The Awards Feedback Thread, ID the good, the bad, and the ugly

Hey all,

Thanks so much for helping to make the first DT fan fiction awards happen. We'd really like to hear your feedback on what you thought was done well and what could be done better.

Thanks!

~The Awards Team

1. Okay, although the preshow was very good, I forgot one post, another one just I had to search in my pm and RedBirdie we forgot....
So, next time we need more time for doing it and we must check it some more times. Again, sorry, for the mess.

2. The date: Just a suggestion, but as many users couldn't be online I'd say ask the users next time before setting it. We can't find a date for everybody, but maybe for more.

3. The categories: Some had only one author/fic that made it through the nomination. Dunno how to solve it, but maybe if it's clear that only one fic gets enough nomination we could bring in some fics with less noms then normaly obligatory?


okay, that's all for now!

1. I thought it went pretty smoothly, over all. And the time wasn't nearly as long as the JC awards, which is a plus.

2. I agree with Durell on the categories. I don't think it's that there weren't enough noms, I think they were too narrow. Do we really need two seperate categories for villains? What about OCs? We don't have as many fics to draw on as the JC, so it may be in the board's best interest to have a smaller list of awards.

3. Participation in the nomination and voting rounds was pretty slim. It'd be nice to see more people take an active role in noms/voting.

In response to the date/time thing, I think you're going to see that sort of problem no matter when you hold them. There are always a lot of people who can't attend. I do agree that maybe a poll of the DT users with a few dates/times would be a good idea to cut back on the amount of people who miss it. This time around, no one was really willing to offer a date/time so a decision was just made. More planning, perhaps, in the future would probably be helpful.

I'm going to have to agree that we broaden some of the categories for next time, and we've got to figure out some way to get participation in nominations.

Overall, it did go pretty smoothly. Given this was our first run with an awards gig, I'm satisfied with the results as a whole.

I agree with what's been said previously. I feel we should organize some entertainmaint during the awards as well, which will be doable if we do end up narrowing down the awards categories.

Next time, if any important information changes, could you make sure the first post in the thread is edited?

The material was entertaining, especially the pre-awards show and the announcers comments. It does seem like there are too many catagories. I'm only sorry I came too late to see it live. {Darn group meetings, grumbles} Good job to those who wrote the entertainment, I was amused and congratulations to those that won!!!

The problem that we ran up against in categories was that with some things - like Female Rogue - it ends up being a "who did Inyri best" contest. Problem is that if you eliminate that category, then the few female Rogues are completely overshadowed by all the guys.

And as for participation, I think we might do a bit better with more time for noms and votes.

My only complaint is that I couldn't be there, which is entirely my own fault.

Thanks for all the feedback, guys. It'll be very helpful for whoever does the awards the next time around.

I have a specific question for feedback - any thoughts on how to get more people to nom and vote?

1.) Reduce the number of categories?

2.) Remind people earlier?

3.) Ask authors to mention the awards in their threads?

4.) Have any award-related threads in Resource instead of Briefing Room?

Do y'all think any of those might work? Or have any other ideas?

I think the problem isn't that people forgot. I think for noms the main problem is people don't want to take the time to try and come up with nominations. Once a few people send their noms in, a lot of people then just nominate what's already up. Kind of like a "oh, yeah, there's that fic and it fits this category" sort of deal.

I do think reducing the number of categories would help a lot. Perhaps do something like: Male Canon Character, Female Canon Character, Original Character (there really aren't enough to split the categories), Ensemble. I think we got way too specific with the character awards this past time.

Reminding people earlier - I don't know if that would really work, as most people wait until the last minute, anyway. It could and it's worth a try, but I doubt it's going to make a huge difference.

I think having authors mention the awards in their threads is a great idea. The only reason I didn't want to was because I didn't want people to think I was pushing for noms or anything. I used to do this at the JC, though, and from what I can tell, people still do it. It's a good way to keep the awards in people's minds.

I think keeping the announcement box at the top of the main screen updated with links for where to go for awards info would help people find threads. Instead of the Writer's Resource, maybe even pin the threads in the actual Lounge? I think more people go in there who are interested in fics.

Reduce the categories is a must I think. The suggestion Inyri made is a good one I think. And "the authors mentioning it in their threads"-thing is worth a try. We really need more people nominating and voting.

Also I got confused be the epic-novel thing. I know they are differences, but maybe we could do the classical-categories? the one we already got: Comedy, drama and stuff. And make fewer catogerie like Novel, epic, etc... But I think the different viggies and novel categories are a must.

