Personally, I like #2. Some people entered dozens of nominations, others
only one or two.

I think a fairly high cap--say ten or twelve--would be easiest. Some people
still would only nom one or two, but people who nominated many more would
have to stop and decide just which ones they *really* wanted.  If you are
concerned about drabbles (and possibly poetry), perhaps have an additional
cap: something along the lines of 10 total nominations of regular stories,
with up to 15 nominations, only nine of which could be regular stories. (So
one could nom nine short stories, and up to six drabbles and/or poems).

The idea of having to vote for your nommed stories seems reasonable to me,
but then that was the first thing I did anyway. Why nom something you have
no intention of voting for? But I can see how that would be problematical
with self-nominated stories...

I also don't like the idea of limiting it to stories from the current year.
There are a good many older stories that *still* have possibilities.  The
idea that perhaps the writer may no longer be in the fandom isn't really a
problem.  Since authors have to confirm a story, then if they don't have an
interest any more they will not confirm it--that automatically cuts down on
stories.

Dreamflower

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marta" <melayton@...>
To: <mefawards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 11:35 PM
Subject: [MEFAwards] Post-Mortem Topic #1: Number of Nominations


> Hey guys,
>
> I hope all of you are out at Halloween parties or giving trick-or-treaters
> cavities. But
> tomorrow is November 1, which means in addition to ghouls and goblins,
> it's also time to
> start our 2005 Post-mortem.
>
> In order to keep things manageable, we'll limit this to a topic or two at
> a time. I'll
> introduce a topic and everyone can weigh in. When we've reached a decision
> I'll introduce a
> new topic. If there's something in particular you'd like to discuss, feel
> free to email
> mefasupport@... and I'll make sure we discuss it.
>
> So... first on the agenda. This year we had a lot of nominations. I heard
> from people who
> had done a lot of votes who felt guilty for not doing more, and from other
> people who
> didn't vote at all or as much as they would have liked to because they
> felt overwhelmed.
> Even I felt the number of nominations was too high. But what, short of
> breaking my fingers
> during nomination season, can we do to cut down on the numbers?
>
> There have been several suggestions:
>
> 1. Limit the number of nominations, period. Once we reach this cap no more
> nominations
> are allowed.
> 2. Limit the number of nominations per person.
> 3. Limit the number of nominations in a time period.
> 4. Limit the number of nominations in a time period per person. (I.e., you
> can nominate, a
> certain number of pieces per week.)
> 5. Limit nominations to pieces written this year.
> 6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story before the
> nomination can be
> processed.
>
> I can see pluses and negatives on any of these. If we go with one of the
> caps, I suggest not
> counting drabbles, as I think doing so would encourage people to nominate
> longer pieces
> instead. I have to admit that I'm most partial to #5. In addition to
> making sure that people
> slow down and think about their nominations, it ensures that every piece
> except for self-
> nominations gets at least one vote. And it rewards people who are willing
> to put forth a
> little bit of effort, which I'm always for.
>
> But that's just my opinion. What do you think? Do any of these sound good?
> Are there any
> other ideas you have?
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: <aelfwina@...>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 2:28 AM
Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Post-Mortem Topic #1: Number of Nominations


  (So
> one could nom nine short stories, and up to six drabbles and/or poems).

Well, not just short stories obviously--I meant *stories*. I did not meant
to exclude novels, novellas, etc.

Posting at 2 in the morning because I can't sleep=fuzzy thinking.
Dreamflower


  > ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marta" <melayton@...>
> To: <mefawards@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 11:35 PM
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Post-Mortem Topic #1: Number of Nominations
>
>
>> Hey guys,
>>
>> I hope all of you are out at Halloween parties or giving
>> trick-or-treaters
>> cavities. But
>> tomorrow is November 1, which means in addition to ghouls and goblins,
>> it's also time to
>> start our 2005 Post-mortem.
>>
>> In order to keep things manageable, we'll limit this to a topic or two at
>> a time. I'll
>> introduce a topic and everyone can weigh in. When we've reached a
>> decision
>> I'll introduce a
>> new topic. If there's something in particular you'd like to discuss, feel
>> free to email
>> mefasupport@... and I'll make sure we discuss it.
>>
>> So... first on the agenda. This year we had a lot of nominations. I heard
>> from people who
>> had done a lot of votes who felt guilty for not doing more, and from
>> other
>> people who
>> didn't vote at all or as much as they would have liked to because they
>> felt overwhelmed.
>> Even I felt the number of nominations was too high. But what, short of
>> breaking my fingers
>> during nomination season, can we do to cut down on the numbers?
>>
>> There have been several suggestions:
>>
>> 1. Limit the number of nominations, period. Once we reach this cap no
>> more
>> nominations
>> are allowed.
>> 2. Limit the number of nominations per person.
>> 3. Limit the number of nominations in a time period.
>> 4. Limit the number of nominations in a time period per person. (I.e.,
>> you
>> can nominate, a
>> certain number of pieces per week.)
>> 5. Limit nominations to pieces written this year.
>> 6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story before the
>> nomination can be
>> processed.
>>
>> I can see pluses and negatives on any of these. If we go with one of the
>> caps, I suggest not
>> counting drabbles, as I think doing so would encourage people to nominate
>> longer pieces
>> instead. I have to admit that I'm most partial to #5. In addition to
>> making sure that people
>> slow down and think about their nominations, it ensures that every piece
>> except for self-
>> nominations gets at least one vote. And it rewards people who are willing
>> to put forth a
>> little bit of effort, which I'm always for.
>>
>> But that's just my opinion. What do you think? Do any of these sound
>> good?
>> Are there any
>> other ideas you have?
>>
>> Marta
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Hi All

In considering the options, I've taken a rather cynical approach to
thinking about how people might "rig the system" in their favour. I
don't think most people in the fandom *would* do these things
*deliberately* - but I've been around the fandom long enough know
that, without meaning to be selfish, people can often not think
through the impact of their actions on the rest of the community - out
of sheer enthusiasm for something!

1. Limit the number of nominations, period. Once we reach this cap no
more nominations are allowed.

I think this is a poor idea because it risks unbalancing the awards in
favour of a small number of authors. Say we put a total limit of 500
stories. In the first day, two friends nominate 50 of each other's
pieces (Marta and I both had more than 50 pieces nominated this year,
although we weren't actually responsible for all of the other's
nominations!) So now a fifth of the competing stories are by just two
authors and the remaining 400 have to be split between everyone else.

So I don't think we should do this.

2. Limit the number of nominations per person.

I quite like this idea for two reasons. Firstly, it makes people
really think which particular stories they want to nominate. Secondly,
it gives more people a chance to nominate a particular author's
stories. (I know there were several authors or works I was "beaten" to
nominating.)

If we consider this the way forward, I think we need some real
discussion around what limits we apply.

3. Limit the number of nominations in a time period.

This suffers to some extent from the same problem as #1 - one or two
nominators could take up most of the available nominations (and keep
doing that at the start of every time period). Liable to lead to
frustration and snarkiness from everyone else....

4. Limit the number of nominations in a time period per person. (i.e.,
you can nominate, a certain number of pieces per week.)

This is very similar to #2 in that it sets an overall cap on the
number of stories any one person can nominate. It forces people to
consider what they really want to nominate and spreads the nominations
out over time, giving other people a chance to nominate a particular
author.

