Future of the Workshop Awards

[Gama]

The other mods of the Workshop and myself have been discussing the Writer's Workshop Awards and how they might be improved. We came up with what we think the current issues are and how we think we can get around them but we want to hear what the entire Workshop community thinks of our ideas and, importantly, what ideas for their improvement you have yourself.



Before I start I would like to express that none of what I am about to say was agreed upon unanimously by the moderator team, so please don't feel like you'd be going against us if you disagree. We really need your opinion.



One of the main problems we've looked at it is that we feel the Awards are too frequent. As it stands, we are due to have another set of Awards this very month when we're still on the wind down from the Summer Awards. The first change we've proposed is making the Awards bi-annual (summer and winter only) or annual instead of quarterly. We think this will make the Awards something that are a bit more special instead of happening nigh on constantly. The Awards are supposed to be exciting and thrilling but we are worried that they might have lost a part of that by being too frequent.


Another issue we've looked at is the categories. At present, there are lots and lots of categories, some of which have been created a little superfluously and, as such, end up having very few nominees. An idea we had was to replace the genre-based categories with categories based only on 'story type'. In other words the categories would look something like 'Best Serial Fic', 'Best One Shot' and 'Best Alternative Work' (the latter including anything which doesn't fit neatly into the first two, essentially). We think this will create competition in every category. Similarly, the Character Tier could be limited to 'Best Main Character/Protagonist', 'Best Supporting Character' and 'Best Antagonist/Villain'.


An idea that works into the previous one is awarding banners to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. In practice then, approximately the same number of awards will be given out (18) but at the same time there will be a lot more competition as everyone will essentially be competing for just 6 Awards. We think this will make the Awards a lot more exciting without eliminating people's opportunities to get Awards.


As I said above, we are very keen to hear your opinions on this ideas, but we are also very keen to hear your completely original ideas.

So, concisely, your comments on:

1) Award frequency (should they remain quarterly or be reduced to annual or bi-annual?)
2) Categories (how should they be modified - genres, story types or both?)
3) Placings (should 2nd and/or 3rd place get awards?)
4) What other ideas do you have?

 

[Legacy]

I had jumped the gun and started a thread about this too, but deleted it. Here is what I said in it, similar to what GMa has eloquently outlined above:

Hello all,

The mods were having a discussion about improving our Awards and we wanted to ask your opinions on the matter.

Here is our preliminary idea for an overhaul of the Awards, which would ideally help stimulate competition and participation:

Basically, we would eliminate all of the genre-based categories (Best Journey Fic, Best Shipping, etc.), and replace those categories with:

Best Serial Fic (chapter fics)
Best Short Fic (one or two shots)
Best Alternate Fic (poetry, song lyrics, etc.)

Then for all three of those fic categories, there would be a gold medal winner, silver medal winner and bronze medal winner. Similarly, there would also be three categories for characters:

Best Protagonist
Best Antagonist
Best Supporting Character

Again, for these three categories, there would be a gold, silver and bronze medal winner.

Our reasoning for this proposed change is this: For the past few Awards seasons, while we obviously have had some amazing works submitted and nominated, we have seen some lack of balance in terms of how many fics are submitted for certain categories. We have seen more than a few awards handed out to authors/fics that were unopposed in their category and won by default.

For competition's sake, we would like to eliminate fics winning an award just because there aren't any others in that category. I won't speak for everyone, but I think this change could help make the Awards more competitive and fair by having fics of similar length go up against each other rather than by genre.

While there will be fewer categories, the medal winners in each category will ensure that an almost-equal amount of authors/fics will be recognized, but again, we will be able to eliminate people winning their category by default.

Also, by condensing the categories, I think the competition and interest in nominating and voting will increase. Instead of a (for example) really awesome Shipping Fic being destined to win easily based on the normally low number of Shipping Fics submitted, that awesome Shipping Fic will be going up against equally awesome Fics of other categories, which will hopefully result in more people wanting to nominate and vote because of the added sense of competition.

Secondly, we were throwing around the idea of having the Awards only twice per year. Like condensing the categories, this would hopefully make the awards more exclusive and special than the current seasonal format, where some have expressed the concern that having awards so often cheapened them.

