank you for the spread! That helped. So the folks at ASC were on to
> something with thir spread that I basically stole (with permission).
>
> However, I do not want to go over 10 points. So definitely, I prefer
> weighting but not quite as you suggested.
>

Hi Ainae,

You may have seen this in posts I haven't got to (boy am I behind!) but
just to be clear: we will be going with a 10-point spread. At this
point I think we're just trying to decide what the point brackets will
be, i.e., how many characters will get you one point, two points, etc.

Cheers,
Marta

Msg# 6741

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Marta Layton January 14, 2006 - 17:35:14 Topic ID# 6741
> Message: 13
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:51:21 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is
> the answer?
>
> That's better than the 5-point scale. And see my more recent post
> about why
> I post 1 point reviews. It's not for lack of time. I don't think I've
> seen
> anyone (up to this point) admit to that. If I'm rushed for time, I'll
> probably at least give a 3 to a story I liked fairly well. But a 1 is
> given
> for a reason. And a 0 (no vote) is left for a reason too. Not every
> story
> is a gem. Not a fun thing to hear, but it's truth. And while this
> awards
> program is based on feedback that means a lot of SUBJECTIVITY goes
> into it.
> We can't take the subjectivity out of it. That would be the most fair,
> wouldn't it? To give everyone equal feedback so that no one feels bad
> for
> not getting a review or only getting a few short ones. But we can't
> and
> won't do that.
>

Ainae, I disagree with tghis pretty strongly, or at least with how I'm
reading this. I won't review every story next year but sometimes not
reviewing a story has nothing to do with the story. It doesn't mean
it's bad, it just means I didn't get to it. And I don't want people to
think that just because they're not getting enough reviews, that the
reviewers don't like their story. It may be that it's just about
different characters than the most active reviewers like, or that
people are just too crunched for time.

Now this doesn't mean we have to vote for every story. Not saying that.
Just saying that the absence of a vote can't automatically be
interpreted as a thumbs-down.

What do you think about the review scale I proposed earlier, with
75-character point brackets at the two ends and 150-character brackets
in the middle? Would it do what you want it to do? It's still a
10-point spread, and I think this will help people write appropriate
reviews -- it's pretty easy to move around in the 1-2-pt area and in
the 8-10 pt area, but pretty hard to get from one to the other so you
have to put in more effort for a story you really like.

Thanks,
Marta

Msg# 6742

Re: categorization; was: RE: Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 14, 2006 - 23:49:08 Topic ID# 6735
The idea has merit but I see two problems that would have to be worked out.
One you already mentions: viablity.

The second though is bigger: time. We definitely couldn't say "as soon as
possible". There would HAVE to be a deadline. Look at the effort it already
takes to get an author to approve a nomination. And then if they did reply,
the time for swapping those stories around and keeping viability.

--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 Marta Layton
> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 11:43 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] categorization; was: RE: Re: points
> and various voting matters
>
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:55:51 -0600
> > From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> > Subject: RE: Re: points and various voting matters (sulriel)
> >
> > <snippage>
> > If it's a feeling of "it's unfair because of the
> subcategories" they
> > are in, well, that's the biggest issue facing these awards:
> > categorization.
> > Maybe
> > in ASC they have it easier, except for the one person
> insufficiently
> > reluctant to do it: the Administrator assigns the
> categories. Though,
> > admitedly, she has the support of the headers the authors used and
> > thus the category suggestions pulled from those headers by the SOS
> > maintainers.
> >
> > But then some peole can still quibble about which category she put
> > them in.
> > I think having th authors choose their categories is best,
> but subcats
> > are harder . We can't have 75 or 120 story categories so
> they have to
> > be broken up. What is the best way to do that? And that is our
> > biggest issue.
> >
>
> I don't want to let the authors choose the subcategory. Besides being
> *way* too hard, logistics-wise, it would make the whole process too
> contentious.
>
> One idea I had toyed with was allowing authors to request
> that a story
> be moved if they really thought it didn't belong in a subcategory. We
> wouldn't have to tell them what other stories were in a certain
> sub-category; we could send an email something like:
>
> ****
>
> Greetings Author,
>
> The volunteers working with the MEFAs are organising the nominations
> into the categories and sub-categories that will determine
> what stories
> will be competing against which other stories.
>
> Your story [title] was nominated in Drama, and we intend to
> place it in
> the sub-category [sub-category]. If you do not feel this is a
> good fit
> for your story, we can move it to any of the following subcategories
> within the Drama category:
>
> [list of eligible sub-categories]
>
> [repeat above for every category author has stories entered in]
>
> If you would like to move your story to a different
> subcategory please
> reply back to this email as soon as possible. We will move
> stories only
> if they will not make the sub-category they are moving out of or into
> inviable, so the sooner you reply, the better the chance we will be
> able to accommodate your request.
>
> ******
>
> Let's say Fourth Age has the subcategories
>
> (no subcat) (6 stories)
> Ithilien (5 stories)
> Valinor (13 stories)
> Drabble (9 stories)
> Poetry (5 stories)
> Vignette (9 stories)
>
> And I have a story nominated. Not sure what subcategories will be
> available I mark both Ithilien and Vignette as possible
> subcategories.
> My story gets placed in Ithilien but I want to move it to Vignette.
> That's a problem: if we move a story out of Ithilien,
> Ithilien only has
> four entries and so is inviable. Therefore I can't request
> that change.
> If, however, the situation was changed and my story was in
> Vignette and
> I wanted to move it to Ithilien, the admins could make this move
> because that would leave Vignette with 8 stories and Ithilien
> with 6 --
> both viable.
>
> New scenario: My story is in the (no subcat) subcategory and
> I want to
> move it into Valinor. Someone else emails in first and asks
> that their
> story (also in (no subcat)) be moved to Vignette, so at the time I
> email in (no subcat) had 5 entries. Moving another one out would make
> (no subcat) inviable, so we have to say no.
>
> Obviously you have to move into another *eligible* subcat. You can't
> move from Drabble to Ithilien, but if there were two drabbles subcats
> (i.e., Shire Drabbles and Gondor Drabbles) you could move from one to
> the other if you liked.
>
> I know at one time we were talking about having a maximum size for a
> subcat -- 15 stories -- so that every subcat would have at
> least 5 and
> no more than 15 stories. I think this is a really good idea,
> personally, but am not sure if it was ever officially
> decided. Anyway,
> if we are going with this the moving from one sub-cat to
> another would
> work both ways: if a move would bump a subcat over 15
> stories, then we
> won't allow that move either.
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6743

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 15, 2006 - 0:03:13 Topic ID# 6741
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Marta Layton
> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 5:42 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] RE: What is the problem to which
> "reduce the points scale" is the answer? (Ainae)
>
> > Message: 13
> > Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:51:21 -0600
> > From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> > Subject: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the
> points scale" is
> > the answer?
> >
> > That's better than the 5-point scale. And see my more recent post

> >
>
> Ainae, I disagree with tghis pretty strongly, or at least
> with how I'm reading this. I won't review every story next
> year but sometimes not reviewing a story has nothing to do
> with the story. It doesn't mean it's bad, it just means I
> didn't get to it. And I don't want people to think that just
> because they're not getting enough reviews, that the
> reviewers don't like their story. It may be that it's just
> about different characters than the most active reviewers
> like, or that people are just too crunched for time.
>
> Now this doesn't mean we have to vote for every story. Not
> saying that.
> Just saying that the absence of a vote can't automatically be
> interpreted as a thumbs-down.

I think I stated the other side of the no review in another post. Yes, of
course, sometimes it meant you didn't read the story at all, for one reason
or another (summary didn't catch you, you got engaged and ran out of time to
read stories....). But SOMETIMES it DOES mean you couldn't find anything
good to say about a story.

It can't automatically be interpreted as a thumbs-down, I agree. You can't
tell either way. We had what 500-ish members in 2004. I can't assume
because one of my stories only got 4 votes that the other 496-ish didn't
like it. That comes with the whole "read what you want thing." You just
can't know. If you got no reviews, you have questions , not necessary
answers:

1) Did anyone read it?
2) If someone did read it, did they think it not worth a review?

You cannot tell the answer from a 0 review. I will say that I reviewed
something like 40 stories last year (not a very good ratio but I blame my
fiance...). I can say I read more than 40. I did not even come close to
reading the whole 1200. So my reasons for not leaving reviews are both of
the reasons you mentioned, and no author of those 1160 stories I didn't
review can know which reason it was that I didn't leave one based on the
fact that I didn't review alone.

It's just that we seemed to get stuck on the "not enough time" or "just
can't write a long review" reasons for short reviews and I realized we were
kind of missing the other side of that coin: sometimes a short quote is
because you could only say a little about what was good about the story.
The point of the feedback being a competition is the amount you write is
what gets points for a story to win. You say more for stories you like
more, as a general rule. Thus short votes can mean "not enough time" or
"just can't write a long review" but they can also mean "not very good".
Sad, but true.

As to QC: while every nominator should seek to nominate only good stories,
we DO allow self-nomination and that leaves room for less QC. We all may
have tendency to think highly of our work when others may not. That being
said, I never want to stigmatize self-nomination. In both years, I
self-nominated my own stuff to prove that. So I encourage it, but that
means that anything (gem or not) can get in the door. Let the reviews fall
as they will.

>
> What do you think about the review scale I proposed earlier,
> with 75-character point brackets at the two ends and
> 150-character brackets in the middle? Would it do what you
> want it to do? It's still a 10-point spread, and I think this
> will help people write appropriate reviews -- it's pretty
> easy to move around in the 1-2-pt area and in the 8-10 pt
> area, but pretty hard to get from one to the other so you
> have to put in more effort for a story you really like.

