[ENnies] Categories
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Dareoon Dalandrove
First Post
I'm nobody; so if I've stepped into something that is beyond me please excuse my ignorance.
First I think that there should be a PDF only category. You could allow PDF publishers to take themselves out of that category and go at it with the print publisher but not both. It should be small and may not even take place at the actual awards but could be announced on the boards. Only the big awards are on TV. It’s like the kiddy pool. It’s not coddling them, but giving those fledglings a chance at success.
The one reason that I can think of to not have the medal system in place is because of the current market.
Wizards are at the top. They have the money and name recognition. They received votes by people who don't know any better. They can afford to make mistakes. While other publishers only get one chance. It's an all or nothing fight. You win it’s your day. There is no second place. When they stop winning maybe it will be a wake up call to stop making sub par products, make them work for it. Wizards are the big dog that everybody is gunning for that’s why they must be in it other wise it’s a joke. At the first ENnies I was surprised at how many awards they won. That's marketing, people don't know every product and never will. My suggestion would be if the awards become too lopsided then things need to be changed start adding runners up or 2 and 3rd place “winners”. Keeping the ENnies "Pure" is something to shoot for, because in the end it will become like all the rest. When you see a full page "for your consideration" ad in Dragon then you know that time has come. Voting should only be for those that are member of the boards and who have a post count (greater than 1 because they signed up to vote) and log IP (to prevent accidentally voting twice). People should only be allowed to vote on products that they own or have a "working relationship with". This should level the playing field as much as it can be. Nobody will be clicking a name simply because they know the name.
First I think that there should be a PDF only category. You could allow PDF publishers to take themselves out of that category and go at it with the print publisher but not both. It should be small and may not even take place at the actual awards but could be announced on the boards. Only the big awards are on TV. It’s like the kiddy pool. It’s not coddling them, but giving those fledglings a chance at success.
The one reason that I can think of to not have the medal system in place is because of the current market.
Wizards are at the top. They have the money and name recognition. They received votes by people who don't know any better. They can afford to make mistakes. While other publishers only get one chance. It's an all or nothing fight. You win it’s your day. There is no second place. When they stop winning maybe it will be a wake up call to stop making sub par products, make them work for it. Wizards are the big dog that everybody is gunning for that’s why they must be in it other wise it’s a joke. At the first ENnies I was surprised at how many awards they won. That's marketing, people don't know every product and never will. My suggestion would be if the awards become too lopsided then things need to be changed start adding runners up or 2 and 3rd place “winners”. Keeping the ENnies "Pure" is something to shoot for, because in the end it will become like all the rest. When you see a full page "for your consideration" ad in Dragon then you know that time has come. Voting should only be for those that are member of the boards and who have a post count (greater than 1 because they signed up to vote) and log IP (to prevent accidentally voting twice). People should only be allowed to vote on products that they own or have a "working relationship with". This should level the playing field as much as it can be. Nobody will be clicking a name simply because they know the name.
Darrin Drader
Explorer
Well, Dareoon Dalandrove, (if that is your real name 
) I agree with you up to this point:
I think you're on to a good train of thought, but the idea is derailed at the end. With the blatant market dominance WotC has, most people will vote for the WotC products because they own them, but no other products in a given category. A better suggestion is to make it so that you can't vote on a category unless you own and heave read every product in a category. Of course if this is impletemented, I predict a lot of people would vote anyway since it would be on the honor system, or they would base their votes on the reviews that are posted, effectively allowing professional reviewers to vote for them.
) I agree with you up to this point:Dareoon Dalandrove said:
I think you're on to a good train of thought, but the idea is derailed at the end. With the blatant market dominance WotC has, most people will vote for the WotC products because they own them, but no other products in a given category. A better suggestion is to make it so that you can't vote on a category unless you own and heave read every product in a category. Of course if this is impletemented, I predict a lot of people would vote anyway since it would be on the honor system, or they would base their votes on the reviews that are posted, effectively allowing professional reviewers to vote for them.
Nicole is right in her assumption that the ENnies themselves are still a work in development. This is why each year we have these conversations out in the open - I try to make the whole process (bar the actual nominations, of course) as transparent as possible.