Anyways, let us know your thoughts, concerns, suggestions. After all, these are your awards, we are just trying to figure out the best way to carry them out.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I think that having it quarterly allows more works to get noticed and interested. Annual seems like a far too long period, with many stories not going to get noticed for the newer ones coming about. Maybe tri-annually, such as every four months rather than three?

I think the main issues with the awards is the fact not many people come in here anyway. We can't have an awards thread that few people nominate for. I think we need to offer something to the people to get them reading the fics beforehand before the awards come about. I had friends who said they wouldnt vote because they havent read many of the other stories, so I think we need to attract more interest first.

Secondly, the awards keep going past deadlines. Nominating is usually left open about a week after it was meant to close, sometimes two, and then voting carries on as well, before a long process before the winners announced. I think it majorly needs to be slicker and quicker, so it can stay within one month instead of dragging out into two.

The wide variety of awards I see as offering more people to get nominated, more stories to get recognised and more awards to be dished out. It is all about popularity rather than quality most of the time, and only very popular stories would end up winning if this happened. I have never been a fan of silver and bronze outside of sports: I think portratying your story as the third best isn't really going to reel in winners. I do think there are a few too many categories, but narrowing them down to three rules out certain fics and chracters getting noticed and leaves only the predictable old stories to win.
And you cant really compare some fics to other fics. Shipping to Dark, Journey to an Original, each one has its own magical qualities to it. Comparing them is like comparing Harry Potter to something like Black Swan: both good films in their own ways, but wouldn't really work being forced against it each other.

So, I think there needs to be a balance between quarterly and annual and many and few categories so we dont radically change the awards and make them into a less enjoyable and more difficult experience. And more promotion and more ways for other readers to come in and read, and maybe encouraging more people to post a bigger range, so some categories dont feel useless and unneeded.

 

[Gama]

I can't speak for previous awards but I would like to say with these awards the nominations closed on time (certainly in my timezone), the delays of closing the voting and getting the results up were based on several people going away at the same time and, essentially, less than ideal organisation. This is something that will, obviously, be improved, but might also be helped by less frequent awards.

You say, AceTrainer, that the reason we don't get many nominations is because few people come here but I would just like to add that this has been far more of a problem with recent awards when there have actually been more regular users than before. With the first two sets of awards we had enough nominations in every category but this started to wane with the later awards, when we actually had more people so I don't think that is the problem.


Personally, I think you're right that annual would be too infrequent but I think bi-annual would be best so the next awards would be in December, which isn't actually that far away. Even if we had tri-annual awards, the next awards would be in 3 weeks time and we've only just come out of these awards. It kind of gives the feeling that it's always awards season, which stops awards season being special.


You make good points about a wider variety of categories. Perhaps the categories just need to be cleaned up rather than completely overhauled.

 

[Legacy]

Good points Acetrainer. Thank you.

Without doing an actual count, I would say there are actually more people participating in the WW than when we started the awards. The problem seems to be getting those people to nominate and vote/participate in the actual awards. And condensing the award categories may or may not alleviate that problem.

I disagree a bit with your point about not being able to compare fics just because they are of different genres. This, to me, is the beauty of Awards shows like the Oscars, Emmys, etc, where they intermingle genres all the time for awards like "Best Picture" at the Oscars. It's beautiful because a film like Harry Potter or a Disney film has the chance to go up against some of the more classically artful and critically acclaimed movies and win.

I think it's awesome to have movies, or fics in our case, from all different genres and styles competing against each other rather than just restricting competition among similar genres. If I'm authoring a crack fic or a shipping fic and I'm trying to make it as good as I can, I'd want it to be judged up against the more traditional journey or coming of age stories, not just given a banner saying my fic was the better of the two submitted fics in my category.

Also, IMO, winning a bronze medal in a more condensed and general category competing against everyone, is far more of an accomplishment than winning an award in an unopposed category, no matter how good the fic.

I think the awards should be more about competition and recognition as a top story at the WW more so than about exposure. For exposure, we need to plan other events or make events like "Fic of the Month" or "Monthly Fic Club" realities. To me, those activities are better designed to get less popular authors exposure. The awards are a competition.

