telperion1
in
mefas
a difficult decision, and a poll
Hey guys,
Over the last several days this list has been buzzing about our new content advisory policy. This list has actually only been one aspect of everything that's going on. Elliska, the member whose job contract I mentioned a few days ago, has been attacked through anonymous reviews of her stories. She also had her perceived religious identity ( Read more... )
First, thank you for the courage to come forward. I usually don't talk about stories that have been withdrawn, not because I'm trying to hide anything from readers, but because this is sensitive material. If an author can't compete, the last thing s/he needs from me is to be put in the limelight s/he might not want. It doesn't feel like my place to start that conversation. Or to ask rating panel members to talk about what rating they gave a particular story. And regarding religion, I've been working with ratings panels for, what, four years now? Since they started. And those panel members almost always give a reason for why they voted the way they did. Even when I say I don't really need to know why, just what rating you think is appropriate here. They always seemed to be apply whatever the rating guidelines were fairly, and I never got a whiff of personal ideology (religious or otherwise).
But that's not even the real point here. People volunteering for the MEFAs are giving up their time for free. It's really upsetting for me to sit by and watch them be attacked personally - whether those attacks hit the mark or not. That's simply not the kind of environment I want to be a part of.
And that's the real reason why I only offered up two options. Those of us who are resigning are really and truly tired, on top of everything else. We had everything pretty much ready to go for the 2012 awards (except for odds and ends, but it's fairly minor stuff). We even had most of the volunteers recruited. That's the big reason we were willing to see the MEFAs through for one more season, because the hardest part of getting the awards ready to go are done. There's lots of work still to be done, of course (I'm thinking mainly once the awards get started, but we had done enough of it that we were all willing to see the 2012 awards through if that's what people want.
But I've just checked with the other volunteers who are resigning, and none of us are really interested in designing a new policy. Speaking for myself, it's just too much work for an awards program that (much as I still love it) I don't see myself wanting to volunteer with in the future.
That said, if there are people out there who think they'd like to take the MEFA's basic approach (using comments as votes) and build their own awards programs around it, I think that's a good idea. And of course you could make the rules anything you wanted - not that you'd need my permission! The current website was designed from scratch by Aranel Took and Tanaqui, and so we're not making it available to other groups. But you don't really need a website; we didn't have one our first year, when people simply emailed in their votes to a Yahoo group and volunteers counted them by hand, and that worked well enough for a start. If you've got people interested in putting in the legwork, go for it! I'd love to see what other people will make of this comments-as-votes idea, personally
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I have no doubt that something will take the place of the MEFAs, if this really is to be the final year, but will continue to hope they can be salvaged. This is happening very fast. 8(
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