I think this might allow higher overall limits than in #2. The overall
limit in #2 and #4 is actually set by the number of nominators - more
nominators = more stories. And I think this addresses the comment I
read either here or at the LJ that someone really liked the fact there
was a very broad spread of stories and a fair number of stories of
each type, yet it still helps with the "selectivity" (or lack of)
issue and the "sharing out the nominations for a particular author
between different nominators" issue.

5. Limit nominations to pieces written this year.

Given the MEFAs have only been running a couple of years, I don't like
this idea at all. There are still a lot of "old" stories that deserve
recognition. I think that as the MEFAs continue to run, we will
automatically move towards mostly having stories published since last
nomination season - and reduce the overall number of stories - but I
would hate to automatically exclude something just because it's "old".

6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story before the
nomination can be processed.

I think this suggestion was also aiming to address the issue of a
story being nominated but receiving no feedback. It has happened both
years the awards have run and can be profoundly depressing for an author.

Again, this forces nominators to really consider what they're
nominating and, by making the nomination process a little longer,
slows the pace of nominations and what's simply physically possible!

I think these nomination reviews would perhaps need to be tentative,
so you could write a two-pointer to nominate but then extend it to a
ten-pointer for the final vote. On the other hand, the admins might
need to police people entering reviews for each nomination that
consist of no more than "I like this!" for every story.... hard work
for admins.... :-(

Re self-nomination: some coding (apologies to Anthony for suggesting
more work for him to do) could work out that author and nominator are
the same person and not demand a review. If you self-nominate, you
accept the risk no one may like the story enough to review it.


I'm coming down in favour of #4. If that's too complicated to code, I
would then favour #2, which is a technically simpler version of the
same thing. But I would also like if possible to incorporate some
element of #6 to address the issue of a nominated story receiving no
reviews.

Cheers, Liz

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Larian Elensar <larian_elensar@y...>
wrote:
>
> I like a combination of 1 and 4  (Limiting the total number of
> nominations and the number of nominations per week/time period). I
> like spreading the nominations out over the whole nominating season,
> because it will give a wider group of people the chance to nominate
> stories too.  (Like instead of me nominating all of Author A's
> stories in the first week, if I'm limited, then it might
> allow/encourage someone new to the program to nominate some of A's
> stories too.)

Well or by category. I am just sitting here, wondering what would
bring a less amount of admin, what would give unknown/new authors a
chance to particpate. If you, for example, are going to restrict nr of
nominations by nominator or nr of nominations overall. I think that
people are more inclined to nominate authors they have read before or
know themselves. What I so liked about this was the discovery of new
authors. So maybe a restriction by author then? I don't know. I don't
see a suggestion that I think: yeah, go for that.

Marta, how many nominators did we have? Were there nominators who
nominated a lot? Is there a breakdown to see if they nomitated also a
lot by author specifically?? Just numbers.

If you take a week, for example to, nominate for the Dwarf category,
you have the emphasis on them for a week, people wonder... ok Dwarf
category, what might be a good story for that, have I read a great
story last year?

You still can say: ok there is a maximum for this category, but I
think it would be nice to see the categories more balanced and all
paid attention to.

Also... this another thing to think about... this way you can minimize
the pressure on the admin/liaisons, that they don't have so much work
to do in the end. This year we postponed two weeks, but now you have
it spread over the nomination period. I think it would make everyone
happy.

> I think entering a vote before the nomination can be processed might
> be too intimidating to newcomers to the program, and that will put a
> barrier up as far as encouraging people to get involved. This
> process is already different enough that it causes people to shy
> away, I'd hate to put another roadblock in the way.

I completely agree. And also, I don't get the vote for your nomination
reasoning that well. A nominator does think about it, makes a
selection beforehand, so why also have to explain the why? Try to keep
it simple, for all.

> I also sort of like nominating stories written in the last
> year...BUT...I do think that would cut out a lot of deserving
> stories. I'm not comfortable with the thought that just because a
> story was written 2 years ago, it doesn't deserve some recognition.
> (On the other hand, if there are stories that were written 3 or 4
> years ago, you run the risk of the author being out of the fandom
> and it doesn't seem fair to keep giving them awards when they are
> not involved anymore).

Well the liaison tracks them down and asks them if they want to run,
most of them might say no, but some might say yes, feeling honoured. I
shouldn't put a limit on that.

Just my 2 cents
Rhapsody

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Marta" <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> Hey guys,
>
> I hope all of you are out at Halloween parties or giving
> trick-or-treaters cavities. But tomorrow is November 1, which means
> in addition to ghouls and goblins, it's also time to start our 2005
> Post-mortem.

Just a small note Marta, today NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers
Month) started, and I know a lot of authors that are participating, so
maybe the responses are less because of it.

Rhapsody

I'll have to address this in more depth later, but my initial opinion was
that limiting the stories to the year in which they were published was the way
to go.  Then I realized that would play holy heck with the incomplete
stories.  And I've certainly benefited by having my older works  eligible.

Isabeau


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

> There have been several suggestions:
>
> 1. Limit the number of nominations, period. Once we reach this cap
no more nominations
> are allowed.

An absolute cap, I think, would unfairly benefit the first few
nominators or people who had prepared a large list in advance. *cough
cough* Some of us are a bit, shall we say, zealous?

> 2. Limit the number of nominations per person.

This I think is most reasonable. It's easier to track than a
combination of noms per person per period of time, while a simple time
limitation seems likely to favor those who nominate early in a week or
early in the over all process.

> 5. Limit nominations to pieces written this year.

I'd be very much against this one. One of the things I like best is
that older stories can participate. Also, I feel perfectly happy not
nominating a piece because I know I could always do that next year.

Some of the best things I read in this year's MEFAs were written two,
three years ago, but I'd never seen them. I'd hate to lose that
experience.

> 6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story before the
nomination can be
> processed.

This might push things too far in the other direction, or create a lot
more work for the admins. Given when the nominations begin, I don't
have time to write reviews, which means I wouldn't be able to nominate
anything at all. I *need* summer. Besides which, I could always write
a "placeholder"--"I will review this later"--just to be able to
nominate a story, but that doesn't serve the purpose of this
particular limitation and would create more work for the staff, who
would have to physically check every nomination's initial review.

<snip>

So I'd vote for a simple, per person limit: so many stories to each
nominator, and no more.

Dwim

>>> 1. Limit the number of nominations, period. Once we reach this
cap no more nominations  are allowed.
> 2. Limit the number of nominations per person.
> 3. Limit the number of nominations in a time period.
> 4. Limit the number of nominations in a time period per person.
(I.e., you can nominate, a > certain number of pieces per week.)
> 5. Limit nominations to pieces written this year.
> 6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story before the
nomination can be processed.

I much prefer #6 and feel that while it may reduce nominations to
some degree, that is, in part, the purpose, - I like this one in that
it serves a dual purpose of being sure that all nominations that
aren't self-nom get at least one review, and I would find a one-
pointer acceptable.   I think if you like a story well enough to
nominate it, it shouldn't been too hard to say why.  It should be
simple, in the case of self-noms to put a note in the box that it is
a self-nom, since they all have to be personally handled by liaisons
anyway in order to get the approval and set the cate/sub-cate.

My second choice would be to limit the number of nominations per
author.  And it could be a fairly high number ... 15 (?)  Any author
who has more than the allowed nominations should select which ones to
run before finalizing the nominations.

I don't agree at all that entries should be limited to recent works
or by a total, or daily total of nominations for the reasons other
people have already posted.

