.moon - the living fandom

[UFO Awards] Nominations ending soon!

January 18, 2010, 07:05:11 PM by Dejana

Just a quick reminder, nominations for the 2009 UFO Awards will close January 31st. The queue is still pretty backed up, but I've processed all the ones I'm able to access at this time and I know Yumeko is doing the best she can as well. I hope to be all caught up on the pending nominations by the end of this week.

There are a number of new fandom categories this year and a lot of nominations waiting to be seconded; be sure to show your support before the deadline!

0 comments | Write Comment

Help needed with the UFOs.

January 05, 2010, 12:16:07 AM by Dejana

It's time to face facts; the UFO Awards have gotten too big for one person to handle alone. It was easy enough when we started out with only a few fandom categories, but with over twenty now, I'm facing starting the next round when I still haven't finished the work associated with the last one. I don't want to shut the awards down, because I enjoy being able to recognize talented writers, but if I can't get some help with them 2010 will be the last year. Undecided

So, I'd like to add some staff positions for the UFOs. There are two basic tasks I need help with.

Nomination processing. When someone nominates a story, it goes to a holding queue for verification. This task is as simple as checking that all the story details are correct and the story fits the criteria for the awards (word count, date of completion). This is definitely the easiest task, easier even than our in-house Story Moderator job, but there are a lot of nominations to process (and many of them are on FFN, which I don't have access to very often), so they tend to pile up on me.
Award graphics. This is the hefty one. Nominee badges are easy enough, since they all have the same design with different text, but all the winner graphics are unique with images tailored to the content of the story. There are three or four winners per fandom category, and with twenty fandoms and ten WIP honorable mentions that adds up to a lot. Making one of these means reading enough of the story to get a feel for its characters and content, tracking down images that fit that content, and editing them into the standard template. Ideally, volunteers to help with this task should have access to Photoshop, but in a pinch I'll be happy enough with a few people to read the winning stories and collect source images for the graphics.

Creating the award graphics is the most time-consuming part of running the UFOs. It may seem excessive, but the individualized graphics are what makes the UFOs something special. When the award is a graphic that fits the story, it stands as proof that the content of the story matters to us, and the recipient is a lot more likely to display it than a standard cookie-cutter image. I've gotten a lot of delighted comments from authors who have received these, and frankly, I don't see a purpose in continuing the UFOs without giving out awards that matter. This is both the most time-consuming task and the most important one, as well as the key to the whole question. If I can't find some helpers for this job, this year will be the last one. I hate to be dramatic about it, but I can't handle the UFOs on my own anymore.

If you are interested in joining staff in either of these roles please post or PM me.

7 comments | Write Comment

Downtime/Errors

October 13, 2009, 10:47:54 PM by Dejana

Well, wasn't that fun? Roll Eyes

My apologies for the weirdness and downtime today. Our host moved our account to a different server, and since all the custom pages here were hard-coded to point to directories on the old one, I had to go through and fix them all. The hosting company did send out a warning email about this some months ago, but I didn't take it seriously enough. My mistake. Embarrassed

On the bright side, the coding now uses a neutral address that will be the same no matter what server we're on, so this shouldn't happen again.

I had to reset everyone to the default theme after fixing the theme settings. There appears to be a problem with the page that lets you change themes, so you may be stuck with the default for a bit while I try to sort that out. Please let me know ASAP if you run into errors on any other pages.

EDIT: Problem with the themes area is fixed.

6 comments | Write Comment

[UFO Awards] Best Overall winners for 2008!

September 26, 2009, 11:43:11 PM by Dejana

Hello all

After some deliberation, the final results for the 2008 UFOs are here! Special thanks go out to our special judging panel for beefing up the voter turnout; our first try at having preselected judges to round out the public vote was a solid success. Thanks go out to FiBi, KR, and Kasey! I'll be looking to add more judges next year, so if you're interested in helping out, keep an eye out for the judging call next summer.

Here are our Best Overall winners for 2008!

First Place: "Epilogue" by Snowpuppies
Second Place: "Stormbenders" by Fandomme
Third Place: "What Could Have Been (And What Was)" by amanuensis1

Congratulations to the winners! Grin

The UFO Awards website has been updated with the Best Overall award graphics and the full results for 2008. The 2008 awards are officially concluded!

Nominations for 2009 will run until February 1st, followed by a month's break to finish contacting the authors and voting beginning March 1st. Keep nominating those stories, people!

I'm going to need to beef up the awards staff for next year, things are getting way too big for me to handle without more help. If you're looking for an opportunity to help out with the site, that's where I'll need you the most. There will most likely be an announcement along those lines sometime in the next few months. Meanwhile, I'm still running behind on the award graphics for 2008. I have the first half ready and posted on the website now, you can view them here. I am in the process of finishing the rest and emailing the finished ones out to the authors.

Thanks again to all those who participated in last year's round.

1 comment | Write Comment

Wanted: Forum Moderator

August 24, 2009, 10:26:16 AM by Dejana

So, I know the site's not too active these days, but sometimes things do happen, and we're down one Global Mod much of the time due to Storm's assignments and Jason's schedule isn't ideal either. (What is it with this site and Navy mods? Roll Eyes

)

Also, next week I start training for a new job, so I won't be around much during the day from now on. I'm a bit nervous about doing this, since I don't have any candidates in mind, but I think to cover our bases we should have one more Global Moderator for the forums.

Forum mods are responsible for supervising the day-to-day activity on the most active part of the site, the message boards. We have few incidents on a quiet site like this, but mods can issue warnings to rule-breakers and have the power to edit and lock posts when necessary. If you're the type who hangs out on the site a lot as your default online activity, this role may be right up your alley.

Post here if you have questions, PM me if you would like to officially put your name in for the position. The Beta-Testers will most likely help me make the final decision. This post will probably be open for a couple of weeks, depending on the level of interest.

17 comments | Write Comment