Oh, I never thought there were. I meant to add to my earlier post that I'd used your quote for convenience, Virginia, to illustrate my point, but you certainly weren't the only source over the past couple of months that made me think some clarification was needed. There have been emails.
And I'm a little sensitive when it comes to this one. For years, it was impossible to shake off the myth that your story wasn't eligible for the Kerths unless it had been uploaded to the Archive. No matter how often K-Comm and I tried to dispel it, it stuck and refused to die.
Authors would flood the Archive with stories in December in a desperate, eleventh hour rush to get stories uploaded by year end. Which put a lot of pressure on the Archive staff at a time of year that's fraught with stress at the best of times. And although I've always been very proud of the fact that the staff never failed to get those stories uploaded on time or let an author down, despite it being a close call at times <g>, it's an experience I'd prefer to avoid.
It's only been in the last two years or so that the myth seems to have finally been debunked. And with authors much more relaxed about the eligibility rules and timing, the December rush has almost entirely been dumped, which makes life much easier all round.
So I'd really hate to the confusion over this one to start up again. For many reasons. But also because I'd hate for someone to be sitting out there thinking they're not eligible when they are.
LabRat
