# Furry literature recogniton rubric discussion thread.



## M. LeRenard (Jul 13, 2011)

Okay.  I've posted my first draft of the scoring rubric, with some thoughts I'm having, over on the FWG forums: http://www.hostingphpbb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1514&mforum=durocpig#1514
Let's hear it, folks.


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## Aden (Jul 13, 2011)

*Re: Do you buy furry novels? Why not, or which ones?*



M. Le Renard said:


> Okay.  I've posted my first draft of the scoring rubric, with some thoughts I'm having, over on the FWG forums: http://www.hostingphpbb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1514&mforum=durocpig#1514
> Let's hear it, folks.


 


> 2.) Competence of writing.
> This will judge the basic mechanics of writing itself.
> a.)Is the description interruptive, or is it blended in with the narrative enough so as to not be a distraction from the story's events?
> d.)Are the chapters (if applicable) constructed in a logical way? Do they seem to end too early or go on too long?



Can't forget to account for writing style here. Descriptions can be brief or as long-winded and dense as Tolkien and still be effective. Chapters can also be flowing or abrupt depending on what kind of effect the author wants from the breaks.

Either way it's a good attempt to quantify the objective merits of a work. The problem is that one person might weigh x criterion more than another person and that balance is where it gets tricky. I personally think that literary merit should be given more weight, and enjoyability should also get a bigger piece of the pie (possibly have a select group vote on the latter and take the average).


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 13, 2011)

*Re: Do you buy furry novels? Why not, or which ones?*



Aden said:


> Can't forget to account for writing style here. Descriptions can be brief or as long-winded and dense as Tolkien and still be effective. Chapters can also be flowing or abrupt depending on what kind of effect the author wants from the breaks.
> 
> Either way it's a good attempt to quantify the objective merits of a work. The problem is that one person might weigh x criterion more than another person and that balance is where it gets tricky. I personally think that literary merit should be given more weight, and enjoyability should also get a bigger piece of the pie (possibly have a select group vote on the latter and take the average).


 
Maybe an addendum is in order to explain that judges should always keep in mind the most important rule: is the sought purpose being achieved?

I think the weighting of it is going to be the most contentious issue.  The way I see it, presentation and professionalism is an incredibly important aspect of how well-received a work should be.  After all, if you can't read a story, how can you tell whether or not the author actually has any clue what he's doing?  You can easily misinterpret things if the language is unclear, and so that will error bar will propagate to the rest of your scores.  So you reduce the relative error by weighting everything else less.
But obviously other people aren't going to see it that way.  So that's why I'm putting it up for discussion.

Thanks for your input.


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## Kamatz (Jul 13, 2011)

*Re: Do you buy furry novels? Why not, or which ones?*

Maybe you could make the rubric adjustable so that a grader can pick the weight they think is appropriate for each section? Like maybe a section could be worth 20 +- 5% chosen by the individual grader. The grader would have to make sure that the weights they choose add up to 100% at the end. I think it'd be nice to give it that little bit of flexibility.

Also, I think it would be wise to somehow curve the grades so that the average story gets a 50%. This gives room for above average stuff to really shine, and hopefully combats grade inflation. I also suggest that you give the rubric a title. Hopefully if it is successful enough it will be adopted as a standard in some sense. It would be nice to be able to refer to it by a short, catchy name.

Writers could slap the rating on their stories to entice readers. I dunno, something like "Renard's Rating 75". Kind of like rotten tomatoes. And you could ask them to link to the rubric at the end of their story to generate some publicity.


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## buni (Jul 13, 2011)

*Re: Do you buy furry novels? Why not, or which ones?*

The framework looks good, Frank. Three immediate thoughts:
1) I would recommend a "Competence of setting" complement to plot and character.
a) Do the characters respond naturally to their environment? ("As you know, Bob" will get you docked, unless the speaker is in a training video.)
b) Does the setting remain consistent throughout the work? (Are people whipping out swords at the spaceport, and do they have a reason for doing so?)
c) Does the setting support the plot of the story? (If necromancers can speak to the dead, why can't the corpse just SAY who killed him?)
d) Does the setting attempt to validate the existence of furries?
    i) If so, does the validation make sense?
    ii) If not, does the story lack for the absence?