That's also why it's important that people weigh in, as they are doing here, and why support in these early years is important in building up the credibility and legitimacy of the awards. Part of that process, of course, is the move to Gen Con etc.
One thing that I feel is important is that this process is never set in stone, and that there is always oportunity for change or improvement. As the market changes, so should the ENnies.
Now, here are my thoughts on the issues we're discussing (and bear in mind that my view is no more relevant than any else's here):
1) PDFs - I can easily see the arguments both for an against a PDF category. I myself an swayed toward no having a separate category, because any problems inherent in this issue stem from the market share issue (otherwise known as the "WotC Issue"), not from the format intinscally. Thus the issue should be addressed there - at the cause - not by fiddling the awards to avoid the symptoms.
2) WotC - the market share issue. It came up last year, and it has come up again, and it is apparent that this is a problem. The problem has been explained ad nauseum, so I don't need to go over the details again here.
Now, I am *very much* in favour of a process which nullifies this problem, but which simultaneously does not place restraints against any given publisher. I don't like the idea of excluding WotC; I don't like the idea of them winning all the awards unless their products genuinely are the best (which they may well be - but that's ntot the point).
Now, we have two suggested approaches to this (broadly speaking):
a) Control over the voting process to reduce or nullify market share. Suggestions have included ways of determing the "qualifications" of the voters (i.e. - what book have they read?); restricting voting memebership; including a "don't know" option in the vote.
b) Expanding the awards themselves to include second or third place awards; judges choice awards; peer choice awards.
All of these address the issue, but clearly none of these solutions are attractive to everyone.
Someone also last year suggested a pre-voting poll to determine the market share of various publishers amongst the voters themselves (market share worldwide is irrelevevant to this process - only market share within the subset of gamers who will be voting). That way final votes can be adjusted proportionally. I'm not sure how I feel about that solution.
3) OGL - this, to me, is a little trickier than it appears at first. What's to stop someone releasing a recipe book or a tome on shoe-making under the OGL? I think that the best way to handle this is to just leave it to the judges:
a) OGL products need a separate category. They do have a distinct advantage over D20 products in that they can be "complete" whereas a D20 product is essentially limited to being a supplement to WotC's product.
b) Any OGL product is eligible. However, one of the judges' criteria when nominating products will be "how useful is this to a D20 gamer?". In this way, the recipe book will never be nominated, despite being eligible.
That's also why it's important that people weigh in, as they are doing here, and why support in these early years is important in building up the credibility and legitimacy of the awards. Part of that process, of course, is the move to Gen Con etc.
One thing that I feel is important is that this process is never set in stone, and that there is always oportunity for change or improvement. As the market changes, so should the ENnies.
Now, here are my thoughts on the issues we're discussing (and bear in mind that my view is no more relevant than any else's here):
1) PDFs - I can easily see the arguments both for an against a PDF category. I myself an swayed toward no having a separate category, because any problems inherent in this issue stem from the market share issue (otherwise known as the "WotC Issue"), not from the format intinscally. Thus the issue should be addressed there - at the cause - not by fiddling the awards to avoid the symptoms.
2) WotC - the market share issue. It came up last year, and it has come up again, and it is apparent that this is a problem. The problem has been explained ad nauseum, so I don't need to go over the details again here.
Now, I am *very much* in favour of a process which nullifies this problem, but which simultaneously does not place restraints against any given publisher. I don't like the idea of excluding WotC; I don't like the idea of them winning all the awards unless their products genuinely are the best (which they may well be - but that's ntot the point).
Now, we have two suggested approaches to this (broadly speaking):
a) Control over the voting process to reduce or nullify market share. Suggestions have included ways of determing the "qualifications" of the voters (i.e. - what book have they read?); restricting voting memebership; including a "don't know" option in the vote.
b) Expanding the awards themselves to include second or third place awards; judges choice awards; peer choice awards.
All of these address the issue, but clearly none of these solutions are attractive to everyone.
Someone also last year suggested a pre-voting poll to determine the market share of various publishers amongst the voters themselves (market share worldwide is irrelevevant to this process - only market share within the subset of gamers who will be voting). That way final votes can be adjusted proportionally. I'm not sure how I feel about that solution.
