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2020 Fanfiction Awards - Discussion and Planning Thread

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
With September upon us once again, it's time to begin talking about how the next Fanfiction Awards will play out.

This year, a big issue I feel warranting discussion is the low participation in 2019's awards, which saw only six individual nomination ballots submitted and roughly a similar number of votes in the voting phase. While this was enough to have a functional awards cycle, obviously, it's not ideal.

So, what ideas are out there? Are there things we can do to drum up more activity this year?
 

FlamingRuby

The magic of Pokemon
It may help if we pared down the ballot just a little bit--I took a look even though I had nothing in contention, and saw lots of categories--maybe that is intimidating people?
 

WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
It may help if we pared down the ballot just a little bit--I took a look even though I had nothing in contention, and saw lots of categories--maybe that is intimidating people?
That's a good idea. Is there any way to combine any categories that have things in common/are similar?
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
I apologize for not including them. I will copy the nominations that were made from last year as well, so you can see both the category names and the amount of nominations each one got.

Overall Fiction Awards
Best Pokémon Chaptered Fic (Established Author)
Best Pokémon Chaptered Fic (New Author)
Best Pokémon One-Shot
Best Non-Pokémon Fic
No nominations have been made for this award.

Other Fic Awards
Best Plot
Most Original Overall
Best Writing Style
Best Description
Best Setting
Best Expansion of Canon
Best Character Development
Best Characterization in a Short Story
Best Character Dynamic
Most Suspenseful Fic
Most Heartbreaking Fic
Most Heartwarming Fic
Funniest Fic
Pokémon Genre Awards
Best Trainer Fic
Best Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Fic
Best Pokémon-Centric
Best Canon Character-Centric
Character Awards
Best Human Main Character
Best Non-Human Main Character
Best Human Supporting Character
No nominations have been made for this award.

Best Non-Human Supporting Character
Best Human Antagonist
No nominations have been made for this award.

Best Non-Human Antagonist
Best Minor Character
No nominations have been made for this award.

Funniest Character
Fic Moments Awards
Funniest Scene
No nominations have been made for this award.

Most Suspenseful Scene
No nominations have been made for this award.

Most Heartbreaking Scene
Most Heartwarming Scene
Best Action Scene
Most Memorable Quote
No nominations have been made for this award.

Author Awards
Best Established Writer
Best New Writer
Most Dedicated Writer
Most Improved Writer
Reviewer Awards
Most Helpful Reviewer
No nominations have been made for this award.

Most Dedicated Reviewer
No nominations have been made for this award.

It would appear to me that the immediate candidates to look at are Best Non-Pokemon Fic and the reviewer awards, followed by diving into the character and moment-related ones for deeper discussion.
 

TheCharredDragon

Tis the Hour to Reload
no! don't get rid of the non-pokémon reward! i haven't had the chance yet

In all serious, yeah, if those categories ain't gettin' nominations, it's probably best they're not there anymore even tho i want non-pokémon to stay for selfish reasons. Though I still think out of the character rewards, I feel we should still keep both best human and non-human antagonist because, well, it's such a big part of a story and that only really best minor character should be gone. Only reason I want funniest character kept because, well, I like comedy, okay?

Out of all the categories, I personally feel it's the moment ones that should go the most. Tho that's mostly for personal reasons (that being I usually can't think of a specific scene to nominate) so, I don't know if they really should considering that most heartbreaking scene had a good amount of nominations for that list.
 

FlamingRuby

The magic of Pokemon
I second cutting the moment awards, as those boil down to personal opinion (at least to me)

You could also combine the protagonist, supporting character, and antagonist into one, so humans and non humans would be competing together.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
Cutting the moment awards is something I think I agree with as well, although I will leave the question open for a while longer in case anyone wants to argue for keeping them. Maybe we could cut down the ones that got little activity and rewrite the ones we keep so they cover slightly different areas.

As for the character awards... FlamingRuby, is it your suggestion that we combine Human/Non-Human Protagonist, Supporting and Antagonist into simply just Best Protagonist/Supporting/Antagonist and remove the species difference? If that's what you're suggesting, I think I strongly favor that idea.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
We need to begin cementing the new changes in the next couple of weeks so everything can be ready to go come January. So far we have:

-general Best Protagonist/Supporting Character/Antagonist awards, elminating the split between Human and Non-Human versions of those awards. This is a change I think we can all agree on is one to do for sure, so I don't anticipate too much more discussion on it.

-possibly cutting the various Most <x> Moment awards. This is something we brought up but did not discuss much, so I would like to reach a consensus on it.
 

FlamingRuby

The magic of Pokemon
I believe the Moments need to go too--they are mainly subjective, so what's funny/heartwarming/dramatic to one person may not be to someone else.
 

bobandbill

Winning Smile
Staff member
Super Mod
I believe the Moments need to go too--they are mainly subjective, so what's funny/heartwarming/dramatic to one person may not be to someone else.
This is true, but contests like these are inherently subjective already (and also popularity contests to some extent). If someone doesn't agree with someone's interpretation on what is a funny/etc moment, they won't vote for it then.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
This is true, but contests like these are inherently subjective already (and also popularity contests to some extent). If someone doesn't agree with someone's interpretation on what is a funny/etc moment, they won't vote for it then.

For what it's worth, I think I am leaning more toward keeping them for now. I didn't really favor one side or another at first but bobandbill's logic is swaying me.

I'm probably going to tell Dragonfree soon what changes we're making so she has them ready for the site to go live. If there are any more comments, I need to hear them soon.
 

The Great Butler

Hush, keep it down
Because there appears to be no further comment, I am closing them now and will be telling Dragonfree to keep the moments awards but condense Best Protagonist/Supporting Character/Antagonist into general categories that eliminate the species division.

Please look forward to everything opening on January 1!
 
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