I've thought about this for a bit.
First off I'm not going to be spliting art or story awards into /M and /F catagories. Art and Writing stands on the merit of the art and writing. And many stories that have been nominated have had mixed tickling in them. The Nonfiction story award has many /M winners. So I see no reason to alter these catagories. They are competitive without gender divisions.
I saw some merit in the Ler and lee alterations on first read. Then did some more thinking.
When it comes to Ler's, males and females have been nominated pretty much equally. Males have won but once, but then I see that as what the voters felt was best. There were no shortage of males to vote for as Lers in most years. You the voters chose to not elect them winners. Splitting the catagory simply because of that fact seems to indicate that you guys feel male Lers are somehow in need of a special catagory just so they can win. Persoanally I think that would make such a win seem less valuable.
A Ler is a Ler and I think that if the community feels one is good, then they will vote them into winning (as they did once). Also, I feel that the community is fairly well mixed on what gender of Ler they like, and there is a balance there, so there is no basic bias built into the vote. That we've seen lots of voting support for male Ler's (they often come close to wining) tells me that this catagory is competitive for both genders. It's just that the women have been a bit more organized in getting votes, and BluFetish ran great 'get the votes' out for their nominated folks over the years.
lees: Ok. I could see why a split here could be of merit. The people who like one gender over another as a lee are indeed very distinct, and of different sizes. So a split here may make sense.
However, In the GFA's history though only one male has been nominated as a lee. This makes me worry that I'd be creating an award catagory that the membership is not overly interested in. But we'll give it a try this year in the nomination phase and see what sort of support the catagory gets. How it goes in this nomination phase is now in your hands people. If nominations tank, it will not carry thru to the final vote phase this year. So show your support.
Other small things.
Technology has come far since the GFA's started thusly "Best Video" will be renamed "Best Video or Clip" to reflect the fact that few full length videos are made these days. Thinking similarly, The Hall of Fame Video catagory will get a /Clip added.
The two Story awards will be clarified to be for the Author not the Story which has confused people for a few years running. They will be Best Author (Fiction) and Best Author (Nonfiction) now.
The 2008 Nomination phase will open very soon.
Myriads