Honestly not being math-minded, I can't say. I think so. But I could be so
completely not math-minded as to be completely and utterly wrong.

--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

Msg# 6744

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale"is the an Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 15, 2006 - 0:07:23 Topic ID# 6684
Absolutemente! We have a high membership but a relatively low number of
reviewers. We can't pressure them to read 1200 stories. The more readers
and reviews we have the more likely every story WILL get read.

And BTW: the ration of members to poll partipators is appallingly low.
Those polls are our form of democracy here and those who don't participate
are letting a few decide everything for them. Thus we have the rule of the
"elite" (active) rather than the rule of the members (everyone).

If you'd prefer that every poll be unanimous (so lurkers can continue to
lurk), that can be arranged.

--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 Marta Layton
> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 9:17 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] RE: What is the problem to which
> "reduce the points scale"is the answer?
>
> > Message: 8
> > Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:56:20 -0500
> > From: "Chris Grzonka" <grzonka@adelphia.net>
> > Subject: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the
> points scale"is
> > the answer?
> >
> > Marigold wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> And I think too that voters have to take responsibility for their
> >> votes - I read every story in a given category, and wrote
> my reviews
> >> based on my enjoyment of each story in that category. I felt that
> >> that way I was being fair to all of the authors in the category. I
> >> wasn't just picking out Author X that I know, and reviewing their
> >> story without reading the stories that were entered
> alongside hers. I
> >> didn't go to a category, pick out only authors and stories that I
> >> knew, and write reviews only for them.
> >> And I finished a category before I went to the next one, I didn't
> >> skip through the categories looking for authors I knew so that I
> >> could vote for them. That practice seems to be hinted at
> in some of
> >> these many e-mails, and I hope that is not the case.
> >
>
> I missed this email earlier somehow, and so I'm going to
> reply to this part Chris quoted.
>
> I think everyone has different reviewing styles. I haven't
> heard a lot of people saying they seek out authors they are
> familiar with -- more people saying they looked for their
> favourite characters or some other element. Is this perfectly
> fair? No, but it's also not unreasonable either. After all,
> stories about more popular characters ared more likely to get
> reviews at a general archive, other factors being equal.
>
> If a person is really scared that their story won't get a
> fair run the best way to do this is to encourage other people
> who like to read that kind of story to get involved with the
> MEFAs. I'm not talking about recruiting your friends to come
> and vote for your stories, but rather encouraging people who
> like stories about the Rohirrim to come and review the
> stories that they like if you see the stories about the
> Rohirrim aren't getting as much attention as you think they deserve.
> Because those people are most likely to vote for stories
> about their favourite characters and events first (just like
> everyone else). Though of course I hope they won't stop there.
>
> I've always encouraged people to try to review independent of
> the sub-category a story is placed in. What I mean is, if you
> find a story you like, write a review based on how good you
> thought it was. If you liked it a lot, write a lot. If you
> only liked it a little, just write a little.
>
> I really don't want people to think they have to read a whole
> sub-category to review at all. What if you've read an author
> in the past (either through these awards or elsewhere) and
> you've read enough of their work to know you won't like them?
> Or a story is about characters you have no interest in, or
> for some other reason you wouldn't read it in any other
> situation? To make people feel guilty for not reading every
> story doesn't seem fair to them.
>
> I see the concern I think you may be getting at, Marigold. If
> you read every story in a sub-cat and decide not to review
> some because you don't like them, and I just don't read all
> the stories and so don't review them, those votes (or absence
> of votes, really) will count exactly the same. But I think
> the solution to this is to get more people voting, not to put
> more pressure on people who are really doing the best they can.
>
> Cheers,
> Marta
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6745

Re: Author Awards, one more thought Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 15, 2006 - 0:14:01 Topic ID# 6651
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kathy
> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 2:33 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Author Awards, one more thought
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...
> > wrote:
> >
> > I think it's as valid a concern as Fred's big review vs. Freditta's
> > many short ones. And I'd like more opinions on the problem. I
> > haven't seen a lot of response to either of my points on the Form
> > system.
>
> Well, since it seems unlikely that we could get any radical
> new type of author awards off the ground for 2006 at this
> late stage in the game, I guess I kind of ran out of gas on
> the topic. But since you ask, here are some quick thoughts
> on the points you raised:
>
> Fruit problem: how can you compare humor to horror?
> Either try it as an experiment and see what happens. Or
> decide you can't and have a few major genre subcats, as you
> suggested (Short
> story: drama, short story: humor, etc.)

If we went FORM, I'd definitely think we should do that with subcats.

>
> Popularity problem: LOTR vs. Silm vs. Hobbit
> - don't rank the awards
> - have more than three awards in each cat. Maybe a LOT more.10?
> 20? Heck, why not? If you're considering doing away with
> them entirely, why not try out an "experimental" author
> awards system with the disclaimer that no one should complain
> if they don't work out? ;)

No, the number of awards should be uniform across. There are 3. Just like
in the Olympics. And besides, someone would have to come up with names and
banners for all of those awards.

Oh, that's another minor concern for changing from the SHADOWING method:
banners. Right now, we use the same banners for author awards. We'd have
to come up with new titles and banners if we came up with wholesale new
categories for Author Awards. Could be fun, could be a bother.

>
> Nominations:
> For the form awards: everyone is nominated automatically in
> the relevant form categories.
>
> IF there are "special awards" for dialogue, opening lines,
> etc., I think they would have to be nominated separately from
> the stories...otherwise every single author would be eligible
> for every award. But don't see why this would create hurt
> feelings, because there wouldn't be a situation where your
> story was nominated and you weren't.you are automatically
> entered in every "form" author award category for which you
> qualify (i.e., in which you have a story entered in the
> MEFAs). These would be in addition.
>
> These all may be terrible ideas, I don't know. But they're
> just that-- ideas. If we throw out enough of them, something
> good may turn up eventually!

It's not a bad idea, but I do like that every nomination is on equal footing
in the ASCs and MEFAs. No one can say "Well, MY story was nominated for 4
awards and yours was only nominated for 1!". If we do what you suggest,
somone could definitely do that. Or conversely, someone could say "No one
nominated my story for Best Opening Line" and go cry in their pillow. Or
everyone could self-nominate every story for Best Opening Line instead of
crying in their pillows and we have the same problem of every story being
elligible.

And it would still blow the rule: A story can only be in one category.

> >
> > I'm beginning to think we'd be better just to let go of the Author
> Awards
> > and try life without this year.
>
> Now *that* question I can't comment on...since I have never
> participated in the Author Awards, I don't think I should
> help decide whether to get rid of them or not. I will say I
> thought they were confusing, however.
>
I don't think anyone argues that point.

--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

Msg# 6746

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 15, 2006 - 0:18:38 Topic ID# 6662
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kathy
> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 2:44 AM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: What is the problem to which "reduce
> the points scale" is the answer?
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...
> > wrote:
> > <snip>
> > But now I'm rambling. Sometimes the proposed changes hurt.
> Sometimes
> > they're a bit scary. I know I don't want to poke my nose
> back in here
> > in 5 years and not recognize the place. But I also have
> some amount
> > of faith that because this worked in 2004, the LOTR fandom
> found out
> > that such an awards program based on feedback can work and
> be pleasant
> > and produce positive feelings, there will be enough people
> who value
> > it around to keep it from being destroyed.
>
> Hear hear! And thank you for giving the LOTR fandom such an
> awards program.
>
> Kathy

Thank you, Kathy and you're welcome. I may have changed from whale to
coelecanth in the DS9 pond but I may forever remain a perch in the huge sea
of LOTR. If so, maybe these MEFAs can be my contribution that outlasts me.
Oswiecim may be that in DS9. MEFAs may be that in LOTR-dom.

--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

Msg# 6747

Re: categorization Posted by rhapsody\_the\_bard January 15, 2006 - 6:14:00 Topic ID# 6735
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
<snip>
> As a volunteer categorizer last year (as you were too, of course), I
> see both pros and cons to this idea:
>
> Pro: It would help address the problem of authors saying after the
> fact, "Had I know there would be subcategory x, I would have
> suggested it on my nominating form."

We can catch this in the new form right? Along with good liaison
instructions?

> Con: Until all authors replied to the proposed email, you would not
> be able to determine which subcats were inviable, as they would be
> in a state of flux. To use your first example, at the same time that
> one author is asking that her story be moved out of Ithilien, thus
> making the subcat inviable, three others might be requesting that
> their stories be moved *into* Ithilien. This could result in
> crazy-making, 11th-hour reshuffling for the categorizers...not a
> pleasant prospect!

No it isn't. I rather see a small team working closely on this
together. This same team can also decide to graduate stories *after*
categorising is done. So many ideas, I wish I had more energy :-/

> So I don't know...I'd want to hear from some of the other
> categorizers about this one.

The problem with categorising wasn't so much in subcategories, but
shifting stories from deliberately chosen main categories to a less
favoured one without consulting the author about it. To me, imho.

The thing is, and I knew I was very much aware of this as a liaison
ánd categoriser, is that it was or could be clearly told that the
chosen sub-categories would or might lead to a story placed in a
subcategory when needed. At that moment we asked the author to have a
good look at both main categories and subcategories. Maybe it wasn't
explained to the author that well (maybe given the time pressure), so
it should be emphasised in the new form this year that the input and
final approval the author gives upon accepting the nomination: that is it.

I did had big issues this year with moving stories from the main 1st
category to a 3rd chosen category (where in my experience an author
said, oh a third, well let's do that one then, just to comply with the
reuqest to complete the nomination), because the categoriser thought
it would fit better there, ignoring the wish of an author. I strongly
do believe such changes should be communicated with the author first.

