The very late Silver Pencils awards discussion

[PancaKe]

Okay. It's extremely late and there's been no Silver Pencils awards !!!

So, this is basically a discussion. What do you think we should do with the Silver Pencils? Anything we should change? This is not a category suggesting topic - one of those will come up closer to the date of teh Silver Pencils! Perhaps a new theme instead of having only fanfics?

Ideas would seriously be appreciated.

And by the way - Ada, Gavin and DH , we need to get in contact.

[The Decapitated Mole]

I don't think the awards need any changes. They've been working fine for years, I say keep 'em. No point in messing with 'em if they don't need messin' with.

o_0
jimm

[Chris 2.1]

Hmm well yea, there's no point in changing them for the sake of it; I say keep them the same. Also: It's about time!

[Gavin Luper]

Hey Tara. Ada and I have been talking about it lately but we haven't been able to get in contact with you or DH. We have to meet soon I'd say, considering it's already Spring now.

As for the changes, I think they are good how they are, at least for the moment. As Umbridge says, "Progress for Progress' sake must be discouraged." (I have read that book waaaaaay too much).

Oh yeah, are we still going for the preferential voting? Personally I found that a bit annoying, and I'm sure it'll be harder to count.

[mr_pikachu]

I think the voting system is fine the way it is, even though it can be difficult to choose lower ranks at times. In those cases, I'd just suggest that people not give votes to the lower ones. (For instance, if "The Gold League" and "The Silver League" both seem equally good for third place, then you could omit the third-place vote.) That technique has been used when the only good choices remaining are fics that the reader (in this case, me) doesn't know very well.

Oh, and mods... You remember that I tried to come up with a system that would make the tallying of the votes easier for the mods? I'm still working on that project (with a different type of system), but I doubt that I'll be able to finish it before the Silver Pencils. Heck, I may not finish it this year... I'm still trying to learn what I need to know, which is difficult since I'm in school now. But I'll keep working on it until either someone else implements the same sort of thing that I'm aiming for, or I finish it. I hope it will be the latter.

(And Gavin, you may not know what I'm talking about, since you were modded after my first attempt... you can PM me if you want to know just what I'm rambling about. The other mods know, too... if they remember.)

Anyway, the system seems good to me. I'm looking forward to another Awards Ceremony, where I'm certain to once again get a total of zero awards! Woohoo!

[mistysakura]

Hi, well, the thing with these Silver Pencils things is they don't have a season affixed to them, so doesn't really matter if it's spring already! Just kidding.

I reckon the voting system's fine, the counting was fine when Oz and I did it last time (spreadsheets make it so much easier), and also I like the 3-2-1 voting system (which is different to preferential, btw) becuase it helps the less recognised fics here get some recognition. If it was just one vote, I can see some big fics hogging the awards.

I won't be able to help this month, becuase I'm going off to Japan, but next month I'm free (voting and stuff will probably be end of this month/start of this month, yeah?) and it'd be cool if we got into contact sometime this week. It's weird cause the three Aussie mods have pretty close time zones, but we still manage to never see each other on MSN...

EDIT: Tara and I have this idea about splitting the awards into 3 categories: normal fic awards, normal member awards, silly member awards (eg. most unusual couple). What do you guys think?

[PancaKe]

Well I've been talkin to Ada, and we've been tossing around the idea of a Members Awards. What do you guys think? Basically, we'd still have a small section on the fics, then a section on serious members awards then a section of muck around members awards. The GP's would still be the main event of fic based awards with only a small members section, but perhaps this could be the other way around.

Who knows, it could be a lot of fun actually. What do you guys think?

[mr_pikachu]

Hm, could work. I think it'd be best if it was a separate awards thing, though. For instance, maybe we could do that for Fall and Spring, to kind of fill in the gaps. *shrugs* I suppose it could be a part of the regular awards, but I think it'd be kinda bad to have people running around with their "muck around members awards" claiming to have won a bunch of big Fanfic Awards. As long as they're separate, I'm fine with it.

[PancaKe]

If we hold them seperate - then thast way more work for us mods to do. Also you have to take into concideration the amount of fics now on the boards, only about half of the first page is filled iwht active fics. Will there be enough for a full out fanfic awards? In my opinion its better to give this a try, and if it flops out then next SP's we have we'l stick to it being the GP's but with a diff name,

[dratinihaunter13]

I guess I'll have to start getting on msn again >_<. dratinihaunter13@hotmail.com
i'll try to get on as much as possible but school's starting to lay it on heavy. i like the 1-2-3 system a lot and wouldn't see it as too much of a hassle to count out. as for the silver pencils being a little more member oriented than the golden pens, that might be cool. i'd like to see the silly member catagories in there. even if people do win those awards and go around all "oo i won big sp award ahahaha", they'll have to name which one they won and most likely to follow their idol off a cliff won't be too impressive.
if that made ANY sense at all.

as long as they get going sometime soon really

[PancaKe]

So.. what do you guys think about it? Yes or no?

[mr_pikachu]

I'm with dh13. As long as we get them going soon (or more importantly, just get them going before the Golden Pen Awards), I'm fine with it. Let's get it on!

...That sounded wrong, but you know my intended meaning. Right?

[PancaKe]

Okay...

When I next talk to the mods, we will organize the SP's.

They should be ready by october, hopefully. If not, then yeah... But they'll be worth it (hopefully).