Why the merger of two categories?

[reveal]

Be that as it may, neither of you is in any kind of position to judge whether someone's principles are valid or not, so these parts of your comments are entirely irrelevant.

I'm giving my opinion, plain and simple. How do you know if I've done research into the whole "carbon footprint" ideology? You don't. So you are not in any position judge whether or not my dismissal is valid.

Please also note that already a solution was found that was agreeable to both the parties, that being to have a "consolidation house" for the podcasts submitted where one CD would have the required number of shows for a variety of podcasters, thus cutting down the amount of CDs mailed, and making things easier for everyone involved.

While I personally still think there is room for improvement in the submission process, and that digital downloads should be used for digital products instead of CDs, the consolidation idea works just fine until changes to the submission process can be evaluated and implemented in the future.

I agree. That's a perfect compromise. Folks can split the costs and their products all get submitted. That's the best idea I've heard so far.

 

[Mark]

*ahem*

I think it cost me about £5.50 (or $11) to mail each copy of Game Night.

(Some of us are the other side of the pond).

Yup. You could pretty much assume that most print publishers would be spending more than the entry fee on shipping but having them fax or email a scan of a shipping reciept would be a proper method of keeping track of the actuality of the situation.

 

[Mark]

So, now you're asking the ENnies to track everyone's shipping costs and to charge varying entry fees depending not only on category but on product size, weight and point of origin. As I said above, people seem to be being very generous with the time of ENnies volunteers.

See above though I will add that this is an incrediblyt simple administrative task. You drop a scan in a folder marked shipping, naming so you can recognize it is from that particular publisher and marking in a column on the excel sheet used to track the entries that a publisher has sent it. It takes a matter of moments.

"Status quo"?

Yes, the manner in which electronic entries have been handled thus far throughout this millenium.

 

[Mark]

Your ideas so far have done nothing to advance any type of fair way to channel the money more responsibly.

You are not keeping up with the times. Your reasoning refusing to take advanatge of obvious revenues streams and technology that is already many years old. Your closed-minded approach is wasteful and financially cripples the ENnies.

 

[Meghan]

Two simple points:
1) So far, none of the podcast entries who submitted the 6 CD's have had any problem with that submission format.

2) There were almost definitely enough podcasts that were submitted. My guess is still that it was the "Best Fan Site" that didn't have enough entrants.

There were not instructions (as far as I can tell) on how to submit a fan site, but my guess is that it was the cheapest entry by far. And there still weren't enough.

I think mailing CD's is fine, and if people wanted to group up, that should be ok too.

The much bigger question is the time it takes. We don't see 6 episodes as a lot, but should that be looked at? Should it go to a more clip show type entry like the Parsec Awards?

 

[reveal]

You are not keeping up with the times. Your reasoning refusing to take advanatge of obvious revenues streams and technology that is already many years old. Your closed-minded approach is wasteful and financially cripples the ENnies.

Really? I am in no way, shape, or form associated with the ENnies yet I am financially crippling the ENnies? You keep repeating the same ideas over and over again. How is that "forward thinking"? You tout paying an entry fee which I've already said I think is a bad idea. You also advance the idea of using portable devices. So you expect the judges to pay for those out of pocket or for the ENnies themselves to pay for them. That's an unnecessary cost.

BTW, I'm really enjoying your passive-aggressive swipes at me. Feel free to continue.

 

[dpmcalister]

There were not instructions (as far as I can tell) on how to submit a fan site...

I agree. The instructions on what information is needed and how to submit a fan site was a little lacking. As I said further upthread, I submitted a site (by email) but have no idea if I emailed the right person or even if it was received never mind considered by the judges.

 

[fusangite]

See above though I will add that this is an incrediblyt simple administrative task. You drop a scan in a folder marked shipping, naming so you can recognize it is from that particular publisher and marking in a column on the excel sheet used to track the entries that a publisher has sent it. It takes a matter of moments.

Oh yeah -- throw in some math, currency conversions, data entry, calculating an average cost based on the country in which each individual judge lives... piece of cake.

After all, it's only several hundred items they're tracking and it's not like they're already tracking entry forms, errors in entry forms, multiple packages from the same company... Okay I have to stop responding you or I'm going to be up for a ban.

Yes, the manner in which electronic entries have been handled thus far throughout this millenium.

Wrong. Podcasts were submitted simply as a set of links in 2007. The CD for podcasts system was introduced in 2008.

EDIT: Actually, it occurs to me that (a) your system would entail charging entry fees post-submission, requiring another round of mailing and (b) courier companies, unlike postal services don't print the cost of the mailing on their labels.

 

[Mike Jones]

Animalball mailed 12 CDs total and spent probably US$35 on postage. My brother mailed in 6 CDs with the podcast, and I sent CDs for a pdf product of ours. I spent a little extra on postage, because I wanted to ensure it got there in a timely fashion, and I wanted delivery confirmation.

We spent way more than we had to, because we are new to the process.

In the future, we can sent everything on a single set of CDs, and if we send early enough, you can actually send CDs on a single $.42 stamp. I would likely get the sturdier cardboard mailers, which can go for $.79 each. As long as I mail early enough, standard USPS mail will get it there in plenty of time. And now that I know the judges are all so open and accessible, I don't need delivery confirmation, because I can just write to them and ask them if they got everything.

CDs cost less that $.20 each, so mailing from within the US, I could have had all of this done for under $5 ($7-ish when you include the cost of the mailers). That's it... $7 to submit as many electronic products as I want (no way will I have more than one CD worth of material in a year, even if I was submitting two different podcasts and 10 different PDFs).

The only real cost to me was the time. A couple hours worth of my time to burn, package, and mail my stuff in was a drop in the bucket compared to what went into creating them in the first place.

I'm not advocating anything, I just wanted to present a more realistic picture of how much cost and effort should be incurred by the current process. If you live within the US and you have all your ducks in a row, there's no reason to spend more than $10 all told to mail 6 CDs. Now, if you're a procrastinator like me, then all bets are off, of course...

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

I'm giving my opinion, plain and simple. How do you know if I've done research into the whole "carbon footprint" ideology? You don't. So you are not in any position judge whether or not my dismissal is valid.

My point (and it came across a bit more rude than I intended it) is that we are talking about personal opinions, so none of us is in any position to say that what one holds as principle is either valid or not; it just is for that person.

I agree. That's a perfect compromise. Folks can split the costs and their products all get submitted. That's the best idea I've heard so far.

It seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle, and it's one I know has the support of various other podcasters.

There's a number of different issues being discussed in the thread (the lack of entries, the lack of show from the podcasting community, the CD submission process, the idea of a digital delivery for digital submissions, Fan Product vs. Professional Product, etc.) so it's easy to get sidetracked.