I have so many ideas how things can be improved behind the scenes for
the categorisers, especially in organising and giving better
instruction on the how to, to assure uniformity, but this bouncing
baby of mine is keeping me in bed most of the day now that we slowly
approach my due date.

This team can also tackle issues like race/places: Rohan: romance or
Romance: rohan..., decide on graduating categories: just as long if
they work closely together. I knew not knowing my fellow categorisers
that well *kept* me from saying things, it felt a bit uncomfortable to
do so, everyone worked so hard on it and you come back at them saying
your piece. In the end categorisers sought each other out, I at least
chatted with a fellow categoriser about it and that felt really good,
since there weren't clear instructions on it: at least you had that.
Now that I do know volunteers of last year a bit more, I would have
approached things differently (hindsight I know). Since we don't know
how many people will volunteer this year, I think it would be smart to
appoint a core group of people who will do it next year. Rolling up
the sleeves, thinking about the system in advance and maybe during
nomination season, keep an eye on which categories will be popular and
which ones not (this way you can signal things on time). I do believe
it also works very well that for the volunteers who will do the first
phase of categorising, that they know someone is around to ask
questions too, especially when someone is new to it. This year it
really felt like a plunge in the dark... but I still do believe we did
a good job. :c)

Rhapsody
(yeah count me in on at least the categorising thing, to iron that
out, write instructions and such)

Msg# 6748

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Marta Layton January 15, 2006 - 11:47:30 Topic ID# 6662
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 08:44:20 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is
> the answer?
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@e...
>> wrote:
>> <snip>
>> But now I'm rambling. Sometimes the proposed changes hurt. Sometimes
>> they're a bit scary. I know I don't want to poke my nose back in here
>> in 5 years and not recognize the place. But I also have some amount
>> of faith that because this worked in 2004, the LOTR fandom found out
>> that such an awards program based on feedback can work and be
>> pleasant and produce positive feelings, there will be enough people
>> who value it around to keep it from being destroyed.
>
> Hear hear!

Hear what? ;-) (Sorry, can never resist working in my favourite _The
Hobbit_ reference.

> And thank you for giving the LOTR fandom such an awards
> program.
>

What she swaid. Ainae, I really am thankful for all you did.

Marta

Msg# 6749

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Marta Layton January 15, 2006 - 16:05:44 Topic ID# 6741
> Message: 13
> Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 00:03:00 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the points
> scale" is the answer? (Ainae)
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
>> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Marta Layton
>> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 5:42 PM
>> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] RE: What is the problem to which
>> "reduce the points scale" is the answer? (Ainae)
>>
>>> Message: 13
>>> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:51:21 -0600
>>> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
>>> Subject: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the
>> points scale" is
>>> the answer?
>>>
>>> That's better than the 5-point scale. And see my more recent post
>
>>>
>>
>> Ainae, I disagree with tghis pretty strongly, or at least
>> with how I'm reading this. I won't review every story next
>> year but sometimes not reviewing a story has nothing to do
>> with the story. It doesn't mean it's bad, it just means I
>> didn't get to it. And I don't want people to think that just
>> because they're not getting enough reviews, that the
>> reviewers don't like their story. It may be that it's just
>> about different characters than the most active reviewers
>> like, or that people are just too crunched for time.
>>
>> Now this doesn't mean we have to vote for every story. Not
>> saying that.
>> Just saying that the absence of a vote can't automatically be
>> interpreted as a thumbs-down.
>
> I think I stated the other side of the no review in another post.
> Yes, of
> course, sometimes it meant you didn't read the story at all, for one
> reason
> or another (summary didn't catch you, you got engaged and ran out of
> time to
> read stories....). But SOMETIMES it DOES mean you couldn't find
> anything
> good to say about a story.
>
> It can't automatically be interpreted as a thumbs-down, I agree. You
> can't
> tell either way. We had what 500-ish members in 2004. I can't assume
> because one of my stories only got 4 votes that the other 496-ish
> didn't
> like it. That comes with the whole "read what you want thing." You
> just
> can't know. If you got no reviews, you have questions , not necessary
> answers:
>
> 1) Did anyone read it?
> 2) If someone did read it, did they think it not worth a review?
>
> You cannot tell the answer from a 0 review. I will say that I reviewed
> something like 40 stories last year (not a very good ratio but I blame
> my
> fiance...). I can say I read more than 40. I did not even come close
> to
> reading the whole 1200. So my reasons for not leaving reviews are
> both of
> the reasons you mentioned, and no author of those 1160 stories I didn't
> review can know which reason it was that I didn't leave one based on
> the
> fact that I didn't review alone.
>

I see what you're saying here, and I agree, there are some stories that
don't receive a review from a certain person because that reviewer
didn't like them. I just don't want some author to think badly of
themselves unduly.

As for the 500-ish members in 2004.... you have to remember that a lot
of Yahoo groups have a problem with low participation. Chew on this:
out of the 319 members of this group, 184 either don't receive emails
or receive only special notices. This doesn't mean they don't
participate at all, but it is a pretty good indication. Oh, and 24
members are bouncing.

Why would someone be a member if they weren't even going to lurk? Well,
I suspect a lot of people join because they want to vote or nominate -
they may never get around to it, of course. Also, a lot of people
probably joined when they first heard about the MEFAs, maybe out of
interest to see what the awards are about, and have since moved on to
other things. My point is that looking at the total number of group
members isn't a good indication of the actual reviewers pool.

<snip>

> As to QC: while every nominator should seek to nominate only good
> stories,
> we DO allow self-nomination and that leaves room for less QC. We all
> may
> have tendency to think highly of our work when others may not. That
> being
> said, I never want to stigmatize self-nomination. In both years, I
> self-nominated my own stuff to prove that. So I encourage it, but that
> means that anything (gem or not) can get in the door. Let the reviews
> fall
> as they will.
>

I've said it before, and I'll repeat myself here. Yes, an author can
self-nominate anything of theirs they like. And yes, some authors think
highly of their work where others don't. But others such as myself are
actually their harshest critic. Regardless, I think all authors have
some feel which of their stories are their best and which are their
worst. And so there has to be some sort of QC on the part of the
author. If the story was written by someone else, would you still
recommend it to a friend? Because that's basically what a nomination
amounts to, recommending it to those people who will be reading it. If
you feel it's not your best work you probably shouldn't recommend it --
not because you're the author but because of the story's quality.

This doesn't stigmatize self-nominations. If anything, it puts them on
equal footing with stories where the nominator and author aren't the
same, by holding them to a similar standard. In the case of
self-nominations it's the author's own choice whether a story deserves
a nomination and the author is only accountable to his or her own
conscience, but I still think that most of us can tell the difference
between the best of our own writing and stuff that's good but not quite
as excellent.

>> What do you think about the review scale I proposed earlier,
>> with 75-character point brackets at the two ends and
>> 150-character brackets in the middle? Would it do what you
>> want it to do? It's still a 10-point spread, and I think this
>> will help people write appropriate reviews -- it's pretty
>> easy to move around in the 1-2-pt area and in the 8-10 pt
>> area, but pretty hard to get from one to the other so you
>> have to put in more effort for a story you really like.
>
> Honestly not being math-minded, I can't say. I think so. But I could
> be so
> completely not math-minded as to be completely and utterly wrong.
>

Well, if you don't have any strong objections, I'll take that as a
"yes". I can't see the future, either, but I think a bell-shaped
distribution like this will work best by giving weight to both long and
short reviews.

Msg# 6750

Re: categorization; was: RE: Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Marta Layton January 15, 2006 - 16:12:19 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 12
> Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 23:48:34 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: categorization; was: RE: Re: points and various voting
> matters
>
> The idea has merit but I see two problems that would have to be worked
> out.
> One you already mentions: viablity.
>

See my above reply to Kathy.

> The second though is bigger: time. We definitely couldn't say "as
> soon as
> possible". There would HAVE to be a deadline. Look at the effort it
> already
> takes to get an author to approve a nomination. And then if they did
> reply,
> the time for swapping those stories around and keeping viability.
>

A deadline wouldn't be a problem, and I think it could be a short one
-- 3-5 days should be sufficient IMO. But this brings up another issue.

I think we may want to reconsider the "check ballot" season. For one,
we may want to break it down further into things like a period to
finalise all the nominations, a period to create subcategories, a
"swap" period during which authors are contacted and can request their
story be moved to a new subcategory, and a check ballot period when we
post things to this list and get people to check them for any errors.
It could be longer than what we currently allow. Personally I don't see
the rush since we have the website and people can start voting on
everything except authors reviews as soon as a story is nominated.

And I think it would help things immensely if we had a smaller group,
maybe five tops, who each would do more categories. This would mean
more work but it also would require less people, and I think we'd have
less communications issues and we'd be able to do this more
effectively. Just my $.02, of course.

