MEFAs

[dreamflower]

I am loving this year's MEFAs! There are some *super* stories, some of which I've never read! I am trying very hard to be systematic. I've tentatively reviewed everything in Book/Time: The Hobbit category so far, and am working my way now through Races/Places: Hobbits. Then I plan to chose another category. I felt so bad last year, because I read and reviewed so few. But this new website is making it a heck of a lot easier! What fun!
I hope the two stories I've nominated will have "nomination complete" soon. The authors really deserve it.

Comments

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Can anyone play? And how?

[dreamflower]

Go to the MEFA yahoo group and sign up. You can nominate stories you like or even your own, while Nominations are open. The awards are comment based, so then you review the stories you like. At the end of Voting season, they will tally the reviews (scores are based on character count).

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/

There are already over seven hundred stories nominated.

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

I nominated a couple of stories for the awards, but I am still a bit confused. When do we begin reviewing them or can we do so yet? If so, do we use the site to do this just like we used it to nominate? They didn't have this wonderful site last year and so it was difficult to review the nominees and, sadly, I didn't get anything reviewed at all last year. I kept messing up my posts that were to review and missing the days for certain catagories. LOL I hope to do much better on the reviewing this year as I have a few favorites that I really want to support. Any hints would be helpful! Are they posting reviews already?

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

Hey Grey-wonderer,

as a MEFA author liaison I have seen some of the stories you nominated. Gosh it is so much fun delivering the good news to authors and the surprised replies surely make my day. Currently you still can nominate stories. I have to check when this ends because I am quite new to it myself. What I do know is that you can start reviewing a story already at the site, but as far as I can tell, you cannot see the reviews. A friend of mine keeps track of that with an excel sheet (we can be so organised) what she has reviewed and wants to review, so this way she doesn't get lost.

For me I see so many great stories passing by and I know they passed the count of 750.... Thanks to Marigold I have a special place in my heart for Hobbit stories, so that will be one of the categories I will have a look at. :c)

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

Thank you both for the help on this. I plan to try writing a verry of my reviews over the weekend. I have finally finished nominating which I loved doing.

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

No problem, really. I haven't logged in on the site yet but I noted last night before I went to sleep that another story of you was nominated.. :c)

[dreamflower]

You can vote at the website. Right now you can go ahead and actually start to vote, and mark your vote either "draft" or "tentative". None of the votes count until voting season opens. If your vote is marked "draft" then it won't count until you switch it over, and if you don't it will be discarded. But if you mark it "tentative" then when voting season starts, they will automatically be switched to "complete". You can continue to edit, change, delete or add, to any vote marked "draft" or "tentative" right up until the end of voting season.
The votes will not show up or be visible to the public until voting season opens. Only you (and the admin) will see your votes *before* then.

I am marking all my votes "tentative". That way I can still work on them, but if I get no chance to change them over, they will still be counted. This is *way* easier than last year's voting!

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

Sound advice. I posted a thank you above. I do want to leave votes for all of those wonderful stories this year.

[elendiari22.livejournal.com]

What are the MEFAs, and where can I find them? Gosh, I feel pathetic. :)

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

MEFA: Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards

All you want to know: http://home.earthlink.net/~ainae/mefa/

The Mission:

The mission of the Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards is to encourage the writing
and reading of Tolkien-based fanfiction through feedback and recommendations
and to recognize excellence in Tolkien-based fanfiction on the internet.

The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards (MEFA's) were begun on April 22, 2004 by
Gabrielle Lawson, aka Ainaechoiriel. Having had positive experiences in over
eight years of participating in the Alt.StarTrek.Creative Awards, Ainaechoiriel
sought to bring the same comment-based system to the Tolkien/LOTR fandom.

In order to do this, she borrowed heavily from the Alt.StarTrek.Creative Awards
with a few differences. Lacking a built-in pool of stories written by the
participants throughout the year, the MEFA's needed nominations to provide that
pool. Given the incredible quantity of Tolkien-based fanfiction, a time set
apart for reading nominated stories was needed. Thus, Ainaechoiriel broke the
entire Awards contest into a four season schedule: Nomination Season, Check
Ballot Season, Reading Season, and Voting Season, followed by the announcement
of the results.

And don't feel pathetic! {{{hugs}}}

[dreamflower]

Hi, Rhapsody!

Do you have any way to know if the two I nominated have been contacted yet? Would it help if I emailed them myself or something? I *really* want to see these two stories compete, as I think they are brilliant. Also, I do want to make a couple more nominations--how much longer is nomination season open?

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

Could you e-mail me the story id's? This way I can pass it on and of course ask if there is any delay. This is how it works: the system assigns the nominated story to the liaison and only the liaison or admin can complete the nomination for the author. Sometimes there is a correspondence (like we had, kinda), sometimes we only get an answer back that the author approves of it all.

But you can always encourage people to check their inbox if the happy news with the notification is there. :) If they have not received anything, let me know.

As far as I know: they are not assigned to me. I will ask about the seasons as well ;)

[dreamflower]

The story is number 215, "The King's Commission". The other one I was worried about has been marked "complete" now.

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

I checked and it is even hard for the admin to check who got which story id assigned.. They are working very hard on it. Sometimes it depends on the author to reply, sometimes messages are caught in a spam filter. But nomination season is not over yet, 15th of May, so stay tuned. :)