Forum:Self-Nomination in Featured Fanon Articles

Forums: War Room → Self-Nomination in Featured Fanon Articles

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Across this site, you’ll notice a trend. Users are not allowed to nominate themselves for User of the Month. You likewise don’t see users nominating themselves for User Awards or requesting a special mention in The Ba Sing Se Times. In the recently-added featured blog posts, it was made a rule that users could not nominate their own posts. In the Fanon Awards – which have been long-awaited and hopefully we can start soon – fanon users cannot vote for their own work. However, as of right now, users may nominate their own work for Featured Article and Fanon.

I am of the belief that, since Featured Fanon is a status given out by the Avatar Wiki fanon community, whatever receives it should be nominated by someone in the fanon community without their own interest in the project. There have been self-nominations several times in the past, such as when the fanon portal was much smaller. I think that the fanon community is large enough and has enough interaction that we can select something for Featured Fanon in an impartial way and that the fans of a series should be the ones to nominate it as a one of their favorite fanons they read, not write.

Therefore, I am suggesting that we make it an official rule that users may not nominate their own work for Featured Article and Fanon and that said work must be nominated by somebody else. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 19:40, November 14, 2011 (UTC)

Although I have been and am nominating my own articles in this forum, I will support ARG with nominating fanons and articles from other users, not only to fit with the rest of the wiki elections, as I feel like this is the right way to do things. --BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Fire & Ice} 19:54, November 14, 2011 (UTC)

This was one of the first things I was hoping to bring up as fanon admin -- that self-nomination should not be allowed. I say, let the fanon readerbase look over your work and have them deem it worthy to nominate it for featured fanon and featured article. In my opinion, it looks a little arrogant to put your own work up for it, as it comes off that you think you are above all others. KataraFanboy Send me a messenger hawk Read my fanon! http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o82/yankeesrule4ever/santa-katara1.gif 21:01, November 14, 2011 (UTC)

I'm in support of this proposal. The rule of no self-nomination is implemented practically everywhere else in such election events and the same should apply to this one. Plus, as KFB said, it does make you seem a bit egotistical when you nominate your own fanon. It's not wrong, but you should let others be the judge of that. The Ultimate Waterbender 21:10, November 14, 2011 (UTC)

I've mentioned this on IC before, so I'm glad to see it in a forum proposal now. For the reasons stated by KFB and Ultimate, self-nomination shouldn't be allowed. I would even maybe set a minimum number of votes required before a fanon can get features, as it also struck me a ridiculous that such a large fanon community can have a featured fanon that only got the featured status by having two supporting votes.

@Ultimate: Hehe, and when others nominate you, you should trust in their judgment ;-) Lady Lostris /  SOAP 01:06, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Looks like there's some significant support so far for this. @Lady Lostris: I think we should hold off on establishing a minimum vote requirement to be featured. During the less active times of year, it is expected that whatever fanon gets featured will have less total votes than when more users are around. If there's a set minimum than its possible for there to be no fanon featured for that month. It's always good to have a featured fanon for the month, since it promotes the variety of the fanon portal. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 01:16, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

True, but it just seems weird to be featured with only 2 votes for example, that just doesn't strike me as "the community wants this fanon to be featured." We could do something like on the featured blog, but then with less required votes, like: At least five people need to vote for that months featured fanon, regardless on how many fanons are nominated. So it there's only one, that fanon will need to acquire 5 votes, but if there are two fanons nominated, it suffices that a fanon only gets three votes while the other one gets two to be successfully featured. I don't think that the lessened activity of people is the cause of not voting on this, I rather think that it is the lack of advertisement and knowledge that it is an option. Lady Lostris /  SOAP 10:31, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Oh...interesting. So five total votes across all nominated fanons. Well that sounds like a good way to look at it. Yes there are times when there are less people available, but five users should be available at any one time - and hopefully something features will have been read by at least five users. ^^" Not true though in the case of multiple nominations, could be less.

Anyway; I support the idea of taking out 'self-nomination.' Kind of defeats the purpose of that fanon being featured by the community if the story's own author is the one saying he/she likes it. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 11:53, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Alright, five votes total sounds like a reasonable rule to me. However, this creates a possibility of having less than five votes and no featured fanon for a month. While that has happened a few times in the past when no one nominated something, I never want that to be the case again, no matter what time of year it is. I think myself, KFB and the other new fanon admin need to make this process more known, so that doesn't happen. I'm also planning to archive the nomination page after this month, since it can be quite a hassle to scroll down now. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 14:23, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

I"m in support of taking it, but it does have its advantages to the featuring process. I've seen months go by where if an author hadn't nominated their own series, there would have been no new featured fanon/article. Maybe we have a waiting period where if (for any reason) nothing has been nominated for one of the categories, then users can nominate their own fanon. That could help in the dead periods. --I'm The Bos - ^Talk 14:31, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that will be necessary. The fanon admins and other active users can nominate something after a while if nothing has been nominated yet. Plus, we're already talking about establishing a five-vote minimum and allowing self-nomination after a period of time doesn't do much to overcome that hurdle. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 14:42, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

I don't think a self-nomination after a while should be allowed as it comes back to, like Vulmen said, defeating the purpose of the community nominating a fanon.

