Critics Choice Award Round 2

[deliciously_naughty]

OK! We are no longer accepting submissions for this round of voting.

Judges, here are the stories

Volunteer Work by DarlingNikki.
Voluteer work by Dariling nikki

Forced wife chapter 2 by Orther5
forced wife chapter 2 by orther5

"A Modern Love Story" by Octavian
A modern love story by Octavian

"In The White Room" by tigerjen
In the white room by tigerjen

Twas the Night before Chrismas by kiwiwolf
Twas the night before christmas by kiwiwolf

Best seat in the house by Violette
Best seat in the house by violette

I know we were going to do 10 stories, but one of these is very long, and out of respect for the judges I've decided to cut the number of submission.

Judges, I'll be pming you also, but to publically announce the deadline and scoring rules....

Deadline for scoring:February 1 (again, out of respect of the amount of reading and your non-lit lives)
Results will be announced Feb 3rd

Rules:
1. If you nominated a story, you may not vote for that story
2. Please rate each story 2 ways...
a. on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the highest (this to determine eligibility for the C, if Laurel agrees to award them)
b. a 3, 2, 1 scale with 3 points going to the story you liked the most, 2 to second place and 1 point going to third place (this will determine the winners)

3. PM me your results for tabulation

If there are any questions, concerns, etc, pm me or leave them here on this thread!

the current judges I have are
Damppanties (sorry I forgot to name you earlier)
English lady
Natural born eros
the Earl
Madame Manga
Just John

Did I forget anyone?

Thanks DN

 

[Just_John1]

Mr. Dirt Man

I'm sorry that you seem to be under some sort of ratings attack. As far as "judging" stories, My thought is that the "contest" of sorts is nothing other than a relative perception of stories. It is nothing other than a comparison of work submitted that month not an overall judgement of good or bad. I also think the end result will be completely subjective based on the opinions (and as we all know they are like assholes, everybody's got one) of the five or so people involved in offering opinions. IMHO this is nothing other than something fun, where you know your work will get an indepth review and you'll get the opiions of other authors, nothing more nothing less.

I'm sure that other authors would be glad to read your work and give you constructive critism. A good place to get that kind of review by people that are great at giving constructive critism would be the SDC. It might take a while to get to the top of the list but the feedback you will get there is invaluable. I've only had one story reviewed there and it was equally humbling and invigorating.

There are people here that are happy to offer their time and a level of knowledge that I can only aspire to.

I also agree that judges, critics or whatever you want to call those of us that have offered our time, should not nominate our work. I'd even take that a step further and say, because judges will be rotating, that our work should not be valid for nomination in a month where we are active here. Again, just an opinion. I wish you luck in your future writing.

JJ1

 

[Chicklet]

<sob>

i missed it. puter problems screwed me over!

 

[deliciously_naughty]

<sob>

i missed it. puter problems screwed me over!

Hugs babe....but think of it this way...round 3 is always coming up and we'll need stories This way we already know that there's a great story coming our way.

 

[Just_John1]

Bump!

Was wondering what the status is. Have you received many Critic responses?

 

[deliciously_naughty]

English lady
Natural born eros
the Earl
Madame Manga


I need your votes!!!!


DP and JJ...thanks and I have recieved and noted yours

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Natural born eros

Madame Manga


I need your votes!!!!


DP, JJ, english lady and Earl...thanks and I have recieved and noted yours

 

[Natural Born Eros]

I thought we had until the first of February. Now I've finished my exams, I'm rattling through 'em. Should have the results for you tomorrow.

Eros

 

[English Lady]

Natural born Eros..we do have until the 1st, thats the deadline *S* I just handed my "scores" in as soon as i'd finished the stories*S*

 

[deliciously_naughty]

I thought we had until the first of February. Now I've finished my exams, I'm rattling through 'em. Should have the results for you tomorrow.

Eros

Great! You do...I'm just reminding everyone of the contest, since I've been pretty quiet on the boards

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Madame Manga


I need your votes!!!!


Eros, English Lady, Earl, DP and JJ...thanks and I have recieved and noted yours

 

[Whispersecret]

I've been away from the boards for a while, so forgive me if I'm missing something.

I'm not sure I understand this. It seems to me that if you just say, "We'll consider the first ten stories submitted," you could very well get ten pieces of crap. Then what? The validity of the award is compromised, if it was ever established in the first place.

If the critics giving the awards aren't consistent, then where WILL the consistency of excellence come from? Why should readers trust the "C"?

Please don't read this as an attack. I have long thought that an august group of serious, dedicated critics could contribute something worthwhile here, and I admire your willingness to try.

 

[English Lady]

Whisper secret I think you raise valid points, although i think we are relying on the good taste of the nominators to ensure we are not voting on bad stories to start with. I think it would be impossible to do anything else really, you could not expect every critic to read every new story admitted to find the best of the bunch (unless your offering*L*)

I must say I am with you on the second point though, how can it be kept consistent if the critics are constantly swopping and changing? Again though, i think its out of our hands because i dont think we'd find enough people willing to commit to being a critic every month to make it viable.





BTW..when will this months results be available?

 

[damppanties]

If the critics giving the awards aren't consistent, then where WILL the consistency of excellence come from? Why should readers trust the "C"?