Marta

Msg# 6751

Re: categorization Posted by Marta Layton January 15, 2006 - 16:19:14 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 6
> Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 20:10:58 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: categorization
>
> Hi Marta,
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>>
>> I don't want to let the authors choose the subcategory. Besides
> being
>> *way* too hard, logistics-wise, it would make the whole process too
>> contentious.
>>
>> One idea I had toyed with was allowing authors to request that a
> story
>> be moved if they really thought it didn't belong in a subcategory.
> We
>> wouldn't have to tell them what other stories were in a certain
>> sub-category; we could send an email something like:
>>
>> <snip email for space>
>>
>> Let's say Fourth Age has the subcategories
>>
>> (no subcat) (6 stories)
>> Ithilien (5 stories)
>> Valinor (13 stories)
>> Drabble (9 stories)
>> Poetry (5 stories)
>> Vignette (9 stories)
>>
>> And I have a story nominated. Not sure what subcategories will be
>> available I mark both Ithilien and Vignette as possible
> subcategories.
>> My story gets placed in Ithilien but I want to move it to Vignette.
>> That's a problem: if we move a story out of Ithilien, Ithilien only
> has
>> four entries and so is inviable. Therefore I can't request that
> change.
>> If, however, the situation was changed and my story was in Vignette
> and
>> I wanted to move it to Ithilien, the admins could make this move
>> because that would leave Vignette with 8 stories and Ithilien with
> 6 --
>> both viable.
>>
>> New scenario: My story is in the (no subcat) subcategory and I want
> to
>> move it into Valinor. Someone else emails in first and asks that
> their
>> story (also in (no subcat)) be moved to Vignette, so at the time I
>> email in (no subcat) had 5 entries. Moving another one out would
> make
>> (no subcat) inviable, so we have to say no.
>>
>> Obviously you have to move into another *eligible* subcat. You
> can't
>> move from Drabble to Ithilien, but if there were two drabbles
> subcats
>> (i.e., Shire Drabbles and Gondor Drabbles) you could move from one
> to
>> the other if you liked.
>>
>> I know at one time we were talking about having a maximum size for
> a
>> subcat -- 15 stories -- so that every subcat would have at least 5
> and
>> no more than 15 stories. I think this is a really good idea,
>> personally, but am not sure if it was ever officially decided.
> Anyway,
>> if we are going with this the moving from one sub-cat to another
> would
>> work both ways: if a move would bump a subcat over 15 stories, then
> we
>> won't allow that move either.
>
>
> As a volunteer categorizer last year (as you were too, of course), I
> see both pros and cons to this idea:
>

I saw both pros and cons, too. Actually I was a bit cautious about
recommending it for that reason. So I reserve the right to change my
mind on all this.

> Pro: It would help address the problem of authors saying after the
> fact, "Had I know there would be subcategory x, I would have
> suggested it on my nominating form."
>

Exactly. I can think of some other reasons for this, but that's
definitely the main one.

> Con: Until all authors replied to the proposed email, you would not
> be able to determine which subcats were inviable, as they would be in
> a state of flux. To use your first example, at the same time that one
> author is asking that her story be moved out of Ithilien, thus making
> the subcat inviable, three others might be requesting that their
> stories be moved *into* Ithilien. This could result in crazy-making,
> 11th-hour reshuffling for the categorizers...not a pleasant prospect!
> At the very least, you'd have to set a deadline for all such
> requests. But even then, you'd have authors complaining that they
> didn't get the email, etc.
>

Well, remember that these are authors that someone (their liaisons)
have previously checked. I suppose if we wanted to, we could tell them
to be on the lookout for an email within a certain timeframe when we
talk to them during nomination season.

To answer your other question -- I don't think we'd really be in a
state of flux. If I ask to move my story out of a subcat and such a
move would make that subcat inviable, then whoever is categorising that
category would have to email back and say that someone else requested
to move first, and so we couldn't move their story. This really is on a
first come, first sserve basis. As categorisors, we can also aim to
have categories of between 7 and 12 stories to give more flexibility
here. And we can encourage the authors not to request moves unless it's
a real need.

Remember that these categories will be based on the information the
author is providing in their categorisation form. The author, not the
nominator. So I don't think it will be a question of a story being
placed in a bad versus a good subcat, but an adequate vs. a better
subcat.

Just my $.02, of course. I don't pretend that this isn't a potential
problem, I just think it's less of a problem than having authors
wishing they could move and having no recourse at all.

Marta

Msg# 6752

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Kathy January 15, 2006 - 20:33:06 Topic ID# 6741
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
>
> As for the 500-ish members in 2004.... you have to remember that a
> lot
> of Yahoo groups have a problem with low participation. Chew on this:
> out of the 319 members of this group, 184 either don't receive emails
> or receive only special notices. This doesn't mean they don't
> participate at all, but it is a pretty good indication. Oh, and 24
> members are bouncing.
>

Don't know if there are many members like me, but I prefer to read at
the MEFA Yahoo group site, and have my email preference set to special
notices only. So that's not always an indicator of low participation.
But I may be an exception to the rule...

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6753

categorization; was: RE: Re: points and various voting matters Posted by Kathy January 15, 2006 - 20:40:46 Topic ID# 6735
Hi Marta,

I like your suggestions for breaking down check ballot season,
especially allowing more time for catezorizing.

Kathy


--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> A deadline wouldn't be a problem, and I think it could be a short
one
> -- 3-5 days should be sufficient IMO. But this brings up another
issue.
>
> I think we may want to reconsider the "check ballot" season. For
one,
> we may want to break it down further into things like a period to
> finalise all the nominations, a period to create subcategories, a
> "swap" period during which authors are contacted and can request
their
> story be moved to a new subcategory, and a check ballot period when
we
> post things to this list and get people to check them for any
errors.
> It could be longer than what we currently allow. Personally I don't
see
> the rush since we have the website and people can start voting on
> everything except authors reviews as soon as a story is nominated.
>
> And I think it would help things immensely if we had a smaller
group,
> maybe five tops, who each would do more categories. This would mean
> more work but it also would require less people, and I think we'd
have
> less communications issues and we'd be able to do this more
> effectively. Just my $.02, of course.
>
> Marta
>

Msg# 6754

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by elliska67 January 16, 2006 - 18:31:17 Topic ID# 6741
<snip>Chew on this: out of the 319 members of this group, 184 either
don't receive emails or receive only special notices. This doesn't
mean they don't participate at all, but it is a pretty good
indication. Oh, and 24 members are bouncing.

Why would someone be a member if they weren't even going to lurk?
</snip>

I have been reading but not participating too much in the post-
mortum, mainly because I really didn't see anything wrong with the
way things worked the last two years, so I didn't see much point in
making big changes. But this comment made me laugh so I thought I'd
say something.

I am one of the people in this group that does not receive emails or
even special notices--I read everything online. Why? Not because I
don't participate. Not because I don't read what's going on. Simply
because I don't want 50-100 emails from the 13 very active groups I
belong to innundating my mail box every day. I couldn't keep them
straight much less read them. I find reading online to be more
organized. And I know a lot of people who feel the same.

My point: I think we sometimes draw conclusions that aren't
necessarily valid in all cases. I'm not arguing for/against anything
in particular that has been suggested or decided; I'm just
cautioning against making assumptions. :-)

Msg# 6755

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by rhapsody\_the\_bard January 17, 2006 - 13:03:25 Topic ID# 6741
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "elliska67" <elliska67@y...> wrote:
<snip>
>
> I am one of the people in this group that does not receive emails or
> even special notices--I read everything online. Why? Not because I
> don't participate. Not because I don't read what's going on. Simply
> because I don't want 50-100 emails from the 13 very active groups I
> belong to innundating my mail box every day. I couldn't keep them
> straight much less read them. I find reading online to be more
> organized. And I know a lot of people who feel the same.
>
> My point: I think we sometimes draw conclusions that aren't
> necessarily valid in all cases. I'm not arguing for/against anything
> in particular that has been suggested or decided; I'm just
> cautioning against making assumptions. :-)

What she said. I am on no mail for most of my groups or on special
notice, also for this group. But I am still active... that is if I
have the energy to log in.

Rhapsody

Msg# 6756

Re: categorization Posted by Marta Layton January 18, 2006 - 23:01:33 Topic ID# 6735
Hi Rhapsody,

> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 12:13:33 -0000
> From: "rhapsody_the_bard" <rhapsody74@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: categorization
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
> <snip>
>> As a volunteer categorizer last year (as you were too, of course), I
>> see both pros and cons to this idea:
>>
>> Pro: It would help address the problem of authors saying after the
>> fact, "Had I know there would be subcategory x, I would have
>> suggested it on my nominating form."
>
> We can catch this in the new form right? Along with good liaison
> instructions?
>

The problem is that the form doesn't prioritize situations. I might
write a humor piece, a metafic about Faramir, and I think that it
really belongs in a metafic subcategory -- but not knowing whether this
will be available, I will fill out the form and note that it's set in
Gondor and features Faramir. So there might be a metafic subcategory
but this piece gets put in Gondor.

My feeling is that if a story can be moved from one sub-cat to another
without affecting the viability of a sub-cat, that's not a bad thing.
It may be outweighed by the amount of work, of course.

>> Con: Until all authors replied to the proposed email, you would not
>> be able to determine which subcats were inviable, as they would be
>> in a state of flux. To use your first example, at the same time that
>> one author is asking that her story be moved out of Ithilien, thus
>> making the subcat inviable, three others might be requesting that
>> their stories be moved *into* Ithilien. This could result in
>> crazy-making, 11th-hour reshuffling for the categorizers...not a
>> pleasant prospect!
>
> No it isn't. I rather see a small team working closely on this
> together. This same team can also decide to graduate stories *after*
> categorising is done. So many ideas, I wish I had more energy :-/
>

I agree with you here about the smaller team. But as for the eleventh
hour reshuffling... that just won't happen. All of the subcategories
are based on information the author provides. So whatever subcategory
it ends up, if it's derived from this information, that sub-category is
a good one. There just might be a better one. So an author can request
that a story be moved and we will honour that request if we can. But if
we can't, we'll just have to say "sorry, we can't do that" and the
author is still in a subcategory they requested, just not their
favourite -- it's analogous to the story being placed in their second
choice category.

