Weirded out and speaking my mind
Jeff and Cass did a fabulous job pulling together this contest and I admire their hard work. They wrote up a small rant on Kansas that sticks with me. Is is favortism or true judge of value that generates the voting patterns seen in the past two Sparkys? Franky, I lean towards quality. Definitely Feldman, Cofax, Kernel Crash, Reefrunner, Thea, Kixxa, OneEye, Red, et. al deserve the recognition they recieved in being nominated over and over again in many catagories. I was pleased to see some new names and saddened that some of the other stories (notably Cathy1967's The Vanishing) was not nominated at all. Yet, I agree with the high caliber of nominations. So what is Jeff and Cass's beef? How does one judge what is good except that one likes it?
I am just honored to be in the running with such a diverse and talented group of writers.
well...
the fact that there are quality works which every year do get nommed by people who are not active posters or involved heavily on-line or who do not actively align themselves with a voting block is testament to someone rising above that.
do i agree with your list of quality writers? some yes. others no. that's individualism not favoritism. do i think that everything nommed is quality work? no. my opinion. is quality work not nommed because other more 'favorite' stuff is? yes. what that is differs from person to person.
i agree with scorpy. something needs to be done to lighten the load for cass and jeff. in reality, they are the only ones who know what's going on and have no vested interests, so i tend to take what they say at face value and on faith.
Hallway, I wasn't putting down Jeff and Cass' work--I remember Maayan's stories and the fuss of that year--it was my first in Farscape fandom and I was really weirded out by the fuss that happened and thought Maayn was very courageous for her choice. I have been following the back and forth on Kansas regarding "Ship" vs. "dark fic" vs. non-ship and think it is rather silly. But that is fandom. I am liking the LJ life better because people are more polite and discussions happen in a forum that is much more civilized.
Writing fiction is a skill and an art and as one matures as a writer/reader I get more sophistocated in my choices of reading matter. I also find that the more I write, the more I recognize the "good" from the unskilled. But anyone who writes should be congratulated for trying. It is a scary thing to do.
BUT
There is no Shippy vs. Darkfic vs non-ship. I don't know why people keep saying that.
It seems, too, that the pool of writers has changed a lot, and with that comes different trends in voting, I'd think. Some of the writers from the first few Sparkys are no longer active, or active to the degree they once were, and in some cases, I'd argue that the quality of their fic has changed as well--and not necessarily for the better.
The concept of "quality" itself constantly undergoes reassessment, when new writers enter the picture. So I don't know what Cass and Jeff are specifically referring to when they say they noticed clear trends in voting, but... the fics they picked for Second Chance are excellent works. And in my own opinion, the fics that made the final cut are, on the whole, deserving. But I don't believe there will ever be an objective way to run the contest, and in the end, it's not why we write anyway, is it? It's just a nice distraction and a way to compliment writers and works we admire. :)
Whoops. I stopped by just to say that I thought
::takes soapbox and slinks out::