3) OGL - this, to me, is a little trickier than it appears at first. What's to stop someone releasing a recipe book or a tome on shoe-making under the OGL? I think that the best way to handle this is to just leave it to the judges:
a) OGL products need a separate category. They do have a distinct advantage over D20 products in that they can be "complete" whereas a D20 product is essentially limited to being a supplement to WotC's product.
b) Any OGL product is eligible. However, one of the judges' criteria when nominating products will be "how useful is this to a D20 gamer?". In this way, the recipe book will never be nominated, despite being eligible.
Blacksad
Explorer
Re: Re: You should watch where you spit
If you don't give me the number of votes alongside (and Morrus said that he won't disclose those), they do not have a lot of meaning.
For exemple you could have
First 10000 votes
Second 500 votes
Third 300 votes
Fourth 260 votes
Fifth 240 votes
or
First 1000 votes
Second 850 votes
Third 830 votes
Fourth 60 votes
Fifth 40 votes
The top 3 in the first exemple, would lead to belive that the product are on the same level while it's not true
The second exemple give an order of quality, while at this level they are all of the same quality, so I might choose the second before the third, while the third might have been of better quality than the second, but not enough people voted for it, whatever the reason.
Pramas said:
If you don't give me the number of votes alongside (and Morrus said that he won't disclose those), they do not have a lot of meaning.
For exemple you could have
First 10000 votes
Second 500 votes
Third 300 votes
Fourth 260 votes
Fifth 240 votes
or
First 1000 votes
Second 850 votes
Third 830 votes
Fourth 60 votes
Fifth 40 votes
The top 3 in the first exemple, would lead to belive that the product are on the same level while it's not true
The second exemple give an order of quality, while at this level they are all of the same quality, so I might choose the second before the third, while the third might have been of better quality than the second, but not enough people voted for it, whatever the reason.
Some scattershot thoughts:
I can sympathize with those who are worried that WotC will sweep the awards due to their market dominance, but I don't really see that as a problem. I find the idea of expressly designing a process to handicap WotC repellant. Let's say we eliminate WotC, but then Kenzer sweeps the awards. Do we eliminate them from the process since they obviously have an advantage? I think the nomination round eliminates this process. If WotC's products are good enough to stand up against the rest of the industry in the nomination phase, then they should be allowed to compete in the general voting.
I do like the idea of restricting voting to EN World members. It seems to me that if these are to be the EN World awards, that's a good move. It helps Morrus by potentially driving traffic to the site and it prevents ballot stuffing. It also ameliorates the WotC issue, since people active on these forums probably have a higher awareness of d20 and PDF products.
As for the 1st to 3rd place awards, I don't really see the need. Adding more nominees cheapens that aspect of the process and cause further problems with market share. What if WotC wins all three awards? What if the same few companies keep winning? On a practical side, it triples the budget necessary to buy awards and diminishes the honor of winning a nomination. The Ennies process of nominations yields much more valuable nominees IMO because the judges' choices are based on directly comparing the books they receive. If you score a nomination, you know that your stuff was judged against the other submitted materials. Adding 2nd and 3rd place just muddles the process to no real benefit.
OGL Material: I'd push these into the same category as d20 games, perhaps renaming it Best OGL/d20 Game. It strikes me that the d20 game category is a bit thin, anyway, so it makes sense to increase the number of potential competitors in that category.
A Designer's Choice Award: Again, I'm willing to do this if people are concerned about the popular vote aspect of the ENnies. This award track would be a method for professional designers to acknowledge each others' work and put forth what we see as the best designs of the year. Currently, there really isn't any mechanism in place for d20 writers to play a role in the ENnies. It would form a nice counterbalance to the fan's choice/popular vote of the Ennies and would give a good chance for smaller companies to shine. Once more, I'm willing to do all the work to make this happen.
I can sympathize with those who are worried that WotC will sweep the awards due to their market dominance, but I don't really see that as a problem. I find the idea of expressly designing a process to handicap WotC repellant. Let's say we eliminate WotC, but then Kenzer sweeps the awards. Do we eliminate them from the process since they obviously have an advantage? I think the nomination round eliminates this process. If WotC's products are good enough to stand up against the rest of the industry in the nomination phase, then they should be allowed to compete in the general voting.
