Nice to see so many of you commenting! Categories poll will go up today or tomorrow.
desertblues, I hope everything is going well for you and looking forward to your participation again as well.
ccowie, I'm looking forward to whenever you have your rotating month, and best wishes on your surgery!
caleb, thanks for giving your opinion on bonus votes because I've been curious if anyone didn't like the idea, and I agree with you somewhat. The tricky thing is that it's a double-edged sword with or without bonus votes; there are downsides to both. I did work to make the bonus votes as open and welcoming as I possibly could because of the same worries you have. If there's a barrier then it's a very low and easy barrier to cross, and people are welcome to still vote and participate any time without crossing it too. Also, it could encourage more participation by anyone wanting bonus votes. Even so, this would only be a trial and we'd see how it goes, though if enough of the club doesn't want it then we won't even try it.
HIMS, that list is very interesting to look at in its own right. I'll put the category on the poll. It still sounds a little more complex than normal to manage but definitely doable.
As to the Region category, I originally lobbied for Japan to be combined with China/Korea when making the list but was persuaded otherwise since Japan and Korea have a contentious history, and since despite its small region size Japan is very rich culturally with literature.
The regions were divided not exactly by population, size or exact geographic areas, but often rather by some type of cultural relationship and collective literary output so that when a region is chosen we'd be focusing on a certain somewhat similar cultural area (even if on a large and simplified scale) that would offer a sizeable enough amount of nominations, and this will help explain a lot of the complaints you have.
Mexico is part of the Latin America region because it's closer to it culturally than to the U.S. or Canada.
Africa has two regions, generally divided between the mid and southern areas that are more fertile and often have indigenous beliefs or Christian ones, and the northern areas that are more arid and desert and often have Islamic and Arabic roots.
Northern Africa is combined with the Middle East because they share much culturally and historically. It might be a little ironic that a culturally-Jewish author from Israel won that month since Israel is so very different from most countries of the region, but the selection was completely kosher and anyway we had two culturally-Islamic authors from the region win in other months not long afterwards.
Everywhere in the world is represented (if you look at the map, even Antarctica!). There is a very specific reason for the categories of the U.S. and Canada and also the U.K. and Ireland. If they were included with other countries, say Mexico for North America, then there's a very real chance you might be hoping for Mexican selections but instead we end up with mostly U.S. ones and a U.S. winner. Same with the U.K. and Ireland with Europe. Those needed to be separated into their own categories so that they wouldn't overshadow any other countries in a region (alternately, we chose the opposite route with Australia and New Zealand since the South Pacific would be very difficult to find nominations for otherwise).
A few authors are difficult to categorise and I agree with you about Nabokov, but I was outvoted that month.
For your list, since both countries are already accounted for it doesn't matter which he's listed under anyway. Conrad is difficult too but I agree well enough with your leaving him in Poland.
ETA -
The categories poll is now up!