And the ever-popular "the awards are just a popularity contest" complaint is puzzling to me because isn't that exactly what Awards are supposed to be? Sure, I get that popular =\= good/award-worthy necessarily, but it's obviously often the case that a well-written, Award-worthy fic would be popular.

Again, I think we need to come up with other, better ways to help with the exposure of lesser known fics, and not worry about catering the awards to fit that purpose, especially if we are going to be using a voter-based method of determining award winners. By definition, voting/democracy is a popularity contest.

Sorry for the rant. I appreciate everyone's input!

And as always, thanks all authors and readers of the WW for all your amazing work.

I do think that the awards should be less focused on purely

 

[AceTrainer14]

I slightly agree and disagree about the popularity bit. Yes, some fics that are popular are actually well written and that. But I find that a lot of fics that Ive read on here that people have recommended have been pretty badly written, but become immensely popular for reasons I don't know.

I have a real life example of this. A friend boasted about how his fics on FanFiction.net had more views, and I was curious as he is n awful writer. He told me that shipping fics are most popular, so I decided to test this theory by writing a god awful shipping story and seeing if it was popular. It now has over 3,000 more views than the rest of my stories, and probably the same amount of views as them all put together at over 6,000. I can provide a link if you want to read it and see just how awful it is to be so popular (by standards of my other stories, that is )

I liked how last time we had judges doing individual bits. It shows that each fic actually got read before it won: I don't think we can honestly say that every single person reads every single story before voting. I think a judge system would work best for the awards, as than we have people actually reading each fic. Than we can have a Reader's Choice section where other awards are dished out based on what everyone thinks. But by having a judge dish out the main award, it can be judged based on quality, development, etc, not just who has the most fans.

 

[Gama]

Interesting, so you think the judging panel was a move for the better?

I think this is certainly something we can incorporate but it does not preclude any of the other changes proposed. You could completely change the categories and still have judges award most of the prizes.

 

[Legacy]

Very good points Ace, although I like to think the WW has a bit more integrity in terms of readers and reviewers than FF.net.

Anyways, if we do stick to the judges panel, I think we definitely need to get rid of the some of the categories. We just need to agree to what degree we condense the categories.

I'm not totally dead set on the categories I outlined above, but I just want to eliminate people winning an "award" by default due to only one or two fics being nominated for a category, like we've mentioned.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I think that the categories should be kept, as than we they can still get recognised in their respective ways. But maybe we should make a limit this time to make it an actual competition, like making it that there have to be five stories nominated or something otherwise the award doesn't go ahead. This way we don't necessarily cut the awards before they happen, but if its obvious that there arent enough stories, than the award is removed before moving onto the actual voting period. By cutting awards, this could make people lose interest in writing a certain branch of story that we dont usually see like Shipping, Crack and Alternative. Keeping the awards around beforehand means they could be written and could still be nominated for other awards even if they are eliminated from other categories

I also think that people should at least prove they have read the stories rather than voting for one they have already read, to make things a bit more fair. If we dont have judges doing a panel, then anyone can come in and just go "I like (for example) Dragon Days, I'll vote for that" when there are other stories they probably didnt know existed and will forget about after leaving.

I still also think that having only two awards would seriously limit thing. Christmas usually has its own special contest and awards section for winter themed stories. Would that surpass this awards, or would this taker over from those ones? Having both could cause clashes and some people would care more about winning an actual prize than winning a banner.


I just dont see that many issues that need to cause radical changes to a well loved system that could stuff things up quite a bit. There are lots of ways we can compromise rather than going straight for the radical options that could stuff the awards up. Its beginning to seem like every awards if an experiment to see how the next awards will turn out.

EDIT: I had a look at some of the awards. I think you could turn Non Pokemon, Original and Crossover into one big category to incorporate several stories together, and then put Other and Alternative Writing into one award as well to limit things. And maybe turn Shipping into Romance to allow more entries

 

[Legacy]

I like the idea of eliminating categories if there aren't enough nominees, but it would sort of be indelicate to have one story nominated for an award, then when the voting begins have to tell that author, "sorry, no one else submitted anything in your category... too bad for you, your category is eliminated." I like the premise of your idea though.

