Readers choice awards suggestions

[Altimexis]

I know I've raised some of these issues in past years, and the rules are certainly set for this year, but I somehow feel we're comparing apples and oranges here.

 

First of all, some stories have been completed, some have not, and some are open-ended and have been in progress for more than a year or two. Can we really compare a story with only a few chapters to one with twenty or thirty? Is it fair to judge a story in which ten chapters were written in 2007, and one was written in 2008? Some short stories appeared in the anthologies, but some did not - are the non-anthology short stories supposed to go head-to-head with full novels? That hardly seems fair. How about the issue of promotion? Some eFiction authors were promoted to Promising this year, and some Promising authors were promoted to hosted, and I suspect the trend will continue. I know of at least one Promising author who is going to be promoted - is it fair for them to be competing with other Promising authors? There are so many issues!

 

My suggestions for 2009 are to give awards in the following categories:

 

1) a serial story of 50k words or more that was completed in 2009 by any GA author

2) a short story of less than 50 k words written by any GA author, other than an anthology entry

3) a poem written by any GA author

4) an anthology entry of any kind

5) an open-ended series of any kind written by a GA author

6) a not previously recognized GA story of any kind (i.e. an overlooked story from past years)

7) 1st, 2nd and 3rd place new GA authors (rookie authors) who have shown exceptional promise

8) a lifetime achievement award

9) a non-GA best story award

 

To me, this would make more sense!

[Myk]

I know I've raised some of these issues in past years, and the rules are certainly set for this year, but I somehow feel we're comparing apples and oranges here.

 

First of all, some stories have been completed, some have not, and some are open-ended and have been in progress for more than a year or two. Can we really compare a story with only a few chapters to one with twenty or thirty? Is it fair to judge a story in which ten chapters were written in 2007, and one was written in 2008? Some short stories appeared in the anthologies, but some did not - are the non-anthology short stories supposed to go head-to-head with full novels? That hardly seems fair. How about the issue of promotion? Some eFiction authors were promoted to Promising this year, and some Promising authors were promoted to hosted, and I suspect the trend will continue. I know of at least one Promising author who is going to be promoted - is it fair for them to be competing with other Promising authors? There are so many issues!

 

My suggestions for 2009 are to give awards in the following categories:

 

1) a serial story of 50k words or more that was completed in 2009 by any GA author

2) a short story of less than 50 k words written by any GA author, other than an anthology entry

3) a poem written by any GA author

4) an anthology entry of any kind

5) an open-ended series of any kind written by a GA author

6) a not previously recognized GA story of any kind (i.e. an overlooked story from past years)

7) 1st, 2nd and 3rd place new GA authors (rookie authors) who have shown exceptional promise

8) a lifetime achievement award

9) a non-GA best story award

 

To me, this would make more sense!

 

Hey Altimexis

 

Thanks for your imput on this, we really do appreciate suggestions, especially if they can help us improove/simplify this process! I think it is important for everyone to know that we, and by we I mean mostly the WST (except for CJ, who refuses to have a conflict of interest here) and a few other team members put a lot of thought and effort into making the awards work. What we have now is a result of several years of learning and several very long discussion threads. Whereas what we have may not be perfect, it is the best we have come up with, and that has proven to work in the past.

 

I know in some cases it does seem like we are comparing apples to oranges here, but that is way better than comparing apples to clouds, to palm trees. By reducing the awards for longer storis to 50k and under, and over 50k words, you are putting eFiction authors, up against not only promissing and shared, but hosted authors as well. It would take a really skilled writer who is just starting out to have a chance against the hosted authors. If they can...then I would imagine we would have promoted them by that point. Authors at the same hosting level are generally considered to be at or above a certain level of writing capabilities. So those that have been promoted this year are considered to be ready and at the next level, to judge their work along with those at the level they just advanced from may not be fair to those at that level. Its a situation of you're damned if you do, damned if you don't...but at least they got a promotion that year

 

Stoires spanning multiple years.....I've thought about this one before myself. Basically to police that, would be very difficult. I've come to peace with this problem myself in that storeis that post regularily, tend to develop quite a following, unlike those that are paced out a lot. So in theory that gives frequent posters a better chance, when infrequent posters may be up for awards in more than one year. Also say a story twice as long is being posted....maybe they deserve to get a shot at 2 sets of awards? Whereas someone else could write 2 stories in that time.

 

In regards to the author you are saying is 'about' to be promoted to promissing...I'm not sure who you are referring to there!! Anyone who is promoted to promissing, and accepts the offer is generally re-tagged within a week. I think you might have some bad info there, unless I'm out of the loop on this one. Any author being promoted to something higher where they need a site built, their promotion is announced when everything is ready to go online, before that they remain at the lower level.

 

Anyway thanks again for your suggestions, I'm sure we will add them to this year's post awards debate. That said I hope I've given some idea of why things are run the way they are. Any further questions/suggestions (from anyone), please feel free to PM or email any WST member and we will bring it to the rest of the group.

