User blog:Gideoncrawle/Gilded Chris Acceptance Speech - Featured Story

I want to thank the “Wiki Academy” for making Legacy the first short story to win Featured Story honors. I am gratified that you all looked past its relative brevity, not to mention the fact that it is a noncompetition story.

In the time I have been on the wiki, I have noticed a strong voter preference for long competition stories, probably because such stories are perceived (not unreasonably, I might add) as requiring more creative energy. The two previous noncomp winners, Total Wikia Elementary and Life After Lies, are by far the longest noncompetition stories currently on the wiki, so they would seem to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

In the May vote, as you may recall, Legacy placed 2nd despite competing against not one, but three just-finished or nearly-finished competition stories. While I don’t want to take anything away from Total Drama Infinity (the May winner), I suspect the main reason Legacy didn’t win on the May ballot was because there were still too many people who hadn’t read it yet. Indeed, most of its margin of victory on the June ballot came from new readers who were supporting it for the first time.

Although voter turnout was light (three users who supported Legacy on the May ballot didn’t vote at all this time around, and when was the last time a story won decisively with only 10 supporting votes?), I submit that Legacy’s win was an important step. At “only” 10,000 words (22 pages equivalent), my little fanfic is by far the shortest winner to date. (Total Drama Isle, the previous shortest winner, clocks in at about 15,000 words, and most past winners are much longer.) It seems to me that the one-shots and other short pieces now have renewed hope. Has the time finally come for Violet Hill—probably the wiki’s best-loved one-shot—to be enshrined?

Now, for some specific thank-yous:

First, thanks to TDIRM, Fanny and Bocaj, who supported Legacy every time it was on the ballot. TDIRM was also the first to comment on the story’s talk page, and may have been Legacy’s very first reader on the wiki.

FS voters are permitted—perhaps even encouraged—to vote for multiple candidates if the voter thinks multiple candidates are worthy. While it’s all very well to cast support widely (Bocaj is probably the wiki champion in that regard), a candidate obviously can’t win without people who are supporting it and it alone (or, at least, aren’t supporting the other main contenders). On that note, thanks to Legacy’s “unique” supporters Spenny, TDIRM (again), Codaa5, Jessica and UltimateTORINOR. Of these, Codaa5, Jessica and Ult were new readers supporting Legacy for the first time.

Although my path had crossed Codaa5’s once or twice, we hadn’t had any direct contact that I can recall until he cast his vote for Legacy. That’s a heck of a way to introduce yourself, Codaa5.

Thanks also to the “not elsewhere classified” supporters, Sprink and TAU, both of whom were supporting Legacy for the second time. Sprink liked Legacy well enough to support it for FS despite his well-known aversion to violence, and despite Legacy having what may be the most graphically bloody scene on the wiki. TAU’s general avoidance of noncompetition stories is similarly well-known, but he deigned to look upon my little noncomp and found it good.

Shane bears special mention. Although he didn’t support Legacy (or any other story, as far as I can recall) on the June ballot, he supported it the two previous months, and the specific commentary he offered with his votes was invaluable publicity when my story was still struggling to find an audience. Thanks, Shane.

And so I have my first Gilded Chris. I am hoping to collect two more within the next year or so: I don’t think it presumptuous to say that I’ll probably be a Featured User one of these days (when, I can only speculate), and I have high hopes for TDI-G&amp;S when the wiki version gets a little farther along.

Thanks again to everyone who made this blog post possible.