I'd like to ask this: do we need any sort of award to be given out?
Nobody seems to really want to vote, and honestly, I'm not all that emotionally involved in the idea either. Sure, it would be neat to win, but it's not like there's a plaque or anything (and there doesn't need to be). I mean, I don't even remember which comedy won it back in 2011. I think the awards are unnecessary.
Now, onto my second issue at the moment: what is the purpose of the Federation (which is still an atrocious name by the way, and should be changed as soon as possible.)? Our original goals included running contests (none have happened), creating crossovers (one happened and died thanks to me), building the community of Comedies (eh... sort of, I suppose), helping each other out with ideas and such (never happened), and then the expos (it took us six months before we started planning them).
The only one of these goals to be truly achieved so far are the Expos, and even then, I can consider it only half complete until we get the nextone done (which will need to be by mid-April).
So... do we really need this? Is the Federation necessary? Granted, it never was, but right now I feel like we have a dead topic still floating in the water. All this thing is used for now is for the Expos, but it's supposed to be so much more. I propose a few answers to this issue.
The first is that we ask the staff to change the name of this topic to something along the lines of "Comedy Forum Expo Planning Topic" (but more coherent and, well, better). Then the topic would be useful in that it is fulfilling the purpose it is meant for.
The second is that we start to jump start on this stuff that we said we wanted to do when we created this. We begin planning in here about crossovers that could happen, even just short four-ten chapter comedies. We begin tossing ideas around for contests, and once we have one that's good enough, we can take it to the staff and see what they think about it. We re-name the group and ask the staff to change the topic name to that, because honestly, "Federation" is just bleh. The community building and comedy ideas would naturally generate out of this.
The third (and the one that I absolutely don't want to happen) would be that we just rid ourselves of this topic all together and be done with everything forever, admitting defeat and sulking in corners for five minutes before returning to our everyday lives (if this option were to occur, I must say, I'd have to eat my socks).
The fourth option is that we leave it exactly how it is right now, which would also admittedly be kind of a bummer.
My preference would be the second option, but I'm sure there are other solutions out there. However, Option 2 is more or less just saying "DO STUFF!!!111!!1!" in a far more profession manner than was just stated. But really, that name change does have to happen.
As for the awards, if they are to occur, it's my belief that it should be handled by the Comedies Critics Club. I don't mean to seize control, but the CCC is just naturally suited to the task - that is why it was the CCC who ran the 2011 awards. The CCC has a list of comedies reviewed that could easily be modified to note the years in which comedies are reviewed, and then the nominees for each year could be selected from comedies that achieved a certain grade or higher, with voting later on.
If a comedy author did not request a review, that is fine; there could be a one week "last chance" period to get your comedy squeezed in for a review to see if it qualifies for the awards or not. Then we could have a voting period for fans and a voting period for the critics, to decide the two (or one if both groups agree) comedies of the year, etc.
Those are just my thoughts on the matter, as it has been almost an entire year now and I really think this topic ought to get moving the gears by now.
-ibrow