2) I'm disinclined to include enjoyment factor simply because a competent critic should be able to say, "I didn't like this, but I can see why someone would" without it negatively affecting the score. I hate Faulkner and Hemingway with a passion, but I can understand from a literary standpoint why both authors are taught as literary classics, and I think it's important to clearly separate "This isn't good" from "I didn't like it."

3) I'm not sure about the percentages. I would think that basic competency of language ought to be pass/fail, with fail being a disqualification from further evaluation. Not to say that good stories can't be riddled with typos and other problems, but those would be something that would warrant a note of "get a copy editor to fix this first, and then we'll talk."


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## Aden (Jul 14, 2011)

*Re: Do you buy furry novels? Why not, or which ones?*



M. Le Renard said:


> I think the weighting of it is going to be the most contentious issue.  The way I see it, presentation and professionalism is an incredibly important aspect of how well-received a work should be.  After all, if you can't read a story, how can you tell whether or not the author actually has any clue what he's doing?  You can easily misinterpret things if the language is unclear, and so that will error bar will propagate to the rest of your scores.  So you reduce the relative error by weighting everything else less.
> But obviously other people aren't going to see it that way.  So that's why I'm putting it up for discussion


 
It's the classic schism between what critics consider "good" and what audiences consider "good". Best you can do is try to strike some sort of balance.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 14, 2011)

I went ahead and made this its own thread.
A competence of setting is a good idea, buni.  I'll made some edits to this later today.
So far as the 'I enjoyed this story' criterion, like I said in the original thread, I see it as more of a tie-breaker.  Let's say you have two stories of equal literary value, both written with perfect precision, not a grammatical error to be found, everything done correctly.  How do you determine which one is better?  Well, basic logic suggests it comes down to a popularity contest at that point.
This is assuming, of course, that we have 'winners' and 'losers'.  It doesn't necessarily have to be that way, I guess.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 16, 2011)

Ha ha... if you guys on here aren't following this discussion, you're missing out on one hell of a good time.
I was thinking, too, that we're all writers discussing this topic.  Maybe what we could stand to have is a little input from readers or potential readers as well.


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## darkr3x (Jul 16, 2011)

o.o interesting concept. You've got my vote^^


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## Kamatz (Jul 17, 2011)

I read all eight pages.

Jesus Christ, that place is a minefield a mile long.

Since I'm not a member of the guild, maybe you could pass my opinion along for me? If anybody wants to yell at me I only ask that they read my entire post before doing so. Stopping halfway through may give the wrong impression. Anyway, here goes.

  As is my unfortunate habit, I've written a long response to a topic that I'm very passionate about, so please bear with me. I think I've addressed most of the important points that people have brought up in this debate.

Let me begin with a short introduction of myself so you know where I'm coming from. I'm not too involved in the fandom, so I consider myself an outsider. However, I do follow a few artists and writers, and I love the anthropomorphic arts. It's just something I like and identify with, the same way I like science fiction, classic rock, and paintball. It's fun and entertaining.

  I also enjoy sex to the same extent that any other human being does. But I want an award that excludes adult material and here's why:

  Pornography is not art in any case whatsoever. Because by definition pornography is work that is meant to arouse lust and bring sexual gratification. A writer can do this in the most artful and expert way, and yet still fail to arouse my intellectual interests because the work is porn. It's wank material. It has a purpose which it fulfills and nothing more. Nobody seems willing to put their foot down and say this, but I get the feeling that a lot of you want to say it. Well, my balls are made of tempered steel. You're welcome.

  And now that I've got you nice and mad, let me follow up with a caveat. A work of literature can include erotic suggestion; deal with very adult themes including sex, drugs and violence; and can even describe nudity without invalidating its literary merits. In fact any work that aspires to address the human condition (which I suspect is a deeply rooted motivating factor for anthropomorphic fiction in the first place) should address these things. Otherwise it's not really about the human condition, is it? Obviously many stories aren't about that, and probably won't deal with these themes in great detail. But for those that are, it's an integral part of the work.

  I want the award to promote literature and not pornography, as I've defined above. I've scoured the internet for quite a while, and I've found only a few examples of good anthro literature. That's just the nature of these things. There are precious few good writers in the world, when you take into account how many bad ones there are, and precious fewer that are also into anthro writing. What I would like this award to do is to establish a baseline for good anthro literature in the short term, and to raise the expected standard of writing in the long term. This cannot be accomplished by perpetuating pornography.

