2011 Rose & Bay Awards Followup Report & Discussion

[ysabetwordsmith]

The 2011 Rose and Bay Awards for excellence in cyberfunded creativity have now concluded.  Winners have been announced for Art, Fiction, Poetry, Webcomic,  Other Project, and Patron.  We are currently working on the certificates for winners.  You can read more about this project on the 2011 Rose & Bay Awards landing page.

Special Thanks To...These

Comments

Categories

[wyld_dandelyon]

Splitting off webcomics did more than give other "other" projects the chance to compete against each other, it also led to more webcomics being nominated. I think adding that category was a good decision.

I also would prefer to see poetry remain separate from fiction. Poetry has always been kind of an oddball item in the publishing world, with fewer people trying to make money at it than other types of creative efforts. Having it as a separate category at least shows we take it seriously, which I think is a good thing even if the number of projects remains small

Re: Categories

[ysabetwordsmith]

If I have time -- or if someone else takes time -- it would be helpful to have a comparison of fiction and webcomic projects to see if there's a natural break that's easy to support with a category split.

However, this year we didn't have enough volunteers to cover everything that needed doing; we had to stack up. That makes it a bad idea to increase the categories. If people really feel strongly about the requests they've made, then we should be able to launch a crowdfunding hub site and get more volunteers next year. Then we can think about expanding. Otherwise it's liable to overreach and crash the whole project. That's not a risk I'm willing to take.

Re: Categories

[wyld_dandelyon]

Do you really oppose inviting people to talk about categories?

As I said in my post above, whether we can staff everything is an important matter. But categories are important to people. (I note that you opposed eliminating poetry as a separate category. I don't want to see that category eliminated, even though the last time I looked at the polls, I remember it being the category with the fewest nominations and the fewest voters.)

I'm pretty sure that someone who feels a category they care about has been summarily rejected will not volunteer to run it, and also will not volunteer time--or money--for any other part of the award program.

I strongly encourage you to invite this discussion, and instead of saying: "I'm not willing to..." say something that invites participation, perhaps something like: "Implementing new categories will depend on getting a website with substantial automation to reduce the time our volunteers must spend administering the contest or on getting a volunteer to run each category."

[alexandraerin]

First, I strongly suggest a category for music. There are more than enough crowdfunded musicians and musical projects to fill a category and then some, if only there were greater awareness of the award outside this immediate community. Musicians are also good promoters, by necessity. They've been doing crowdfunding since before crowdfunding was a thing. It would be good for the awards (in terms of awareness outside this immediate community) and for all the participants in other categories to have the benefit of musicians driving traffic to the award pages

[eseme]

Hi, I think an email I sent you nearly two weeks ago has gone astray.

The award does include a certificate. As the person who ran the Fiction category, I sign the certificate and mail it to you.

I sent an email to your contact address on March 18. I am guessing that either the internet lost it, or you get tons of email ad it slipped through the cracks.

Could you email esemer AT gmail with a physical address to send it to?

Thanks.

[wyld_dandelyon]

Thanks for your comments--you give nice, clear reasons for the things you advocate or oppose, and that's appreciated!

You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I appreciate your support. You did a lot, too!