Like I mentioned before, I think the issue is mainly the advertisement of the nomination/voting possibilities. I think that is also something that the FAs (and other interested parties) should think about, but that isn't really relevant for this particular forum now :-) Lady Lostris /  SOAP 20:35, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

A problem with nominating featured Fanon is, let's face it, it isn't overly popular. I support self-nomination, but I agree it isn't a clear representation of the community's views. But there have been a few times were there haven't been a nomination for featured Fanon until the last few days of a month, a few times by myself, just to get the Fanon portal main page updated. So, what if we had a sort of, time limit. After, say, two weeks into a month, if no Fanon has been nominated, users can nominate their own Fanon. I think this is a fair way to go abut it. Thoughts? Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 08:25, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

I still oppose self nominating as I really don't think it is fair, even if there is no other option. But you do have a point in saying that a self nominated fanon being featured is better than no fanon being featured. What if we would do a combo of the proposed solutions? Have a minimum of 5 votes overall for a fanon to be featured (like I explained above) and if a fanon is self nominated, but a self-nominated fanon should have at least a minimum of a certain number of votes, like... 7 or so (I chose that number because the minimum for a nominated fanon would be 5, and I believe a self-nominated fanon should do that litlle bit of extra effort to get nominated as it didn't get to the voting stage with the community's support.) Or if we would have the limit like Rass suggested (only self-nominating after 2 weeks), then I would really propose to add the limit of 5 support votes to have it featured.

And again, we should work on advertising that option more, like mention it in the BSST at the beginning of the month ("New featured fanon (articles) are now accepted/voted on) and the second issue ("Fanon (article) [name] is up for featured vote). Maybe the fanon related user groups, like the Fanonbenders and the Fanon Review Squad could also sport a link to the featured forum on their homepage (I admit, that will just be a limited visibility, but it would be a start). Lady Lostris /  SOAP 16:06, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't support self-nominating for fanons. Not in the last days of a month, not with a higher minimum number of votes, not ever. There's plenty of users on here and plenty of fanons. I think if there is a problem on getting users to vote on a featured fanon its from making it known. I put the link to the nominations section on the fanon portal main page. That should help somewhat. We could also do a notice in the last week of a month that says if nothing has been nominated yet or if we need more votes.

If we're going for five votes overall - not necessarily for the same fanon, that's perfectly attainable. We definitely don't need self-nominating for that. That could be the fanon admins plus two other users even on a slow day. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 16:28, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

Recap

Okay, it’s been two days without another comment on this forum. I figure I’ll break down what we’ve talked about so far. It seems there are three main “sections” in this discussion:

1. Whether to allow self-nomination in the first half of a month. Mostly everyone has spoken against this. I think we have consensus on this point.
2. Whether to allow self-nomination in the second half of a month. I split this point into “first half of the month” and “second half of the month” because there’s still some debate going on about the later part of the month.
3. What a possible minimum amount of votes would be for a fanon to be featured. Lady suggested a minimum of five votes overall for whichever fanon has the highest number of votes to be featured. It was indicated that may change based on point 2 if we still have self-nominated fanons.

I suggest that we leave number 1 behind and focus the discussion on numbers 2 and 3. I myself support not allowing self-nomination and I support establishing the minimum number of votes at five overall. While it has been said that allowing self-nominations may be necessary to get to the minimum number of votes, I don’t feel that self-nomination helps much to make the featured fanon system more active or get a certain number of votes. It’s only relevant for the initial nominating vote. I am confident that something being nominated to begin with won’t be a problem. I myself know of a handful of fanons that deserve to get it eventually and I may nominate some of them myself. I’ve seen other active users nominating some of their favorite fanons recently. I think more users would participate if they were more aware of the featured fanon system.

That said, I think there are other ways to make the process more known. I put a link on the fanon portal main page. Maybe a fanon admin could post a blog promoting it. A community reminder could appear if it’s the second half of the month and nothing is nominated yet. The page should be archived so it’s not a hassle to scroll down. There are several other options I might be open to looking into. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 20:09, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Like I suggested, I am for a minimum required number of votes to emphasize that it is the community that wants to get this featured, not just two people. Sure, five people aren't really representative of the community either, but five is better than two :-) As for the self-nomination, I am still against that as it defeats the purpose of writing the best fanon you can if you can just nominate it yourself instead of hoping and working towards the fact that someone else thinks it is so great that it should be featured. If others believe that self-nominating should still be possible, then I am all in favor of having an extra vote requirement of self-nominated fanons. Lady Lostris /  SOAP 10:22, November 26, 2011 (UTC)

Okay, let's try the new system out for December - with no self-nomination and five votes minimum across all fanons for the one with the highest to be featured. If there are still issues or objections to be addressed, we can leave this forum open for further comment. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 03:53, November 30, 2011 (UTC)