> I did had big issues this year with moving stories from the main 1st
> category to a 3rd chosen category (where in my experience an author
> said, oh a third, well let's do that one then, just to comply with the
> reuqest to complete the nomination), because the categoriser thought
> it would fit better there, ignoring the wish of an author. I strongly
> do believe such changes should be communicated with the author first.
>

I wasn't crazy about this. In theory I'd be fine with saying that we
have to let an author know we're placing their story in its third
choice and give them a chance to suggest something else, but this would
run into the same problems you're seeing with the sub-cat shuffling I'm
suggesting. Perhaps the easiest solution would be to only require
first- and second-choice categories, and if neither of those work go
back to the author. Not sure how feasible that is, though.

It seems like discussion on this has pretty well died down. Should we
have a poll on it?

Marta

Msg# 6757

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Kathy January 19, 2006 - 0:29:43 Topic ID# 6735
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:

> It seems like discussion on this has pretty well died down. Should
> we have a poll on it?

The question being, should authors be allowed to request a new
subcategory if they don't like the one they're assigned? To clarify
further what's being proposed, are you seeing this only as an option
to move OUT of a subcategory, or also the option to request a move
INTO a specific new subcat? If the latter, I can foresee situations
where everyone wants to move into a "popular" subcat, and wonder how
that would be handled: first come, first served?

Given the lack of discussion, I find myself wondering how big of a
problem this actually was last year. Marta, did you propose this
because you heard a lot of complaints about subcat assignments? I
know there was a fair amount of confusion about subcats generally,
and how to choose subcat suggestions for the nominating form, but
were there many authors who were unhappy with the subcats they were
assigned?

Perhaps rather than a poll, this is an issue that should be decided
by the categorizers once they have signed on this year, since they
are the ones who would be the most affected by this proposal? Anyone
else have an opinion on this?

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6758

Re: "no-mail" members;w as: What is the problem to which "reduce th Posted by Marta Layton January 19, 2006 - 6:29:17 Topic ID# 6758
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 02:32:55 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: RE: What is the problem to which "reduce the points
> scale" is the answer? (Ainae)
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>>
>>
>> As for the 500-ish members in 2004.... you have to remember that a
>> lot
>> of Yahoo groups have a problem with low participation. Chew on this:
>> out of the 319 members of this group, 184 either don't receive emails
>> or receive only special notices. This doesn't mean they don't
>> participate at all, but it is a pretty good indication. Oh, and 24
>> members are bouncing.
>>
>
> Don't know if there are many members like me, but I prefer to read at
> the MEFA Yahoo group site, and have my email preference set to special
> notices only. So that's not always an indicator of low participation.
> But I may be an exception to the rule...
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>

It seems like there are more members like you than I thought. I know in
the past when I didn't want to follow a group at the moment but hoped
to in the future (or didn't want to cut all emotional ties) I set
myself to no-mail. And I just assumed there were others like me. There
may be, but there are at least two people who are on no mail and read
at the group - and I'd wager more than that.

I still think there are lots of people who are members but don't follow
along. It's the nature of requiring membership to join the website. But
I was wrong to assume that everyone on no-mail didn't follow the group.

Thanks,
Marta

Msg# 6759

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by sulriel January 19, 2006 - 7:56:21 Topic ID# 6735
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com,
Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> > It seems like discussion on this has pretty well died down. Should
> > we have a poll on it?
>
> The question being, should authors be allowed to request a new
> subcategory if they don't like the one they're assigned? <<snipped>>
> Given the lack of discussion, I find myself wondering how big of a
> problem this actually was last year. Marta, did you propose this
> because you heard a lot of complaints about subcat assignments?

I've stayed out of this thread because I didn't help cagetogorize last
year and don't plan to this year. - but knowing human nature, it
seems that you are setting up the categorizes for an awful lot more
work, and setting up potential for conflict with the authors.

of those I nominated, I was somewhat unhappy with where some ended up
last year - but I trust that the categorizes did the best they could -
and of course, all turned out well in the end.

I think if the authors are allowed to list/approve possible subcates
when they approve the nomination, those suggestions should be used in
order of preference and 'that should be that'.

I can't imagine the amount of work involved in trying to move
nominations around once the categories have already been set. ... even
something as simple as trying to verify the time stamp on an email to
see which of two request should be honor has to take into account
world time zones, - do you use the time it says it was sent or the
time it was recved by the liason? What if one gets lost, stories are
moved, and then the the *real* first request can't be honored. .. are
the others moved back ... ???

Sulriel (not asking for trouble, just seeing a lot of potential)

Msg# 6760

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by aelfwina@cableone.net January 19, 2006 - 13:03:16 Topic ID# 6735
I think that the authors should be allowed to list a limited number of
possible sub-categories (maybe more than three, maybe five), and their order
of preference. But I think it should be made clear at the outset that these
preferences are subject to the vagaries of sub-category viability, and that
if it does not land in the preferred sub-category *that's it*. I
categorized last year, and I know a bit more about it now than I did
then--we don't need to set up more work or worry for those doing the
sub-categorization. (I know I often stressed over where to place a story.)
If an author *strongly* objects to a sub-category, that should be taken in a
case-by-case basis by one of the admins, and the author should have the
option of withdrawing the story. I know this sounds a little strict, but I
think with a drop-down list of sub-categories this year, rather than the
categorizer simply making them up as she goes there should be far less
trouble on that score--that's one of the reasons that an author would have
said "Oh, I didn't know there was one of *those*!" when such a sub-category
did not even exist before.

I suggest that while we are still in post-mortem mode, and before Anthony
gets busy setting up next year's site, that the MEFA staff list asks
categorizers to brainstorm possible sub-categories for such a drop-down
list, so as to get as wide a selection as possible. Offering "other" as an
option is good, but if we have a good selection, it should not have to be
used very often.

Just me.
Dreamflower

Msg# 6761

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Kathy January 19, 2006 - 14:24:41 Topic ID# 6735
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
>
> I think that the authors should be allowed to list a limited
number of
> possible sub-categories (maybe more than three, maybe five), and
their order
> of preference. But I think it should be made clear at the outset
that these
> preferences are subject to the vagaries of sub-category viability,
and that
> if it does not land in the preferred sub-category *that's it*. I
> categorized last year, and I know a bit more about it now than I
did
> then--we don't need to set up more work or worry for those doing
the
> sub-categorization. (I know I often stressed over where to place a
story.)
> If an author *strongly* objects to a sub-category, that should be
taken in a
> case-by-case basis by one of the admins, and the author should have
the
> option of withdrawing the story. I know this sounds a little
strict, but I
> think with a drop-down list of sub-categories this year, rather
than the
> categorizer simply making them up as she goes there should be far
less
> trouble on that score--that's one of the reasons that an author
would have
> said "Oh, I didn't know there was one of *those*!" when such a sub-
category
> did not even exist before.
>
> I suggest that while we are still in post-mortem mode, and before
Anthony
> gets busy setting up next year's site, that the MEFA staff list
asks
> categorizers to brainstorm possible sub-categories for such a drop-
down
> list, so as to get as wide a selection as possible.
Offering "other" as an
> option is good, but if we have a good selection, it should not have
to be
> used very often.
>
> Just me.
> Dreamflower

This all makes sense to me...the more I think about it, and hear
others' thoughts, the less I like the idea of allowing subcat
transfer requests. Why don't we wait and see how things go with the
new info we're providing on subcats this year?

Dreamflower, re: the drop-down idea, there may be too many subcat
possibilities for a workable drop-down menu, but IIRC the new form
will link to a complete list of all subcats that have been used in
the first two years of the MEFAs (Dwim or Marta, is that correct?)
But the result should be pretty much what you have in mind: providing
more guidance to authors in suggesting subcats.

Kathy (Inkling)

Msg# 6762

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by rhapsody\_the\_bard January 19, 2006 - 16:51:59 Topic ID# 6735
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
>
> I think that the authors should be allowed to list a limited number
> of possible sub-categories (maybe more than three, maybe five), and
> their order of preference. But I think it should be made clear at
> the outset that these preferences are subject to the vagaries of
> sub-category viability, and that if it does not land in the
> preferred sub-category *that's it*.

I completely agree. That was also the message a liason (as instructed
) passed on when authors asked the questions about selecting the
*main* categories. The first one they chose, that would be the first
one to run in, in case that category would not have enough stories to
compete, then the second option would be used..... That is how it was
instructed to me and how I explained it to the authors. The
subcategories had to be selected in case a main category had so many
stories in it... it would be chopped up in smaller parts.

The form and author liaison instructions should cover this for this
year. I know many questions were asked by the laison last year on the
staff list, so a wish from me is clearly liaison instructions for this
year. To achieve uniformity and a piece of guidance. We can make use
of the lessons learnt of the past year.

> I categorized last year, and I know a bit more about it now than I
> did then--we don't need to set up more work or worry for those doing
> the sub-categorization. (I know I often stressed over where to place
> a story.)

That wasn't an issue at all as far as I can remember. Besides
labelling poetry as drinking songs. We need to list that as a sub
category so that an author can choose themselves instead of the
categoriser. The categoriser, in principle shouldn't be looking so
closely to a story at all, the basic info provided should be enough so
that a categoriser doesn't start to interpreter things. The moment
this happens, you loose all transparency and try to explain that.
Author provides the info, knows their material the best: it should be
enough.

> If an author *strongly* objects to a sub-category, that should be
> taken in a case-by-case basis by one of the admins, and the author
> should have the option of withdrawing the story. I know this sounds
> a little strict, but I think with a drop-down list of
> sub-categories this year, rather than the categorizer simply making
> them up as she goes there should be far less trouble on that
> score--that's one of the reasons that an author would have
> said "Oh, I didn't know there was one of *those*!" when such a
> sub-category did not even exist before.

