MobileRead January's *Category* Nominations.

[Nyssa]

I'll 2nd "Young Adult" and "Award Winners".

[fantasyfan]

I'll second "Fantasy" and third "Award Winners"

[issybird]

I'll second Classics and Modern Fiction.

[caleb72]

I'll third Young Adult.
And I'll nominate Indie.

[orlok]

I second Indie and nominate Thriller/Crime (someone had to...)

[sun surfer]

Since we're going into this cold without prior discussion/votes on what should make up certain categories, I can't support a category like "Award Winners". We haven't decided what that even means yet. I would never support it if it means any award winners including genre, because then it'd probably just turn into a genre sci-fi/fantasy month.

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

* Sci-Fi [Hamlet53]

** Fantasy [Hamlet53, fantasyfan]

Knowing that Hamlet53 was in favour of combining Sci-Fi and Fantasy, it seems like his nomination might have been as one option of "Sci-Fi and Fantasy" rather than two separate ones.

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

...If we started with categories first, then decided which month to place each in, the process might not be finished in time for January's nominations.

Originally Posted by John F

1 week for category nominations. 1 week for category vote. 1 week for January vote. Equals 3 weeks. 3 weeks is end of November, which is in time for January.

This seems like a rather long way to go about doing this. I think with most other ways the entire process including deciding monthly order would be done well before January. But an advantage to this way is that the monthly order is decided along the way.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Geeze, I forgot to leave room for the nominations post.
...
* Science Fiction [John F]
...
* Sci-Fi [Hamlet53]
...

Aren't these the same?

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Aren't these the same?

They are indeed, and I was so busy tallying votes I missed that. I'll combine them.

[sun surfer]

I think Second Chance will (and should) win this month. If any month was a foregone conclusion it should be this one, but we'll see. Anyway, I'll play along with the other non-second-chance nominations this month just in case:

I'll nominate "Adventure/Travel".

I'll third "Classic".

I'll nominate "Major Award Winners" (non-genre major awards such as Nobel, Pulitzer, Man Booker, etc...finalised list to be determined if category wins).


I'll be honest - I'm hesitant of any Award Winner category, but I nominated this because if an Award Winner category wins I'd rather it be this one. I'm hesitant of any of them for a few reasons. First of all if it includes genre then it just becomes a genre freeforall month. But whether or not it includes genre, if too many awards are allowed it becomes useless as there's so many random awards that one can often find some award given to almost any halfway known book. The best way is non-genre and restricted to major awards, but even then, the first year of it would be fun, but then subsequently we'd find ourselves looking at the same possible books to nominate year after year and it could grow old fast.

I also might've supported "Modern Fiction" instead but I'm not sure what it is exactly. Is it literally any modern fiction? If so, then it's really like a FreeForAll sans classics and non-fiction and also may just produce a lot of genre nominations. And what if any kind of range/cut-off date would there be?

Or is it supposed to be modern dramatic fiction; i.e. realistic plots, with no crazy sci-fi/fantasy or thrillers, etc.? Generally the category "modern fiction" I think would be taken in this way, being a way to describe newer books that don't fit into genre moulds, but I didn't want to assume. If I was sure it meant this I would've supported it.

[John F]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

...

This seems like a rather long way to go about doing this. I think with most other ways the entire process including deciding monthly order would be done well before January. But an advantage to this way is that the monthly order is decided along the way.

I was proposing we vote for the 12 categories, and then do separate votes for which category gets applied to which month. I don't see why it would be "rather long" (it would be just 2 voting periods longer then the current process).

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

They are indeed, and I was so busy tallying votes I missed that. I'll combine them.

LOL, I guess you missed it; I just basically said the post before that knowing Hamlet53 wanted to combine Sci-Fi and Fantasy, it seems...extremely obvious that he meant that as one category. Of course I could be wrong and he could have his reasons for wanting them as one category and then nominating them as two separate categories, but until he makes it clear which he meant, knowing his previous feelings it's only logical to think he meant that as one category of "Sci-Fi and Fantasy".

So if that's the case, we should have "Sci-Fi and Fantasy" with one nom, "Sci-Fi" with one nom and fantasyfan's nom unclear as to if he wants to support Hamlet53's nom or nominate only "Fantasy" himself.

[John F]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

They are indeed, and I was so busy tallying votes I missed that. I'll combine them.

I would say they are different (unless we hear from the nominees), since "Sci-fi" wasn't a second. With the past heated discussions of Sci-fi versus science fiction, I assumed they were different.

I say combine them.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by John F

I was proposing we vote for the 12 categories, and then do separate votes for which category gets applied to which month. I don't see why it would be "rather long" (it would be just 2 voting periods longer then the current process).

You misunderstand me; I was agreeing with you. I was saying this way that we're actually doing it is a rather long way to go about it all. Well...I was agreeing with your sentiment but I wasn't exactly agreeing with your suggested way of doing it (I admit I'm partial to the one I had suggested in the discussion thread...which would've been shorter than this way or your way ).

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by John F

I would say they are different (unless we hear from the nominees), since "Sci-fi" wasn't a second. With the past heated discussions of Sci-fi versus science fiction, I assumed they were different.

I must have missed the conversation where "Sci-fi" and "Science Fiction" were different. That might be interesting to read since I imagine it being as polite as most political talk.

Regarding the voting process, after January is done we will have 1 selection and up to 6 categories that have been fully nominated. For the February nomination/voting, should we start the nominations by keeping the runner(s) up from January or even all the fully nominated categories from January except the selected one as fully nominated to start it off?

For example, assume "Runners Up", "Award Winners", "Classics" and "Science Fiction" are fully nominated for January and then "Runners Up" gets selected with "Award Winners" in second. We can start the February nomination period with either "Award Winners" fully nominated or with all 3 non-selected categories fully nominated since there is obviously interest in those categories. For those who want a repeat category, it could be re-nominated and voted on again during the nomination period.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

LOL, I guess you missed it; I just basically said the post before that knowing Hamlet53 wanted to combine Sci-Fi and Fantasy, it seems...extremely obvious that he meant that as one category. Of course I could be wrong and he could have his reasons for wanting them as one category and then nominating them as two separate categories, but until he makes it clear which he meant, knowing his previous feelings it's only logical to think he meant that as one category of "Sci-Fi and Fantasy".

So if that's the case, we should have "Sci-Fi and Fantasy" with one nom, "Sci-Fi" with one nom and fantasyfan's nom unclear as to if he wants to support Hamlet53's nom or nominate only "Fantasy" himself.

I guess it wasn't obvious to me that they were intended to be combined. He hadn't used any nominations to that point in the thread, so it looked like he was using 3 nominations "classics", "science fiction", and "fantasy". If the intent was "science fiction and fantasy" he needs to clarify that I think. Maybe WT Sharpe needs to put an instruction in the first post to have quotes around the category you are nominating to help avoid confusion like this?