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Post by fearandloathing on Jun 19, 2008 10:31:18 GMT
I think getting voulenteers to do a preliminary reading would be a good idea, Tasha/Pied (something I could do, if I don't try out for judging), as that would provide a good filter and could be used to involve more people in the awards process, as last year there were nominations/judges and that obviously worked out, but seeing as we have a lot of new members having a broader level of filter/judging could be pretty fun As for other final fantasys, I think a 'best ff[number] fic' would work out great, though if we are lacking in judges then it could be merged into 'best other fantasy fic', which in itself has more scope for catagorizing 'like a few sections like drabble, angst, romance, etc'. As for refining the judging process, what were the main specifics of last year's? As not being a judge its all cloaked in mystery for me Maybe if we have a lot of nominations and need a good process to pass/fail things, we could borrow of the old driving test system and have 'major' and 'minor' flaws, and if you get so many of either then you drop out. Though, if that sounds a bit merciless, perhaps invert it and have some kind of passing/rating system that puts things through. And to churn out another idea (thinktoomuchthinktoomuch) for basic nomination checks we could go all numerical and have a really simple 'marks out of' system that a voulnteer/or two for consistancy runs by the fic. I'm done.
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Post by piedflycatcher on Jun 19, 2008 11:05:15 GMT
My first thoughts are that it took like...a year? Or more? For the awards to be held and I feel that means that the process ought to be refined a bit. Just under a year overall, I think, but yeah, you're right. I don't think it was the process itself that was seriously flawed so much as the fact that we didn't have enough judges. We had vanishing judges, late judges and too much work and not enough time. There are two obvious solutions to this. One: get more judges. We need as many applications as possible and we need judges who will be reliable. Two: reduce the workload as much as possible. Reducing the number of categories and limiting the number of nominations would help there. This is another idea which could help, I'll definitely consider it. Certainly if we were to put a limit on the number of nominations, I would also be stricter about quality control. That's what I hope to do. I think getting voulenteers to do a preliminary reading would be a good idea, Tasha/Pied (something I could do, if I don't try out for judging), as that would provide a good filter and could be used to involve more people in the awards process, as last year there were nominations/judges and that obviously worked out, but seeing as we have a lot of new members having a broader level of filter/judging could be pretty fun That's interesting, I'll think about that. I'm looking to cut down categories rather than add them at the moment. I also feel that if we are to award fics in other FF fandoms, we should do it properly, rather than tacking on an extra category to the FFVII awards.
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Post by Sylla on Jun 19, 2008 11:33:11 GMT
Oops, sorry for brushing the off-topic line there. I tend to want to say everything pertaining to a topic at once, so I get carried away. =P As to preliminary reading, I think this'd be a much better method of quality control than what we had previously, which was really quite informal and hit-or-miss. Of course, it'd require people to just go skimming through nominated fics quite quickly simply to determine whether they are of a certain standard, so they'd have to be quick, dedicated, and able to cope with large workoads (... so in other words, not me). XD Also, I don't think expanding the categories to 'best FF[numeral] fic' is the best of ideas - I agree with Pied that if we're going to award fics from different FFs, we should go ahead and do it properly. I'm seriously doubting we'd have enough judges to run parallel awards (or even one just after the other). Good things come to those that wait: if people want FFVII again, we can wait another year to do a different FF. Although, now that I take the time to seriously consider it, I think it'd be quite nice to do FFX a different FF. Variety is the spice of life and all that.
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Post by T. Costa on Jun 19, 2008 12:42:50 GMT
As to preliminary reading, I think this'd be a much better method of quality control than what we had previously, which was really quite informal and hit-or-miss. Of course, it'd require people to just go skimming through nominated fics quite quickly simply to determine whether they are of a certain standard, so they'd have to be quick, dedicated, and able to cope with large workoads (... so in other words, not me). XD Well, my thought is, some people who will skim just for those basics - some of the nominated fics last year were amazing, and like I said, some were like "Wait, what?" Some people to skim and see if the stories adhere to basic language rules, to see if they've been abandoned, et cetera. I, personally, am not in favor of limiting nominations by anything other than time. I recall that I joined here RIGHT before nominations closed and actually nominated a really good fic; if we limited noms by number rather than by time it just seems like we'll miss out on the potential for a lot of really good fiction. I am not, however, at all against shortening the nomination time. I think that between a slightly shorter nomination time and a group that does preliminary read-throughs for grammar, spelling, basic decent-ness, we could really have something here. (I even have a name idea: THE GRAMMAR GOONS. Sorry, I haven't slept in a while. XD) Just my two cents.
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Post by Sylla on Jun 19, 2008 12:55:34 GMT
Hah, I just suggested PRs as a name - Preliminary Readers. I actually like 'Grammar Goons' better. XD
I actually think you'd do a good job as a GG (lawl), Costa, since you can read real fast and have good grammar (duh).
Also, you have a good point about whether or not to limit the categories. On the one hand, it's true we might miss out on some good fics. However, if we're more stringent wit hthe preliminary readings, less fics will make it through to the shortlisting, which means the limit to the number of fics nominated won't be such a big problem. And bear in mind that someone has to read the nominated fics later! =P
After being stuck with the 21-fic big WiP category, I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn't want to wish anything like that one anyone else except that one girl at school whom I loathe, but that's neither here nor there. I think 15 would be the absulote maximum one person could feasibly be asked to read through.
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Post by fearandloathing on Jun 19, 2008 15:52:18 GMT
As a past judge I think Sylla sounds perfectly reasonable there, I don't think I could handle more than 15 fics even if they were all of a normalish length in too short a timespace, and fair shout on the other catagorys, maybe after/during this set of awards we should open up a poll for the next-next one, and what ff that could/should be.