LOL yes. But I am wondering how many complaints about a wrongly chosen
sub categories there were. It was all in the author's hands to provide
them to begin with.

> I suggest that while we are still in post-mortem mode, and before
> Anthony gets busy setting up next year's site, that the MEFA staff
> list asks categorizers to brainstorm possible sub-categories for
> such a drop-down list, so as to get as wide a selection as possible.
> Offering "other" as an option is good, but if we have a good
> selection, it should not have to be used very often.

Yups, makes sense to me :)The past two years should give a nice overview.

Rhapsody

Msg# 6763

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Marta Layton January 22, 2006 - 0:09:33 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 06:26:48 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: categorization/changing subcategories
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
>> It seems like discussion on this has pretty well died down. Should
>> we have a poll on it?
>
> The question being, should authors be allowed to request a new
> subcategory if they don't like the one they're assigned?

Yes, that's what I was suggesting.

> To clarify
> further what's being proposed, are you seeing this only as an option
> to move OUT of a subcategory, or also the option to request a move
> INTO a specific new subcat?

Well, I would certainly think people could request to be moved into a
certain subcategory. After all, the subcategory their story was placed
in is based on informamtion the author provided, so they shouldn't be
put into a *bad* subcategory - there may just be a better one.

> If the latter, I can foresee situations
> where everyone wants to move into a "popular" subcat, and wonder how
> that would be handled: first come, first served?
>

Definitely first come first serve. And I think we can cut down on this
by not releasing the names of the other stories in the sub-cat. You'd
be requesting a move solely on whether you thought a sub-cat fit your
story - not on the potential competition.

> Given the lack of discussion, I find myself wondering how big of a
> problem this actually was last year. Marta, did you propose this
> because you heard a lot of complaints about subcat assignments? I
> know there was a fair amount of confusion about subcats generally,
> and how to choose subcat suggestions for the nominating form, but
> were there many authors who were unhappy with the subcats they were
> assigned?
>

Yes, there were quite a few. I think there were around half a dozen
stories that I heard of from friends. I think this will be helped
greatly by the new nomination form, maybe even so much that we won't
have a problem. I don't know, that's impossible to predict.

My other motivation for propositng thios was that I think it would take
the potential blame off categorisers for creating categories that were
"unfair". If one ended up being more competitive than another, it's
just the luck of the drew.

> Perhaps rather than a poll, this is an issue that should be decided
> by the categorizers once they have signed on this year, since they
> are the ones who would be the most affected by this proposal? Anyone
> else have an opinion on this?
>

I'm fine with that.

Cheers,
Marta


*****
"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness
that most frightens us. [...] As we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

(Nelson Mandela)

Msg# 6764

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Marta Layton January 22, 2006 - 19:58:06 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:55:00 -0000
> From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@htcomp.net>
> Subject: Re: categorization/changing subcategories
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com,
> Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>>
>>> It seems like discussion on this has pretty well died down. Should
>>> we have a poll on it?
>>
>> The question being, should authors be allowed to request a new
>> subcategory if they don't like the one they're assigned? <<snipped>>
>> Given the lack of discussion, I find myself wondering how big of a
>> problem this actually was last year. Marta, did you propose this
>> because you heard a lot of complaints about subcat assignments?
>
> I've stayed out of this thread because I didn't help cagetogorize last
> year and don't plan to this year. - but knowing human nature, it
> seems that you are setting up the categorizes for an awful lot more
> work, and setting up potential for conflict with the authors.
>
> of those I nominated, I was somewhat unhappy with where some ended up
> last year - but I trust that the categorizes did the best they could -
> and of course, all turned out well in the end.
>
> I think if the authors are allowed to list/approve possible subcates
> when they approve the nomination, those suggestions should be used in
> order of preference and 'that should be that'.

> I can't imagine the amount of work involved in trying to move
> nominations around once the categories have already been set. ... even
> something as simple as trying to verify the time stamp on an email to
> see which of two request should be honor has to take into account
> world time zones, - do you use the time it says it was sent or the
> time it was recved by the liason? What if one gets lost, stories are
> moved, and then the the *real* first request can't be honored. .. are
> the others moved back ... ???
>

If there isn't a problem, I don't want to try to fix it. This seems
like it could be good, but after seeing what everyone else is saying
I'm not sure the good outweighs the increase in work. There were a lot
of wrinkles in how categorising went this year, and maybe we don't need
to change much there if we could help it.

This has me wondering, though... Dwim's proposed form (still in the
files) doesn't rank the potential subcategories. If someone has a
strong preference they could mention it to the liaison and the liaisson
could make a note of it. But this makes me wonder whether we should
rank sub-categories, too, like we rank categories. I don't think so --
it would be a logistical nightmare because the range of choices is
exponentially larger than with subcategories -- but I'm not sure how
else to address this problem, if it is one.

My gut? It's not a huge problem, and I think our current categorisation
scheme (without allowing ranking of categories) is the best bet we have
for next year.

Marta

Msg# 6765

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Marta Layton January 22, 2006 - 20:56:11 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:37:55 -0600
> From: <aelfwina@cableone.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: categorization/changing subcategories
>
> I think that the authors should be allowed to list a limited number of
> possible sub-categories (maybe more than three, maybe five), and their
> order
> of preference. But I think it should be made clear at the outset that
> these
> preferences are subject to the vagaries of sub-category viability, and
> that
> if it does not land in the preferred sub-category *that's it*. I
> categorized last year, and I know a bit more about it now than I did
> then--we don't need to set up more work or worry for those doing the
> sub-categorization. (I know I often stressed over where to place a
> story.)
> If an author *strongly* objects to a sub-category, that should be
> taken in a
> case-by-case basis by one of the admins, and the author should have the
> option of withdrawing the story. I know this sounds a little strict,
> but I
> think with a drop-down list of sub-categories this year, rather than
> the
> categorizer simply making them up as she goes there should be far less
> trouble on that score--that's one of the reasons that an author would
> have
> said "Oh, I didn't know there was one of *those*!" when such a
> sub-category
> did not even exist before.
>
> I suggest that while we are still in post-mortem mode, and before
> Anthony
> gets busy setting up next year's site, that the MEFA staff list asks
> categorizers to brainstorm possible sub-categories for such a drop-down
> list, so as to get as wide a selection as possible. Offering "other"
> as an
> option is good, but if we have a good selection, it should not have to
> be
> used very often.
>
> Just me.
> Dreamflower
>

Hi Dreamflower,

Can you access the files section of the website? Dwimordene came up
with a form that I think we'll be using. I'll include the pertinent
section for subcategories in case you can't.

Anyway, the way we're looking at doing it now, the author provides
things like a list of characters, major events it's set around, etc. --
it guides the author through providing some information that provides
subcategories, and it also provides a way to filter stories so you can
find all the stories, for example, involving Pippin. What you're
suggesting would be a pretty radical step back to how we did things
last year, with just a freeform "suggest-a-subcat" field. There was a
lot of confusion with what exactly people were supposed to use. I
really think the file as we have it now will work a lot better.

The biggest problem is it doesn't give a way to rank the subcats. I
wouldn't mind having a way to mark a certain sub-cat as your first
choice or even second choice sub-cat, but I don't want to go too far
away from what we already have.

Marta
*****

SUBCATEGORIES

Please fill in the following information./[Please select the following
from the drop-down lists provided or, if necessary, input the required
information in the "Other" textbox.] Your answers to these questions
will help MEFA categorizers place your story into a <link FAQ
explanation of...>subcategory</link>, subject to subcategory viability
rules. If you do NOT want your story to compete in a subcategory based
on the answer to a particular question (if, for example, your story is
set in Rohan but you do not want this to be its subcategory), OR if
answering a question would serve as a spoiler to your story (e.g.,
entering your story into subcategory "Bilbo" derived from question 2
would give away who the narrator was, when keeping that information
hidden for a time was important to your plot), please check the box
"Decline to answer."

1. Where does your story primarily take place, or about which place
does your story revolve (e.g., Gondolin, Houses of Healing, Beleriand,
Rohan, The Angle, The Shire, Angband etc.)? Please limit yourself to
four or fewer main places.

Check box: Decline to answer

2. Who are your *main* characters, in order of priority? (Acknowledged
groups such as "Fellowship", "Ringbearers", "Feanorians", etc., also
useful here.) Please limit yourself to *four or fewer* main
characters/groups of characters.

Check box: Decline to answer

3. Which time periods *NOT* listed above does the story primarily take
place in/focus on (e.g., Pre-quest, Time of Trees, War of the Ring,
etc.)? Please limit yourself to four or fewer times.

Check box: Decline to answer

4. If your story is based on filmed versions of Tolkien's work, which
film/set of films is it based on?

Check box: Decline to answer

5. Is there a major canonical event around which your story revolves
(e.g., Akallabeth, destruction of Sirion, making of Khazad-dûm, Battle
of Unnumbered Tears, etc.)? Please limit yourself to four or fewer
events.

Check box: Decline to answer

6. Is there a particular subgenre or form commonly used in fandom or
film/literature that you think is applicable to and a good description
of your story that isn't represented above (e.g., metafic, noir,
pastische, filk, etc.)?

Check box: Decline to answer

7. If your story is a poem, what is its form (e.g., haiku, tanka,
terzanelle, sonnet, free verse etc.)?

Check box: Decline to answer

8. If your story is non-fiction, what is its main topic?

Check box: Decline to answer

9. If your story is non-fiction, is it an essay (offering
interpretation) or an article (research article meant to assist others
by gathering and presenting useful facts, but without offering an
interpretation)?