I think it's important to recognize the effort that goes into an epic. It might be my own work on Shades and FT, both of which are in the epic category, but I think other epic writers would agree that it's a huge committment to write a fic that long - and I think there needs to be a distinction between novel and epic. The challenges are different, the intricacy of the storyline tends to be different, the effort to maintain consistency throughout is different, etc. So I really think the length categories should stay. Not just novel and epic, but vig and short story as well. What goes into writing each of those is different, and I think all of them should be recognized individually. But that's just me...

Maybe we could give out a clear definition of the different categories, so that the members know what they can nominate for what? I think that would help a lot. And I see what you mean as it something different just to write a viggie or an epic.

Yeah, more clearly defined is important. I think it's especially confusing as to between short-story and novel. Maybe it could be the responsibility of the authors to indicate what length category their fic falls into? After, of course, the awards volunteers define the categories.

Yes, that would be an idea.

I agree with Jes on separating Novel and Epic fics. They're really very different. I don't think the problem lies with the length categories or with the genre categories. Those are pretty general categories.

I know we had a "what people need to know about your fics for the awards" thread, but it seemed to get lost. Having authors say right out what their fics are (especially longer ones) in perhaps the first post would allow people to know what can be nommed where.

Another solution could possibly be to ask every author to PM a list of their fics and what length or genre categories they could qualify in. Then post a list, by category, of the fics with the Awards Sock username.

If we want to eliminate categories, the place to start would be with the character awards and the "lounge" awards. For example, the "general romance" "canon romance" and "odd romance" categories should probably be all rolled into one and placed into the genre as "best romance." The other thing would possibly be the time period ones. Almost all of us write after the OT, as that's when most of the X-wing storylines are set. While the worry would be that a fic that's occuring before or during the OT may be overlooked, perhaps combining the before and during fics would be a better solution.

I really like that idea. Not only do we eliminate the confusion about what can be nommed where, we make it easier for people to see what they might want to nom.

Consolidating character categories and lounge categories are good, and... are there any fics OT and before? I haven't read enough to know.

Thanks, Jes. I think it'll also make people more likly to nom. One of the things I heard from a lot of people was that they didn't know what was eligible, or they really couldn't come up with something off the top of their heads.

There are a few before and during the OT fics. We had, I believe three, nommed for during and one nommed for before. ?? Not a hundred percent sure without looking at the list.

when we do awards, we allow people to submit their nominations for a week, then we create a thread for each category with a poll to vote and sticky it. That way, people always see it, they're reminded. (of course, we have the option to disable the "change vote" feature, so once you vote, that's it) And we only run voting for a week and then just announce the awards all at once, rather than do a "show." I really felt that between noms and voting, our awards here took MONTHS. (not sure if they really took months, but that's how it felt sometimes)

Well, if you use polls, there's no point in announcing, because everyone can see the result of the polls. Plus, there's absolutely no way to guard against socks in that. Additionally, we'd need to have a separate forum for the polls, I think. Any forum we put them in would be cluttered and unmanageable.

You're right about how long they took. The rules for noms were announced 11/7 and the awards were held 2/18. So, basically, three months.

I think part of why they went so long - though the awards volunteers can speak to this better - was lack of noms and things being held open in the hopes of getting more PMs?

One (or more) of the volunteers want to comment on how long things took?

Part of why things took so long was the hope that more people would send in nominations and/or votes, etc. One thing that I noticed was that most people waited until the last minute to send things in; whether that was because they needed the full time or if it was an 'oh, no, better get this done' I don't know. Something the awards volunteers may want to consider next time would be to ask everyone how long they think should be given to noms and voting, and go from there.

What I noticed was that a lot of the people who voted and everything - with the exception of mods - were the same people who were doing awards. I mean, there were a few people who weren't involved and were nominated/won ... But not many.

Maybe having fewer people involved and just asking around - in the Bar, say - for entertainment and such ...

Oh, and I think that the JC's policy of "you can't win an award once you've already won it" would be wise, especially for the author awards.

EDIT - Just something I've wanted to bring up for a while.

This post has been edited by Mirax_Corran on Mar 11 2006, 10:46 PM

I think if we implemented that, we would need to make it as specific as possible. Like, say, if Inyri won Best OC for Janine (I can't remember who won what), she can't win Best OC for Janine again, but she could for Kora or another character. Does that make sense? But in general, I think the idea has merit.