Perhaps I can shed some light on the matter. I'm not on the committee. The first I heard of the awards was here, like the rest of you. However, I do have some memories that may help.
Every year for the past few years, a small group of FoLCs has made complaints and accusations about the Kerths. They claim the awards are unfair and that Kcomm is biased and that the quizzes are biased and similar things.
This group includes LauraBF, Cindy Leuch (who, for reasons of her own, and despite publically revealing her boards ID, continues to post here as "Ann Nonymous" and sign her messages "Ann N"), Marilyn (aka SuperMom), and Lote.
I'll skip most of the details of the protests and accusations, as they aren't especially relevant beyond their simple existence.
Now, two years ago, a group of anonymous FoLCs posted to the boards claiming that the Kerth quizzes were biased, focusing on fics written by the quiz writers and their friends, and artificially raising the chances for those stories to win. The new group, calling themselves the "Independant Kerth Committee," proposed to add new quizzes of their own. These quizzes would be fairer and would make up for the bias of the regular quizzes. The IKC had a webpage on geocities which had, on its front page, a message which subtly insulted the Kerth Committee and the Kerth quiz writers, and which stated that the IKC, in contrast, stood for Truth and Justice. (Sadly, this page has since been taken down, and I don't have an archived copy available.)
A couple days later, Cindy and LauraBF began to post a series of 3 quizzes, on behalf of the IKC. These quizzes, ironically, focused heavily on stories written by Cindy, Laura, and a few of their friends. (As it happens, a few of these stories had been included in the other Kerth quizzes. More would probably have been included, but the regular Kerth quizzes, unlike the IKC's quizzes, generally have a rule that only allows one story per author per quiz.)
Last year, as I recall, after more protests, the FoLCs in question decided to give up on the Kerths, and had their stories pulled from the list.
Now, this year, we have the Merriweathers suddenly appearing at the beginning of "Kerth season." The Merriweathers are run by a group of anonymous FoLCs with a strangely familiar geocities webpage (with a different URL). While many FoLCs have had questions about these new awards, a few have simply come in to post in support of them. These few are, as it happens, Cindy, Laura, and Marilyn. (And I see that Lote recently signed up with these boards, but has yet to post.)
For various reasons, those particular FoLCs rarely, if ever, post to these boards. Yet, suddenly, they have all appeared in a single thread, with the message that the Merriweathers look very interesting and that we should stop questioning the need for the committee's anonimity. As it happens, Laura and Marilyn are among the very short list of FoLCs who claim to have any experience with Merriweather-type competitions. In fact, they claim to have extensive experience with these types of competitions.
Also, as it happens, these are the very FoLCs who, in previous years, have had a lot of trouble with the Kerth Committee counting votes in secret. They claim that anything short of full disclosure allows room for shady practices. Strange, then, to see that they now have no problem with an anonymous committee chosing anonymous judges who will score fics entirely at their own discretion.
Now, I don't know about you, but given all this, it seems to me not unlikely that Cindy, Laura, Marilyn, and possibly Lote (who has, by the way, been more active on Zoomway's message boards) are on the Merriweather Committee, are Merriweather judges, or both.
If that's the case, then I have a problem. The Merriweather Committee claims to stand for Truth and Justice. They also claim that their judges are fair and reliable. Yet, if I'm right and things add up the way they seem to, then they've hidden behind a shield of anonymity, snuck around back, and then walked back in the metaphorical front door to support themsleves, sometimes with posts which seem to me to be rude and/or insulting. This, to me, seems rather underhanded.
I've got a story that I'm ready to submit to this month's awards, but before I do, I have to ask myself... If I'm right, and if the committee has done what it seems to have done... Can I actually trust their integrity?
I'm sure this post will, regretfully, be the subject of some heated contravercy. (In fact, I have the nagging feeling that if I'd seriously discussed this post with others before making it, they would have tried to talk me out of it for that very reason.) I feel, though, that it raises important issues which I, personally, would very much like to see addressed. I expect these issues will also be of interest to others.
If I am wrong in any of this, then I sincerely apologize. If anyone can correct me, please do.
Paul
