Do they coordinate this at all with the MidFur folks and their 'Hall of fame'? (which has been running for the past 4 years)

If we get enoughhals, we can make our own con hotel!

My understanding is that the two events are separate and are intended to honour different groups; the Furry Hall of Fame is targeted towards contributors to the furry community, while the ALAA Hall of Fame is for luminaries of anthropomorphism itself such as Watership Down author Richard Adams, U.S. animators Chuck Jones or Walt Kelly, or Robert Crumb, creator of Fritz the Cat. Both have a worldwide reach.

They should definitely have used a different name tot he already existent awards.

Definitely

Well, they did. A "hall of fame" is a generic term, in my view. If you add the term "Furry" it becomes non-generic, or at least defensible. The ALAA is not calling theirs a "Furry" hall of fame.

This is why I've been very careful to always call this the "Ursa Major Awards Hall of Fame" or the "ALAA Hall of Fame". We may still wind up changing the name. But this gets the idea across. First year and all.

*sigh* Looking back over my own announcement, I can see that I could have worded things a little more clearly. I apologize to anyone for the confusion created, and I apologize to the folks of MidFur for getting their feathers in a dither.