On To Year Four

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

In a few days the fourth annual Men of Middle-earth Awards will begin! I hope everyone's looking forward to another year. Nominations will be accepted between July 15 and August 31, so start sifting through your bookmarks, memories, and favorite comms and get your list of fics together. There will be a post available for pointing readers to your fic or recommendation lists; it should be up in about a week.

If you have any questions about the categories, the process, eligibility, etc., please leave a comment here or send me an e-mail.

Comments

[lookingglassf1.livejournal.com]

Heya, I have a question regarding the listings in the voting polls.

Under all of the General sections, why is there nothing to say who the main pairing is in each of the fics? I don't necessarily want to click through all of the links, just to find that pairing is not for me. (I tend to use these award lists to find new fics to read.)

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

Hey there! I definitely know and love that these lists (and the full nomination lists that get posted after) are wonderful sources for new stories and even new authors and it's always great to hear that people are using them like that. My primary goal in not including the pairings on the ballot is to quietly encourage people to try something new and read all the fics before making their selection. Of course, I have no real control over that, but I've had enough people who have always been pretty much exclusive to one pairing (or at least to fics with one specific person in them) tell me they were pleasantly surprised by a fic of a pairing they don't normally read that it makes me hopeful that others are giving them a shot as well. No proof either way, I know, and I know it means extra clicks, but my thought process has been that getting voters to open the page is at least a quarter of the battle.

It won't help right now during the voting stage, but the full nomination lists are divided by pairing so it is easier to find new fic of favorite pairings there. I just realized I have to update the tags because a couple of the ones above don't work anymore, but the link for nomination lists from previous years (except for 2008) is http://community.livejournal.com/mome_awards/tag/nomination%20lists; the full list from this year should hopefully be posted no later than early January.

[lookingglassf1.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for gettin' back to me on this.

I must admit that I'm one of those people that get locked into a certain pairing, or a few exclusive pairings (although I am better than a few years back :-P ).

I can totally understand your thinking. It does make sense. I will be checkin' out those old nomination lists once this time of year becomes next year.