Painfully said:
I haven't voted for the ENnies judges last year or this year for pretty much one reason: I'm not interested in the same judges calling the shots every year.
So let me get this straight: you don't bother voting or encouraging anyone else to vote because candidates you don't support win the election. Sorry but once again this bespeaks laziness and a lack of respect for democracy and the choices of your fellow ENWorlders. Take a look at this thread right now: Teflon Billy has been sitting at around 70% support since we started this informal poll. What you are saying is: "It's not fair that 70% of the voters get to have their way! The election system must be broken if 7 in 10 people are getting the result they vote for."
I want you to compare this to a real world election. In real life, people win with 50% of the vote or less and the other 40+% of the voting public respects the result. Why should we make a rule that disenfranchises more than two thirds of the voters by barring them from voting for the judges they want? What kind of fairness is that? Why, exactly, should a minority of voters be allowed to impose their will on the majority?
If you don't like the results, change them by campaigning effectively. "But that's not fair," you guys will say, "I want to get the result I want without doing the work that the current judges and their supporters do. I want the same reward for a fraction of the work. It's not fair that you should have to work for what you want in a democracy." For me, part of the very essence of democracy is that hard work and contributions to the community are things that should and do matter and be valued by those in the community. If you want to be part of a community that values whining over work and the minority over the majority, go and set up your own awards. O wait -- that would take work -- and
that would be unfair.
Meanwhile, many new candidates put together much better campaign speeches out there, and barely got votes.
Personally, I'm proud to be part of a community that cares more about ongoing contribution and track record than a single witty speech.
For myself, I know that not having a cap on how many times a person can serve is reducing my interest in voting. When it all feels like a fix anyway, who cares?
You have no clue what election fixing is. Election fixing is when people change the result so that the candidates with the most public support lose.
You are the ones proposing to fix the results; we are the ones saying that voters deserve the right to choose whoever they want. The fact that you disagree with the choices of the majority is not a sign that the system is broken; it's a sign that we have a healthy democracy.
Two or three years of that can make a voter just shrug it off as meaningless.
Are you like this in general elections? I guess if you're a US Democrat or Canadian or British Tory, you don't vote in those anymore either. After all, the system must be broken and voting pointless if people you don't agree with win twice or more in a row.
I think what we need here are some polls asking if people would like to see more new judges.
We're having a poll about that right now on this thread. I think the results speak for themselves.
I'm willing to bet that most people are interested in seeing new judges.
That's what the poll says, doesn't it. It suggests that many incumbents
and a new candidate all enjoy a high level of public support. Hundreds of people have participated in this poll.
How about all the candidates just qualify for judge status (i.e., 18 yrs of age, not a publisher, etc), and if they nominate themselves, they can get their name pulled out of a hat like a raffle. Fair?
It's sure not fair to the publishers who spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars making these products only to discover that Crothian has been beaten by Nisarq because his name came up first. But I see how it's fair in your mind. It means people we have never heard of, who have no track record in our community and put in no work can receive the highest confidence ENWorld can bestow without doing a second of work beyond filling out a form.
I think it's the only way to be fair to everyone from the repeat judges, to the newest candidates at the same time.
To me, fairness is about recognizing merit and hard work. To me, fairness is about recognizing the public's democratic will. Obviously, your idea of fairness is about everybody "getting their turn." Most people don't have the time, expertise or energy to judge hundreds of products fairly so most people on ENWorld will never run for the job. They don't give a damn about whether they get their turn because they don't want their turn. I'm interested in producing a system that is fair to
them and that means a system that reviews products competently.
Conaill said:
The final goal is to have the best Ennies award process! Getting good judges is essential for that, but other factors must play a role as well. Things like the transparency of the process,
Right. I think transparency is important too. That's why I support the current voting system.
assurances against unjustified fears that the whole thing may be run by some secret cabal,
Isn't having open, free and fair elections the best way to provide that assurance?
diversity of viewpoints represented, etc.
Well, it is true that multi-member plurality voting is sometimes deficient on this front. Vocal minorities are sometimes left unrepresented in such a system. However, a term limit rule doesn't really address this. The voting system would still choose candidates who hold a plurality mainstream view for the most part. If you're interested in diversification, I think you'll agree that a switch to STV is most likely to achieve that goal.
Or, we have to recognize that one person's sense is another's foolishness. When considering voting behavior, we need to include psychology.
