I’m happy to announce that I’m handing over the running of XYZZY Awards to pinkunz.
For this year’s Awards we’ll be doing things as a transition, with pinkunz co-running the event with me to learn the ropes; after that I’ll be stepping back entirely from the role.
I’ve been running the XYZZYs for entirely too long; it’s time for someone with new ideas and fresh enthusiasm for the project. It’s been time for a while, but I’ve always wanted to pass it on to the right folks under the right circumstances. The XYZZYs are deeply important to the community’s sense of history and its recognition of excellent work, and I’m very happy to have gotten to the point where I can feel good about handing it on.
We’ll be making few if any changes to the format this year; pinkunz would like to get to grips with how the event is currently run before making any substantial changes. Similarly, he’ll probably be putting together a small team to support running the event, but that’ll (mostly) wait until he has a better feeling for what’s required.
It’s been a privilege to run this thing, and I’m looking forwards to spending the energy I would be spending on the XYZZYs on other IF-related efforts. Thanks, y’all.
That’s exciting news! Thanks so much for your stewardship of the awards, and thanks @pinkunz for taking the reins. The XYZZYs have a wonderful, proud history – long may it continue!
(Anyone have an over/under on how many posts go by before we see @maga and @pinkunz’s avatars photoshopped onto Biden and Kamala?)
I’m both excited and humbled to get a chance at helping the XYZZYs continue into the foreseeable future. Thank you, Sam, for trusting me with this. I hope to earn the rest of the community’s trust as well.
Thank you so much for your many years of hard work, @maga. The XYZZYs have provided so much opportunity and inspiration for the community for so long. Looking forward to @pinkunz 's new leadership!
I don’t believe he lives in the affected area? That said, I do know that he’s still recovering from his gnarly car vs. snowplow accident last winter so he has plenty going on IRL regardless of the weather.
I don’t have any special insight into the XYZZY process this year, but given everything I think it’s best to be patient and not bug the organizers too much. Hopefully one of them will give us a status update soon, but we still have several months for it to happen and still be earlier than last year’s!
There are now 10 weeks until the end of the year. It will take time to create the ballot and to collect and process votes. It will most likely take longer during a first-time handover year than it has in the past.
The probability of an “on time” XYZZYs (i.e. one with results announced before the end of 2024) seems to be dropping.
Dan has been preoccupied, yes. He’s extremely recently started a new job- (the background check took much longer to clear than typical turn around as he’s lived all over the country when he was younger,) and been adjusting to that.
He recently was out of the wheelchair, also, having graduated to being able to use a walker- but the transition has been very painful, especially with bearing weight down on the damaged limb during his shift: the resultant edema, even with compression garments, is pretty disfiguring. (There was a night recently where he was physically incapable of standing upright or walking the short distance from his car to the front door, afterwards. Having similar experience from the swelling and positive feedback loop of inflammation and bleeding from my own joint blowouts from my hemophilia- I’m not surprised. Thankfully, he didn’t fall- I gave him the advice to be prepared to crawl, because that is usually safer than trying to stand, falling, and then crawling- and so that’s what he did.)
The bone fragments from the limb being more or less obliterated (they were close to removing the mangled mess, but puzzle pieced together the pieces and pinned and caged it all in place) don’t tolerate pressure or weight well, so for his training period at the least, that’s his biggest hurdle. He’s exhausted, most days. Tired from the pain, the pain makes it impossible to sleep for more than a few hours broken up. We’ve been intermittently in contact.
I don’t have any information on how this’ll impact the XYZZYs, but it’s not for lack of his wanting to engage or participate with the community. He’s just in a lot of pain right now, and in a difficult transitionary period.
Best wishes for Pinkunz. My humble opinion is that XYZZY is in good hands with Pinkunz, even if it might not work out this year. (But probably it will be done in time.)
First of all, yes the remaining slice of 2024 is dwindling, and anxiety in that regard is entirely understandable. You are valid.
Secondly, I have been preoccupied with getting back to work and getting us financially back on our feet again. That said, any delay is entirely my fault and not Sam’s whatsoever. He has been available, supportive, and thorough with this process. I actually recently finished the verification and checking process for the games posted that year and we will be moving on to more publicly visible steps very soon.
And finally, and frankly, I will tell you that the probability of an “on-time” xyzzy is effectively 100% (barring something awful happening to the two of us over the next few weeks, which seems statistically unlikely). This is important to both Sam and myself and we will do what’s necessary to make sure things proceed with time to spare.
Again, any delay is entirely due to me adjusting to IRL demands, not Sam or apathy from either one of us.
Thank you for your patience. I will endeavor to do a better job with updating folks on how things are moving and what to expect going forward.
Also, I owe you an apology. i missed the new posts on this thread altogether. If you had tagged me or replied directly to my post, I would have likely noticed it, but being a general response to a thread I also posted in but didn’t start, the notification sorta blended into the background of other intfiction notifications.
That said, that’s an explanation for how and why, and not a justification for not specifically checking this thread for any questions or comments, or simply preemptively giving a folks an update to prevent the need to do so.
So, yes. Valid point, valid question. Sincerely sorry I didn’t see it earlier.
Edit to add: Reading again, I see you did tag me. I sincerely have no idea how I missed that, but I did. That’s on me. Thank you for tagging me though; that does make it easier to stay on top of stuff like this when I’m not intermittently being human and sucking.