[mabub24]

> Our goal is to have technology companies, research labs, and similar organizations sponsor contests about their respective fields.

Sci-Fi has a strong vein of criticism throughout it's history. A lot of Sci-fi is a critique of modern society, including the potential consequences of a technology, the overreach of business/companies, and failed ethics in research labs.

If there is a sponsor, how separate will the judging of the story be from the topic of story and the sponsors? If the sci-fi story is very critical of something like CRISPR, if a CRISPR related company is the sponsor, how will the sponsorship play into judges decisions? Do judges have complete discretion on what they pick, or is there a final selection that ultimately happens?

[keiferski]

I’ve thought about this for awhile and my solution is something like this:

Have multiple groups that each choose a winner for each contest. As in, every contest has 5+ winners, not just one. For example:

- One winner decided by public poll

- One winner decided by volunteers that review the stories to help us out

- One winner decided by the sponsor

- One winner decided by a network of related experts. E.g. a bunch of biologists review stories about biology

In this way, I think the worst a sponsor could do is choose a non-negative winner for their own selection. The other 3-4 winners would not be under their influence.

Of course, this may scare away potential sponsors, but in my experience most scientists welcome debate, as the usual state of affairs is getting no attention at all.

[aardvark179]

The public pole will be gamed, I’d drop it unless you want to deal with a Sad Puppies style situation.

I’d say go for two awards at most, let the sponsor choose one and have the other be a jury award. If you can’t persuade some good authors and critics to be on your jury you won’t persuade them to submit stories either.

[HWR_14]

Your site itself makes it seem that the judging criteria is very biased towards positive stories. I'm not sure if that's really your intent, but that was the impression it gave me. If that's wrong, and you want to try to fix it, I can spend a little bit of time trying to identify why I got that impression.

[armchairhacker]

You may want a patron system, where individuals donate to a prize fund (with recognition and maybe some input) instead of organizations. Idk how many people would actually be willing to pay but lots of individuals have success on Patreon.