I do like the idea of restricting voting to EN World members. It seems to me that if these are to be the EN World awards, that's a good move. It helps Morrus by potentially driving traffic to the site and it prevents ballot stuffing. It also ameliorates the WotC issue, since people active on these forums probably have a higher awareness of d20 and PDF products.
As for the 1st to 3rd place awards, I don't really see the need. Adding more nominees cheapens that aspect of the process and cause further problems with market share. What if WotC wins all three awards? What if the same few companies keep winning? On a practical side, it triples the budget necessary to buy awards and diminishes the honor of winning a nomination. The Ennies process of nominations yields much more valuable nominees IMO because the judges' choices are based on directly comparing the books they receive. If you score a nomination, you know that your stuff was judged against the other submitted materials. Adding 2nd and 3rd place just muddles the process to no real benefit.
OGL Material: I'd push these into the same category as d20 games, perhaps renaming it Best OGL/d20 Game. It strikes me that the d20 game category is a bit thin, anyway, so it makes sense to increase the number of potential competitors in that category.
A Designer's Choice Award: Again, I'm willing to do this if people are concerned about the popular vote aspect of the ENnies. This award track would be a method for professional designers to acknowledge each others' work and put forth what we see as the best designs of the year. Currently, there really isn't any mechanism in place for d20 writers to play a role in the ENnies. It would form a nice counterbalance to the fan's choice/popular vote of the Ennies and would give a good chance for smaller companies to shine. Once more, I'm willing to do all the work to make this happen.
Ghostwind
First Post
Here's my two cents worth on this...
Pdfs:
You can make an argument either way regarding the inclusion of pdfs into the categories with print material. From one standpoint, print products are more popular because of higher visiblity and therefore are more likely to win. For example, let's say the five nominees for best supplement are: Book of the Righteous, Path of the Sword, 101 Spellbooks, Mercenaries, and Great Aspeigh. Of those choices, it is very likely that the two pdfs will likely not win because of the familiarity and visibility of the other books. On the other hand, one can argue that inclusion of a pdf into a field of some many good nominations really speaks volumes about the quality of the pdf itself. As much as I would like to say create a separate category for pdfs, I believe most publishers want their pdfs to compete against the print products because it will give them a boost should they be nominated.
Giving Awards:
Since only 5 products are nominated per category, there should only be a single winner and no second or third place announced. However, if the number was increased to seven or eight products, then a runner-up certificate (not a trophy) could be issued.
Special Awards:
OGL Only: I like this idea immensely. There are a limited number of possible nominees this year, but next year's awards look to be more in terms of possible numbers if everyone comes through with their releases.
Judges Choice per category -- bad idea. This is what the nominations themselves are.
Judges Choice overall -- choosing a single product that all judges are in agreement represents the best the industry offers in terms of overall quality, layout, editing, writing, artwork, mechanics, and useability. The best of the best. This would probably be the best idea to work with.
Publisher's Choice -- This could be an interesting award if approached properly. Create two categories (PDF of the Year, Non-pdf of the Year -- or something like that) and allow only publishers to submit votes. However, you should not limit exactly who can vote in terms of numbers of publishers. Only one representative from a company could vote but all publishers should be given the opportunity. You could set the prerequisite of publishing at least 3 products during 2002 in order to be eligible to vote. This would disqualify brand new publishers and those who have only ever made a single pdf from voting. If you've done 3 or more in 2002, you're showing a commitment to publishing.
Voting in general:
Despite the skewed results of last year's outcome, I do not believe you will see that so much this year. There have simply been so many GOOD products released (Nyambe, Oathbound, Book of the Righteous, Mercenaries, FFG's path series, Spycraft) against the fact that Wotc's output has been reduced considerably compared to 2001. I think the field is starting to level itself out without excluding Wotc. This year's vote will give us a more accurate picture. If Wotc sweeps again, then perhaps adjustments should be made.
Just my opinion.
Pdfs:
You can make an argument either way regarding the inclusion of pdfs into the categories with print material. From one standpoint, print products are more popular because of higher visiblity and therefore are more likely to win. For example, let's say the five nominees for best supplement are: Book of the Righteous, Path of the Sword, 101 Spellbooks, Mercenaries, and Great Aspeigh. Of those choices, it is very likely that the two pdfs will likely not win because of the familiarity and visibility of the other books. On the other hand, one can argue that inclusion of a pdf into a field of some many good nominations really speaks volumes about the quality of the pdf itself. As much as I would like to say create a separate category for pdfs, I believe most publishers want their pdfs to compete against the print products because it will give them a boost should they be nominated.
