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[Meghan]

Originally Posted by Qualidar

Apparently Meg doesn't understand that the process isn't objective: it's subjective. Their job is to nominate what they like. Her not agreeing with them doesn't make their choices wrong.

Originally Posted by Morrus

Someone disagrees with the nominations, and thinks judges shouldn't nominate their favourites? Should they be nominating products they don't like?

Not quite. I have a problem with them declaring their favorites THEN the submissions come in and low and behold, the favorites are on that list. I would expect that a judge gets a pile of submissions and then delve into them with an open mind. I would expect that they not have their mind made up before they actually get the submissions. I would expect that a quality award system not ask their favorites to submit.

A judge should be impartial and let the products on the table sway their decision. If the nominations are just going to go to their favorites anyway, then 1) why have a submission process at all? and 2) they need to call themselves something other than judges. And if that is the case, then the process for electing judges should be changed.

Expecting an arbiter to hear all sides of the story before making a decision is perfectly rational in my eyes.

I have a problem with them getting their personal favorites on the nomination list. That's slightly dirty any way you look at it.

But the larger problem is the nomination in general. There's no criteria for judging. There needs to be a rubric of some sorts to ensure judges are looking at the same criteria.

For example, my podcast was recently nominated for a Parsec Award- the premiere award for geek culture podcasts. It was a big deal- flew to DragonCon and everything for it.

They have a set rubric for judging that includes things like "How well does the entry represent it's category?", "Production Values", "quality of content" etc. The ENnies would vastly benefit from some sort of structure to the judging.

ENnies aren't that cut and dry, but they could take a page from other award systems.

Originally Posted by Treebore

Pay up Podcasters, its only fair to the others that you have a cost as well.

No. The mission of the ENnies is that the judges get exactly what the fan gets. That makes perfect sense. They should judge the same product as is "on the shelves".

When a product is freely available though- seriously? "Pay up"? That doesn't even make sense. My product is available for free. I pay to have it available for free. I don't even break even on this venture much less expect to make a profit like a publisher. I expect to follow the same rules as anyone else in the system- give the judges what I give the fans.

The argument over the podcasts on discs is long gone, and in my eyes, vastly blown out of proportion. No podcast who submitted (myself included) had any problem whatsoever with submitting discs. I think I would rather submit on a disc than risk a judge not being able to download an episode. So the disc issue is burried, done, and moot.

It seems the paying issue is fairly moot as well.

Originally Posted by Crothian

This was done because of lack of entries all around. It is not something that we wanted to have happen, but it was either lump them together or not have them as part of the awards at all.

But the issue- once again- is that the blame keeps getting put on podcasts. I don't have all of the information, but it seems from a survey of podcasters, that the podcast category had enough entries. It was the website category that lacked entries.

Ok- but then why have 4 of the 6 (including the honorable mention) be websites? Why make it sound like the "blame" lay with podcasts?

This is only an educated guess, and if I'm wrong I will humbly retract this, but I asked and was told the numbers weren't allowed to be released.

Originally Posted by WayneLigon

This is still over the silly disc thing? I guess they still think they should get an exemption instead of being glad that such categories are even considered award-worthy.

No. No one brought up the "silly disc thing" and my entry which was re-posted here only mentioned it to give my audience who didn't follow the scuffle the background story. And I wanted to point out that the only podcasters complaining about it were ones who didn't enter and mostly had little interest in entering anyway.

So- once again- I would like for the ENnies to be taken seriously. I really would. They have the audience and capacity to do so. I would just like to see the system learn from mistakes and make some changes to improve. Isn't that what all of the entries/ hopefuls are doing as well?

And, since Runestar didn't provide the link:

My original post (and the ensuing conversation) is on my website here.