GOF Awards 2010 Official Rules

[Pangaea]

Another question: Are you required to state which categories you are not voting in (if any), or is it just something that is strongly encouraged?

[Malte279]

If one decides not to vote in a section we encourage just writing a line about it to make the overview easier (no need for explanations on why a vote is skipped), but so long one doesn't skip any more than the maximum number of skipped votes (two) one does not disqualify oneself from receiving an award by not spelling out the skipping of a vote.

One important thing to note is that the vote for the "Appreciated Member Award" starts only after the end of the voting on the other awards. If somebody has skipped two votes already and then does not vote for the "Appreciated Member Award" he or she would disqualify him or herself. If someone has skipped one or no vote so far he or she would not disqualify him or herself by not voting on the "Appreciated Member Award", but of course we very strongly encourage to vote on this award (the candidates for the Appreciated Member Awards are those eligible GOF members who have not won any award or runner up award in the vote up to that point).

Finally one note for certain reasons, the votes in the whole voting are supposed to be the personal decisions of the voters and only of the voters. Especially voters should not be "advised" or talked into changing their votes. While we do not have a specific rule against changing votes that have been given (excepting cases where members previously voted for have been disqualified or announced they don't want to participate in the vote) we very strongly discourage this to spare both the nerves of our tally keeper and (much more importantly) the feelings of anyone who has been voted for and is then suddenly stripped from his or her votes.

[Edit]Ooops, the "certain reasons" I believed to have to add the last point never existed
My bad, there had just been an advise to change a vote cast for a member who was not yet eligible for this years award voting session. I hadn't realized and paranoid me jumpted to the wrong conclusions
Sorry about this

[DarkHououmon]

Like it's been said, the only problem with making a fanfiction award is that everybody has different tastes. Also, writers have different writing styles, so to choose somebody for an award would be the same as saying that person has the best writing style, which would alienate the other authors.

Well wouldn't the same apply to fanart? People have different fanart styles and fanart tastes. Not everyone will like all the same fanart. One fanart may be loved by one, hated by another. The only difference between fanart and fanfiction is that fanart is seen, fanfiction is read. But one's taste and style still apply to both. I think fanart is just as open to bias as fanfiction is.

[Caustizer]

Like it's been said, the only problem with making a fanfiction award is that everybody has different tastes. Also, writers have different writing styles, so to choose somebody for an award would be the same as saying that person has the best writing style, which would alienate the other authors.

Well wouldn't the same apply to fanart? People have different fanart styles and fanart tastes. Not everyone will like all the same fanart. One fanart may be loved by one, hated by another. The only difference between fanart and fanfiction is that fanart is seen, fanfiction is read. But one's taste and style still apply to both. I think fanart is just as open to bias as fanfiction is.

This is exactly right.

As much as I believe the admins will discuss this in due course, I also strongly believe that the fan fiction award has been omitted in the past solely on the basis that it wasn't a big enough part of the site to warrant a voting process.

In my mind, it seems prudent that a poll be held either here or in the LBT Government section to see what the site thinks about adding an additional award next year for Fan Fiction.

Caustizer.

[Pangaea]

I’ve been thinking about this subject as well, and I second Kacie’s argument. She took the words right out of my mouth. Like she said, fanartists have varying art styles, and the people who view their work have varying tastes in fanart. Furthermore, not everyone who votes for the Fanart Award looks at everyone's fanart, just like not all fanfiction readers read all fanfictions.  

It could be argued that fanfiction is different from fanart in that it generally takes much longer to produce a good quality fanfiction than a good piece of art, but on the other hand, many great fanartists don’t create artwork very often, but when they do, it is spectacular. This is not too different from fanfiction writers.

As I said, give us time and as I've stated before, fanfiction in the past has not been a very large part of the community, hence we have not done a fanfiction award before, and that is why it was not on the list this year.

Maybe there aren't a lot of GOF members writing fanfictions, but I think a fanfiction category would still receive a substantial number of voters, perhaps even more so than some other categories, such as the RPG award. People who read fanfictions do not need to write fanfictions themselves in order to evaluate them, whereas almost all of the members who read RPs and vote in the RPG category are RPers themselves (Members who skip voting in the RPG category all give the unanimous reason that they are not active enough in that section). Forgive me if I sound like I'm dissing the RPG Award; I'm not. My point is that if we can have an award for RPs and an award for fanart, why not one for fanfiction as well? The reasons against it are just as applicable to these two awards which are already established.

I'm all for a Fanfiction Award. I agree that we should bring this up in the Rock Circle.

[Serris]

As Pangaea stated, one does not need to be an artist to vote for fanart or a writer to vote for fan fiction.

And I think fan fic writers should get some recognition for their efforts.

On a side note, I added a topic to discuss this in the Rock Circle.

[Caustizer]

How long does voting last for the Appreciated Member Award last?

I need to know so I know when I need to decide who to vote for  

Caustizer.

[Littlefoot1616]

Why wait?! Get it over and done with as soon as possible. In terms of official timings, Appreciated Member award voting will continue until this coming sunday. So voting will close at Sunday 27th June 2010 @ 12 Midnight (Forum Standard Time). That way everyone would have had a week to vote.