If Worldcon is going to continue to add the “Best Website” award once and a while, they really need to clarify the categories. See, to me, an e-zine like the Fortean Bureau should be (and is) eligible for Fanzine every year. The miscellaneous “best website” award should be reserved for resources or sites that are SFnal, but otherwise *not* zines of some kind (be it pro, semi-pro, or fan).

See, to vote for a website like SF Weekly or SCI FICTION is kind of like making them eligible in two different categories, because Scott Edelman and Ellen Datlow are both eligible for the Best Editor Hugo, which is what you should nominate them for if think they deserve a rocket. But best website should be for something like Locus Online (which is zine-like, but more of a resource), the ISFDB, or… I don’t know. I think that category on the whole needs redefining, as do some of the others.

But speaking of fanzines, I think it’s high time that we really start filling that category with nominees that are readily available. Do that many people really read all those little non-fiction zines that end up on the ballot each year? What about all those small press fiction zines, like Christopher Rowe’s Say… or Flytrap, or Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet? Those are all fanzines, are they not? Why aren’t *those* being nominated? Or your favorite e-zine, like aforementioned Fortean Bureau, or Ideomancer, etc.?

Another category I think needs redefining is the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Okay, I realize this was added so that TV shows would have a shot against all the movies each year. The problem is, there’s usually not five award-worthy movies released each year, and I don’t think there are five good SFnal TV series on the air right now (and the only one that I can think of off the top of my head that would deserve an award, Carnivale, didn’t air any episodes in 2004). I think the answer to this admittedly minor dilemma would be to make one of the dramatic presentation categories for movies, and make the other one for miscellaneous dramatic presentations, allowing for television episodes, radio dramas, and audiobooks to be nominated. Currently, radio dramas and audiobooks are technically eligible for the Dramatic Presentation Long Form category, but most people don’t realize this, and just automatically nominate movies. I would prefer that there actually be a category solely for audiobooks, but I’ve been told that if I actually lobby for a new award to be added to the ballot, I may be killed, because goddamn it, isn’t the award ceremony long enough as it is?