ANNOUNCEMENT BOOK | Pokémon Watty Awards

6/23/18 - Work Being Done to PWA

Hello! This is Kat or @Sheare, the moderator here for the Pokémon Watty Awards. I decided that it was time to announce some big features being added to the account after working extremely hard to put together said features.

If you haven't noticed, the account itself is surging with activity. This is primarily due to a huge project I've been putting together with a couple of accounts in the Pokémon community so activity on my part has been relatively consistent. In this chapter, I'll be listing everything being added or planning to be added in 2019.

There's a big theme for these changes: consumer convenience.

The most exciting feature being added is the addition of a Pokémon Watty Awards Google site. It isn't just any Google site; it serves as a site for every account or group under the Pokémon umbrella. We have resources for writers; information for accounts like the Gotta Read Em' All Club, the Pokémon Writing League, and the new Pokémon Writing Coalition-Generations Debut merger account, the Pokémon Writers Debut; and accessibility to the database and all entry forms for the  Pokémon Watty Awards. You might be able to enter our affiliates' contests straight from the same site as well! It's all in one, big functional place. 

Also, I have revamped the database for the competition next year. We've been using the excel sheet method for the database for years and it's about time it received an overhaul. The database is now more pleasing to the eye, more organized, and automatically hooks up to the Google entry forms so your entry is immediately uploaded into the database just as you press 'enter.' This database and the entry forms are able to be viewed for feedback by clicking on the navigation button on the site and selecting the tab '2019.' 

However excited we may be for this new database, I decided it was simply too tedious to translate all current entries and forms into the new database format. For this reason, we will be using our current database for the remainder of the 2018 competition as well as the Google forms.

We receive a ton of questions on how the database works and how to access it. We hope that the introduction of this Google site eliminates confusion, makes checking on your entries quicker, and greatly improves the entering process.   

We would also like to extend an invitation to any other potential affiliates in the Pokémon community. If you have an account dedicated to reviewing, competitions, editing, cover-making, or any other relevant purposes, we would be happy to give you your own proper section on the Google site. Of course, we expect these accounts to be established and trustworthy. We look forward to working with other amazing groups!

The link to our Google site will be posted on our profile! Check it out! Feedback is appreciated in order to improve the accessibility of it.  

Second order of business: rewriting all of our information books to eliminate contradictions and to clarify existing rules. After looking through the books, I realized that there are still issues with the deadlines being stated differently across the profile. And also, some books/parts are unnecessary. With the addition of the website, our Entry Book has been rendered pretty much useless. I will work on converting that into a book for Entry shoutouts instead. I will also be cleaning out our other books to eliminate unnecessary information like this. The goal: every part and book will have a clear purpose and nothing will be redundant. 

Most of these convenience changes(like the new entry database and entry forms) will be implemented for 2019, but this serves as a heads up that progress is being made towards bettering the awards. You can still check out this new database, but it will remain empty until next year.

Also, as a collaboration between the Pokémon Writers Debut and this awards account, our Special Award, Most Thought Provoking/Intrigue, will now be the Pushing Boundaries Award. This rewards books for opposing the norms of Pokémon fanfiction and is done through a selection process, not the community poll. We have recieved feedback in the past that people would like awards not dependent on the community. Hopefully this serves as a compromise to introduce a mixture of awards! Details for this process are located in the Special Awards tab of the website and will be in the Rules Book when I get around to updating it. 

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to go onto our Google site and click on our feedback form on the Home page or comment with your thoughts. On this feedback form, we also ask what your time zone is so we can figure out a good time for the PWA 2018 live stream for this year and years to come. We will also leave blank paragraphs for you to fully voice your suggestions. It can be anything from "maybe this image should be better quality on the site" or "hey! maybe alter this in the database to make it look better" or "maybe add more information about the categories themselves." 

Thank you for your time! Go off to explore the site!