  And now the big question: How do we determine if a piece of writing is literature or pornography? This, I think, is the heart of the debate. Foozzzball and buni seem to be upset because they consider their erotic work as having just as much literary merit as their non erotic work. This may or may not be true. I believe an objective criteria for deciding whether or not a piece is "just pornography" is this:

*If the story can be written just as effectively without the explicit content, then it should be considered pornography.*

  Inherently this makes sense. The purpose of literature is to tell an evocative and lasting story; "to express ideas of permanent and universal interest" (dictionary.com). If the explicit content is not necessary to give a scene meaning or emotional impact then why is it there? Answer: for sexual gratification.

  But don't disqualify the work completely. Maybe the story is fantastic, but it has just one unnecessary sex scene too many. Offer the writer a chance to edit the unnecessary content out and then resubmit. Heck, offer two chances. Just don't accept it until, according to the opinions of the judges, it's met the qualification for being considered literature and not porn. Of course the writer may not want to change their piece and that's okay. It's entirely their choice.

  I've completely skirted the issue of the award's image (and the fact that most furry porn is borderline beastiality) because I think the above criteria solves the issue. Case in point: Does this story really have to have an explicit description of animal penises, penetration and bodily fluids, or can the same story be told, much more gracefully, with a cleverer and less explicit description of sex? Does the sex even need to be explicitly described to make the point the story is trying to make? Almost invariably the answer will be that no, the sex doesn't have to be there to make the point. Sex is cheap, good writing is not.

  Good literature need not be entirely clean, but the parts that aren't clean had better be monumental in their importance to the story, and the writer had better earn the right to include it. What I mean by "earning" is that the writer needs to build rapport with the reader by succeeding at creating good characters, plot and meaningful motifs before they're allowed to include explicit things. This is an unspoken rule in literature. The writer might be able to do this quickly, or it may take many pages or chapters before it's deemed acceptable by the reader. There is no golden rule. It's judged on a case by case basis.

  [Spoiler alert]

  Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is a great example of this. There is a sex scene (rather explicit) near the end of the novel which is the culmination of the dystopian cyberpunk society motif that Stephenson had been building. It's more than just sex, it acts as a criticism of society. And in the context of the story, it was completely appropriate. I didn't even question why it had to be written the way it was. It just made sense. Stephenson took his time to earn my respect as a reader before asking me to accept something that would have been shocking if it had been placed near the beginning of the book.

  [End Spoiler]

  In conclusion, this award is about promoting literature. We are trying to change the common perception that all anthro literature is either bad, or full of shocking, meaningless porn. It's a true grassroots movement. In order for this to succeed, pornography should not be considered for recognition. If a story has explicit content that has literary merit then it should be allowed, provided it's handled well. I can't emphasize this enough, because my clause in bold weeds out all of the terrible porn without killing anything that's worthy of recognition. It's so difficult to pull off that few, if any, erotic stories will meet that criteria.


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## foozzzball (Jul 17, 2011)

Kamatz said:


> Pornography is not art in any case whatsoever. Because by definition pornography is work that is meant to arouse lust and bring sexual gratification. A writer can do this in the most artful and expert way, and yet still fail to arouse my intellectual interests because the work is porn. It's wank material. It has a purpose which it fulfills and nothing more. Nobody seems willing to put their foot down and say this, but I get the feeling that a lot of you want to say it. Well, my balls are made of tempered steel. You're welcome.



How _dare_ you define what is and is not art. ... That's what I'm for. :|

Seriously? Art is in the eye of the beholder, and there is some extremely artistic 'wank material' in the world. Just because you and (apparently) the majority decide that social prudery means that artistic value in a thing is void does not make it so. 



> And now the big question: How do we determine if a piece of writing is literature or pornography? This, I think, is the heart of the debate. Foozzzball and buni seem to be upset because they consider their erotic work as having just as much literary merit as their non erotic work. This may or may not be true. I believe an objective criteria for deciding whether or not a piece is "just pornography" is this:
> 
> *If the story can be written just as effectively without the explicit content, then it should be considered pornography.*
> 
> Inherently this makes sense. The purpose of literature is to tell an evocative and lasting story; "to express ideas of permanent and universal interest" (dictionary.com). If the explicit content is not necessary to give a scene meaning or emotional impact then why is it there? Answer: for sexual gratification.


Why is sexual gratification a lesser emotional state than, say, 'joy'? Why aren't you disqualifying 'joy' pornography, where a protagonist comes home after their favourite song is playing on the radio to discover a surprise birthday party where they recieve the best birthday cake ever, and THEN they win the lottery too?

'Pornography', the way you're using it, is a perjorative term. The issue of defining what is and isn't pornography is one about as old as the anti-pornography debate. In the end, a different set of criteria has to be used in the yes of the law - whether or not a work is _obscene_. For that the Miller test is used, and very little gets defined as 'obscene' by the Miller test.



> I've completely skirted the issue of the award's image (and the fact that most furry porn is borderline beastiality) because I think the above criteria solves the issue. Case in point: Does this story really have to have an explicit description of animal penises, penetration and bodily fluids, or can the same story be told, much more gracefully, with a cleverer and less explicit description of sex? Does the sex even need to be explicitly described to make the point the story is trying to make? Almost invariably the answer will be that no, the sex doesn't have to be there to make the point. Sex is cheap, good writing is not.


This is a subjective set of criteria which fails to take into account the artistic merit involved. 'Does this story really need' can be applied to any and all elements of a work, and by using different interpretations of what the story in question is actually about you can tear more or less any work down to its constituent parts. For example you could get rid of 99% of Star Wars because the story is 'about' a boy's relationship with his father. All that bullshit about ewoks and space battles isn't required to make the point the story is trying to make.

(I'm actually rather put off by your suggestion that all stories have a point to make, by the way.)



> Good literature need not be entirely clean, but the parts that aren't clean had better be monumental in their importance to the story, and the writer had better earn the right to include it. What I mean by "earning" is that the writer needs to build rapport with the reader by succeeding at creating good characters, plot and meaningful motifs before they're allowed to include explicit things. This is an unspoken rule in literature. The writer might be able to do this quickly, or it may take many pages or chapters before it's deemed acceptable by the reader. There is no golden rule. It's judged on a case by case basis.


Yes. On a case by case basis. Without applying a wide-reaching blanket-ban because of what initial assumptions about a work may be. Every work is read, every work has its artistic merits judged.

Except that's not what's being suggested.



> In conclusion, this award is about promoting literature. We are trying to change the common perception that all anthro literature is either bad, or full of shocking, meaningless porn. It's a true grassroots movement. In order for this to succeed, pornography should not be considered for recognition. If a story has explicit content that has literary merit then it should be allowed, provided it's handled well. I can't emphasize this enough, because my clause in bold weeds out all of the terrible porn without killing anything that's worthy of recognition. It's so difficult to pull off that few, if any, erotic stories will meet that criteria.


If terrible porn is going to win a juried award looking for literary excellence without some kind of massive rule against it, there is a huge problem with the people attempting to look for literary excellence.


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## Kamatz (Jul 17, 2011)

foozzzball said:


> How _dare_ you define what is and is not art. ... That's what I'm for. :|
> 
> Seriously? Art is in the eye of the beholder, and there is some extremely artistic 'wank material' in the world. Just because you and (apparently) the majority decide that social prudery means that artistic value in a thing is void does not make it so.



 I can define literature however I want to define it within my own contrived opinion piece. The rest of my argument depends on clear definitions, so I man up and choose the ones that seem fitting and agreeable to most. There may be plenty of artistic wank material, but it doesn't peak my *intellectual* interest no matter how artistic it is. This is important in distinguishing literature from pornography. I have defined porn as work which serves exclusively as sexual gratification. Most people, including myself, do not consider this art.

  It's not an issue of being prude. It's recognizing that literature and porn serve different purposes. And that this award is supposed to recognize good literature, not good porn.





foozzzball said:


> Why is sexual gratification a lesser emotional state than, say, 'joy'? Why aren't you disqualifying 'joy' pornography, where a protagonist comes home after their favourite song is playing on the radio to discover a surprise birthday party where they recieve the best birthday cake ever, and THEN they win the lottery too?
> 
> 'Pornography', the way you're using it, is a perjorative term. The issue of defining what is and isn't pornography is one about as old as the anti-pornography debate. In the end, a different set of criteria has to be used in the yes of the law - whether or not a work is _obscene_. For that the Miller test is used, and very little gets defined as 'obscene' by the Miller test.



