If that was the point then by any measure I can think of, it's a complete and utter failure. The majority in the fandom don't even care about the winners much less anyone outside of it. With so few voting, it's complete hubris to claim the winners are "the best of what it has to offer". And something I suppose we could debate is whether a character is 'furry' if there was no intent for it to be connected to our fandom in any way. Disney, Pixar, etc don't care about us, don't cater to us directly, and wouldn't be affected in any way if every member of the fandom suddenly lost interest in 'funny animals' and went on to other interests.
The last part is apparently based on your misreading of what I said. My point was the few authors in this fandom who've broken into mainstream publication, never refer to the furry fandom in any way when promoting said works. Find me a book published by one of the large publishing houses that says anything about 'furry' in the forward, on the cover, or anywhere. Heck, Mercedes Lackey included references to both locations and characters from FurryMuck in a couple of her books. She and her husband are very much fans and yet nobody outside the fandom has a clue.
If that was the point then by any measure I can think of, it's a complete and utter failure. The majority in the fandom don't even care about the winners much less anyone outside of it. With so few voting, it's complete hubris to claim the winners are "the best of what it has to offer". And something I suppose we could debate is whether a character is 'furry' if there was no intent for it to be connected to our fandom in any way. Disney, Pixar, etc don't care about us, don't cater to us directly, and wouldn't be affected in any way if every member of the fandom suddenly lost interest in 'funny animals' and went on to other interests.
The last part is apparently based on your misreading of what I said. My point was the few authors in this fandom who've broken into mainstream publication, never refer to the furry fandom in any way when promoting said works. Find me a book published by one of the large publishing houses that says anything about 'furry' in the forward, on the cover, or anywhere. Heck, Mercedes Lackey included references to both locations and characters from FurryMuck in a couple of her books. She and her husband are very much fans and yet nobody outside the fandom has a clue.