Check box: Decline to answer


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

Msg# 6766

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Marta Layton January 22, 2006 - 21:03:41 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:23:31 -0000
> From: "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: categorization/changing subcategories
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
>>
>> I think that the authors should be allowed to list a limited
> number of
>> possible sub-categories (maybe more than three, maybe five), and
> their order
>> of preference. But I think it should be made clear at the outset
> that these
>> preferences are subject to the vagaries of sub-category viability,
> and that
>> if it does not land in the preferred sub-category *that's it*. I
>> categorized last year, and I know a bit more about it now than I
> did
>> then--we don't need to set up more work or worry for those doing
> the
>> sub-categorization. (I know I often stressed over where to place a
> story.)
>> If an author *strongly* objects to a sub-category, that should be
> taken in a
>> case-by-case basis by one of the admins, and the author should have
> the
>> option of withdrawing the story. I know this sounds a little
> strict, but I
>> think with a drop-down list of sub-categories this year, rather
> than the
>> categorizer simply making them up as she goes there should be far
> less
>> trouble on that score--that's one of the reasons that an author
> would have
>> said "Oh, I didn't know there was one of *those*!" when such a sub-
> category
>> did not even exist before.
>>
>> I suggest that while we are still in post-mortem mode, and before
> Anthony
>> gets busy setting up next year's site, that the MEFA staff list
> asks
>> categorizers to brainstorm possible sub-categories for such a drop-
> down
>> list, so as to get as wide a selection as possible.
> Offering "other" as an
>> option is good, but if we have a good selection, it should not have
> to be
>> used very often.
>>
>> Just me.
>> Dreamflower
>
> This all makes sense to me...the more I think about it, and hear
> others' thoughts, the less I like the idea of allowing subcat
> transfer requests. Why don't we wait and see how things go with the
> new info we're providing on subcats this year?
>
> Dreamflower, re: the drop-down idea, there may be too many subcat
> possibilities for a workable drop-down menu, but IIRC the new form
> will link to a complete list of all subcats that have been used in
> the first two years of the MEFAs (Dwim or Marta, is that correct?)
> But the result should be pretty much what you have in mind: providing
> more guidance to authors in suggesting subcats.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)
>

I honestly can't remember. I know there's a list of all the past
sub-catsin the categories and subcategories FAQ, and that's linked to,
but I can't remember if it links directly to the list. But that
shouldn't be so hard to do, if we want to.

Marta

Msg# 6767

Re: What is the problem to which "reduce the points scale" is the a Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 22, 2006 - 23:42:26 Topic ID# 6741
I have no problem with that. Heck, I've not even been a good lurker this
year. I just fear that too many decisions are made by too few that effect
everyone and that everyone may not be happy with. If that's the case, I
simply advocate more people getting involved in those decisions.

--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 rhapsody_the_bard
> Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 1:00 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: What is the problem to which "reduce
> the points scale" is the answer? (Ainae
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "elliska67" <elliska67@y...> wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > I am one of the people in this group that does not receive
> emails or
> > even special notices--I read everything online. Why? Not because I
> > don't participate. Not because I don't read what's going on. Simply
> > because I don't want 50-100 emails from the 13 very active groups I
> > belong to innundating my mail box every day. I couldn't keep them
> > straight much less read them. I find reading online to be more
> > organized. And I know a lot of people who feel the same.
> >
> > My point: I think we sometimes draw conclusions that aren't
> > necessarily valid in all cases. I'm not arguing for/against
> anything
> > in particular that has been suggested or decided; I'm just
> cautioning
> > against making assumptions. :-)
>
> What she said. I am on no mail for most of my groups or on
> special notice, also for this group. But I am still active...
> that is if I have the energy to log in.
>
> Rhapsody
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6768

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Ainaechoiriel January 22, 2006 - 23:45:15 Topic ID# 6735
Just one thought: What are the consequences for author if they "decline to
answer" everything? Will they remain in General? The consequences should
probably be stated.

--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 Marta Layton
> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 8:56 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: Re: categorization/changing subcategories
>
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:37:55 -0600
> > From: <aelfwina@cableone.net>
> > Subject: Re: Re: categorization/changing subcategories
> >
> > I think that the authors should be allowed to list a
> limited number
> > of possible sub-categories (maybe more than three, maybe five), and
> > their order of preference. But I think it should be made
> clear at the
> > outset that these preferences are subject to the vagaries of
> > sub-category viability, and that if it does not land in the
> preferred
> > sub-category *that's it*. I categorized last year, and I
> know a bit
> > more about it now than I did then--we don't need to set up
> more work
> > or worry for those doing the sub-categorization. (I know I often
> > stressed over where to place a
> > story.)
> > If an author *strongly* objects to a sub-category, that should be
> > taken in a case-by-case basis by one of the admins, and the author
> > should have the option of withdrawing the story. I know
> this sounds a
> > little strict, but I think with a drop-down list of sub-categories
> > this year, rather than the categorizer simply making them up as she
> > goes there should be far less trouble on that score--that's
> one of the
> > reasons that an author would have said "Oh, I didn't know there was
> > one of *those*!" when such a sub-category did not even exist before.
> >
> > I suggest that while we are still in post-mortem mode, and before
> > Anthony gets busy setting up next year's site, that the MEFA staff
> > list asks categorizers to brainstorm possible
> sub-categories for such
> > a drop-down list, so as to get as wide a selection as possible.
> > Offering "other"
> > as an
> > option is good, but if we have a good selection, it should
> not have to
> > be used very often.
> >
> > Just me.
> > Dreamflower
> >
>
> Hi Dreamflower,
>
> Can you access the files section of the website? Dwimordene
> came up with a form that I think we'll be using. I'll include
> the pertinent section for subcategories in case you can't.
>
> Anyway, the way we're looking at doing it now, the author
> provides things like a list of characters, major events it's
> set around, etc. -- it guides the author through providing
> some information that provides subcategories, and it also
> provides a way to filter stories so you can find all the
> stories, for example, involving Pippin. What you're
> suggesting would be a pretty radical step back to how we did
> things last year, with just a freeform "suggest-a-subcat"
> field. There was a lot of confusion with what exactly people
> were supposed to use. I really think the file as we have it
> now will work a lot better.
>
> The biggest problem is it doesn't give a way to rank the
> subcats. I wouldn't mind having a way to mark a certain
> sub-cat as your first choice or even second choice sub-cat,
> but I don't want to go too far away from what we already have.
>
> Marta
> *****
>
> SUBCATEGORIES
>
> Please fill in the following information./[Please select the
> following from the drop-down lists provided or, if necessary,
> input the required information in the "Other" textbox.] Your
> answers to these questions will help MEFA categorizers place
> your story into a <link FAQ explanation
> of...>subcategory</link>, subject to subcategory viability
> rules. If you do NOT want your story to compete in a
> subcategory based on the answer to a particular question (if,
> for example, your story is set in Rohan but you do not want
> this to be its subcategory), OR if answering a question would
> serve as a spoiler to your story (e.g., entering your story
> into subcategory "Bilbo" derived from question 2 would give
> away who the narrator was, when keeping that information
> hidden for a time was important to your plot), please check
> the box "Decline to answer."
>
> 1. Where does your story primarily take place, or about which
> place does your story revolve (e.g., Gondolin, Houses of
> Healing, Beleriand, Rohan, The Angle, The Shire, Angband
> etc.)? Please limit yourself to four or fewer main places.
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 2. Who are your *main* characters, in order of priority?
> (Acknowledged groups such as "Fellowship", "Ringbearers",
> "Feanorians", etc., also useful here.) Please limit yourself
> to *four or fewer* main characters/groups of characters.
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 3. Which time periods *NOT* listed above does the story
> primarily take place in/focus on (e.g., Pre-quest, Time of
> Trees, War of the Ring, etc.)? Please limit yourself to four
> or fewer times.
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 4. If your story is based on filmed versions of Tolkien's
> work, which film/set of films is it based on?
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 5. Is there a major canonical event around which your story
> revolves (e.g., Akallabeth, destruction of Sirion, making of
> Khazad-dûm, Battle of Unnumbered Tears, etc.)? Please limit
> yourself to four or fewer events.
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 6. Is there a particular subgenre or form commonly used in
> fandom or film/literature that you think is applicable to and
> a good description of your story that isn't represented above
> (e.g., metafic, noir, pastische, filk, etc.)?
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 7. If your story is a poem, what is its form (e.g., haiku,
> tanka, terzanelle, sonnet, free verse etc.)?
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 8. If your story is non-fiction, what is its main topic?
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
> 9. If your story is non-fiction, is it an essay (offering
> interpretation) or an article (research article meant to
> assist others by gathering and presenting useful facts, but
> without offering an interpretation)?
>
> Check box: Decline to answer
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Msg# 6769

Re: categorization/changing subcategories Posted by Marta Layton January 23, 2006 - 6:16:31 Topic ID# 6735
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:43:13 -0600
> From: "Ainaechoiriel" <mefaadmin@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: Re: Re: categorization/changing subcategories
>
> Just one thought: What are the consequences for author if they
> "decline to
> answer" everything? Will they remain in General? The consequences
> should
> probably be stated.
>

I guess they'd have to. Hadn't thought of that. And I don't think
that's the end of the world (suggesting subcats was optional at least
in 2004 -- can't remember about 2005) but you're right, it probably is
something that needs to be made clear.

If I was an author liaison and my author filled out the form but
checked "decline to answer" for all the subcat stuff, I'd probably ask
them to make sure they meant to do that.

