Honesty: the best policy
I must confess I didn't see this coming. Not at all. The responses I've had have astounded me. In fact, the most astounding is, "How would you feel if Marta excluded someone you liked from the MEFAs?"
I'd accept her right to run her stuff as she so desires. If she wants to ban me from this year's MEFAs, I won't object. If I've voted for someone she was offended by, I didn't realise I was doing so. I wouldn't insult her by doing so deliberately. I'd consider that wrong, and couldn't bring myself to do such a thing, however much I like a particular writer's story.
That she's able to rise above that kind of thing is impressive, but I can't get there myself. I'm too sore. I'm all kinds of sore. In any case, I've probably turned everyone against me by not being transparent about this, so I might as well not take part this year.
The fact is, all my online activities are completely subjective. All my e-spaces are only open to people I either get along with or regard neutrally. This is my policy everywhere. To be perfectly honest, I thought people realised that. If people fail to understand why, I can't understand them, but I can't argue or object because I won't get through. I've tried.
The Archives of Excellence has references to "we" because most of the featured writers were recommended by other people. I've never heard of most of them, but when I checked their stuff out, I saw it was good enough and let it on. Some of the fandoms were completely new to me, and in one or two cases I didn't really like them, but the quality of the writing is high, so they're on.
Per the advice I've been given, I'm going to change the rules of the Golden Quill Awards.
I've been offered no concessions for changing my mind, so I won't give ground. I'll restructure it so it's clear that it's a purely subjective Wendy thing and only people I like or regard neutrally can participate. Since this clears the field for people who don't usually win awards to get something, it should free them up a bit.
Taking part in the Awards is empahtically NOT taking sides: you don't have to like ME to take part - just being neutral will do. AND I'm announcing a one-time general amnesty on all the new haters IF they quit the carping, which means they can be nominated. Voting is completely anonymous, so it doesn't matter who votes and I've got no control over it. That is as far as I'll go.
I've copied some of the comments here into a sticky posts which will always show at the top of the page. This is repeated at the Golden Quill Awards website on the front page, and on the Archives of Excellence rec site on the About page. On the Archives of Excellence Fanfiction Library, it's in the TOS.