I forget? What's the current character limit? 2000 or 2500? I seem to remember I could fit, like, two or three paragraphs at best.
The current character limit for scenes in 2500. That's definitely more than two or three paragraphs, unless they're
particularly chunky paragraphs! You can check out last year's nominees
here, to get an idea of how much text that is. (Other people, please feel free to opine on whether you'd like to increase the character limit!)
I disagree, because it's an instance of heavily skewed data. If you go back to 2017's list, you'll find the overwhelming majority of the nominations came from just four users: Negrek, Cutlerine, Chibi Pika, and Dramatic Melody. This in spite of the fact that, when all was said and done, we had something like 15 or 16 people submitting nominations. If only around a quarter of the participants are actually taking the time to fill out those categories, I'd argue that means the categories aren't well-liked and maybe folks wouldn't mind seeing them get removed.
You're right, and that is a fair point. It's pretty surprising to me; scenes that stick out to me are some of the first things I think of when I think of the fanfics I read! But obviously if the average member has trouble thinking of particular scenes to nominate, those awards aren't quite as useful as I thought.
That said, with all the new users (or users returning after 5-6 year absences), maybe we should wait and see what happens this year before making drastic, sweeping overhauls? Discussion's been quiet as people have been busy with NaNo, and now exams and projects. I'd hate to potentially alienate and/or turn away a bunch of new participants by eliminating categories they might actually like based on feedback from one or two long-time users. <.<;
To be absolutely clear, of course we're not going to jump and remove a bunch of categories based purely on one or two people's feedback! If it turned out we got a broad consensus that nobody actually likes categories X and Y, then it might be worth considering deleting those categories, but one or two people do not a consensus make, and one person not liking a category doesn't automatically put it up for deletion. I'd love to hear more people's thoughts on whether the awards would be better with fewer categories in general, and which particular categories people enjoy and which they like less - please don't feel like you'd be
saying this is what we should do now so much as just giving a way for us to gauge overall interest in that kind of streamlining and what awards would be most expendable if we were to start considering something like that. (It's pretty late at this point, so if any cutting happens now, it'd almost definitely just be one or two categories, or combining some; any major streamlining would probably be deferred to next year's discussion, where we could set out with that as a topic and everyone could have more time to have their say about it.)
"Best Expansion of Canon" is a category I don't really understand how to use properly... I usually kind of treat it as "best setting, mark two." Like, I think it's probably intended for cool headcanon things, but in my experience those tend to either be significant enough to the setting that I would consider it for best setting anyway or not a major enough aspect of the fic for me to want to nominate the fic overall for it. Or maybe it's supposed to be getting more at AUs? We don't generally get many of those. (If we were going to add a "scene award," "best/coolest headcanon" would probably be the one I'd go for, but arrrrgh no more, not adding more!)
Best Expansion of Canon is described as "The story that best expands upon the Pokémon universe or characters." So stuff like headcanons, but also, say, interesting original character studies of canon characters - all in all, something that makes you see the canon in a new light, which I really wouldn't say has to have anything to do with the
setting. I dunno, it makes sense to me? Am I alone? (Not a rhetorical question! If a category is confusing and overall people don't feel sure what it means or what to nominate for it, that's worth knowing and discussing!)
I'm not as big a fan of the "Most Dedicated" categories. It's nice to appreciate hustle and people who are working really hard, but at the same time these categories have always felt kind of out of place to me.
Mmm, I definitely disagree on this one. I like to be able to give a real nod to the people who are just contributing a lot to the forums, even if they're not considered "the best". If nothing else, having an award for it encourages participation.
Though, as Ambyssin pointed out, the scenes are still nominated from the same few well-established authors, so perhaps it doesn't quite fulfill that purpose... I'm not sure.
I think you may have misread - the scenes are by lots of different authors, but only a few different people
nominated scenes for the scene awards. So it's not that they're failing to draw attention to a variety of authors, it's that a lot of people are refraining from making nominations for those categories.