I agree with you though, I don't want to discourage people from writing Shipping, Cracks, etc. I'm not sure the proposed categories will do that though since we aren't getting rid of some categories and keeping others, we're simply condensing them all so they all have an equal shot at the awards.

As for the voting thing, yes, in a perfect world, we'd have some way to ensure that people are being truthful and honest in their votes and are actually reading what they are voting for, but anytime you have anything in any aspect of life (elections for example) you run the risk of people voting without doing their due diligence. It just comes with having a vote. There isn't a plausible and practical way I can think of to force people to read the fic they vote for even though it's strongly encourage. Perhaps we can keep the format of having the readers nominate and the mods do the judging.

Another idea I had was to sort of tweak a previous idea that was thrown around before I became part of the staff:

Have 2 "minor awards" sessions per year, call those the "Writer's Choice Awards" or something, have all the normal categories and pretty much just keep them the same.

Then, annually, perhaps at the end of the year or in February or something after the XMas season dies down, have the Annual Awards, which are meant to be more prestigious and exclusive. Have the narrowed down categories, and have the mods judge. The annual awards could be recognized as the "Best of the Best" Awards.

I know something like this had been tossed around before, but it's another suggestion.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I know it isnt ideal cutting them, but I know some authors don't feel like they have won when it is only them in the category. Five may be too high of a number to cut them off, but looking through past awards some of them only have about three nominated. I just think that giving people the oppurunity to be recognised is essential: if they don't, then oh well, but it still gives them the chance. Even if the awards are cut down to Best Serial/One Shot/Alt, stories like cracks and shipping will be shunned asides for Dark, Journeys, Backstorys etc.

I think people nominating and then have it judged its a good system that guarantees good selection and reading. If people want a wider selection, we could have three judges or so per category, though one is much more simple.

Having two minor awards sound interesting, but what would be different about them compared to main awards?

 

[Legacy]

The awards with the vast array of categories will be considered "Writer's Choice" and will be pretty much the same as the awards have been. Best Journey, Shipping, Future, etc. Many categories and voting. These would be held twice a year, perhaps Spring and Fall? or Summer and Winter?

The Annual Awards, perhaps we could give them a fancy name, will be the more prestigious and exclusive. Think of these as the Oscars, as opposed to the Writer's Choice Awards being akin to the "Teen Choice Awards". Mods would judge these, and would take on the proposed "Best Serial" "Best Short" "Best Alt" categories with the medals. These would cover everything from the past year.

 

[Gama]

See, AT, to me, the best solution of the problems you've outlined is the original idea proposed.

Problems:

A) If we only have Best Journey, Best Dark etc., we'll sideline smaller categories like crack and shipping.
B) Some categories have very few entrants and writers can often win by default.

The solutions are:

1) Have an award for every category but that maintains problem B.

2) Cut awards that have minimal nominees. This solves A and B but creates a new problem. What if the single nominee did deserve an award? They can no longer get awards because not enough other people are writing stories similar to theirs. They can also not be nominated for Best Other because there was an award for their category already.

3) Eliminate all genre based awards and have all stories compete against all other stories. As Legacy said, in things like the Oscars this is commonly done and it actually works very well. I still think this is probably the best overall solution.



Bringing up the Christmas contests is a very good point. I think this shows that we should limit the amount of award seasons we have. The Christmas season can focus exclusively on the contests, meaning there should be no awards. That way, people have opportunities to win prizes and (importantly) recognition three times a year if we have bi-annual awards. (They could be in March and September so the longest period without any prizes is summer when a lot of people, including the mods, go away and things can get difficult to organise.)

Personally speaking, I don't like the idea of having Writers' Choice twice a year and the bigger ones once a year. I don't think this will work or happen. I think we could, though, if people are interested, incorporate voting and judging segments into the awards like we did with this last set. What do you think of that?

 

[AceTrainer14]

I think the Christmas and Bi Annual Awards is a good solution. Maybe if we go with Solution 2, there could be an honourary award given to that person if they did deserve the award (a quick judge who can see if the story is good or not) Or, if there are several awards that are cut with nominess, they could have their own special Honouree Voting ("The Best of the Rest") so they are able to go up against each other. There is also the chance they could have been nominated for something else.

