I'm probably gonna anger some people but it needs to be said. Some things that awards require are NOT okay.

I hate it so much when awards insist on SO MUCH without giving anything in return. Sure, you're doing us a favour... but technically it's the judges who are doing it. You're simply coordinating everything.

For example, you have a project. You liaise with the teacher. You will do all the work; your teachers won't do it for you. The teacher will oversee your work. The hosts are the teachers. The judges are the project members.

Now that we have that straight, let's talk.

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About Hosts

They do a lot of work BUT not that much. If they knew how to plan and manage the awards will, it's not that hard.

Yes, they write the book. Yes, they design the stickers and cover. Yes, they accept the judges and participants' forms. But honestly, they're... not that hard.

Designing only takes what half an hour?? Writing the book? It's all standard stuff. If you wanted to make it aesthetic, that's your choice. You added workload to yourself. Accepting judges and participants? Not that hard. Use a spreadsheet, record them all there. Easy.

I've never hosted awards but I've done school projects. I spend only a day on it. My friends spend weeks. We get similarly good grades (mine may be slightly lower because I don't put in much effort but still it's considered high for someone who only spends a day on it). It's called efficiency. Similar to awards, if you're efficient, it's not that hard.

So you have only yourself to blame :P I know this phrase is mega hated but you gotta face it. If I mess up, I'll also admit that. Sometimes, you really only have yourself to blame.

About Follows

Insisting participants following host(s)' accounts PERMANENTLY is unacceptable, especially when the awards has like more than 2 hosts. Same goes for the award's account. Participants should get a choice whether we want to continue following the hosts or community after the awards.

As for judges, it's okay. They actually take the time to read. Yes, they volunteered to do it. They could've walked away. But come on, you still have to appreciate their efforts.

As for hosts, they simply coordinate everything. I already talked about that.

I have followed many people I was not interested in following because of awards and I cannot unfollow them because pErMaNeNt fOlLoW!! Many people will secretly unfollow after the awards but I won't. And I hate how rule-abiding I am.

Making it compulsory and permanent simply means you're doing it for the follows, to be very honest, and I don't respect that. You can casually insert your name there and say "it would be great if you follow—" YEAH MANY ACTUALLY WILL and it's actually more worthy of respect.

If there's only one or two host(s), then fine. BUT IF YOU INSIST PARTICIPANTS FOLLOW LIKE 3 PEOPLE OR MORE (aside from the official awards account; this does not count personal accounts where awards are hosted), no. Hell no. That's way too many people, plus you don't need so many people to host an awards. One person is enough.

Look at the Ace Awards. It's the best awards I have ever seen on Wattpad and it's handled by only ONE person. Don't give excuses for your laziness, lack of time management, lack of self-discipline and greed for more follows.

I get that many simply want to "get what they deserve" for putting in SO MUCH EFFORT. Right. As I said, it's the judges who are putting in all the effort. The hosts are just coordinating it. Granted that it's not easy but BY RIGHT hosts should have the mindset of hosting awards BECAUSE they want to give undiscovered authors more exposure, not for the sake of it.

And don't use school for the excuse of tardiness. I'm from Asia. School is intense, definitely way more intense than the West. But I am also VERY ACTIVE on Wattpad, and my grades are NOT suffering. You don't get to give yourself excuses because of "school".

I'm calling out so many of my Wattpad friends at this moment. Moving on.

About Read Limits

Not accepting books with 1k reads and above is unreasonable.

People who edit on the website will have falsely inflated views because it goes to the reading page whenever it's published (whether for the first time or after editing), which counts as a read. That's how Kiss and Tell got to 1k views in 2019. MANY were many edits. Without them, I'd say it has 500-800 views ish. I'm not sure.

If you're going to have a read limit, make it larger (say 10k) to minimise the influence of falsely inflated views affecting someone's eligibility. Additionally, VIEWS DO NOT REFLECT A BOOK'S POPULARITY. It doesn't show how "discovered" you are. You also have to take account to the number of parts a book has because views seen on the book's description is the addition of all the views on every chapter of the book.

About Book Tags

Insisting participants add tags to their entries is unacceptable.

Tags are useless, especially in the context of awards. Additionally, judges don't need tags to find the goddamn book. It's redundant and unnecessary. You're forcing your participants to remove a tag to make space for yours? No thanks.

About Publicity

Insisting participants post on their message board is unacceptable.

Why are you forcing us to spam on our own message board? Where's our freedom of choice?

Tags exist.

Tag fest exists.

You make it compulsory to have 3-5 tags (bruh some even 10) in forms. Those will tag people who will actually be interested. Do you know who our followers are? Friends. Readers. Let's face it: spam accounts. Most won't be writers (or serious ones, for that matter), and many writers are NOT interested in awards. Therefore, it's unnecessary.

If you really want people to post on their MB, just say something like "it would be great if you could help us publicise our award on your MB so that the awards can run faster" and yes THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WILL DO IT. You don't force people to do things.

About Prizes

There's not much issue here but giving votes as prizes is WRONG. Your book will get reported. Your account where the award is hosted will get reported. That's how communities get deleted. And you don't get to complain.

Why?

You're supposed to KNOW the Wattpad guidelines. No excuses, no crying, for you there. It's all your fault. You don't get to blame Wattpad for deleting your book/account. It's your punishment. Of course, they should've consulted you beforehand and given you a warning and a chance to fix your mistakes but... think about it.

DO THEY HAVE THE TIME? NO!

So yeah, don't expect too much from the mods. Plus, you're really supposed to read the rules on Wattpad before you do anything here. I'm going to insert the link (which you have to manually type out but don't complain because it's very short) for you:

https://policies.wattpad.com/conduct

About Emails

NEW ADDITION ^^

It's a terrible idea to require participants to send their emails in their forms. You don't need ALL their emails. You only need the emails of those who won if you're going to email them the prize.

Why would you make your participants expose their emails like that? Remember that your book can be seen by ANYONE, even the trolls lurking around. By making your participants expose their emails like that, you're putting them into danger of getting spammed, phished, and even HACKED.

Wattpad recently got hacked and all the more you shouldn't require your participants to post their email in a public space.

Don't go "oh but I'm not going to scam you"... All scammers will say that. Not to say you're a scammer but there are actual scammers out there. There are bad people out there lurking around for chances to cheat others.

Call me paranoid but this happens, like it or not. Whether it happens to you depends on your luck... and your brain. DO NOT post your emails online!!

Just boycott those awards that require you to do so to protect yourself.

About Reading List

This is literally one of the things that no one can complain about.

Adding the book to a reading list! I even have a special reading list for all the awards I see, even those I'm not participating in as long as they have space for any genre. If you are in need of awards, you can check them out!

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That's all I can think at the top of my head now. Call me needy but it's my opinion.

I know you can always say: oh, if you're not happy, you can leave, find another awards. I'm sorry but most awards are doing at least one of these. And you got to admit that it's wrong.

If I host awards in future, following is not necessary (only temporary for the sake of receiving announcements), posting on MB is not necessary, adding tags is not necessary, and the read limit won't be that low, if there's even one at all.

Have a great day :)