Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Are you ready to nominate stories for the Kerth Awards?

Nominations for the 2004 Kerth Awards open February 1 and run through February 15. Will you be nominating your favorite stories?

As usual, these 'interpreted answers' prevent me from choosing any of them.

Yes, I will nominate, but I haven't even started doing anything about it yet. I'm a last-minute sort of a gal.

Yvonne

I'm serious. I need a few more weeks. about... 52 of them?

It's the first time I participate in a Kerths ceremony.

As I'm a very indecisive girl (hope I got that right), I'm going to use a simple method:

Wait for February 1st, and then vote the first stories that come to mind. (They will be the ones I liked more, isn't that right?)

Unorthodox, I know. That's me
See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Actually, Anna, those would probaly be stories that you have read most recently and would favor stories that came out later in the year over those that appeared early in a calendar year.

The best way is to just read over the list of eligible stories with a pencil and paper. As you read the title test your reaction to it. Does it generate a 'good' feeling, like "Oh, I really liked that one', or was it just "That was okay." Jot down those who give you the best reaction. Then make a note of those that you haven't read and if it's by someone whose work you really like, give it a quick read.

Once you have this little list worked out, to narrow it down from there a tried and true method is... a dart board.

Tank (who says using the eeny meeny miney moe method takes too long)

I likely won't nominate just because I don't have the time to go through all the eligible stories. I'm afraid if I do nominate on incomplete information, that'll bias the results.

It makes me wonder if a story that's late in a year is more likely to be nominated just because the reader is more likely to remember the story. After nominations, people probably read the nominees since there aren't 200 to read, so there's a lower likelihood of temporal bias there.

I do expect to vote, though.

Someone else mentioned this theory on IRC recently so I did a little checking on last year's ballot. As it turns out, there didn't seem to be any bias based on when a story was submitted to the Archive -- the stories on last year's ballot were pretty evenly split between those uploaded in the first half of the year and those in the second half of the year. There was some variation, obviously -- categories with only 5 slots had to go 3-2 or 2-3, and there were a few that were 1-4 or 4-1 -- but overall, we were pretty darn close to even.

That's just one year; I haven't gone through past years. But I think it's enough to say that we don't need to give stories uploaded in the first half of the year any special treatment as far as the Kerth go (like making special categories for early-in-the-year stories, etc.) because they seem to hold their own pretty well.

But I definitely agree with Tank's suggestion that the best way to decide about what you want to nominate is to go through the list of eligible stories (which can be found on the Kerths website) and refresh your memory on which ones you liked best.

Oh, but you don't have to have read every single story in order to nominate -- if you loved a story and think it deserves to be honored, by all means, nominate it!

Kathy

Thanks, Tank, for the good strategy. I was kind of pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to go about doing this. I have not read all of the eligible stories and to be honest, I don't think I will get all of them read before nominations begin and end.

As to Roger's thoughts about being fair and not nominating if you haven't read everything eligible, I have a theory that may or may not be sound. My thoughts are that if I've read a story in the last year that I particularly loved, it is not wrong to nominate it just because I haven't read every story. I mean, if I read twenty stories and loved all twenty, I could technically nominate all twenty, right? So the nominations is more about culling out your own personal favorites rather than selecting the best of the best.

BUT - once the nominations are announced, I would not vote in a specific category unless I had read all of the nominated stories in that category. Kind of like the Oscars - how can you vote for the best movie if you haven't seen all five that are up for the prize so you can compare them? Picking a favorite without reading all of them seems unfair to me.

I hope that is a reasonable plan, otherwise I'd hate to have to abstain from voting. I'm so excited about this whole thing - as CC is well aware, I own many ballgowns and will be picking my favorite to wear on Saturday night.

What? You mean this isn't going to be televised?

Oh. Nevermind.

Lynn

well, i had a blast nominating last year. it was really exciting to be part of the process.

i'd read quite a bit, and i made sure to give a fair shake to every story on the list.

this year, tho, i've missed out on months of fic. i'll never catch up enough to be fair. sure, you can be fair even if you don't read *every* story, but there is a point at which you say "i just haven't read enough."

so, i'm planning to wait for the nominations to come out, then try to read as much as i can (both to enjoy it and so i can vote). if i can vote, i'll be excited to do that. if not, i'll still come to the ceremony. that's always fun.

good to hear that timing really doesn't matter, tho. i'll admit i've been a bit worried about my january fics (like last year's "one super date"). i don't write for awards, i don't make decisions based on awards, and i don't expect to win. even so, being nominated is really cool, and i don't want to hurt my chances. i'm trusting that if it was good enough, people will remember it when they review the list, and it's good to hear that that seems to be the way it works.

in any case, lynn, people do still get dressed up for the kerths (or so they say, anyway. ). it's fun.

Paul, who will probably be wearing the same tux as last year. hey, if it still fits...