Giving Awards:
Since only 5 products are nominated per category, there should only be a single winner and no second or third place announced. However, if the number was increased to seven or eight products, then a runner-up certificate (not a trophy) could be issued.
Special Awards:
OGL Only: I like this idea immensely. There are a limited number of possible nominees this year, but next year's awards look to be more in terms of possible numbers if everyone comes through with their releases.
Judges Choice per category -- bad idea. This is what the nominations themselves are.
Judges Choice overall -- choosing a single product that all judges are in agreement represents the best the industry offers in terms of overall quality, layout, editing, writing, artwork, mechanics, and useability. The best of the best. This would probably be the best idea to work with.
Publisher's Choice -- This could be an interesting award if approached properly. Create two categories (PDF of the Year, Non-pdf of the Year -- or something like that) and allow only publishers to submit votes. However, you should not limit exactly who can vote in terms of numbers of publishers. Only one representative from a company could vote but all publishers should be given the opportunity. You could set the prerequisite of publishing at least 3 products during 2002 in order to be eligible to vote. This would disqualify brand new publishers and those who have only ever made a single pdf from voting. If you've done 3 or more in 2002, you're showing a commitment to publishing.
Voting in general:
Despite the skewed results of last year's outcome, I do not believe you will see that so much this year. There have simply been so many GOOD products released (Nyambe, Oathbound, Book of the Righteous, Mercenaries, FFG's path series, Spycraft) against the fact that Wotc's output has been reduced considerably compared to 2001. I think the field is starting to level itself out without excluding Wotc. This year's vote will give us a more accurate picture. If Wotc sweeps again, then perhaps adjustments should be made.
Just my opinion.
jmucchiello
Hero
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You should watch where you spit
(Number completely made up, I have no idea how many people actually vote.)
Prod A: 40,123
Prod B: 39,987
Prod C: 13,333
Prod D: 12,222
Prod E: 9,111
In this case, two award would be made in this category because the difference between 1st and 2nd place is statistically insignificant.
If Morrus could tell us how often the category votes were tight, we would know if this were worth doing. Also, deciding on the fudge factor would require someone with statistics knowledge to determine when the difference between 1 and 2 is statistically insignificant. If you get 100,000 votes, you might have a 0.4% tolerance whereas only 10,000 votes would have a 4% tolerance.
PDFs: Undecided
Voting Eligibility: I think limiting it to ENWorlders makes sense. I also think the account should have to have existed on or before April 1 or May 1.
Voting Style: Here's a crazy thought. Base the awards on the standard "choose 1" from category. Then setup an advanced survey as part of the voting process (completely optional) where each product is rated 1-5 or don't know. This year's award would use the standard process but alternate voting scheme would be available for next year's judges to look at and decide if the voting style should change.
I don't think they were talking about having a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in all categories. (I could be wrong.) They were talking about a situation where two or more products in a category vary by only, say 5 or 10% of the vote:Mark CMG said:
(Number completely made up, I have no idea how many people actually vote.)
Prod A: 40,123
Prod B: 39,987
Prod C: 13,333
Prod D: 12,222
Prod E: 9,111
In this case, two award would be made in this category because the difference between 1st and 2nd place is statistically insignificant.
If Morrus could tell us how often the category votes were tight, we would know if this were worth doing. Also, deciding on the fudge factor would require someone with statistics knowledge to determine when the difference between 1 and 2 is statistically insignificant. If you get 100,000 votes, you might have a 0.4% tolerance whereas only 10,000 votes would have a 4% tolerance.
PDFs: Undecided
Voting Eligibility: I think limiting it to ENWorlders makes sense. I also think the account should have to have existed on or before April 1 or May 1.
Voting Style: Here's a crazy thought. Base the awards on the standard "choose 1" from category. Then setup an advanced survey as part of the voting process (completely optional) where each product is rated 1-5 or don't know. This year's award would use the standard process but alternate voting scheme would be available for next year's judges to look at and decide if the voting style should change.
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