Originally Posted by sun surfer

The specifics of the awards allowed in the Award Winners category hasn't been clarified yet, and without clarification it would seem to mean any and all award winners, including the most obscure genre ones. The Major Award Winners category specifics has been clarified for the most part and only includes major non-genre awards.

Award Winners could end up being the same or very similar to Major Award Winners, but we don't know because it hasn't been decided yet (if ever...it may very well be left to us to decide what constitutes an "award winner" by our seconds and thirds during the month...in which case that would mean pretty much any award would be allowed).

I think, for these category noms and voting, it's fairer for everyone for the category to be clear beforehand, as Major Award Winners is, so they know what they're supporting. I don't think it'd be fair for someone to support Award Winners thinking it'd be basically major award winners, and then it turns out it will allow even the most obscure genre awards as well, and the nominations end up filled with them. Conversely, someone else may only support it if it did also allow obscure genre awards so it's only fair for them to know what the category is.

And there's a big difference between a Major Award Winners category and an Anything Goes Award Winners category.



Would you support "Modern Fiction" if the above is not what it means? Just wanting to be clear, because Tom may very well take that as a third for the already nominated Modern Fiction category, and without parameters set for it and without the category being clarified beforehand, you may be supporting a contemporary genre freeforall instead, and not realise it til it's voted in. I would think Modern Fiction would mean what you quoted, but you never know, and if it's voted in and defined otherwise or never defined (the "leave it up to the nominators and seconds/thirds to decide what modern fiction is" method) then I think it easily could/would turn into a contemporary genre freeforall.

In fact, I think that going forward with these category nominations, Tom would do well to include some wording asking nominators to briefly describe the specifics of a new category they're nominating unless they're OK with the broadest possible definition of it. I.e. as it stands I think Modern Fiction means any fiction book in any genre as long as the book is not too too old, and Award Winners means any book that has gotten any kind of award at all.

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe