To LabRat, Wendy and the others who have posted their concerns:
You are concerned that we’re bored with the contest. Far from it. The M-Comm is in constant contact, sometimes several times daily, addressing issues that are on the message boards. Sometimes we don’t have answers YET but we are well aware of the questions being posed and are discussing ways to make it easier for everyone to participate. Your questions sometimes come faster than we can get together to give you an answer.
The issue of the anonymity of the authors is still troubling you. Please understand, the judges have no contact with the authors, nor do the judges pull the stories from the links. That is Katrina’s job. She then strips all identifying information from the stories. The only “title” the judges have to work with is “WAFFY #1”. There are no names affixed to the stories. One judge told a member of the M-Comm that a friend had confided she had submitted a story but the judge couldn't figure out which story was her friend's. She could not tell which one it was. So we know the system works.
The issue of the anonymity of the M-Comm Members remains a sore point with many of you. CCAiken said:
I gather it's because they fear if some writers knew exactly who they were, they wouldn't feel safe sending their stories to them.
It's not that we fear authors won't feel safe sending stories to us. Some new authors wouldn't know who we are. We want to remain anonymous because some of the M-Comm members remember the hard feelings when the ficdom split and our goal was to avert another flame war. We wanted to avoid any repeat of "I hate him/her because he/she took THEIR side". If you don't know who's running the show, how can you have animosity towards them? Furthermore, if you have a contest where good writing is encouraged and and revered, why hate the originators of the contest? Unfortunately, real life has shown us that sometimes emotions get in the way of logic. We want to do something for the writers, not ourselves.
Regarding the posts of our gatekeeper, M-Comm Member: We Merriweather Committee Members are appalled at her comments regarding her time commitments. She never conveyed her frustration with us. Her comments constitute a major lapse in judgment on her part, not a deliberate attempt to ignore complaints on our part.
Despite evidence to the contrary, we do care about the contest, the writers, the concerns and ficdom as a whole.
Regarding Labrat’s post:
But if it's a constant thing, where queries habitually go unanswered for days and weeks at a time, then aren't properly answered when an M-Comm member does post, so that the question has to be asked over and over to get a definitive answer, it does begin to give the impression that M-Comm simply don't have the commitment to this project that's necessary for it to succeed. Especially when responses to queries and concerns from people about lapses in attention are met with belligerence rather than apologies and a promise to do better next time.
It's all very well to point out that your involvement in this project is 'only nominal'. But the fact is, you took on the job - nominal or not. And it's therefore your responsibility to do it well. Or, again, why do it at all? Especially when it's unpaid and voluntary. You must surely have known what it would entail when you agreed to do it. So you can hardly expect people not to expect you to do the work.
Since we’re having a commuications snafu here, would it be easier for all of you if Ann set up a separate folder on your boards, entitled “Merriweather Issues”? We would check the folder several times a day to address any and all issues that you have. Bear in mind, Katrina or M-Comm Member would still be posting on our behalf, but it might be a way to send questions and receive answers on a more timely basis.
To answer Wendy’s question: can an episode rewrite be based around either the episode's A-plot or B-plot?
The answer is YES.
To answer Kaylle’s question:
Also, we never did get clarification on whether or not an Ep rewrite requires changes to the A-plot. Is there a ruling on that?
The answer is NO. You do not need to change the A-plot. Just write what you like. All we ask is that the plot stem from an episode that is recognizable to the judges.
We apologize for the delay in getting answers back to you and will work very, very hard to see that issues are addressed on a daily basis, if at all possible. Please give us feedback on the idea of a separate folder.
Sincerely,
The entire Merriweather Committee