I would somewhat agree with a limit of nominations per nominator, but
some people would lose out because of duplicate nominations and I'd
want the number to be fairly high ... 25(?) I know I had some in mind
from the beginning and nominated them right away, but throughout the
season, I continually thought of others, and even later, have thought
of some I wish I'd remember to nominate.

Also, as Liz said, - we've had very little to no evidence of any
malicious sneakiness, but imposing limits is likely to tempt people
to try to get past them, and with #6 that wouldn't be an issue.

Sulriel

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
wrote:>> > 6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story
before the> nomination can be > > processed.
>
> besides which, I could always write> a "placeholder"--"I will review
this later"--just to be able to> nominate a story, but that doesn't
serve the purpose of this> particular limitation and would create more
work for the staff, who> would have to physically check every
nomination's initial review.


the way this should work, in my mind, if the intial review
automatically went in as a draft or tentative, it could be something
like "great plot",  "favorite kiddie!aragorn story" and be updated
later if the nominater was pressed for time during nomination
season.  - would that help, or do you think it would negate the
purpose?

Sulriel

I really feel #6 should not be necessary for limiting the number of
nominations. If a person likes a story well enough to nominate it, then the
first thing they should do is enter at least a draft or tentative vote for
it--I know I did. If people are not allowed to nominate dozens of stories,
then they would have time to vote for the ones they nominated.

With #2, in which the nominators are limited to a reasonable number of
nominations, they should then have time to enter those reviews.  And I think
an upper limit of 25 or so is too high. That may actually have the effect of
*increasing* the number of nominations, as new members may feel obligated to
nominate their limit.  I honestly think 10 to 12 nominations (with the
extension for drabbles/poetry I mentioned in my previous post) would have
the right effect.  People who nominated 2 or 3 dozen stories in the past
would then have to consider just which they *really* wanted to nominate;
people who nominated only a couple of stories might be encouraged to do a
few more this time round.  I know that I nominated, I think, 8 or 9 stories,
and I spent a good deal of time thinking over which ones.  I thought maybe I
was going overboard until I saw how many stories other people were
nominating.

I think that it would be possible to fix things so that if two people
nominated the same story, the person who nommed later could be notified that
it was taken and they may now nom another.

I think the per nominator limit makes the most sense, honestly, and would be
the easiest to deal with.

The self-nominating thing I am still ambivalent about, but we could also
make it so that no more than, say, a third of a nominator's allotted
nominations could be self-nominated. I think this would also go towards
encouraging diversity. I'm not really set on this one way or the other.

I am very much against going to the category thing with time limits.  We did
that the first year, and I found it extremely confusing, I could never keep
track of what category was which week, even with the reminders, which tended
to clutter up my email and get caught in my spam trap.

Dreamflower


----- Original Message -----
From: "sulriel" <Sulriel@...>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 9:05 AM
Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Post-Mortem Topic #1: Number of Nominations


> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "dwimmer_laik" <dwimmer_laik@y...>
> wrote:>> > 6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story
> before the> nomination can be > > processed.
>>
>> besides which, I could always write> a "placeholder"--"I will review
> this later"--just to be able to> nominate a story, but that doesn't
> serve the purpose of this> particular limitation and would create more
> work for the staff, who> would have to physically check every
> nomination's initial review.
>
>
> the way this should work, in my mind, if the intial review
> automatically went in as a draft or tentative, it could be something
> like "great plot",  "favorite kiddie!aragorn story" and be updated
> later if the nominater was pressed for time during nomination
> season.  - would that help, or do you think it would negate the
> purpose?
>
> Sulriel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

> the way this should work, in my mind, if the intial review
> automatically went in as a draft or tentative, it could be something
> like "great plot",  "favorite kiddie!aragorn story" and be updated
> later if the nominater was pressed for time during nomination
> season.  - would that help, or do you think it would negate the
> purpose?
>
> Sulriel
>

I think we need to be clearer about the purpose. The point is to
reduce the total number of nominations while not disproportionately
affecting any one group of nominators. The question of whether this
measure should or will do something about unreviewed nominations is
another question.

If we implemented number 6, it would *probably* cut down on the number
of nominations received, *if* people understand by the word "review"
the kind of review they would want to write for that story (when I
nominate, I tend to nominate those stories that I can write at least a
paragraph for, ranging from 4-10 points apiece).

However, if we say you can just use a one pointer, is this actually
going to prevent the same massive outpouring of nominations? I don't
think so. If I know all I have to do is say something like "Fun!"
"Good plot", or similar, I'll say that and I'll nominate fifty, one
hundred stories because it doesn't take any time or much thought for
me to say that. I could use the same short phrase ("Good plot!" "Good
characterization") for a hundred stories, and then we'd be back to
wondering whether we have to count those as 'copy-paste' comments that
are not valid for scoring purposes.

So really, I'd say this particular option is either going to
drastically reduce the number of nominations in total and *also* the
total number of nominators, or else it will not function to
significantly reduce the number of nominations at all. The easier you
make it for people to nominate, by requiring less of a review, the
less this option will actually work to limit the nominations pouring
in as word gets around.


Dwim

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
>
> I really feel #6 should not be necessary for limiting the number of
> nominations. If a person likes a story well enough to nominate it,
> then the first thing they should do is enter at least a draft or
> tentative vote for it--I know I did. If people are not allowed to
> nominate dozens of stories, then they would have time to vote for
> the ones they nominated.

Well I just assume that a nominator carefully thought about it, so
even leaving a note doesn't feel necessary to me.

> With #2, in which the nominators are limited to a reasonable number
> of nominations, they should then have time to enter those reviews.
> And I think an upper limit of 25 or so is too high. That may
> actually have the effect of *increasing* the number of nominations,
> as new members may feel obligated to nominate their limit.  I
> honestly think 10 to 12 nominations (with the extension for
> drabbles/poetry I mentioned in my previous post) would have
> the right effect.  People who nominated 2 or 3 dozen stories in the
> past would then have to consider just which they *really* wanted to
> nominate; people who nominated only a couple of stories might be
> encouraged to do a few more this time round.  I know that I
> nominated, I think, 8 or 9 stories, and I spent a good deal of time
> thinking over which ones.  I thought maybe I was going overboard
> until I saw how many stories other people were nominating.

I nominated about 39, and I all reviewed them. Actually, I made sure I
had those done at the very least, so 25 makes me wonder... is that
enough? Because I read a lot and tried to nominate lesser known
authors. I am just wondering if some nominators went 'overboard' and
others nominated about a certain average. That is why I am curious
about numbers. But you can't prevent what people will think when the
see a limit on something (if it is number of stories allowed to
nominate, word count and so on). Even if it is 10, 25 or 50.

> I am very much against going to the category thing with time limits.
> We did that the first year, and I found it extremely confusing, I
> could never keep track of what category was which week, even with
> the reminders, which tended to clutter up my email and get caught in
> my spam trap.

Well since this was my first MEFA, I possibly could not have known
that this happened in the first year (and also I don't know how it
happened). I am just saying this because while categorising we saw
categories that had barely made a full category (Poetry about Dwarves
were re-located). And well, this years nominations went differently, I
guess, so I don't see the cluttering of e-mails happening. It is just
the amount of work behind the scenes that just was a lot (talking
about a huge amount of stress and time limit). It truly was a high
peak, if you can spread that.. well it makes life a lot easier. For
the admin/volunteers at least.

