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[RokofAges75]

I kinda thought the whole point of the Felix Awards was that it was only for AC.  If you change that, you change the whole purpose of the awards - to acknowledge the best on this site.  It's not like it's really limiting or exclusive - there are thousands of stories posted on AC, and anyone can post there, so like you said, Julilly, anyone can make themselves eligible.

Also, how many writers are there in the BSB fandom who post their stories exclusively somewhere other than AC nowadays?  I can only think of like one person offhand.  Some of us still maintain our own sites as well, but AC is the place to be if you want readers and reviews, and it makes it so much easier to keep track of feedback.  I think it makes a lot more sense to stick to AC; it will keep it more current and relevant.

[RokofAges75]

I was just looking for the 'like' button then I realized I'm not on Facebook lol I think it's bed time!

LOL I do that all the time!

[colorguard_diva]

It was me, who said that I think it would be nice to have some more types of awards. I think the award categories that have been picked this year are great. I just think it would be great to have some awards that delve deeper into what writing is about.

I think it would it would be nice to have a category for most creative story. You see lots of discussions about the lack of creative story lines especially in certain genres. It would be nice to see that stories from all genres that are creative be put together to find the most creative story line.

It would be neat to see something dealing characters. Some authors work so hard on making their characters believeable in their stories.

I guess the point I'm making is that there a little things that make a story great, that the authors should get credit for it.  It would be nice have categories that deal with the aspects of writing not just genres.

I'm not asking for best kiss and other superlatives. That is just too hard to pick. In one story of mine, I might have 20 to 30 kissing scenes. I couldn't even come up with a best kiss in my own....lol.

[RokofAges75]

That makes sense, Rachel.  One thing that was nice about when the awards were judged was that the judges used a rubric-style scoresheet that required them to score the stories on a lot of the different aspects you mentioned - creativity, characters, dialogue, and storyline, as well as grammar.  To win, you had to score high enough in all of those areas combined.  With voting, it's up to the individual voter what makes a good story, and I'm sure everyone uses different criteria to judge that.  That said, I know voting is a lot easier on Julilly and Mare, and it takes into account the opinions of everyone, instead of the opinion of the one person filling out the scoresheet.  So I'm not suggesting we go back to judging! LOL

[colorguard_diva]

Julie, judging would definitely be hard to do. Finding judges to read all those stories would be tough. I just think there are so many people who deserve credit for their wonderful stories and talent. I wish we could celebrate more of the greatness of AC.

I don't want anyone to have to do more work than needed, but I think more people need to be recognized and represented for their talent.

[RokofAges75]

That would be nice.  I wonder, though, if there were more categories again, would more people actually win awards, or would the same number of people just win more awards each?

[colorguard_diva]

quote author=RokofAges75 link=topic=2969.msg98864#msg98864 date=1329626310]
That would be nice.  I wonder, though, if there were more categories again, would more people actually win awards, or would the same number of people just win more awards each?
[/quote]

That is a good question to ponder, but isn't that saying that only if you are considered a popular writer you win awards and that it is not necessarily based on talent or writing ability. I'm not trying to be mean or negative. I don't want to hurt feelings. I think anyone who writes deserves a ton of credit.  Everyone who was nominated is extremely talented. Those who won deserved to win.[ All I'm saying is the awards are more like the People Choice Awards and not the Grammys or Oscars.

Sorry if this comment offends anyone, but I am lumping myself into that since I was nominated. I'm not trying to start a fight or a controversy. I'm stating my personal opinion. I think we should honor as many people as we can.  Believe me there are a lot of hurt feelings for those who don't get nominated and work hard to perfect their writing.

I'm not saying we add 50 more awards for next year. I just think we need to really think about the purpose of these awards. Awards for genres are great, but there is so much more than that when dealing with writing.

[RokofAges75]

I see what you're saying.  I just think, in reality, the authors and stories that are being nominated for the genre categories would probably be the same ones nominated for other categories because, in order to be the Best Whatever Genre Story, they probably have good storylines, good characters, etc.

Also, in reality, popularity does come into play when the awards are voted on, but that doesn't mean it's not based on talent.  Popularity comes from widespread appeal, and in general, poorly-written stories and poor writers aren't going to have the same widespread appeal.  That's not to say there aren't really good writers who fly under the radar.  There are.  My point is just that if they're not being nominated in the existing categories, I'm not sure they'd be nominated in other categories either.

