Voter's Manual...

This has gotten more complicated than I thought it would be. Therefore, I put up this page to explain to y'all how the voting process works. This way, I won't have to type it out in every email I send.

Nominations Schedule Voting Scoring Method Special Cases

Nominations...

Anyone, including non-reviewers who visit the site, can nominate a novel, trilogy, series, comic series, collection, or anthology. Please, no poetry. Please stick to the general topics of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Historical. These include Paranomal, Alternate History, and genre cross-overs. This does not include Japanese manga (graphic novels), unless they are specifically sci-fi, fantasy, or historically related, nor does it include mystery, western, romance, "literature", non-fiction, or movie scripts. Yes, you can nominate books that are related to a general series like "Star Trek", but please don't nominate the entire series. Series nominations should be reserved for things like "Wheel of Time" or "Hitchhiker's", which are closely related in plot, setting, etc. Please do not nominate entire worlds created by an author, like "Pern". Pick a book or trilogy from that world instead.

Anything written or published in English is acceptable. Yes, that means Chaucer and Shakespeare, if you can find something that fits the genres, and that also means translations of Dumas. Publication in the U.S., Canada, or Ausralia would be nice, so that at least one reviewer might get a chance to read it.... A nomination list from a reviewer counts as one point.

Schedule...

Nominations are welcome at this time. Nominations must all be in by January 20, 2000. By February 1, 2000, I will send out a voting list. This is due back by February 15, 2000. I will have it tabulated in time for the site's first birthday, on February 21. Please turn in voting lists on time, or even early (I can tabulate one voter at a time in the preliminary results). A voting list counts as one point.

Voting...

Please vote for each book, series, trilogy, etc. that you have mostly read. For example, if I read 1984, but skipped the scary parts, then I would still count myself as having read it. One can assume that people reading this list are capable of skipping description if they don't like it, and one can assume that if you really hated a book so much you couldn't finish it, then your opinion matters just as much as that of someone who has read it 20 times.

Please score the nominated book-type-thing on a scale from -5 to +5, with -5 being "This thing was made to be a doorstop", 0 being "I could finish it, but probably won't pick it up again", and +5 being "This book is responsible for my life as I know it and is the point of my existance." Feel free to use the whole scale- your ratings will only be compared to each other, so if you score everything above a 0, it will only mean that 1 gets the lowest rating. Please spread out and use the whole scale rather than using half and quarter points, which drive Excel (and me) nuts.

Special Cases...

If I deem that a book-type-thing is not really appropriate for our site (based on genres), I might remove it. If a book and its series are both nominated by different people, I will make a judgement about which one to include- but it won't be both. If a series that is too broad is nominated, I might email you to ask you which book you like- or I might just pick one. Any author who gets more than four books on the list will have the lowest book removed to make room for other authors. If I find out that there was any kind of rigging going on (I don't care if you guys talk, but let's be fair here), I will remove all the votes of any reviewer who had any part in it. Not that I think this will happen, mind, but I'd like the visitors to know the list is honest.

This page owned by: Raven
Questions? Comments? Smart Remarks?
Email me at [email protected]
Last Updated: November 6, 1999

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