Rhapsody

I really, really like the  idea of requiring an explanation or justification,
if you will, for  nominations.  If everyone is required to think about why
they are  nominating a certain work, not many will be submitting because  they
feel obligated to nominate someone based upon anything other than the  quality
of the work.   Its easy to submit a name because you feel a  certain loyalty,
not so easy when you are held accountable for telling  people why you support
that work at this level.
I thought about what would  happen if these awards were constructed more akin
to the academy awards.  I  heard a lot of people mentioning that they stick
within certain categories and  unless they have surplus voting time they
concentrate on reading and voting for  stories within a certain genre.  There is
nothing wrong with this, I think  its admirable to be loyal and supportive of
your particular preference.   But if this is generally the case then setting the
nominations up like the ampas  makes sense.  What they do is every year they
develop the categories anew,  thus keeping them timely and in tune with what is
happening in the  industry.  Once this is done, nominations are made strictly
from within  each category.  Meaning that only members of the director’s
guild may  nominate in the director’s categories, sag members actor’s
categories,
etc.  However, final voting for the MEFAs  could be done with everyone able
to vote for any store they chose, whereas in  the ampas, the only categories
open for voting by the entire academy are best  picture actor/actress and
director.  So its sort of akin to a political election I guess, primaries
deciding
who will run are voted on from within each party, final elections allow you to
  vote across party lines.  I don’t  know if this would work for MEFAs, just a
thought to cut down on excessive  nominations.
Jes


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

Hey guys,

Lots of opinions in my inbox this morning, both from the LJ and from
the Yahoo group. Thanks! I'll summarise them now for peoples' benefits
(and hope I give them a fair summary). Then I'll work on replying to
them individually. If I'm mis-representing someone's position, please
let me know.

Oh, and I'm aware a few emails have come in since I started this list.

Annmarwalk (LJ) - in favor of limiting the number of nominations per
person, limiting to stories from last year, and requiring the nominator
to vote for the story. She is most strongly in favor of the requiring
voting.

Belegcuthalion (LJ) - Belegcuthalion suggests that we go with a limit
per nominator or limit the nomination period.

Bodkin (LJ) - liked having a lot of nominations as it gave a lot of
good reading material. Bodkin is most in favor of limiting nominations
to pieces written this year.

Dreamflower (LJ and Yahoo) - Likes the idea of limiting the number of
nominations per person. She suggests we might want to have a certain
number set aside for drabbles/poetry if we think people might prefer
longer pieces to shorter. She also likes requiring nominators to vote
on their stories, but sees how this would be problemmatic for older
stories.

Dwim (Yahoo) - in favor of capping the number of nominations per person
and is very opposed to limiting nominations to those written in the
last year. She feels that requiring people to submit a vote would be
too difficult on those with busy schedules.

Ghettoelleth (Yahoo) - really likes the idea of requiring votes

Isabeau (Yahoo) - originally in favor of limiting stories to those
written in last year, but now realises that would be hard for WIPs, and
that she enjoyed her own stories being nominated. Will post more later.

Larian Elensar (Yahoo) - Likes limiting number of nominations total and
number of nominations per week. She notes that requiring a vote may be
intimidating, and that the one-year cap might eliminate a lot of
deserving stories.

Liz (Yahoo) - Liz is most in favor of #4 (cap per nominator per week).
If this is too difficult to code she would like to go with #2 (cap per
nominator). She also would like us to look at including some element of
#6 (require vote) into the process.

Rhapsody (Yahoo) - Most concerned about reducing admin work and
recognising new authors. Maybe a restriction on the num of works by
each author? Or perhaps have a nomination period for each category?

SlightlyTookish (LJ) - In favor of limiting number of noms by single
nominator. She recognises problems with the other options but is
especially opposed to limiting to stories written in the last year.

Sulriel (Yahoo) - Likes the idea of requiring reviews by nominator. Her
second choice is to limit the number of nominations per author and, to
a lesser degree, the number of nominations per nominator.

Cheers,
Marta

*****
Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis
of Assisi

----- Original Message -----
From: <ghettoelleth@...>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: Post-Mortem Topic #1: Number of Nominations



I really, really like the  idea of requiring an explanation or
justification,
if you will, for  nominations.  If everyone is required to think about why
they are  nominating a certain work, not many will be submitting because
they
feel obligated to nominate someone based upon anything other than the
quality
of the work.   Its easy to submit a name because you feel a  certain
loyalty,
not so easy when you are held accountable for telling  people why you
support
that work at this level.

The thing is, that the reasons need to be the votes. In a review based
system *all* votes, not just those by the nominators, need to be justified.
You can’t simply put in something along the lines of: “I like hobbits, and
this is a hobbit story, and this author is my favorite, and she’s a friend
of mine, so I’m reviewing this.” Well, I suppose you could, and it would
count as so many characters, but I don’t know anyone who would not be
embarrassed to put such a thing out there for everyone to see, LOL! So, even
if those are your reasons for nominating, when you vote, you actually have
to *think* about the merits of the story *as* story. At any rate, it seems
as if your proposal would cause the nominator to have to review twice, so to
speak.


I thought about what would  happen if these awards were constructed more
akin
to the academy awards.  I  heard a lot of people mentioning that they stick
within certain categories and  unless they have surplus voting time they
concentrate on reading and voting for  stories within a certain genre.
There is
nothing wrong with this, I think  its admirable to be loyal and supportive
of
your particular preference.   But if this is generally the case then setting
the
nominations up like the ampas  makes sense.

I don’t think that would work here. I am primarily a hobbit fancier. Yet I
recently read an Elf story that I thought was superb. It’s not my usual
genre, yet I might very well think it worth a MEFA nomination next year. If
I were told that my only nominations could be in hobbits, then that story
might not get nominated. The idea of MEFA is to generate feedback and to
encourage diversity.

It’s true I voted *first* for the hobbit stories--that *is* my preference,
after all. But as I began to run out of them, I branched out and read any
number of other stories: Men, Elves, Dwarves, the Silm. Now I know you are
not saying people can’t vote out of their categories, but I’m afraid
that’s
what a lot of people would take it as.



  What they do is every year they
develop the categories anew,  thus keeping them timely and in tune with what
is
happening in the  industry.  Once this is done, nominations are made
strictly
from within  each category.  Meaning that only members of the director’s
guild may  nominate in the director’s categories, sag members actor’s
categories,
etc.  However, final voting for the MEFAs  could be done with everyone able
to vote for any store they chose, whereas in  the ampas, the only categories
open for voting by the entire academy are best  picture actor/actress and
director.  So its sort of akin to a political election I guess, primaries
deciding
who will run are voted on from within each party, final elections allow you
to
  vote across party lines.  I don’t  know if this would work for MEFAs, just
a
thought to cut down on excessive  nominations.

It might *work* but it would change the MEFAs into something altogether
different than what they are.

Dreamflower


Jes


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





Yahoo! Groups Links

Hi Larian,

> I like a combination of 1 and 4  (Limiting the total number of
> nominations and
>  the number of nominations per week/time period).
>

The more I think about it, the less sure I am about this option. I can
see the plus sides of it, and it's definitely something to keep in mind
as a possibility. But I think having an over-all limit on the number of
nominations would favor those people who nominate early. It also might
encourage people to nominate stories they are unsure about earlier on
because they aren't sure if they'll have the chance to later.