 "Joy pornography" is not really pornography, it's an expression of joy. I'm not sure what the point of this is.

  The current way of judging porn seems to be the _I know it when I see it_ method. I'm trying to offer a better alternative.



foozzzball said:


> This is a subjective set of criteria which fails to take into account the artistic merit involved. 'Does this story really need' can be applied to any and all elements of a work, and by using different interpretations of what the story in question is actually about you can tear more or less any work down to its constituent parts. For example you could get rid of 99% of Star Wars because the story is 'about' a boy's relationship with his father. All that bullshit about ewoks and space battles isn't required to make the point the story is trying to make.



 It doesn't fail to take that into account. The entire point of the paragraph you quoted was to say that writers need to question whether or not the explicit content they're including has artistic merit. And I conclude that in most cases the answer will be no.

  Star Wars was about a lot of things. Among them, the struggle between good and evil, the hero's journey, a boy's relationship with his father, overcoming adversity and probably a whole lot more. All that bullshit about space battles and ewoks is necessary because it introduces conflicts for the characters to overcome. Otherwise what would the story be about? A story needs plot elements and setting. 

  Could George have inserted a steamy love scene between Han and Leia? I'm sure he could have but it wouldn't have added anything to the romantic tension that was already there. The story tells itself equally well without explicit sex. That's my point. Most of the time, sex isn't necessary for a story to be told.

And another thing, the entire judging process for any contest is subjective. I'm only suggesting a way of handling what seems to be one of the biggest problems you guys are currently facing. If you have a problem with subjective criteria then you have a problem with all contests.



foozzzball said:


> Yes. On a case by case basis. Without applying a wide-reaching blanket-ban because of what initial assumptions about a work may be. Every work is read, every work has its artistic merits judged.
> 
> Except that's not what's being suggested.



 In fact, that's exactly what I suggested in my conclusion:




> If a story has explicit content that has literary merit then it should be allowed, provided it's handled well.


I'm not trying to ban explicit material. I'm saying most of it won't even make the cut.

You conveniently neglected to quote the paragraph where I talked about a good example of sex in a story. It's possible, just very difficult.

In most cases, people don't think that purely pornographic works have artistic merit, and that's why it probably wouldn't pass a "merit test". You're missing the point of what I wrote. I think a story should be judged on its merits. If a story arbitrarily inserts a sex scene which doesn't have any impact on the story other than to be a sex scene then it's not well written. Plain and simple. You wouldn't tolerate any other contrived plot device, so why should you tolerate contrived sex?

 One of the purposes of this award is to provide an alternative to the Ursas because people are tired of porn. Hard choices have to be made. Put it up to a vote. If the majority are in favor of my method or any other method, then that's the one that should be chosen.


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## foozzzball (Jul 17, 2011)

Kamatz said:


> In fact, that's exactly what I suggested in my conclusion:
> 
> I'm not trying to ban explicit material. I'm saying most of it won't even make the cut.



Okay, I'm sorry, I thought you were calling for a blanket ban on anything that could be classified as pornography, like so:



Kamatz said:


> In conclusion, this award is about promoting literature. We are trying  to change the common perception that all anthro literature is either  bad, or full of shocking, meaningless porn. It's a true grassroots  movement. *In order for this to succeed, pornography should not be  considered for recognition.* If a story has explicit content that has  literary merit then it should be allowed, provided it's handled well. I  can't emphasize this enough, because my clause in bold weeds out all of  the terrible porn without killing anything that's worthy of  recognition. It's so difficult to pull off that few, if any, erotic  stories will meet that criteria.


 
But if we're in agreement that every single furry literary work aught to be considered equally for any putative award, we're in agreement.



Kamatz said:


> One of the purposes of this award is to provide an alternative to the Ursas because people are tired of porn. Hard choices have to be made. Put it up to a vote. If the majority are in favor of my method or any other method, then that's the one that should be chosen.


 
People are not tired of porn. The people - being the voting public, anyone who chooses to do so can vote in the Ursas - vote for porn year after year. It is, in fact, continually put to a vote, and the majority are continually in favour of it.