One suggestion could be to limit the number of categories a certain author or story could be up for, but that would only be necessary if there were a problem with categories filling up, and I'm not sure that has been a real issue.  I know there was a maximum of ten nominees allowed in each category, but only a few of the categories actually had ten nominees; most had less than ten.  If there were other creative, talented writers who could have filled those empty slots, why weren't they nominated?  It's down to the readers to nominate and vote for the authors and stories they feel are most deserving.  We may only be able to vote for one, but we can nominate as many as we want, so if there was someone deserving who wasn't even nominated, then their readers dropped the ball.

[RokofAges75]

This might actually make for an interesting debate topic, but I'll just put it here first:  I thought the comment about these awards being more like the People's Choice Awards than the Oscars was interesting.  They definitely are like the People's Choice Awards in that everyone gets to vote.  The Oscars are also voted on, just by people in the industry rather than the general public.  Do you think it would change the outcome of the Felix Awards if we only allowed writers to nominate and vote?

One thing I notice with movie awards is that there's often a big difference between the movies that get nominated for Oscars and the movies that get nominated for People's Choice, Kids' Choice, and MTV Movie Awards.  The latter tend to be commercial, blockbuster movies that aren't always critically acclaimed, whereas the Oscar-nominated pictures get good reviews but aren't always commercially successful.  Would the same difference exist in fanfic awards?  There aren't really any others besides Felix these days to compare.

Personally, I don't think it would make a difference because most of us writers are also readers.  We nominate the stories we like and the authors we think are talented.  I can't imagine our thinking is that much different from that of a reader who doesn't write.  It's not like we have professional critics judging our work... we are each other's critics.

[julilly]

That is a good question to ponder, but isn't that saying that only if you are considered a popular writer you win awards and that it is not necessarily based on talent or writing ability. I'm not trying to be mean or negative. I don't want to hurt feelings. I think anyone who writes deserves a ton of credit.  Everyone who was nominated is extremely talented. Those who won deserved to win.[ All I'm saying is the awards are more like the People Choice Awards and not the Grammys or Oscars.

Sorry if this comment offends anyone, but I am lumping myself into that since I was nominated. I'm not trying to start a fight or a controversy. I'm stating my personal opinion. I think we should honor as many people as we can.  Believe me there are a lot of hurt feelings for those who don't get nominated and work hard to perfect their writing.

I'm not saying we add 50 more awards for next year. I just think we need to really think about the purpose of these awards. Awards for genres are great, but there is so much more than that when dealing with writing.

Don't feel bad Rachel! This is exactly the kind of dialogue I had been hoping to open up. I really value everyone's feedback. These are your awards after all.

Last year the Felix Awards were even called the Reader's Choice Awards so it's hardly offensive to say they are like the People's Choice Awards. I'll try to give you some insight though into why we changed the structure of them this year, apart from just the number of categories.

This is the first year since 2008 that we haven't had those kinds of categories and part of the reason is that they're very subjective. If you look at the way people nominated stories a lot of nomination sheets only contained one or two that someone would try and lump into as many categories as possible. They'd like a particular story and nominate it for everything. So while the action/adventure category, for example, would only get a couple of nominations the more subjective categories (best cliffhanger, best tearjerker, creative storyline, unusual storyline, etc) would literally just have every single story that was otherwise mentioned. It was wherever someone could get the story they liked another nomination. So there would be 35 nominations for creative storyline (just as an example), but we'd be cutting out genre based categories for not having enough. Are you then getting a true look at the most creative storylines or just a list of the most popular stories?

Then when it came to voting... those subjective categories were always judged for a very specific reason. If you get a whole bunch stories from multiple genres/ratings/styles it's rare to find someone who has read them all. Most Nick romance fans aren't reading Howie suspense and vice versa. When they were judged that person was forced to read them all and legitimately pick the most creative. As soon as they were voted on one of two things happened - the person voted for the story they knew (the most popular) or they skipped voting for that category entirely. The number of votes for those subjective categories dropped significantly when compared to the genre-based awards. I can see people's votes and rarely do people actually give a vote for each award. They usually vote for the author they like in whatever category they're nominated in and skip the rest. So the person who ultimately would end up winning would be the person with the most popular story. Not the person who truly had the most creative storyline, but the person whose name was top of mind to voters.