Karen, I want that 52 week period as well. I think I'll just have to wait til the nominations come out and see which categories I think I can fairly vote in. My main problem is, I just don't have the time to sit down and read a fic in its entirety, so if it hasn't been posted to the boards, I probably haven't read it...which rules out a fair number of stories, I bet. So, we'll see what happens.

Jen

Ready? /me gives a hollow laugh... I wish!

I did copy the list of eligibles from the website to a WORD file the other day mind you. Even went through it and deleted those stories which I know I'm not going to nominate for whatever reason and highlighted the ones which leapt out at me as definites....

You'd think that would get me down to a list that was a more manageable size, wouldn't you?

Har!

There are a lot of highlights, put it like that....

<sigh> Where's that pin?

LabRat (who at least gets to catch up with some of her reading backlog each year this way...)

Just as an addendum to Kathy's post about early/late stories, I'll add a little anecdote. I've been deeply honoured to win the Best Overall Kerth twice. The stories in question were It Happened One Super Night and For The Greater Good. Both were uploaded to the archive at the start of the year in question - IHOSN was January and FTGG February. FTGG was posted on the old message boards the year before it was eligible - I didn't make it eligible the year it was posted because, as far as I recall, the final section was only posted on the boards on New Year's Eve and it wasn't up as a complete story anywhere by year-end. Over a year later, people still remembered it well enough to nominate it, and to vote for it.

If people like a story, they'll nominate it. Some people - increasing numbers, from conversations I've had - keep a running list of favourites throughout the year. If I read and love a story in January, it's on my list - I already have five stories on my Kerth 2005 list! It really takes no time at all to maintain a list - I have the Kerth categories from the previous year, and simply enter stories under the appropriate categories as I read and enjoy them. Sure, occasionally I have to move some around as categories change, but there's never major change from one year to the next so it's never taken more than a few minutes to copy and paste.

And I'd echo Lynn's point: if you loved a story, nominate it. It doesn't matter if you haven't read everything it might be in competition with. If you think that story deserves a shot at being on the Kerth shortlist, nominate it. I have a vague memory of hearing somewhere that far fewer people nominate than vote - well, if you're not one of those smaller group of people nominating, how can you complain that the stories you like don't end up on the shortlist? It's highly unlikely that everyone will have not read the same stories, so all stories people think are deserving are going to accumulate nominations anyway even if lots of people haven't read all of the eligible stories.


Wendy

It's bloody (is that word ok?) cold outside, there's a wind chill warning in effect, and I refuse to go outside and play in it. So what to do??? None of those sensible things that ought to be done.

But ... statistics!

I went through the nominees from last year and now have more combos of stats than would put an insomniac to sleep.

Here are a few (for the two of you who haven't run screaming from the room at the word 'stats'.)

There were 79 stories nominated last year once you eliminate repeat nominations.

So, you eagerly ask, when were those stories submitted to the archive?? (which is, of course not the same as uploaded. And no, I don't know when they were actually uploaded - but it seems safe to assume they were. Although one was not. Stop rolling your eyes, please.)

So back to when:
by quarters:
1 (Jan, Feb, Mar) -- 18
2 (A,M,J) --14
3 (J,A,S) -- 17
4 (O,N,D) -- 30

jan+feb --- 10
nov + dec -- 21

number of winning stories by submission date: (repeats included)
Jan - June -- 4
July - Dec -- 16

So what does all this prove?? That meaningful life is not possible when there's a windchill factor? That i should be making muffins? Catching up on fanfic reading?

c.

I have other statistical combos if anyone is interested. No?

Interesting, Carol! I wonder how many stories were submitted for each quarter, and what percentage of them got nominated... It seems to me that the archive sees a surge of submissions in the last quarter, as people try to hurry up and finish "in time" and others realize they never sent that one story in, so they'd better do that... don't know if that entirely accounts for it, though. But if you're still trying to find an excuse to avoid being sensible...

Addendum: I was curious, so I just checked through the handy dandy archive spreadsheet that LabRat keeps -- this is for stories uploaded in 2003, so that does *not* match your numbers, but I thought it was an interesting trend nonetheless:

Jan/Feb/Mar -- 39 stories uploaded
Apr/May/Jun -- 72
Jul/Aug/Sep -- 68
Oct/Nov/Dec -- 91

Addendum 2: Still with more curiousity than sense...

Uploads in 2002:
J/F/M -- 79 (~50 of these are 10k or under, from the fairytale challenge)
A/M/J -- 69
J/A/S -- 66
O/N/D -- 86

Note that I'm going by upload date rather than "submitted by" date, so this isn't a perfect match to your stats.

PJ

Fresh (well not so fresh<g>) back from my exercise torture machines, and there are more lovely stats!