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## Kamatz (Jul 17, 2011)

I'm tired of porn. The voting block for the Ursas does not represent me; nor by the looks of it does it represent much of the writing guild. I think there are a lot of people like me who would like to read quality literature without wading through porn, who would like to see the fandom shift focus from reams of adult material to quality, well written literature. I would like to help make that change happen.

The vast majority of adult material will disqualify itself by virtue of the fact that it's written with sexual gratification in mind. As such, part or all of the story (obviously the explicit descriptions of sex) will lack artistic merit in the eyes of most people. If the story still stands with unnecessary elements removed then it shouldn't be considered until those unnecessary elements are removed. If the story doesn't stand with those elements removed then it shouldn't be considered at all. You would do the same type of pruning for any other unnecessary story element, so why wouldn't you consider pruning unnecessary adult material?


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 17, 2011)

I posted a new proposal, which should hopefully alienate everybody involved to just the right degree.  Let me know what you think.


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## Kamatz (Jul 17, 2011)

M. Le Renard said:


> I posted a new proposal, which should hopefully alienate everybody involved to just the right degree.  Let me know what you think.


 
With respect, it's kind of a cop out. It doesn't deal with the issue, and those who produce adult material will always feel that "best foot forward" should also include their work regardless of the fact that you're trying to steer clear from weird sex for the purpose of bringing change to the fandom. If instead you hold the adult work accountable for it's adult scenes by making sure the explicit content actually has literary merit, almost none of it would pass. You will get some stories that do pass on occasion, and they will worthy of the same recognition as any other piece of literature because they passed a very stringent test.

Also I think not labeling something as adult material when it should be is very dangerous, and it's bad for the image of the anthology.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 17, 2011)

Kamatz said:
			
		

> It doesn't deal with the issue, and those who produce adult material will always feel that "best foot forward" should also include their work regardless of the fact that you're trying to steer clear from weird sex for the purpose of bringing change to the fandom.


Right.  So instead of beating my face against that particular brick wall anymore (because it's not gonna' crack!), I'm saying let's allow adult work to be judged on the same merits as everything else.  No genres excluded in this version.


> Also I think not labeling something as adult material when it should be is very dangerous, and it's bad for the image of the anthology.


That ain't what I'm saying this time.  I'm saying in the anthology, anything that the publishers feel should have an 'Adult book' sticker on it gets excluded from the anthology so that we don't have to put an 'Adult book' sticker on the whole anthology, and so that our showcase body of work doesn't include any exotic sex.  I'm saying let the adult books win if they're good enough, but don't showcase them in the anthology.


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## Kamatz (Jul 17, 2011)

Oh jeez, sorry I completely misread what you wrote. I was up until 4 am  gimme a break.

I agree with that 100%


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## foozzzball (Jul 17, 2011)

Okay, in brief: I'm not saying all wonderful literary work must have an adults only sticker on it or be  pornography. I'm saying if you exclude works because they have adults only stickers/get labelled pornography, you are no longer dealing with wonderful literary work. 

If you are looking for 'furry fiction' and 'the best', you do not exclude based on whether or not the main character is or isn't a wolf. Nor should you exclude based on whether or not someone's genitals are whipped out in the course of the narrative. You exclude based on whether or not it qualifies as furry fiction, and on whether or not it can reasonably be said to be 'the best'.

If you are looking to bring change to the fandom, I again suggest the Ursa Major awards. Because the Ursa Major Awards' voting bloc does, in fact, represent you Kamatz. You can pay attention to them, go and sign up, and get your chance to nominate for and vote for works just like every other person on the planet. If you somehow believe that allowing any interested party to nominate and vote for works means that the Ursas no longer represents you, you are kidding yourself, and badly.

Furthermore, I seriously reccomend you actually read the work that wins the Ursa Major awards before passing judgement. Kyell ain't no Hemmingway, but even if you care to squint your way past the sex scenes his work is fairly solid, or so I judge it.


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## Kamatz (Jul 17, 2011)

I've never bought anything from Kyell but I've read some of his short stories. I think he's an average writer who deals primarily with themes that make him popular within the fandom. I don't particularly like his style, but it sells books and he needs to make a living.

We don't want to exclude adult work from the award, we want it to be held to the same standard as non adult work. If there is no literary merit in the adult portion of a story, then that portion needs to be removed before the story will be considered for the award. An editor would do the same for any other part of a story he or she felt was unnecessary before publishing.