How would you feel about limiting the number of nominations per
nominator rather than overall? I think that would have the same effect
since there's a limited number of people making nominations, but would
mean everyone gets a more equal chance to nominate.

>  I think entering a vote before the nomination can be processed might
> be too
>  intimidating to newcomers to the program, and that will put a barrier
> up as far
>  as encouraging people to get involved.

Is this something we can overcome by how we phrase things, or how we
set up the form? For example, we might have a form on the field that
says something like:

"Tell us what you like about this story. If you are not also the author
of this story, this will be entered into a tentative review for you
(which you can change later if you like). This does not need to be
particularly long; a sentence or two will do."

Also, I think the nomination process will be much simpler this year for
the nominator. We'll try to nail this down later, but I think the
nominator will only provide title, author, author's email, story link,
and possibly the summary. The author will provide things like
categories and rating themselves.

>  I also sort of like nominating stories written in the last
> year...BUT...I do
>  think that would cut out a lot of deserving stories.

I understand that feeling. I think I've nominated most of the stories I
know of that weren't written this last year, but I understand others
may still know of some very nice older stories they want to nominate.
I'm not too crazy about this idea, personally.

Now seems like a good time to say that the options I presented aren't
all ones that I would necessarily choose if it was just my decision.
They're ideas that have been proposed in emails I've received, and I
want to know what other people think.

> (On the other hand, if there are stories that were
>  written 3 or 4 years ago, you run the risk of the author being out of
> the
>  fandom and it doesn't seem fair to keep giving them awards when they
> are not
>  involved anymore).
>

We actually did have a few authors say that they weren't involved in
this fandom anymore and so they didn't want their stories to compete.
Also, if the email address we have isn't currently checked by the
author, it's entirely possible we won't hear from them at all. We can
probably phrase the email sent to authors when their stories are
nominated in such a way that it makes it clear to the author that the
MEFAs are available to everyone, but there's no compulsion to compete
if you aren't active in the fandom (or would rather not compete for any
reason).

Thanks for your thoughts, Larian!

Cheers,
Marta

Hi Dreamflower,

I'm going to post this reply at the LJ community, too.

> Personally, I like #2. Some people entered dozens of nominations,
> others only one or two. I think a fairly high cap--say ten or
> twelve--would be easiest.

I know that I probably made the most nominations, and I have at times
felt guilty about it. A cap would be good because it would impose some
discipline on those who aren't as self-disciplined as we'd like. (I
definitely fall in that category!)

But I don't think even 12 would be high enough. Perhaps this comes from
short stories vs long stories - IIRC right, you tend to read longer
ones? So ten might seem like a lot when an author is only writing two
or three a year. But I tend to read shorter pieces, and I can think of
two or three authors who have written four or five really superb
one-shots just this last year that I would like to nominate. Most
authors can write a one-shot piece in 2-3 weeks, and so if they're
writing consistently this might work against those authors.

An idea that I'm much more comfortable with is a chapter cap. I'm not
sure how this would work out practically, but perhaps the author could
be limited to nominating 50 chapters. This could be 5 10-chapter
pieces, or 10 5-chapter pieces, or 15 3-chapter pieces and one
stand-alone... you get the idea.

> If you are concerned about drabbles (and possibly poetry), perhaps
> have an additional cap

I think if we do go with a cap we should have a separate cap for
drabbles (and possibly also ficlets.) But I'm also thinking of Bodkin's
comment above... wouldn't drabbles be a good way to keep the variety of
works available high, without being that burdensome to reviewers. Thihs
is part of why I like the idea of having no limit on drabble
nominations.

(Note: The reference to Bodkin is in response to an LJ post -- see the
first post at

http://www.livejournal.com/community/mefas/893.html?view=2685#t2685 )

> Why nom something you have no intention of voting for?

I think the problem is that there's a difference between having an
intention of voting for, and actually voting for. I'm concerned about
the authors who only hear about the MEFAs because their story is
nominated. When I introduce one of these authors to the MEFAs I usually
say that the great thing about these awards is that they're less
competitive, and that they give an author feedback if even one person
votes for their story. I can see that this could make someone feel
pretty bad if their piece doesn't get any votes. And it's not a good
first introduction to the awards.

> But I can see how that would be problematical with self-nominated
> stories...

Yes, this particular measure wouldn't do anything to help cut back on
self-nominations unless we also required the author who is
self-nominating to enter a few stories on why a certain story should
compete. I can see how that would be off-putting, though.

Thanks for your thoughts, Dreamflower.

Marta

In a message dated 11/1/2005 8:22:46 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
melayton@... writes:

Ghettoelleth (Yahoo) - really likes the idea of requiring  votes




Well, there's three hours of my life I'll never get back again.  hehe

Fingolfin: You shut up!
Feanor: No you shut  up!
Fingolfin/Feanor: No YOU, you, uh uh, YOU shut up.
Then Feanor  fu*&^d off to the hills and had a grip o' kids...like hill
people  do....except not with his sister. - Excerpt from G&Al "Hooked on 
Silbonic"


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

----- Original Message -----
From: "rhapsody_the_bard" <rhapsody74@...>
To: <MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 9:59 AM
Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: Post-Mortem Topic #1: Number of Nominations


> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, <aelfwina@c...> wrote:
>>
>> I really feel #6 should not be necessary for limiting the number of
>> nominations. If a person likes a story well enough to nominate it,
>> then the first thing they should do is enter at least a draft or
>> tentative vote for it--I know I did. If people are not allowed to
>> nominate dozens of stories, then they would have time to vote for
>> the ones they nominated.
>
> Well I just assume that a nominator carefully thought about it, so
> even leaving a note doesn't feel necessary to me.

That's what I thought to begin with.
>
>> With #2, in which the nominators are limited to a reasonable number
>> of nominations, they should then have time to enter those reviews.
>> And I think an upper limit of 25 or so is too high. That may
>> actually have the effect of *increasing* the number of nominations,
>> as new members may feel obligated to nominate their limit.  I
>> honestly think 10 to 12 nominations (with the extension for
>> drabbles/poetry I mentioned in my previous post) would have
>> the right effect.  People who nominated 2 or 3 dozen stories in the
>> past would then have to consider just which they *really* wanted to
>> nominate; people who nominated only a couple of stories might be
>> encouraged to do a few more this time round.  I know that I
>> nominated, I think, 8 or 9 stories, and I spent a good deal of time
>> thinking over which ones.  I thought maybe I was going overboard
>> until I saw how many stories other people were nominating.
>
> I nominated about 39, and I all reviewed them. Actually, I made sure I
> had those done at the very least, so 25 makes me wonder... is that
> enough? Because I read a lot and tried to nominate lesser known
> authors. I am just wondering if some nominators went 'overboard' and
> others nominated about a certain average. That is why I am curious
> about numbers. But you can't prevent what people will think when the
> see a limit on something (if it is number of stories allowed to
> nominate, word count and so on). Even if it is 10, 25 or 50.

Well, if the idea is to keep the numbers down, we have to consider that at
least a little bit.  I recall at some point mentioning limits before, and
someone replied that they felt that as time went on the awards would become
self-limiting. But I am afraid I don't see that, and at this point in time,
do we really want to risk next year's noms perhaps doubling? or even half
again as many?  I know the amount of work you put in as a liaison (you did a
great job, by the way) but do you want to risk that work load doubling next
year?