Grammar Goons sounds very amusing, though I don't know what qualifys as good/bad grammar so I guess some basic ground rules to level out casual 'don't mind a few easy-to-make mistakes' readers from the Nazi's among us would be helpful.
And perhaps if enough people don't voulenteer for GG's, then perhaps the mods could go out and PM people they think could do the job.
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Post by T. Costa on Jun 19, 2008 18:14:13 GMT
I dunno. While I think 15 is a perfectly reasonable amount, my concept was that the grammar goons (preliminary readers, whatever ya wanna call 'em XD) would read them as they come in to decide whether or not they fit the criteria (assuming, of course, people have the time - if that's the issue maybe we better get on the ball so we can have prelims during the summer haha). That would be why you'd need several preliminary readers, so that they could each have input on it, or cast a vote, or whatever. Obviously, the Head Honchos would still have the final say but you can usually tell from the first paragraph or two of a story whether the writer has any concept of wtf they're doing. That is assuming, of course, that we're going for the whole shebang and not a "Most Improved" reader award.
Maybe I've just had too many experiences with sorting through crap like that when it came to ROTC - we had awards every year and for three years I was on the awards committee. People would nominate people and we had to meet once a week and hash people out, and that's how we did it. We'd each spend about thirty minutes of our own time looking into the cadet in question, and then we'd get together for about thirty minutes to discuss what we thought and argue it out, and then we'd cast a vote. That's just my two cents as someone who HAS ran an awards thinger before, although, granted, it was NOT a literary award. In my experience, that's how it works - you have a nomination period and you hash out the noms to see if they qualify, then you have finalists (shortlists here, right?) and then winners.
I dunno, maybe I'm just full of crap. Take what you like, and leave the rest - it ain't MY awards show here. XD
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Post by fearandloathing on Jun 21, 2008 9:39:30 GMT
I think is sounds perfectly sensible, Tasha, and in case it wasn't obvious I'm perfectly happy to go up as a Grammar Goon, I could even work up some kind of system that makes sure everything gets (depending on our numbers/number of nominations) more than one read, so everything gets a double check Basic GG-ing works for me just fine, maybe after I get some experience with that then I can go for judging another year, but I still think I'm a just little bit green for full-out judging right now
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Post by T. Costa on Jun 21, 2008 13:39:47 GMT
Well, fear, I also like the idea of the mods discussing who they think would be good grammar goons and PMing them. I think a lot of people on this forum would probably, if they had the time, love to be a judge. This is kind of a step between. Obviously, some people would have to evaluate if they thought they'd have the time to dedicate, but a few hours a week sorting through crap versus noncrap....well, I dunno about you guys, but I do that on a regular basis when I set out to read fanfiction anyway.
The other thing is that we'd have to have a bunch of preliminary readers who are open to reading ANYTHING - yaoi, het, satire, parody, drama, comedy, explicit work, et cetera. While I will read anything so long as it's decently written, there are people who have their quirks and flat-out won't read certain pairings or yaoi. So it'd be tough to find grammar goons, but on the other side I really think that some people would be great at it.
One person I can think of for basic grammar stuff off the top of my head is Cally, but I doubt she'd have the free time. She's my beta-reader and is AMAZING at it, is a pretty quick reader, and enjoys giving her opinion about fanfiction. However, she also considers herself more a lurker than anything else. So.
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Post by piedflycatcher on Jun 21, 2008 14:05:48 GMT
Well, fear, I also like the idea of the mods discussing who they think would be good grammar goons and PMing them. I do like this idea, but I would rather have volunteers.
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Post by fearandloathing on Jun 21, 2008 14:32:43 GMT
*Raises hand* As Tasha mentioned, I am one of those people who *will* read anything once when the nominations open and some GGs are required, let me know and I'll get right on the case. Us non-mods could talk about who would be a good GG and go hassel them into volunteering, Tasha
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Post by T. Costa on Jun 21, 2008 14:44:09 GMT
Haha. Well, maybe we could start a thread for possible grammar goon volunteers? With Pied's input as to what would be the qualifications if they decide to do it, and how many we need? That way we can see if there are enough people interested to make it a valid idea in the first place. If you and I are it, well, that doesn't really help, haha.
And the image of a squad of Grammar Goons made me think of the Turks, only with Reno pouring through a dictionary 'cause he can't spell and Elena glowering over her red marking pen of doom. Hahaha. Yeah, I'm a freak. D:
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Post by piedflycatcher on Jun 21, 2008 14:45:41 GMT
Haha. Well, maybe we could start a thread for possible grammar goon volunteers? I'll do this a bit later, okay? I'm also going to reopen judge applications soon.
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Post by T. Costa on Jun 21, 2008 14:48:02 GMT
*nods* If you need help with anything, Pied, please let me know. After today I'm free to help with stuff (my parents are moving today). Whether it's HTML stuff or ...whatever. Running awards ain't easy, as I learned a while back, lol.
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callylet
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Post by callylet on Jun 22, 2008 5:38:27 GMT
One person I can think of for basic grammar stuff off the top of my head is Cally, but I doubt she'd have the free time. She's my beta-reader and is AMAZING at it, is a pretty quick reader, and enjoys giving her opinion about fanfiction. However, she also considers herself more a lurker than anything else. So. Wah! Actually I wouldn't mind helping out here at all ^_^ I was only mildly reluctant to volunteer myself earlier because I wasn't all that sure of myself. Besides, I've been going through my internet rounds so quickly of late that I find myself staring blankly at my monitor whilst listening to music for a good four hours. In short: If people think me worthy, I happily volunteer to be a Grammar Goon.
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