The Ursas do not represent me. I don't want to read adult work and this is the bulk of what gets nominated. I'm convinced that many other potential voters of my type choose not to vote because they don't like the current state of affairs. So I'm statistically underrepresented even if I did vote.

The real issue here is that the culture of the furry fandom doesn't represent me in general. The reason I want the award a certain way is that I would like to breed a culture within the fandom that's more suited to me. Same as everyone else who has a stake in this.


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## foozzzball (Jul 17, 2011)

Kyell's short stories are not his long form work, nor are they what usually wins the Ursas.

How about we hold non-adult work to the same standard as adult work, and similarly go over it with a fine tooth comb instead of simply letting it go in front of the judges?

If an award you yourself are capable of voting in fails to represent you, you have an overbloated sense of entitlement. Your opinion is not worth fifty times that of another person's opinion. Sorry.

Also, while I appreciate your need to rebuild the furry fandom, allow me to request you stop.


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## Kamatz (Jul 17, 2011)

foozzzball said:


> Also, while I appreciate your need to rebuild the furry fandom, allow me to request you stop.


 
I don't like the Ursas and I want this to be significantly different. I want my own little slice of pie within the furry fandom. I want to build a community of like minded people. That's how the fandom got started in the first place. Are you seriously suggesting that this is wrong?

I'll do all the terraforming I please, and so will you. The only difference between us is that we're on opposite sides of the issue. *Luke I am your father*

Neither of us likes what the other is trying to do, but we'll both keep doing what we do because we think it's right.

This argument is doing nothing but raise my blood pressure. I have a test to study for. I don't want to write any more long winded essays on an issue which I have no influence over anyway. It's in the hands of the experienced guild members. Whatever happens, happens. I'll stop here.


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## Ilayas (Jul 17, 2011)

Kamatz said:


> I don't like the Ursas and I want this to be significantly different. I want my own little slice of pie within the furry fandom. I want to build a community of like minded people. That's how the fandom got started in the first place. Are you seriously suggesting that this is wrong?
> 
> I'll do all the terraforming I please, and so will you. The only difference between us is that we're on opposite sides of the issue. *Luke I am your father*
> 
> ...



If all you want to do is build your on little slice of the pie then do it; but don't try to change everyone else.  Make your own rubric for judging furry literature make your own subset of the furry community or find one that already exists that fits your needs.  Your view points are as such that you will not get everyone in the furry fandom to follow you, I doubt you will even get close to a majority.  That doesn't mean that you won't find people that agree with you and if you find enough people that do then perhaps your rubric system will become popular.


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## Poetigress (Jul 17, 2011)

Since this discussion has wound up bouncing back and forth between the FWG forums and here, and since the thread in question on the FWG forum is now 11 pages and counting, I wanted to jump in and make sure everyone's aware: Duroc, who created the guild, created and maintains the website, set the guild criteria, and who to my knowledge pretty much does 99% of the day-to-day running of the FWG and its Twitter account (that 1% being that I help moderate the forums, and someone else handles the FA page for the guild), has stated that if the awards mix adult and nonadult work (like the Ursas currently do), the awards cannot be affiliated with the Furry Writers' Guild. He and the guild would still support such an award in the same way they currently support the Ursas, but the guild wouldn't be running the awards. (As for a guild-based award, planning is still going forward, in a forum viewable by guild members.)

I don't know if that has any bearing on the discussion taking place here, but I wanted to make sure it was posted just in case it does.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 17, 2011)

Um... well, gee.  I guess I wouldn't have even bothered with that discussion if I knew it had already been decided.

Nevermind, folks.


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## Aden (Jul 17, 2011)

Just make your own better version of the Ursa Majors, unaffiliated with the FWG
boom done


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## Browder (Jul 17, 2011)

I think the the topics only gets more and more subjective as you go up, therefore 1 should have the highest percentile and 5 the lowest.


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## foozzzball (Jul 18, 2011)

M. Le Renard said:


> Um... well, gee.  I guess I wouldn't have even bothered with that discussion if I knew it had already been decided.
> 
> Nevermind, folks.


 
Well it's a discussion I'd like to have with Duroc, too, so don't worry - I'll get plenty more stones hucked at me.


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