At any rate, if the idea is to put the limit at as high as 25, then we may
need to limit the number of new members we take--and *that* is a can of
worms I *definitely* would *not* like to see opened!

It was good that some of the people who nominated many stories did vote on
all of them, but a good many did not.  However *requiring* a vote to
finalize seems to me to cause as many problems as it solves.  As I said,
with a lower limit, everyone should have plenty of time to vote on their
noms.

>
>> I am very much against going to the category thing with time limits.
>> We did that the first year, and I found it extremely confusing, I
>> could never keep track of what category was which week, even with
>> the reminders, which tended to clutter up my email and get caught in
>> my spam trap.
>
> Well since this was my first MEFA, I possibly could not have known
> that this happened in the first year (and also I don't know how it
> happened). I am just saying this because while categorising we saw
> categories that had barely made a full category (Poetry about Dwarves
> were re-located). And well, this years nominations went differently, I
> guess, so I don't see the cluttering of e-mails happening. It is just
> the amount of work behind the scenes that just was a lot (talking
> about a huge amount of stress and time limit). It truly was a high
> peak, if you can spread that.. well it makes life a lot easier. For
> the admin/volunteers at least.
>
Last year, each category had a "season" during which nominations could be
made, and a "season" for voting on those categories. As I said, I found it
very confusing; I made no nominations and I think I only voted on about 5 or
6 stories, because it was just overwhelming.  Just as I would think I'd have
time to vote on something, its "season" would be over.  And with all the
categories and sub-categories we had this year, to get all of them in, the
"seasons" would have to be extremely short.

I found the open system this year to be far more user-friendly, and the
result was I made several nominations and was able to review a good many
more stories than last year.

Dreamflower

> Rhapsody
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Hi everyone :)

I like options #4 and #6 and I like the suggestion someone further up
made of a place on the nomiation form that askes the nominator for a
few lines of why they are nominating the story.  That will make it
easy and reasonable for old and new nominators alike.

I like limiting the number of nominations each person can make
individually and I think you could also limit the number of stories
each author can have nominated - though I must admit that it would be
hard for me to pick and choose if that need should arise.  I like
limiting number/week so that it spreads things out for the volunteers
doing the behind the scenes work AND it gives more people a chance to
nominate.  I think someone else mentioned that opens the possibility
that someone else might nominate a story you were thinking of
nominating and if you're a heavy nominator that's not a bad thing.
it gives the shy and forgetful a chance to get a story they like in
there and feel they are a part of things.

I don't quite understand the "I suggest not counting drabbles, as I
think doing so would encourage people to nominate longer pieces
instead." comment.  I just felt badly that there were instances when
they ended up having to compete against full stories.  Some authors
almost specialize in drabbles.  Were you meaning to not have drabbles
at all?  Oh well, that's another subject altogether.

So, I'm for #4 and #6 :)   Also, I don't want to limit to stories
only one year old.  You never know when someone comes into reading
from our fandom and they may be aware of an older story that to us is
old news but to them is brand new.

Pearl

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Marta Layton <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> Hi Larian,
>
> > I like a combination of 1 and 4  (Limiting the total number of
> > nominations and
> >  the number of nominations per week/time period).
> >
>
> The more I think about it, the less sure I am about this option. I
can
> see the plus sides of it, and it's definitely something to keep in
mind
> as a possibility. But I think having an over-all limit on the
number of
> nominations would favor those people who nominate early. It also
might
> encourage people to nominate stories they are unsure about earlier
on
> because they aren't sure if they'll have the chance to later.
>
> How would you feel about limiting the number of nominations per
> nominator rather than overall? I think that would have the same
effect
> since there's a limited number of people making nominations, but
would
> mean everyone gets a more equal chance to nominate.
>
> >  I think entering a vote before the nomination can be processed
might
> > be too
> >  intimidating to newcomers to the program, and that will put a
barrier
> > up as far
> >  as encouraging people to get involved.
>
> Is this something we can overcome by how we phrase things, or how
we
> set up the form? For example, we might have a form on the field
that
> says something like:
>
> "Tell us what you like about this story. If you are not also the
author
> of this story, this will be entered into a tentative review for you
> (which you can change later if you like). This does not need to be
> particularly long; a sentence or two will do."
>
> Also, I think the nomination process will be much simpler this year
for
> the nominator. We'll try to nail this down later, but I think the
> nominator will only provide title, author, author's email, story
link,
> and possibly the summary. The author will provide things like
> categories and rating themselves.
>
> >  I also sort of like nominating stories written in the last
> > year...BUT...I do
> >  think that would cut out a lot of deserving stories.
>
> I understand that feeling. I think I've nominated most of the
stories I
> know of that weren't written this last year, but I understand
others
> may still know of some very nice older stories they want to
nominate.
> I'm not too crazy about this idea, personally.
>
> Now seems like a good time to say that the options I presented
aren't
> all ones that I would necessarily choose if it was just my
decision.
> They're ideas that have been proposed in emails I've received, and
I
> want to know what other people think.
>
> > (On the other hand, if there are stories that were
> >  written 3 or 4 years ago, you run the risk of the author being
out of
> > the
> >  fandom and it doesn't seem fair to keep giving them awards when
they
> > are not
> >  involved anymore).
> >
>
> We actually did have a few authors say that they weren't involved
in
> this fandom anymore and so they didn't want their stories to
compete.
> Also, if the email address we have isn't currently checked by the
> author, it's entirely possible we won't hear from them at all. We
can
> probably phrase the email sent to authors when their stories are
> nominated in such a way that it makes it clear to the author that
the
> MEFAs are available to everyone, but there's no compulsion to
compete
> if you aren't active in the fandom (or would rather not compete for
any
> reason).
>
> Thanks for your thoughts, Larian!
>
> Cheers,
> Marta
>

Hi Liz,

>  In considering the options, I've taken a rather cynical approach to
>  thinking about how people might "rig the system" in their favour.

Cynicism isn't a bad thing!  And while I agree with you that people
won't try to, I still think it's a good idea to consider how that might
happen so we won't be surprised.

Liz, you've made an excellent analysis of things. I'm going to comment
where I see the need, but really, you've made me think about things a
lot more clearly.

>  1. Limit the number of nominations, period. Once we reach this cap no
>  more nominations are allowed.
>
>  I think this is a poor idea because it risks unbalancing the awards in
>  favour of a small number of authors.

What you say is definitely true. It also favors those authors who
nominate early. I would hate for someone to want to nominate a certain
piece, be told that they had until April 15, but we reach our maximum
before the end and they not be able to enter their vote.

>  2. Limit the number of nominations per person.
>
>  I quite like this idea for two reasons.

This is probably my favourite of the first five options. If the limit
is fair it doesn't disproportionately affect any one nominator as we
all have the same number of nominations to use. I am a little concerned
that it would favor longer stories over shorter stories, but that is
something that I think we can address by how we set up the limit.
Perhaps we can have people nominate a certain number of chapters like I
suggested to people. We also might consider not having drabbles count
to this limit.

>  If we consider this the way forward, I think we need some real
>  discussion around what limits we apply.
>

Definitely. But perhaps we should hold off on discussing any specifics
until we decide that this is really the direction we want to go in.

>  3. Limit the number of nominations in a time period.
>
>  This suffers to some extent from the same problem as #1 - one or two
>  nominators could take up most of the available nominations (and keep
>  doing that at the start of every time period). Liable to lead to
>  frustration and snarkiness from everyone else....
>

Good point. Also peoples' schedules are different, and some people are
liable to always be busy toward the beginning of the week.

