This thread is for any major questions about procedures, fic categories, or what exactly it is we do here. Feel free to ask Joyce and I anything you're concerned about here (try to keep it to things which might concern everyone), or just Private Message us. Thanks, and have a good time!

Darkstar

On the nominations, has there been any thought about doing a separate category for favorite H/H, R/L, D/G or J/L story? (I think I got all the ships correct )

I only ask because I read mainly D/G stories and won't be able to comment on the other relationships, so maybe having one category for favorite ship fic would be nice.

I was wondering about ferfer's question as well, because I have this same problem:

At this point in time, all ships are placed in one big pool. In the future, we might consider separating out ships, but for now they all go together. If you're concerned about making informed decisions, you could just read snippets from the other nominations, and see what you think then.

Darkstar

Can the same fic be nominated in lots of different categories by one person? I've found some great fics that I think are both smutty and angsty, so can i nominate them for both best smut and best angst? Or do we have to be more restricted?

Under the current rules, you COULD nominate a fic for more than one category. However, our panel of judges who make the selections of the final nominees would only place it in one of those categories.

If it made it that far, it would just come down to the judges's decision and the quality of other nominees.

Darkstar

Are novel-length fics considered AU if they're pre-OotP?

Anything which is contradicted in some way, shape, or form by OotP falls under the AU category. Most novel-length fics probably fall in this category. It all depends on whether it is still possible given OotP canon.

Darkstar

There is a fanfic I really like but I am not sur eif it can be nominated because it only has 5 chapters so far (besides it's supposed to be a 4-part story and this is just part 1).
Can I nominate it? It's really good...

Only completed fics may be accepted. We have to weigh every fic for the sum of all its parts, and this sadly can't be done if a fic is still in progress. You wouldn't give an Academy Award to a movie still in production would you? We can't do the same here.

Darkstar

I am not going to vote in the PK awards this time around. And I truly don’t want to sound like a complete bitch about this so I’ll try to explain why.

I don’t like H/Hr, not that I have anything against the pairing as such and I can read it just fine it is a sub pairing to a D/G story but after all I am a D/G shipper.

However Portkey consists of mostly H/Hr shippers. D/G R/L and L/J are the minority and therefore when a poll is being done H/Hr will always win.

In round one all the winners was H/Hr.

I do not think that things will be any different this time around and I will therefore be casting votes in vain.

I don’t want Ds and Joyce to take offence now cause I think they are doing a marvellous job of this *Pets ickle Ds*, but hopefully you see my point.

Fictitiously yours,
Aurora

@DS & Joyce :
-----------
I would very much like to say I agree with Aurora on the part about that we need to seperate out the ships. Portkey has a load of good H/Hr fictions, and they outnumber the other ships all combined. Percentage wise -- they are probably the same, but having come from a larger pool of fiction -- H/Hr tend to dominate everything. The problem is that since the smaller ships while have great fics that are comparable -- we don't get a chance to showcase their brilliance. It's wasting an oppotunity to expose other readers to some of the finer points of portkey's ships that they might not have had read before.

I would very much like it if you guys would consider changing the rules when it comes for voting -- and making it shipwise. It might be more of a work - more voting -- but I'm sure the people of portkey would appreciate it. I know several of the mods have expressed to me that they would gladly lend a hand if you guys need it.

NAPPA

@ Nappa and Aurora:

You bring up good points. I never actually considered that before. I'll talk to Joyce later today about this matter. She'll probably agree to separate out the ships. Most of the work in that regard would actually fall to the judges who make the actual nominations. Also we probably will have to reduce the number of nominees per category, or even not have some categories if we don't have enough nominees. I'll see about it.

Darkstar

Just wanted to add that I will be very glad if voting becomes shipwise.



-Sakura

I have a slight comment about what makes a fic an AU fic.

In the fanfiction list, all fanfics have an icon that says either "Book 1--->4" or "Book 1--->5". Those are to show what books the fanfic has spoilers for.

I'm going to use one of my nominations for Novel Length AU, All Along by Amynoelle, which I have noticed has been nominated as being JKR Universe by some other Portkey people. Her fic Again is also AU, yet has also been nominated as being JKR Universe.