I just think that if we cut the awards, they could have consequences. We could get hundreds of shipping writers that fill up the entire awards or crack writers that win all the awards anyway. I think that cutting them beforehand jumps the gun and could end up stuffing things up and ruining the awards.

 

[Kyuuketsuki]

Regarding the frequency of the awards, I think bi-annual is the most ideal. The way it is now, the awards are like dominoes, if there is some delay in the one, then the work will just pile up. That, and it undermines the awards themselves. A story can go through all four of them, and more.

I don't have a completely new idea for the categories, but building up on the previous one, I think that just demoting the award instead of cancelling it is better. If an award is bound to automatically go to one award, call it something else, and not an award. The person still gets their award, but it's not as glorious as the other awards.

I'm sure I could've thought of some better suggestions, or expressed my thoughts better, but I'm sick...

 

[Gama]

Regarding the frequency of the awards, I think bi-annual is the most ideal. The way it is now, the awards are like dominoes, if there is some delay in the one, then the work will just pile up. That, and it undermines the awards themselves. A story can go through all four of them, and more.

I don't have a completely new idea for the categories, but building up on the previous one, I think that just demoting the award instead of cancelling it is better. If an award is bound to automatically go to one award, call it something else, and not an award. The person still gets their award, but it's not as glorious as the other awards.

I'm sure I could've thought of some better suggestions, or expressed my thoughts better, but I'm sick...

I've already said I think bi-annual is ideal, so I don't really need to comment any more on that but I do agree with you.


This demotion idea sounds interesting in theory but, personally, it sounds like it will more than likely just end up being exactly the same as winning an award anyway.

(Unless we make it sound so much lower than the regular awards that it makes little difference between this and cancelling it.)

Regardless, you're still essentially punishing someone because not enough people are writing in their genre. These dilemmas just make me feel like doing away with genres and using Legacy's proposed categories would be the best idea.

Still, I'd be interested to hear any alternatives because it seems everything that has been come up with so far has failed to please everybody (even if it has been able to please some)

 

[AceTrainer14]

I do think my idea of putting the people who get nominated in one category only and then there arent enough people are put into their own little category: they still stand a chance of winning an award, but it isn't quite as cruel as cutting their award chances when nominated or preventign them from being nominated in the first place. This way, we dont just give people the awards and they dont get punished for not being nominated. It can be the People's Choice Award or something spiffly named like that

 

[Kyuuketsuki]

I don't think changing the categories or switching them up will help much, since the problem essentially comes down to the inactivity.

But regardless, I think the categories, if changing them is a must, should be:

Best EVERYONE Story.
Best TEEN Story.
Best MATURE Story.

This allows for mixture of serials and one-shots, and retains the number which seems to be important: 3. Genres can get a little complicated, so ratings seem to be the best way to go. Though the stories shouldn't be judged by how mature they are, or how family-friendly it is.

As for characters:

Best Protagonist.
Best Antagonist.
Best Recurring Character.

Basically the same as previously proposed, though I think they should be better explained. Maybe explain who qualifies as a recurring character, and whether Pokémon Character, such as the Protagonist's, Antagonist's, or Recurring Character's, qualify in their Trainer's Categories, and whether wild ones do as well, such as fics who have a Legendary, or any other Pokémon that plays a part of the story without being in any Party of any Character.

 

[AetherX]

On the topic of only one person getting nominated: Why not just cut the category, but give the fic an non-specific "honorable mention?" That way they still get an award, but don't unjustly (maybe that's not the right word) receive "Best Shipping Fic" or what-have-you, merely because nobody nominated another story.

 

[Legacy]

I still sort of think it's weird/shady whatever to have a good fic submitted in a category and have to tell that author that he/she doesn't get a real award because no one else submitted one to compete against him/her... and I also think the demotion thing is essentially the same as cancelling it. Saying, "You don't win an actual award, but look! You win this participation certificate for being the only one!" is sort of the same thing IMO.

Perhaps if there was a less dramatic way of condensing the categories, that would appease everyone? I don't know.