>  4. Limit the number of nominations in a time period per person. (i.e.,
>  you can nominate, a certain number of pieces per week.)
>
> <snip>
>  I think this might allow higher overall limits than in #2. The overall
>  limit in #2 and #4 is actually set by the number of nominators - more
>  nominators = more stories.

The tricky part is estimating how many people are actually likely to
nominate stories, so we can divide them up fairly between the different
nominators. But I think we can make a good guess based on how many
people have nominated in the past.

>  5. Limit nominations to pieces written this year.
>
>  Given the MEFAs have only been running a couple of years, I don't like
>  this idea at all.

Is anyone really set on tthis idea? I have seen people who don't like
this idea pretty strongly, and other people who like this idea but have
some reservations. Personally this won't affect me that strongly as I
think I've nominated most of the things from previous years that I
liked.

>  I'm coming down in favour of #4. If that's too complicated to code, I
>  would then favour #2, which is a technically simpler version of the
>  same thing. But I would also like if possible to incorporate some
>  element of #6 to address the issue of a nominated story receiving no
>  reviews.
>

Just to be clear, I didn't intend these to be exclusive - we can go
with some combination of them, or use elements of them to come up with
entirely new options. I think that we need to discuss #6 a little more
on its own, to see what exactly we want it to accomplish and what's the
best way to do that. I'll do that in a separate post after I've
answered all the current replies (which might take a day or two!)

Thanks for your thoughts - it's good to know where people stand on
these ideas.

Marta

Hi Rhapsody,

On 1 Nov 2005, at 04:47, rhapsody_the_bard wrote:

> --- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Marta" <melayton@g...> wrote:
>  >
>  > Hey guys,
>  >
>  > I hope all of you are out at Halloween parties or giving
>  > trick-or-treaters cavities. But tomorrow is November 1, which means
>  > in addition to ghouls and goblins, it's also time to start our 2005
>  > Post-mortem.
>
>  Just a small note Marta, today NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers
>  Month) started, and I know a lot of authors that are participating, so
>  maybe the responses are less because of it.
>
>  Rhapsody
>

That's a good point! I had forgotten about NaNoWriMo since I'm not
participating myself.

I hope those people who are involved will be able to make the time to
write a short note on their thoughts. I understand if they can't,
though.

Marta

Hi all,

Just wanted to chuck in a couple of comments on this
subject, as no one seemed to have made them yet.
One of my reasons for liking the idea of cutting down
the quantity of nominations overall is that hopefully
it will increase the proportion of stories that are
really good.  This year I read or at least started to
read every story that was entered, but even thought I
ended up having a lot of time (due to spending most of
september in bed ill...) I did not have the time to
read through everything and so often ended up judging
stories on their first paragraph or two.  This is one
of the reasons why I feel it would be better to have a
global limit on nominations, no matter what other
method are used.
My one other suggestion would be a limit on stories
per catogory eg 25 stories per catogory, once it is
full no more stories can go into that catogory.  This
would probably be harder to inforce by the admins but
it would seem to be a way of helping to make sure that
there is a wide range of interesting stories, rather
than have some huge catogories and some tiny ones.
I  would not like to see limits on teh number of
stories per author as this would seem to punish the
more prolific writers (I can think of several authors,
who had a lot of stories nominated this year that it
was a real encouragement to reading when I saw their
name next to the next story on the list).

Best wishes

Jenn



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Sorry missed one point that I wanted to make: there
are at present 326 members of the yahoo group, if
everyone of these was given the right to nominate 25
stories then the awards could end up with 8150 stories
entered!  (and that does not allow for more people
becoming involved).
One thing is that if people want to nominate more than
their limit, they could always ask someone else to
nominate stories for them ... either in a totally fair
way (eg saying about MEFAs to someone they knew really
liked a story and suggesting that they could nominate
it) or in a escaping the point way (eg asking some
random person they know who has a yahoo id to sign up
and nom a list of stories for them).  I know this
example could be seem as a bit extreeme, but one of
the problems is that there are many things in between
and what is okay to do and what is definately not
okay.
Anyway, I'll shut up now. :)
Jenn





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Whew!  I think Erin can rest assured that she did NOT kill the
MEFAs!  ;)
A request: when people say which option they like, can they mention
it by name and not just number?  Would be easier to follow.  Anyway,
here's my two cents:

# 1.  Limit total nominations.  Agree with everyone that this would
be a bad idea…it would create a "race to nominate."

#2. Limit noms per person.  Could work, I guess, and seems fairer
than some of the other options.  But I am very leery of Marta's
suggestion to limit number of chapters nominated.  Sounds too
complicated, on both the nominating and admin ends.  Plus, there are
too many variables…some people write really long chapters, some
short.  And I don't see this option favoring longer stories over
short.  Some people don't like to read long stories, and so I imagine
that they wouldn't nominate them either.

# 3. Limit noms in a time period.  No. Again, could create
a race to nominate.

# 4. Limit number of noms per person in a time period.  No.  Too
complicated.

# 5. Limit noms to recent stories.  I know many are opposed to this,
but I just want to say one thing in its favor.  As Erin so eloquently
pointed out, the fandom is changing, and slowing down.  I see this
option as way to encourage the writing of new fanfiction.  But I
guess that's a different issue from limiting noms.  I do think it
would have this effect as well, though.

# 6 Nominators must submit a vote.
I appreciate the idea here, which is to get people to think about
their nominations.  But what if someone's vote consists of "I think
this is a great story."  Would you consider that sufficient?  And if
not, are you prepared to start arbitrating what constitutes a valid
vote?

I think you may want to consider taking #6 out of this discussion as
I don't believe it will have a limiting effect on nominations, or not
much of one.  Especially if people can just write, "I will review
later," or "What a great story!"  If it has merits other than as a
nomination-limiting tool, then make it its own topic.

Bottom line, let's try to keep the MEFAs fair, inclusive, and
simple.  If we lose those qualities, I think participation will
decrease.

Kathy (Inkling)


--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "Marta" <melayton@g...> wrote:
>
> Hey guys,
>
> I hope all of you are out at Halloween parties or giving trick-or-
treaters cavities. But
> tomorrow is November 1, which means in addition to ghouls and
goblins, it's also time to
> start our 2005 Post-mortem.
>
> In order to keep things manageable, we'll limit this to a topic or
two at a time. I'll
> introduce a topic and everyone can weigh in. When we've reached a
decision I'll introduce a
> new topic. If there's something in particular you'd like to
discuss, feel free to email
> mefasupport@g... and I'll make sure we discuss it.
>
> So... first on the agenda. This year we had a lot of nominations. I
heard from people who
> had done a lot of votes who felt guilty for not doing more, and
from other people who
> didn't vote at all or as much as they would have liked to because
they felt overwhelmed.
> Even I felt the number of nominations was too high. But what, short
of breaking my fingers
> during nomination season, can we do to cut down on the numbers?
>
> There have been several suggestions:
>
> 1. Limit the number of nominations, period. Once we reach this cap
no more nominations
> are allowed.
> 2. Limit the number of nominations per person.
> 3. Limit the number of nominations in a time period.
> 4. Limit the number of nominations in a time period per person.
(I.e., you can nominate, a
> certain number of pieces per week.)
> 5. Limit nominations to pieces written this year.
> 6. Require the nominator to enter a vote for the story before the
nomination can be
> processed.
>
> I can see pluses and negatives on any of these. If we go with one
of the caps, I suggest not
> counting drabbles, as I think doing so would encourage people to
nominate longer pieces
> instead. I have to admit that I'm most partial to #5. In addition
to making sure that people
> slow down and think about their nominations, it ensures that every
piece except for self-
> nominations gets at least one vote. And it rewards people who are
willing to put forth a
> little bit of effort, which I'm always for.
>
> But that's just my opinion. What do you think? Do any of these
sound good? Are there any
> other ideas you have?
>
> Marta
>

> Bottom line, let's try to keep the MEFAs fair, inclusive, and
> simple.  If we lose those qualities, I think participation will
> decrease.
>
> Kathy (Inkling)

I'd like to second that "keep the MEFAs... *simple*" sentiment (while
not disagreeing at all with the ellided bits). Complexity may be good
in terms of (say) organizing categories; but the two basic things we
need people to do is to (1) nominate stories and (2) vote on them.