So here we are. All Along, when it was started, was labelled as having "Book 1--->4" spoilers. However, at the time, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was owned by nobody, and was being published. Then, when Amynoelle got to a chapter or two from the end, it had been released, and as is well known, we lost a favorite character--and in All Along, as well as Again, he's not dead at all. And both fics are presently listed as having spoilers for "Books 1--->5". Let's add this up.

All Along - Started before OotP, finished after, SB still alive and kicking, and contains OotP spoilers. This fic is Alternate Universe (AU).

Again - written entirely after OotP, SB still alive and kicking, ALSO contains spoilers for OotP. This fic is therefore Alternate Universe (AU).

Now, I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a bit rude or whatnot, but this is ridiculous: people nominating fics for JKR universe, when they have OotP spoilers, and a certain loveable mutt still alive and kicking.

My point is... "If SB is alive and kicking, check the Spoiler Text on the main page or the Author Profile page. If it says 'Books 1--->5' the fic is automatically Alternate Universe, or AU. Thanks for not ruining the awards."

Hope that helps everyone out a bit.

Nicole

Edited by Darkstar: Thanks for the help Nic! *glomps*

I'd just like to add... If anything at all in the fic is contradicted by canon, then it is AU. No matter how small. AU means it cannot happen in canon because it has been contradicted, or else it is set in an entirely different situation (which falls under the first point anyhow).

just wanted to ask something trivial...:

when will the winners be announced?

HB

I agree with the argument to make the voting "ship-shape." A win for D/G, J/L or R/L would be a near statistical miracle. There just aren't enough "minority ship" readers to overcome the number of H/H fans at PK.

Aside from the fact, the ones who truly ship each category are the best judges of an author's work. Even if I hopped over to a R/L fic and read an excerpt, it will likely not be enough to make a truly informed decision. Just like in your Academy Award analogy, that's a bit like watching a trailer for a film and choosing the AA winner from it.

I appreciate how open the mods are to the suggestions of the readers and authors. It's one of the things I like best about PK.

Just my two cents! I look forward to the voting, I've already read a few of the nominees from their links just to see what's out there. There is so much talent on PK!I'm always impressed.

Vicarious Leigh

Sorry, I apologize if this is a stupid question, but I'm new. Anyway, I was wondering how do I go about looking up all these nominated stories/novels/etc? Is there a place to go that has links to each one? I don't think you can just click on them; can you?

thanks for the help!

Unfortunately, there are no links to the stories right here (an oversight on our part). However, they are all on PK, so you can use the fanfiction search engine in fanfiction.portkey.org to locate all the fics here.

Darkstar

Alright, thanks for the help. I just look up the best of the best myself. Maybe links to each story would be something to consider in the future; while you're thinking about dividing the other stories into ship catagories.

Ta!

Pen, after a short talk with Joyce, we decided to post links. All fics are now linked in their respective polls. Now we're wondering why we didn't think of it earlier...

Darkstar

So, when are the next awards?

lol

Well, we have them biannually (was going to be three times a year, but we couldn't manage that). So they occur in Winter and Summer. Next should be around May, with the polls in June.

Darkstar

Edit: Actually, the next round of nominations will be in June, with polls in July.

Joyce, aka Ds' other half

Okay, I just looked over the nominations and the winners listed in PK Awards and noticed that Fluff and Humor were categorized together. I'm wondering why is this so. Why not make the distinction between fluff and humor? Some of the fics nominated clearly just fall under fluff or humor and rarely both.

Well, I think it was decided that all light-hearted fic (of which fluff and humor both are) should go in one category. Also, these combinations also occur when we don't think we'll get enough nominations in both to constitute their own category (this is the problem we faced when contemplating other ship nominees). Basically, it's a matter of convenience to make everything run smoother.

Darkstar

I have a rather stupid question: when are the next reader's choice awards going to be?

Because there's so many good fics that I'd like to nominate, and I'm kind of afraid that I'll forget about some of them

Ri

Ri, refer to this post, at the bottom of it - there's a note that tells you when.