Afterwards those other people would complain that Felix was too subjective, that it was unfair, that it was a popularity contest because the same people won everything. I can honestly say that this year has been the first time that a really good cross section of writers/stories has won. The difference was a lack of subjectivity.

I'm definitely not opposed to bringing those types of awards back in (especially ones like creative storyline) but this year we made it about more than just the stories, this year was about the authors.

[julilly]

One suggestion could be to limit the number of categories a certain author or story could be up for, but that would only be necessary if there were a problem with categories filling up, and I'm not sure that has been a real issue.  I know there was a maximum of ten nominees allowed in each category, but only a few of the categories actually had ten nominees; most had less than ten.  If there were other creative, talented writers who could have filled those empty slots, why weren't they nominated?  It's down to the readers to nominate and vote for the authors and stories they feel are most deserving.  We may only be able to vote for one, but we can nominate as many as we want, so if there was someone deserving who wasn't even nominated, then their readers dropped the ball.

I was going to mention this in a separate post but seeing the convo you and Rachel are having I figured I might as well bring it up here. One reason why I have the exit survey this year is not just to see the results but see how many people actually bother to vote.

I won't lie, this year was pretty pathetic when it came to participation. We had to extend the period for nominations because no one was submitting them, it was a real challenge to fill in some of the categories and honestly I can't believe we had a category that only had three nominees. There was only three categories that went to the cap of 10 (Romance and Drama, which is to be expected, and short story) but that was the most nominations that any category received. What that should tell you is that there were only 10 people who submitted nominations for the most popular categories. There were less than 20 people who nominated stories this year. Less than 20!

Voting was even worse. That survey was up for over a month and there was a grand total of 80 votes. That's about 70% less than last year and 100% less than the year before.  In all, that means only 27% of AC members control the outcome of the awards. The others though will complain when they don't win.

Everyone wants to win an award but no one wants to do any work to get to that point and writers being able to nominate themselves is not the solution. I know people are reading, there are stories with hundreds of reviews and an even higher read counts but no one is participating - they just want the banner at the end of it all.

That's why I'm asking these questions because it's a lot of work for me to do to if not even 20 people give a crap.

[Carter-Orange]

I liked the way the awards were this year and definitely want to see it carried on! 

Thanks for all the hard work you put in to it

[julilly]

Thanks Steph, glad you got to catch up this morning!

Re: the exit survey. I really am open to all the above suggestions. The reason I'm providing you all with the explanations as to why things are the way they are now is in case you might have any suggestions/recommendations for how to get around those obstacles. Obviously we have exhausted our ideas, but fresh ones are welcomed!

[RokofAges75]

Thanks for the insight, Julilly.  I am guessing most of us that are posting in this thread nominated and voted for the awards.  I know I did both.  Like I said, most of us writers are also readers, so we have our favorites too.

I wonder why more of the readers didn't participate.  Do they just not care?  I don't get it.  Voting takes all of a few minutes, maximum, so why didn't more than 80 people vote?  80 doesn't sound like a low number, at first, but when you take into account all the people on AC, I guess it is.  140 people follow the AC Twitter - why didn't they all vote?  If they care enough to be following the site on Twitter, you'd think they'd have some interest in this.

It's also weird that less than 20 people bothered to nominate anyone.  I'm just curious - did any of the nominations come from readers who don't write themselves, or did they all come from "us," the writers... and more specifically, the writers who post on the forum?

If anyone's complaining about a lack of variety in nominees/winners, there's the reason.  If only a small percentage of readers submitted nominations, you're only going to have a small sample of stories represented.  More categories isn't going to help that.  Sounds like we just need more participation!

[RokofAges75]

Maybe next year someone could make an "I Voted" or "I Nominated" graphic, like the stickers you get after voting in real life, that people could display in their signatures or as avys or whatever after they nominate/vote.  They would only get it once they PMed nominations, or it could be posted on the page that comes up after you finish the poll.  If a lot of us displayed the graphic, it would be a constant reminder for people to go nominate/vote.

Or maybe we need to go all P. Diddy and start a "Vote or Die" campaign LOL.