These instructions have been blatantly copied and pasted (and appropriately edited for dates) from the instructions from last year. Much thanks to the Kerth Quiz committee from 2010 (Tricia, Jenn, Erin and Carol) for putting this together! Welcome to the tenth annual round of Kerth quizzes! With the Kerth awards scheduled to take place on Saturday, April 16th, it's time to get started. The first quiz will be posted on Monday, January 17th, and this post is an introduction to this year's quizzes. For newcomers, you'll find instructions, disclaimers and so on so that you'll know what's going on. For old-timers, you can refresh your memory so that you're ready to dive right in on Monday.
The Kerth quizzes serve as a hopefully helpful reminder of this year's varied fics before nominations and voting begin. The quizzes will run three times a week over the next six weeks or so, and we hope to make it through all the categories before Kerth nominations open on Saturday, February 26.
A few reminders, explanations, and guidelines for those of you new to the Kerth quizzes (or just need a refresher):
The Kerths are FoLCdom's way of celebrating and recognising the best LnC fic to hit the archive (or elsewhere on the web, if the author personally submits it for Kerth eligibility) in the past calendar year. Check out the following link for the Kerths' main website, which includes a link to the Kerth FAQ and the listings for last year's Kerth awards:
www.kerthawards.com The Kerth quizzes themselves started more or less by accident. ; ) In the beginning, Wendy posted some quizzes which turned out to be sort of related to Kerth categories. The following year, Hazel joined her and they did it properly, and then a couple of years later Meredith volunteered to help. They rapidly became a marvellous way to lead up to the Kerth nominations by giving us all a friendly reminder of favourite stories, or even introducing new ones. In 2006 the quizzes were organised by Wendy, Chris, Sorcha, Julie and Rachel. In 2007, the team was Julie, Anna, Dave and Tricia. Julie and Tricia organised them in 2008. The team for 2009 was Jenn, Lara, Lisa and Tricia. The 2010 team was Jenn, Erin, Carol and Tricia. In 2011, the team is Amber and Nancy.
HOW THE QUIZZES WORK:
Each quiz is for a separate Kerth category. You'll get first quotes, then excerpts, of stories that are eligible for this year's Kerths. You are challenged to name the authors and titles of the quoted stories; this can be accomplished off the top of your head, by jogging your memory with a little searching, or even by Googling the archive if you want! Even if you can only name a single author/story, please do post your replies! Consider your participation to be FDK for the quiz-setters who put in hours of hard work to do these.
Answers should be posted in the answers thread for each quiz.
This year the Kerth awards include (provisionally) thirteen categories, although the dedicated Kerth Committee (aka K-Com) might tweak some categories to better suit this year's fics. We'll be posting quizzes for each category, except Best Overall; that one is too subjective! Six years ago, a few others posted quizzes of their own, which were not specifically tailored to fit the Kerth categories. These are certainly welcome; the more quizzes, the merrier! We would like to suggest, though, that extra quizzes be posted "in between" the category ones (that is, please don't post a new quiz before the answers to the currently-running quiz are posted), and that quiz writers try to stick to the "one author per quiz" rule to allow greater scope. (If you have a quiz prepared, and you're not sure when it would be best to post, feel free to e-mail the current quiz-setter and ask her to give you a day or so for your quiz before the next Kerth quiz goes up.)
The stories included in the quizzes were chosen to FIT THE CATEGORY. That does not mean that the quiz-setter necessarily thinks the stories deserve to be nominated; nor does it necessarily mean that we omitted a story because we think it does not deserve nomination. With the Best Comedy quiz, for example, it's important to remember that humour is extremely subjective. What makes me laugh might make you groan, and what you find amusing might make me roll my eyes. Some of these stories are hilarious throughout; others lead up a
funny punchline or unexpected twist. So let's all remember the "spiffy disclaimer thingies" (basically, these long-winded instructions summed up more succinctly) and recognise that the Kerth quizzes aren't the same as nominations.
Another point to remember is that stories may be nominated in more than one category. An Elseworld story might also be a Drama, for example, or a Best Short might also qualify for Best WAFFy. So don't forget that categories aren't set in stone, and make your nominations wherever you'd like. (Well, as long as the stories fit. <g>)
When you send in your replies to the quiz, please use the following guidelines:
First, SNIP THE EXCERPTS. While it's okay to keep the smaller quotes in your reply, it's incredibly frustrating for the quiz-setter to try to scroll through all the quoted material to find the single line of your answer. There have been occasions when we've entirely missed people's replies!
Second, please include SPOILER SPACE at the beginning of your reply! With FoLCs all over the world, it's quite likely that some people will be opening replies before they get a chance to take the quiz themselves. We include, for your convenience, spoiler space at the beginning of the quiz for this very reason, so feel free to leave it in!
QUIZ RULES:
For those of you who are new to this, the quiz is divided into two sections. The first section is quotes: a single sentence or two, usually dialogue, taken from the story. Naming the story and its author from the quote is worth two points. The second section is excerpts: several paragraphs from the same fic. Naming the story and its author from the excerpt is worth one point. It's important that you specify whether you got the fic from the quote or the excerpt in your reply! If you don't say anything, we'll assume it's the excerpt. ;p Don't worry about naming only a title, or just the author; half points, and even quarter points, can be quite common, and we don't mind having our maths skills challenged!.
The quiz is open hard drive and archive. You are more than welcome to look up fics to find the answers. This is supposed to be fun! Some people do like to try and guess the answers without looking it up, and that's fine, too. But feel free to do some double-checking if you're not sure of your reply. Or not, if you prefer. Some people enjoy high or perfect scores, while some people enjoy challenging their memories. Use whichever method suits you best.
One final point: As we have for the past several years, we encourage people to include their own personal recommendations in the category when they send in their replies to the quizzes. These will be listed when we post the answers. Please don't hesitate! Your personal favourite might prove equally popular with others.
Recommendations are more than welcome for several reasons, including these: we do observe a one-author-per-quiz rule, but sometimes an author has written more than one story which fits a particular category. Second, we can't include every eligible story, even without the one-author rule; we stop at somewhere around ten stories per quiz. So of course we're omitting stories eligible in that category. And third, we also try not to over-use particular stories overall; if LOIS MEETS CLARK, by A.N. Author, has been used in two quizzes, chances are it won't appear again, even if it fits the current category very well.
Quiz-setters do not try and judge whether the recommendations fit the category; we'll just post whatever was sent in.
And, of course, those who don't actually take the quiz are welcome to send in recommendations too.
Okay, so that's your lengthy introductory/instructions/disclaimer post over with for this year. With each individual quiz, you'll get a MUCH shorter version of the instructions and disclaimer, so you won't have to wade through all of this every time.
Bring on Kerth season! Looking forward to the fun!
Amber (aka amberlea) and Nancy
It was decided by poll last year that the quizzes would be posted on the boards and not on the Yahoo group.