Marta

Msg# 6770

post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by sulriel January 30, 2006 - 21:00:35 Topic ID# 6770
Hopefully this is the last topic and we'll be able to hand the
changes over the Anthony and start looking forward to this year's
competition. Marta asked me to moderate this last topic, so 'here
goes'.


Initially, (as I understand it) membership in the yahoogroup was
required because the votes were posted to this list, and because it
gave us some basis for keeping up with people in an attempt to keep
people from 'sock-puppeting', that is vote for themselves under a
different ID, or adding up votes for their friends under a couple of
different IDs.

It's also a great advantage to have the list available for questions
and discussion.

It's been suggested the yahoogroup membership requirement be dropped.

* it's believed that potential members are put off by the requirement
* many people unsubscribe from the list


Thoughts / comments ??

Sulriel

Msg# 6771

Re: post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by Kathy January 31, 2006 - 2:20:06 Topic ID# 6770
Hi Sulriel,

You're just talking about voting, right? Membership would still be
required to nominate stories, I assume...

Kathy

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
> Hopefully this is the last topic and we'll be able to hand the
> changes over the Anthony and start looking forward to this year's
> competition. Marta asked me to moderate this last topic, so 'here
> goes'.
>
>
> Initially, (as I understand it) membership in the yahoogroup was
> required because the votes were posted to this list, and because it
> gave us some basis for keeping up with people in an attempt to keep
> people from 'sock-puppeting', that is vote for themselves under a
> different ID, or adding up votes for their friends under a couple
of
> different IDs.
>
> It's also a great advantage to have the list available for
questions
> and discussion.
>
> It's been suggested the yahoogroup membership requirement be
dropped.
>
> * it's believed that potential members are put off by the
requirement
> * many people unsubscribe from the list
>
>
> Thoughts / comments ??
>
> Sulriel
>

Msg# 6772

Re: post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by rabidsamfan January 31, 2006 - 5:59:29 Topic ID# 6770
Why would it be needed? If people could get a password for the main site,
there could be a webform for nominations.

Joining the Yahoo group, for all that I have spent a lot of time answering
e-mails here, felt like an extra hoop to jump throught. I very seldom look
at the group page, and if it weren't for cookies remembering yet another
password, I'd never be signed in there. I know my reaction to "you have to
join the Yahoo Group" was "Do I really want to do this that much?"

It's probably more vital for the post-mortem discussion, though...


On 1/31/06, Kathy <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Sulriel,
>
> You're just talking about voting, right? Membership would still be
> required to nominate stories, I assume...
>
> Kathy
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> >
> > Hopefully this is the last topic and we'll be able to hand the
> > changes over the Anthony and start looking forward to this year's
> > competition. Marta asked me to moderate this last topic, so 'here
> > goes'.
> >
> >
> > Initially, (as I understand it) membership in the yahoogroup was
> > required because the votes were posted to this list, and because it
> > gave us some basis for keeping up with people in an attempt to keep
> > people from 'sock-puppeting', that is vote for themselves under a
> > different ID, or adding up votes for their friends under a couple
> of
> > different IDs.
> >
> > It's also a great advantage to have the list available for
> questions
> > and discussion.
> >
> > It's been suggested the yahoogroup membership requirement be
> dropped.
> >
> > * it's believed that potential members are put off by the
> requirement
> > * many people unsubscribe from the list
> >
> >
> > Thoughts / comments ??
> >
> > Sulriel
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> 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]

Msg# 6773

Re: post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by sulriel January 31, 2006 - 7:22:44 Topic ID# 6770
Inkling: Yes, this discussion is only in regards to this list.
Membership will still be required to nominate/vote at the database.

RSF: Those are the questions we need to kinda kick around.

Are there any advantages to requiring memebership here that aren't
outweighed by the disadvantages?

Sulriel

Msg# 6774

Re: post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by Kathy January 31, 2006 - 12:35:46 Topic ID# 6770
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, rabidsamfan <rabidsamfan@v...>
> wrote:
>
> Why would it be needed? If people could get a password for the
> main site, there could be a webform for nominations.

I guess I'm seeing Yahoo group membership as a way to help keep the
overall number of nominations manageable.

As for the group being a hoop to jump through, it's never felt that
way to me because after joining I just bookmarked the site, so I've
never had to use my password to sign in since. In fact, I have no
idea what my password is!

Kathy (Inkling)

>
> Joining the Yahoo group, for all that I have spent a lot of time
answering
> e-mails here, felt like an extra hoop to jump throught. I very
seldom look
> at the group page, and if it weren't for cookies remembering yet
another
> password, I'd never be signed in there. I know my reaction
to "you have to
> join the Yahoo Group" was "Do I really want to do this that much?"
>
> It's probably more vital for the post-mortem discussion, though...
>
>
> On 1/31/06, Kathy <inkling-tcbs@s...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Sulriel,
> >
> > You're just talking about voting, right? Membership would still
be
> > required to nominate stories, I assume...
> >
> > Kathy
> >
> > --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hopefully this is the last topic and we'll be able to hand the
> > > changes over the Anthony and start looking forward to this
year's
> > > competition. Marta asked me to moderate this last topic,
so 'here
> > > goes'.
> > >
> > >
> > > Initially, (as I understand it) membership in the yahoogroup was
> > > required because the votes were posted to this list, and
because it
> > > gave us some basis for keeping up with people in an attempt to
keep
> > > people from 'sock-puppeting', that is vote for themselves under
a
> > > different ID, or adding up votes for their friends under a
couple
> > of
> > > different IDs.
> > >
> > > It's also a great advantage to have the list available for
> > questions
> > > and discussion.
> > >
> > > It's been suggested the yahoogroup membership requirement be
> > dropped.
> > >
> > > * it's believed that potential members are put off by the
> > requirement
> > > * many people unsubscribe from the list
> > >
> > >
> > > Thoughts / comments ??
> > >
> > > Sulriel
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > 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]
>

Msg# 6775

Re: post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by Kathy January 31, 2006 - 12:49:40 Topic ID# 6770
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
>
> Inkling: Yes, this discussion is only in regards to this list.
> Membership will still be required to nominate/vote at the database.

Right, but I meant would membership in the *Yahoo group* still be a
requirement to nominate, even if not to vote...or do you see
nominating and voting privileges as needing to go together?

Kathy

>
> RSF: Those are the questions we need to kinda kick around.
>
> Are there any advantages to requiring memebership here that aren't
> outweighed by the disadvantages?
>
> Sulriel
>

Msg# 6776

Re: post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by rabidsamfan January 31, 2006 - 13:09:59 Topic ID# 6770
Oh, I'm not saying it's necessarily unnecessary to have people join the
Yahoo group -- but I think that having to create two "memberships" -- one at
Yahoo and one at the main site -- is something which discourages
participation. I mean, I was nominated as an author and had an author
password, and *still* couldn't vote until I'd gone through the Yahoo group
process. And I couldn't see the use of it.

For discussion like this, "the use of it" is a little more apparent. But
there are other mechanisms which might do the same job, like a message
board. An e-mail list could be used for notifications, and in fact might
be advantageous for very important announcements because it wouldn't be
overriden by someone who had checked off a box to avoid getting the
run-of-the-mill e-mails.

So what does the Yahoo group do, what does it provide, that can't be done at
the other site?


On 1/31/06, Kathy <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Inkling: Yes, this discussion is only in regards to this list.
> > Membership will still be required to nominate/vote at the database.
>
> Right, but I meant would membership in the *Yahoo group* still be a
> requirement to nominate, even if not to vote...or do you see
> nominating and voting privileges as needing to go together?
>
> Kathy
>
> >
> > RSF: Those are the questions we need to kinda kick around.
> >
> > Are there any advantages to requiring memebership here that aren't
> > outweighed by the disadvantages?
> >
> > Sulriel
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> 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]

Msg# 6777

Re: post-mortem: Yahoo membership requirement to vote. Posted by ainaechoiriel January 31, 2006 - 13:20:34 Topic ID# 6770
--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "sulriel" <Sulriel@h...> wrote:
>
>
> Inkling: Yes, this discussion is only in regards to this list.
> Membership will still be required to nominate/vote at the database.
>
> RSF: Those are the questions we need to kinda kick around.
>
> Are there any advantages to requiring memebership here that aren't
> outweighed by the disadvantages?
>
> Sulriel

Advantages (as I see them)

1) At least some ability to limit sockpuppetting.
2) How else can we communicate with voters during any of the seasons
if they aren't members here? We can't send a mass e-mail from the
website. We don't actually have e-mail capabilities there.
3) There's something to be said about those who invest in the group
(if by nothing else than joining) being the voters, rather than just
anybody who stops by on their way through the internet.
4) Detractors could cause major problems without it. We can remove
flamers, spammers, trolls, etc., from this group and thus membership
to the MEFA2005 (2006?) site easily. People who don't like what we're
doing here might be tempted to try to ruin it for everyone by
votestacking on particularly bad stories (could be even nominated by
one who joined for this purpose) or some other nefarious means. How
would we stop them? And how would we stop them from voting with all
nine of their e-mail addresses each (Hey, I've got at least nine
myself) or from different computers (I've got 7, though yes they do
all show as the same IP address, but still I have two at work as well,
and there are always internet cafes)?

(At ASC, to show some precedent, they get suspicious when they see a
new voter pop out of the woodwork. They don't automatically
disqualify that vote, but they start investigating. Why? Vote
stacking. Getting your friends to come over and vote. If you haven't
posted to the newsgroup before--there's no membership in a
newsgroup--they're likely to be suspicious. And yes, voting does
happen on the web there, too.)

--Ainaechoiriel