If either of those two major processes is perceived as overly complex,
requiring attention to more than one or two basic, common-sense style
rules, people will not participate.

And so I'd also like to second Kathy's recommendation to drop number 6
(to nominate, you must vote on the nomination immediately) at this
point. Not only does it greatly increase the complexity of the process
(and the time and energy devoted to it by both voters and admins), but
I think it's really concerned about a wholly different issue (namely,
the perception of the MEFAs in the larger fandom if some stories don't
get any comments). If I'm right, then I think we need to save that
concern for its own round of discussion.

Dwim

> I heard from people who had done a lot of votes who felt guilty
> for not doing more, and from other people who
> didn't vote at all or as much as they would have liked to because
> they felt overwhelmed.

I'm someone who felt all of the above. This was the first MEFA for me. I
signed up not knowing quite what was expected of me. I'm strictly a reader
and not an author. But I love to read and I thought I would be able to
manage to write some reviews. Then I saw the number of stories and nearly
unsubscribed immediately. Since Drabbles and poems are not my favorite
pieces I didn't read them at all and concentrated on the stories. But I
realized pretty soon why I'm not an author. Writing reviews is hard work for
me. My count average for reviews was somewhere around 3-4 pts. I never
managed a 10 pt review, although I really tried. I'm not given to flowery
language<g>.

After having said all this, I would disregard #6: require the nominator to
enter a vote. I know that I would be hard pressed to enter nominations at
all.

I like the idea of limiting the number of nominations per persons (#2).
Maybe have different limits for stories, drabbles and poems.

I'm strict against #5 limit to nominations to pieces written this year.
There are so many stories out there. Some of them are brand new for me, but
have been around for some time, before all these awards were available and
therefore never got any recognition.

Chris (obsidianj)

--- Marta Layton <melayton@...> wrote:

> Hi Larian,
>
> > I like a combination of 1 and 4  (Limiting the total number of
> > nominations and
> >  the number of nominations per week/time period).
> >
>
> The more I think about it, the less sure I am about this option. I can
> see the plus sides of it, and it's definitely something to keep in mind
> as a possibility. But I think having an over-all limit on the number of
> nominations would favor those people who nominate early. It also might
> encourage people to nominate stories they are unsure about earlier on
> because they aren't sure if they'll have the chance to later.
>
> How would you feel about limiting the number of nominations per
> nominator rather than overall? I think that would have the same effect
> since there's a limited number of people making nominations, but would
> mean everyone gets a more equal chance to nominate.


Yes, after seeing others' responses, and thinking further, limiting the overall
nominations would probably not be the best solution.

The easiest one to administer would probably the option of limiting nominations
per person. And as an aside, I wouldn't make drabbles an exception.  A
nomination is a nomination. If you limit non-drabbles, but not drabbles,
someone will think that drabble authors are being favored, or that longer
stories are being favored because they might have less competition.

Perhaps a straight X number of nominations per person is the easiest way to
help cut down on the number of non-reviewed stories next year.

I think it's probably been discussed in other emails, but no matter how you
word it for number six (forcing the nominator to vote before the nomination is
processed), it will still make the whole process that much more intimidating to
new nominators.

I don't see any sense in saying they have to review it, then saying that a
sentence or two will do.  What about the self-nominations? They're already down
a point or two then, before the judging even starts.


So, unless something majorly changes, I could live with limiting the number of
nominations per person.  (And if it's not impossible to administrate, limiting
the number per person per week is also appealing).

> An idea that I'm much more comfortable with is a chapter cap. I'm not
> sure how this would work out practically, but perhaps the author could
> be limited to nominating 50 chapters. This could be 5 10-chapter
> pieces, or 10 5-chapter pieces, or 15 3-chapter pieces and one
> stand-alone... you get the idea.
>

I think this would be a horror to administer.  For that fact alone, I don't
believe a chapter cap would be realistic.



Larian

"There is a fine line between hobby and mental illness."
--Dave Barry

larian_elensar@...
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/larian
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Archive addy  archive@...

Hey all,

Someone asked about the distribution of nominations by nominator.

Below are two lists. First, stories per nominator.
Second, self-nominated stories by author.

About feasibility:
#1, very possible, but duplicates and withdrawals will make it hard to
get exact.

#2, very easy. I might be able to re-count when stories are withdrawn
or duplicates, which would otherwise limit someone's number.

#3, relatively easy, but I don't like the idea.

#4, I could do this. It would be relatively easy to say no more than X
in the last Y days. The count would be updated all the time, rather
than just once a week, and tell the user when they would be able to
nominate another story.

#5, I'm not sure I could do anything about this. It would be a liaison
thing.

#6, I could do this. My suggestion would be that if you wanted to, make
the minimum a 4-5 pointer, except for ficlets or drabbles. It's not too
hard to determine if the nominator is the author. I personally don't
see why the nominator shouldn't be required to submit a good review as
part of the nomination process, unless it is a self-nomination.

Anthony

Here's the number of stories nominated by each nominatorID. I didn't
include the nominatorID, just the number. There were 74 unique
nominators.

|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   1 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   2 |
|   3 |
|   3 |
|   3 |
|   3 |
|   3 |
|   3 |
|   3 |
|   4 |
|   4 |
|   4 |
|   4 |
|   4 |
|   5 |
|   5 |
|   5 |
|   5 |
|   5 |
|   6 |
|   6 |
|   6 |
|   7 |
|   7 |
|   7 |
|   8 |
|   8 |
|   8 |
|   9 |
|   9 |
|  10 |
|  10 |
|  11 |
|  12 |
|  13 |
|  16 |
|  18 |
|  22 |
|  23 |
|  23 |
|  24 |
|  24 |
|  25 |
|  26 |
|  26 |
|  27 |
|  28 |
|  38 |
|  39 |
|  59 |
|  70 |
|  74 |
| 596 |



The following is a list of self-nominated stories, again grouped by
nominator/author.

+----+
|  1 |
|  1 |
|  1 |
|  1 |
|  1 |
|  1 |
|  1 |
|  2 |
|  2 |
|  2 |
|  2 |
|  2 |
|  2 |
|  2 |
|  2 |
|  3 |
|  3 |
|  3 |
|  3 |
|  3 |
|  3 |
|  4 |
|  4 |
|  5 |
|  5 |
|  9 |
| 10 |
| 17 |
| 44 |
+----+
29 authors self-nominated