To refresh <g> your eager minds, I had included these stats for nominated stories submitted in 2002:
by quarters:
1 (Jan, Feb, Mar) -- 18
2 (A,M,J) --14
3 (J,A,S) -- 17
4 (O,N,D) -- 30

And Pam, who lives in a warmer climate plus has kids and so has meaningful life opportunities<g>, has fed us more stats:
Uploads in 2002:
J/F/M -- 79
A/M/J -- 69
J/A/S -- 66
O/N/D -- 86

Now, I've quoted submissions, while Pam has quoted uploads, and so it's not quite legit to compare the two. Not exactly apples and oranges - more like oranges and tangerines, but I can't resist the temptation.

So, taking a giant leap.... percentage of submitted stories nominated by quarter.
J/F/M -- 18/79 (23%)
A/M/J -- 14/69 (20%)
J/A/S -- 17/66 (26%)
O/N/D -- 30/86 ( 35%)

Have I proven that there is life on Mars yet?

Off to take a shower

C.

Well, I don't know about life on Mars, but you managed to scare the bejesus out of this numberphobe.

I don't do numbers - as many on irc will tell you (when they want to keep me under control they just paste strings of them into the channel and that subdues me nicely for a spell as I go whimper in the corner for a time hugging the ficus...), so won't come up with any of my own, but will only add that I think I've had a few stories nominated in the past that were uploaded at the start of a year. Certainly can't say I've ever noticed it hampering any of them at all, that I can recall.


LabRat

Well, that does seem a trifle conclusive I do think there's a tendency for the "big" stories to come in late in the year... hmm, lemme fiddle... Okay, I think I'll check last year's ballot (http://lcfanfic.com/kerth2003.html) and see when the nominees were submitted -- I'm not doing all of them <g> but I'll do a few.

Well, if you want to win in Long Episode Adaptation, it looks like August is your best month -- last year, out of 5 nominees (including the winner), 4 of them were submitted in August. :p The remaining one was submitted in March.

For Best Overall, in contrast, 4 out of 6 nominees (including the winner) came in November or later. The other two were from March and July.

But then on the *other* other hand, the Drama category had 2 from March, 1 from July, 1 from August (the winner) and 1 squeaking in at the end of the year.

And just to round out the picture, 3 of the Best Relationship stories were submitted in November or later, including the winner. The other two were sent in January and August.

And it occurred to me that our stats are probably a little skewed because we're not considering Kerth eligibility -- stories that were submitted in January but were requested to be eligible the year before... they would artificially lower the amount of stories in Q4 *and* inflate the next year's Q1. Two of the stories in the above categories were submitted in January of 2003. But I don't know how much of a factor that would be, since there usually aren't a lot of stories jumping the fence.

Anybody's Baby is a story that bucks the trend, btw -- it was submitted in January of 2002, but more than a year later, was nommed in two categories and won one of them.

I'll probably keep fiddling with this for a while <g> It's much more fun than yelling at my kids!

PJ

Okay, one more... I decided I should check the shorter categories, because it's easier to forget something really short than a longer fic, right? Checking Best Super Short, I find 6 nominees: 2 submitted in May, 2 submitted in June, and 2 submitted in September (including the winner). None of them were from Q4, which did surprise me.

Okay, I'd better go see how much damage my kids are doing...

PJ

Good idea, Tank! Thanks!

AnnaBtG. (hurriying to the list of eligible stories... the sooner I start, the sooner I'll finish!!)

I voted for no. I'm not planning on voting for anyone. I never won anything, so, I gave it all up. It used to be fun to write fics. Now I don't write anything. I'll stick to my own stories. I'm not writing Lois and Clark anymore.

That's your perogative, Kitty. I haven't won anything, and I've never been nominated either -- along with a *lot* of other people. No one is singling you out by not nominating you! However, I still think the Kerths are incredibly fun! This year will be the first year I plan to go to the ceremony, and I have a bit of reading to do to catch up, but I already have a nominations list!

I love the Kerths and can't wait 'til Feb. 1 to send in my nominations!

- Laura

Well, I'm doing pretty well, but unfortunatly my obsessive/compulsive behavior has gotten me in trouble again. After recieving a spreadsheet with all of the elegible stories on it (complete with links to where they were posted)...... I undauntingly took on the project of reading and or re-reading all of them. However, I would NOT suggest this project for the faint of heart and/or anyone with a life

I have started that spreadsheet already for the 2004 Kerth's as I recognize that the way I'm doing it this year is CRAZY!! <g>

S (who's eyes are starting to cross trying to read 286 stories.... which is 18,223kb.... see I warned you that I didn't have a life )

Whatever. I don't even know what a perogatve is.

Just please pardon my Valintines' day blues. I'll be like all months untile the stupid holiday is over.

YOu have a point but my mom taught me that everyone is guilty until proven innnocent.

Perogative means choice -- as in it's your choice not to participate in the Kerths.

First, that's not how the US works -- everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and second, guilty of what?

- Laura