 

Thanks!

 

Greg

[Phoenix]

I know I've raised some of these issues in past years, and the rules are certainly set for this year, but I somehow feel we're comparing apples and oranges here.

 

First of all, some stories have been completed, some have not, and some are open-ended and have been in progress for more than a year or two. Can we really compare a story with only a few chapters to one with twenty or thirty? Is it fair to judge a story in which ten chapters were written in 2007, and one was written in 2008? Some short stories appeared in the anthologies, but some did not - are the non-anthology short stories supposed to go head-to-head with full novels? That hardly seems fair. How about the issue of promotion? Some eFiction authors were promoted to Promising this year, and some Promising authors were promoted to hosted, and I suspect the trend will continue. I know of at least one Promising author who is going to be promoted - is it fair for them to be competing with other Promising authors? There are so many issues!

 

My suggestions for 2009 are to give awards in the following categories:

 

1) a serial story of 50k words or more that was completed in 2009 by any GA author

2) a short story of less than 50 k words written by any GA author, other than an anthology entry

3) a poem written by any GA author

4) an anthology entry of any kind

5) an open-ended series of any kind written by a GA author

6) a not previously recognized GA story of any kind (i.e. an overlooked story from past years)

7) 1st, 2nd and 3rd place new GA authors (rookie authors) who have shown exceptional promise

8) a lifetime achievement award

9) a non-GA best story award

 

To me, this would make more sense!

 

I have a few additional category suggestions. Some are serious, some are tongue in cheek.

 

1) Protagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to become President of the United States

2) Protagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to be a communist

3) Antagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to succeed

4) Antagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to change the world

5) A GA story that has had great emotional impact on the reader

6) Most spirited antagonist form a GA story

7) Most athletic protagonist from a GA story

8) Worst eFiction Story by a New Author

9) Worst Hosted Story

10) GA Author most likely to get a real publishing contract (non-self published).

[shadowgod]

I have a few additional category suggestions. Some are serious, some are tongue in cheek.

 

1) Protagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to become President of the United States

2) Protagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to be a communist

3) Antagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to succeed

4) Antagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to change the world

5) A GA story that has had great emotional impact on the reader

6) Most spirited antagonist form a GA story

7) Most athletic protagonist from a GA story

8) Worst eFiction Story by a New Author

9) Worst Hosted Story

10) GA Author most likely to get a real publishing contract (non-self published).

 

this is not the place for suggestions. The topic is nominations.

 

As such it is being split from the pinned topic.

[Myk]

this is not the place for suggestions. The topic is nominations.

 

As such it is being split from the pinned topic.

Thanks Steve!!

 

I have a few additional category suggestions. Some are serious, some are tongue in cheek.

 

1) Protagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to become President of the United States

2) Protagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to be a communist

3) Antagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to succeed

4) Antagonist from a GA or non-GA story most likely to change the world

5) A GA story that has had great emotional impact on the reader

6) Most spirited antagonist form a GA story

7) Most athletic protagonist from a GA story

8) Worst eFiction Story by a New Author

9) Worst Hosted Story

10) GA Author most likely to get a real publishing contract (non-self published).

 

Thanks Pheonix!!

 

Like I was saying to Altimexis we really do appreciate the suggestions. I can tell you that we are hesitant to add a lot of categories to the voting. The reason being a few years back we did have a lot of categories and used a polling system. It ended up taking over 20 minutes to cast a vote and in the end it took way too much of Myr's time to setup the poll. That almost killed the awards until the WST volunteered to do the polling manually. Now every single vote must be counted individually by whoever manages the PM voting, same thing for the nominations (Thanks Sharon ). So we are careful about how many award categories we load ourselves down with . If things were different I think it would be great to have a lot of more 'fun' categories. As it is we just have the good old King/Queen of cliffhangers

 

In regards to having a 'worst' story category, I see how that could be 'tongue in cheek' but I think it might be better to avoid going that direction. Some people may not find it so funny but offensive instead. It could liven things up a bit , but that is probably not the direction we would consider going with the awards.

 

Thanks for the suggestions Pheonix

 

Greg

 

ps- I've started reading your story Mark's Lament, and I really like it. If you wanted to you can add your stories to the eFiction section. I know I'd read them

[Benji]

I wish I could nominate in another type of category, Best cliffhanging chapter by an off-site author

 

Chapter one, Dominoes by Cole Parker as hosted by Awesome

[Myk]

I wish I could nominate in another type of category, Best cliffhanging chapter by an off-site author

 

Chapter one, Dominoes by Cole Parker as hosted by Awesome

 

You can nominate non-GA authors for King/Queen of cliffhangers....hence how Graeme was nominated. I doubt we will ever include a 'Best chiffhanging chapter' but you never know!

 

Greg

[sat8997]

You can nominate non-GA authors for King/Queen of cliffhangers....hence how Graeme was nominated. I doubt we will ever include a 'Best chiffhanging chapter' but you never know!

