Hi, Rod, and thanks for your thoughtful reply...
At 06:01 PM 4/8/2006, you wrote:
It brings to mind a recent situation with the Annie Awards [...]"Wallace &
Gromit" went on to sweep the Annies, winning in all of like 9 categories where
it was nominated. Talk about "smelling of bias"!
Not that I didn't love the "Wallace & Gromit" movie, mind you, but really...
I remember seeing something about that and thinking the same thing, and
you're right about the appearances.
The truth of the matter is, the Ursa Major Awards and everything about them
really are transparent -- and I have no problem with making them more so.
If people really want us to put up the numbers, we will. I think you hit on a
good point there though: Thus far, the Ursa Majors haven't really made enough
of an impact on anything for people to really CARE about the procedures or
make a stink about them, I think. Hell, if people actually care enough to try
and stuff the nominations, I'm honored, tell the truth!
Chakat has a pretty good system at this point to make it very difficult to
stuff the actual voting, which is what really counts anyway.
True. I think another issue with the nomination process (and, to a lesser
extent, the voting) is that it's a bit arduous to go through, especially
considering, as noted above, that few enough people care to go through the
process TWICE. I've been trying to get Sofawolf people to vote this year, and
had to post fairly detailed instructions for the nomination procedure.
Similarly with the voting--I had one friend tell me that you couldn't see the
list of nominees until you register. Now, I know you can, because I did, but
the fact that someone would visit the site intending to vote and arrive at
that conclusion seems a bit troubling. I know this is a spare-time, labor of
love thing, but at the same time, if you want people to care, they either have
to have a strong incentive or it has to be easy for them. At the moment, the
anti-ballot-stuffing procedures are necessarily cutting down on the easy for
both the nomination and voting, so my feeling is that by removing the
nomination as part of the public process, there would be more incentive for
people to vote--it's a process, but one they'd only have to do once.
Fred brought up some good logistical points as well--who would pay for
copies of all stories to be shipped to judges, etc. I think those are rather
easily addressed. For short fiction, judges can be sent copies of the stories
in electronic form; for novels, it's a bit trickier, but if you're a real fan
of furry lit, you're likely picking up these novels anyway, and furry
publishers would likely not mind sending one copy around to the committee
during the qualifying year. I think the greater problem is finding people
willing to devote a large amount of time to reading all the qualifying
material, but the fandom lit turnout is not yet large enough to be daunting if
one keeps up with it over the course of a year.
Webcomics are a different matter--at the same time more numerous and easier
to keep up with on an ongoing basis. But maybe then the solution is to reverse
the process: let the public determine the nominations and have the judges
thoughtfully evaluate all the nominees. That would necessarily extend the
period between nomination and selection, because it takes time to read all
this stuff, and I think the danger of bias is greater in this case, but if you
had a sufficient number of judges, there'd be less chance of bias. Pulling
judges deliberately from different groups of fandom in different parts of the
country would have the added effect of spreading the word about the award.
As to the "Short Fiction" Ursa Major category this year, the truth is there
were a LOT of stories nominated -- the numbers were all over the place. The
number of stories that recieved at least one nomination is HUGE. It just so
happens that that set of stories got the most nominations by a few here, a few
there. If you see the actual spread, it looks a lot less 'suspicious'.
Understood... just funny how the final results turned out. It seems apparent
that the fanzine with the most Ursa-aware readership is Spontoon Island. :)
Anyway, just some more thoughts. I'm still out there stumping for Sofawolf!
: Tim
"Maybe with a little more effort and reflection, you can live the kind of life
story a literary agent would want to read." --Chuck Palahniuk, "Stranger Than
Fiction"
