Zachary Houghton resigns as an ENnies judge

[El Mahdi]

Exactly. Imagine how pissed you'd be if you lost because one judge was using Internet Explorer 6!

Or Windows Mojave!

 

[The_Universe]

I am a judge. Due to the conditions of my employment, I couldn't accept a single cent of money from the ENnies even if I wanted to (I don't).

If, indeed, any fee is ever enacted for any category, I won't see a dime. That money will instead support the ever-growing administrative costs of the awards, which are currently paid for by fundraising activities (dream date auctions, etc.), corporate sponsors (Avatar Art, Your Games Now, etc.), and the out-of-pocket donations of the award organizers.

 

[Meghan]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Morrus]

True, some of those would definitely need to be answered by him (speak up if you're listening in).

But, some of those don't need to be answered by him (and weren't answered by anyone else, yet):

Was the proposal to give a percentage of the entry money to judges rejected before or after he left?

What were the reasons why the proposal was rejected?

If it was rejected after he left, what role did his resignation have in the decision?

None of the above. It was suggested and discussed a bit, then Denise went away on holiday. That's it.

And the suggestion (I don't recall who made it - one of the judges, I think) was for a dollar ($1) to cover judges' download costs in case of insane quantities of megabytes of products being downloaded, as I recall.

Frankly, it was just an idea someone proposed, and a conversation that alsted a couple of days of occasional emails going back and forth between the judges, and I hadn't even weighed in on what I thought of it yet.

A mountain is being made out of a molehill. Some people had a conversation; that's it.

 

[El Mahdi]

I am a judge. Due to the conditions of my employment, I couldn't accept a single cent of money from the ENnies even if I wanted to (I don't). . .

Just curious, is this due to employment outside of your role on the ENnies staff, or because of any conditional agreements with the ENnies themselves?

Is this typical for the members of the ENnies staff?

And, if this is typical for the ENnies staff, why was the percentage ever proposed and why is it even an issue (to the staff and to Zach)?

 

[roguerouge]

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.

This, I can agree with as someone who will never go to these events or do much more than go, "Huh. How much is _____, again?"

Informality and controversy are fellow travelers. At least with a flexible statement of standards, people have ground rules for the debate.

 

[El Mahdi]

None of the above. It was suggested and discussed a bit, then Denise went away on holiday. That's it.

And the suggestion (I don't recall who made it - one of the judges, I think) was for a dollar ($1) to cover judges' download costs in case of insane quantities of megabytes of products being downloaded, as I recall.

Frankly, it was just an idea someone proposed, and a conversation that alsted a couple of days of occasional emails going back and forth between the judges, and I hadn't even weighed in on what I thought of it yet.

A mountain is being made out of a molehill. Some people had a conversation; that's it.

Well hell. That really leaves me not understanding what the big deal is with any of this. I wish Zach would weigh in here himself and elaborate.

 

[Runestar]

I don't think the issue was ever about judges getting paid (or not).

Moreso, it was about the very nature and structure of the events, that seem to make judging the products fairly virtually impossible.

Perhaps they did indeed set out to accomplish a certain goal, and that their intentions were noble (I am willing to concede this much and give them the benefit of a doubt) but the way things were implemented, what really ended up being achieved seemed to be a rather far cry from whatever it was they had hoped to achieve in the first place!

It has been said that justice must not only been fair, but also perceived as fair. Same analogy applies here, IMO. Maybe the judges feel their judging methods are fair, but as an outsider, I am not sharing their sentiments...

 

[Morrus]

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.

What makes you think they don't?

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,

Is it not possible that the five judges collectively (they ALL vote, you know) might have agreed that the products in question were good products?

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

Or maybe there's an underlying reason why that judge had a positive opinion of a product. because, just maybe, they were good products, and the judges agreed that this was so.

By your logic, any product a judge has seen before and deemed of quality is automatically ineligle for nomination. Crap, we'd have publishers trying to hide their best work from potential judges, just in case they saw it and formed an opinion!

But the issue- once again- is that the blame keeps getting put on podcasts.

Nobody is blaming podcasts for anything.

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?

Again maybe, just maybe, the judges thought those websites were good? You seem very resistant to the idea that they could have a different opinion to you; and, as an entrant, it's somewhat unseemly to be basing a complaint on what - basically - amounts to "the judges didn't nominate what I think they should have".

It's OK for a general voter to express that - expected, even; an entrant trying to find reasons why the products he/she would have preferred be nominated weren't is somewhat questionable.

 

[Xath]

I am a judge. Due to the conditions of my employment, I couldn't accept a single cent of money from the ENnies even if I wanted to (I don't).

This holds true for me as well.

If, indeed, any fee is ever enacted for any category, I won't see a dime. That money will instead support the ever-growing administrative costs of the awards, which are currently paid for by fundraising activities (dream date auctions, etc.), corporate sponsors (Avatar Art, Your Games Now, etc.), and the out-of-pocket donations of the award organizers.

I can't stress how true this is.