 

Greg

 

As long as the author is also a member here at GA.

[Benji]

No, he is not a member here, making the point mute.

[TalonRider]

I'm a little late in posting in this discussion, but this is the first opportunity I've had to sit down and go over this seriously. As Deputy Lead of the WST, I'll expand a little on what Myk said.

 

Anyone who is promoted to promissing, and accepts the offer is generally re-tagged within a week. I think you might have some bad info there, unless I'm out of the loop on this one. Any author being promoted to something higher where they need a site built, their promotion is announced when everything is ready to go online, before that they remain at the lower level.

I handled the last four GA Promising Authors. Once the decision was made to make the offer, I pm'd each of them with the offer. They in turn, replied and I sent them instructions for the next step. They were to send a blurb about themselves and a banner to Steph. I then let Steph know who was going to be contacting her. Once she had the blurb and banner added to the Authors page, she let me know. I then contacted Joe for a change in tags. When Joe let me know the changes were done, I posted the announcement. All of this was done in just a few days. GA Promising Authors continue to post their stories in eFiction.

 

Once the offer is made and accepted for GA Hosted Author, then a website must be designed with the author and tech support working together and depending on what's going on behind the scenes that keep GA going, it can take some time before the site is ready to go.

 

Once we get this years awards done, the Team can then look into the categories for next years.

[hh5]

Its nice to have all these categories

 

My issue is that the GA Interface doesn't lend it self to allow me to view the stories in each category.

 

It be the risk of my own luck that I did leave a review for the story as a marker.

 

But then I would miss a story in that category that I had not read.

[Mark Arbour]

I handled the last four GA Promising Authors.

 

I just want you to know that it was good for me Jan.

[Myk]

Its nice to have all these categories

 

My issue is that the GA Interface doesn't lend it self to allow me to view the stories in each category.

 

It be the risk of my own luck that I did leave a review for the story as a marker.

 

But then I would miss a story in that category that I had not read.

You are right!! This has actually come up before. Graeme was nice enough, and I mean EXTREMELY nice to provide a list of all the 'new' anthology authors. For the WST to create a list of all the stories/authors for every category, well that would take an impossible amount of work.

 

Assuming you liked a story enough, you can look it up, see what category it is in and nominate it. The point is, if you read it and its good enough to stick in your head then you'll know what stories you want to nominate. All the stories have posted dates so its easy for readers to check and see if a story qualifies. To provide you with a list, it would be extremely long, and we couldn't expect you to go out and read them all anyway.

 

So unfortunately there is no easy way to have the software tell you which stories qualify, and at this time (and likely for all time) the WST will not be putting a list together. I am sorry, it just isn't feasable for us right now.

 

I just want you to know that it was good for me Jan.

 

...just don't expect the same level of service from the rest of the team

 

haha

 

G

[PlugInMatty]

8) Worst eFiction Story by a New Author

 

PlugInMatty ftw

[Graeme]

PlugInMatty ftw

You'd going to have to try a lot harder if you want that award. So far, what you've done it too good to win

[PlugInMatty]

You'd going to have to try a lot harder if you want that award. So far, what you've done it too good to win

 

Damn it, don't tell me I have to try harder?!?!?!

[NaperVic]

Was there consideration to using the 'Poll' feature or some other automated way to tally votes?

[sat8997]

Was there consideration to using the 'Poll' feature or some other automated way to tally votes?

 

There was. The polling software that was used a couple of years ago for these awards was too difficult to work with and overloaded the Admins with a lot of extra work. The poll feature that is used in the forums, while allowing for anonymous voting, visibly shows the vote totals. That seemed unfair to all the nominees. So we came up with a way to tally votes and keep them anonymous. It takes a little time and attention but it's not too complicated to handle.

[TalonRider]

Was there consideration to using the 'Poll' feature or some other automated way to tally votes?

To use the forum poll system would make everything public and could be potentially embarrassing to an individual(s). Lets say for example Author A receives 10, Author B 2, Author C 8, and Author D 0. Imagine how Authors B & D would feel with that being known.

 

Myr does have a program that he has used. Because it is time consuming for him to set up, the WST developed the system we are using currently. Sat8997 graciously volunteered to receive the nominations. When the nomination process was over, she supplied us with the top five nominee's. She alone knows how many nominations a story or author received.

 

Kurt volunteered to receive the votes. When the voting is over, he will post the list of winners to us (WST) and not the number of votes received. The award banners will then be made up for posting.

 

The Writers Support Team is made up of readers, authors, and editors. The authors, for obvious reasons, voluntarily stay out of any discussion.

[NaperVic]

So we came up with a way to tally votes and keep them anonymous.

 

The Writers Support Team is made up of readers, authors, and editors. The authors, for obvious reasons, voluntarily stay out of any discussion.

Wow, you guys on the WST are quick with the responses. Thanks for the insight.

Edited January 30, 2009 by NaperVic

[Myk]

Wow, you guys on the WST are quick with the responses. Thanks for the insight.

 

We aim to please