ENnies Staff Member and not a Judge - oh how glad I am...
Another side of the coin here so that some perspective may be shown on the work involved. I produce the audio for the awards, this has grown from being placed in front of a CD player with a handful of CDs to this year me going into my studio, editing cuts and splicing an entrance and intermission soundtrack. How much did I get paid for this month and a half of work? Nothing - know how much it costs me to do that? At $50 an hour of studio time... Thankfully I have some ins (and a home studio to edit with) so I get a VERY good rate, but can you imagine if I couldn't?
Why do I do it you ask? Prestige - hardly, I barely show on the staff radar. Compensation - obviously not, I don't get paid and don't even get the free product of the judges. Countless groupies and fans - BWAHAHAHAHA! I do it for love of the hobby, just like the podcasters, and webheads - it's why we all do it. Trust me, if you had been in on the meetings a week or two before GenCon you would realize that a lot of stuff goes on behind the screen that has to happen in order to make it work. So why don't we tell you what goes on behind the screen, because it doesn't matter, it's logistics. Unless it ACTUALLY affects the awards, it doesn't go public (or at least it SHOULDN'T).
Once the nominations happen it's up to the voters - the judges and staff have no say after this (other then the judge's award but that's a separate category). I personally didn't agree with MOST of the winners (won't post my opinion here), but that's what you the voting public decided. What upsets me is that Zach emotionally puked on the public before he aired his problems with the other judges - that is just unprofessional.
As for the amount of podcasters that entered - yes there were a bunch, most of them didn't follow procedure and were tossed out, leaving less than 10. Were some mistakes made (specifically the Malhavoc issue)- yes, of course, this is done in the spare time of the folks involved. Everyone tries to do their absolute best to ensure perfection, but things get through. If we had a paid staff to go over all of this with a fine toothed comb it would be different, but we are all volunteers. We do what we can and soldier on. If you want to pay me to do this full time - hey, I'm all for it.
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