When this idea was first being played around with, I remember that there was something about taking critics who are active on the Story Feedback board.

i dont think we'd find enough people willing to commit to being a critic every month to make it viable.

Just an idea...
There could probably be a group of about 30 (more or less) critics out of which, only about 5 would be active for a month and the next month another 5 from the same group. Now, the eligibility of the group could be a problem. Perhaps we go back to the presence on Story Feedback.

 

[Guest]

who be who

To the August Academy-

As a spectator I have been exceedingly lazy. Perhaps we need to "validate" the process as we go.

I think it would be interesting to see if the way the voting turned out matched up, in a general way, with Author's Hangout readers.

Being one such reader, I am going to dig up the first nominees and read through them...then see if the way I ranked them even comes close to the way the voting turned out.

I also think that perhaps posting the results on the Story Feedback board would be appropriate since critics hang out there. Advertising for judges there might not be a bad idea.

If nothing else, I have a new set of stories to go read.

b

 

[deliciously_naughty]

I'm still waiting on Madame Manga for results...if I don't hear from her by friday, I'll tabulate the votes without her input.

WSO--while I understand your concerns...to make the story submission guidelines fair and open (the first round took attacks as being cliquey b/c we kept it to people who posted on the forum) I also put into the criteria asking for stories only to contribute those stories the nominators felt to have merit. If we had ended up with a badly written story (or 2) I feel that the critics would have given them the 1's or 3's they rightly deserved on a 1 to 10 scale.

Beyond that...this was something that we started after everyone sat around complaining that there wasn't really any good way to find "good" stories or for "good" stories to get the acclaim they deserve (not to start up the voting complaints, but that was certainly part of it). Hence, we started with forum authors and this was the first round where we went out and solicited other stories. We were hoping to get something to acknowledge the story as a critics choice, but Laurel never answered my pm's on the subject, so in reality what is has turned out to be is us kicking around stories, and getting (hopefully) the message out about some good stories that we might not have read otherwise.

I don't know if there will even be a round three...depending on if someone wants to step up and take over as moderator. Dr. Mab, who started and moderated round 1 didn't really feel that it should go any further. I think that we have potential here, but it would require more effort and refinement

 

[TheEarl]

I think the major strength of the award is that it is carried out on the Author's Hangout. You'll get established authors submitting stories and established authors as the critics (or at least people who are serious about their work). Plus everything is out in the open and up for public debate, so flaws are easily spotted and it's so far been liquid enough to change to improve.

Keep it informal IMHO.

The Earl

 

[TheEarl]

Two PS's.

Whispersecret: Welcome back. Where've you been?

And if no-one else wants to, I'll take over as chairman for round three.

The Earl

 

[English Lady]

Well i'll happily be a critic again....

and i second the earls nomination for chairman

 

[deliciously_naughty]

earl you're more than welcome to take over...but I'm keeping the lear jet

 

[Whispersecret]

Thanks for the nod, Earl. It's nice to be missed.

Hey, I'm WS, not WSO. WSO is nicer than I am.

Ya know, on the poetry feedback forum they used to have a guy who was like the Gene Siskel of the Lit poetry. (He might still be doing it, for all I know.) Whenever a new poem hit number one, he would write a detailed review. Oh, he was wickedly funny and his barbs were both sharp and accurate.

Perhaps something like that is more manageable.

Oh, nevermind. I just remembered that the idea was to put good stories out there and recognize them.

Okay, here's my thought on that, since I never joined the original discussion. Also, forgive me if I'm repeating any idea that's already been put forth.

What if Laurel deputized certain people Official Critics (LitCrits, maybe?) Perhaps people who were interested in being deputized could submit reviews of stories to her and she could choose based on how well they reviewed and chose their stories. Because the problem with relying on board participation or volunteers is quality control. No offense to anyone intended.

These designated critics would then, at their leisure, submit their individual critiques to a special page, whose link would be found in the story area, probably near the Award Winners link:

LitCrit Picks - Can't find a good story? Try looking here.

OR

A group of approved critics could get together twice a month or something and agree on a story that should be put on the link. They would include a paragraph or two about the merits of that particular story.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

WS...my bad I like your ideas about a pool of critics. Maybe that's where this contest/acknowledgement of stories is going? I can certainly see the merit in that

 

[deliciously_naughty]

CRITIC'S CHOICE RESULTS!!!!!!!!

Trumpet Fanfare


Okay, using the 1-10 system, the average score for each story was the following

Volunteer Work by Darling Nikki 7.2
Forced Wife Ch 2 by Orther5 5.6
A Modern Love Story by Octavian 7.3
In the White Room by Tigerjen 6.3
Twas the night before Xmas by Kiwiwolf 8.8
Best Seat in the House by Violette 7


Using the weighted system

In first place:
Twas the Night before Xmas by Kiwi Wolf

Tying in second place
Volunteer Work by Darling Nikki
A modern Love Story by Octavian

Tying in third place:
Best Seat in the House by Violette
In the White Room by TigerJen

In fourth place:
Forced Wife

 

[Just_John1]

Good Job DN

I know that took alot of work... Good job and thanks... Congrats to the authors...

JJ1