The reason we are having size-based categories is to make the process fairer. Over the last 3 years very few people nominated stories and lot of those people only nominated 1 or 2 stories. One story can receive 4 nominations but in 4 different categories (1 per category). Another story can receive 2 nominations but both in the same category - this story appears to have more nominations and with that low number will probably made the ballot for that category. With size categories, the story that the most people nominate will make the ballot. This is much fairer.
We will have size categories this year and see how it goes. Unfortunately, the long and epic categories have to be combined. There are only 8 stories. The categories will be as listed above. However, we can add the Best New Author, even though the numbers are extremely small.
The Kerth Committee
