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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronLoeb" data-source="post: 731289" data-attributes="member: 4382">I have some thoughts on this based on running the biggest "video game press" award in the video game industry for a number of years (<a href="http://www.e3awards.com" target="_blank">www.e3awards.com</a>). These thoughts do not necessarily all apply, and I'm not trying to make a broad appeal to authority -- I just want to share experiences that may be of benefit. This is long-winded and wonky, but is an analysis of voting systems based on years of award-giving experience, so I hope you'll read it if interested.When you have a ballot that has products on it that many of the voters may not have heard of, the best system, we found, was weighted voting where each voter MUST select at least 3 products in a given category. The reason being that it is highly unfair to allow people to vote for only one product on the list. It allows partisans and the lazy to pick the award rather than the well-informed. Let me explain:If everyone is allowed to vote for up to 3 products with equal weight (just a checkmark next to them), the well-informed voters who pick three end up diffusing the impact of their votes. It is almost always the case that of any 5 nominees there are about 3 which are "favored," and they'll get the preponderance of the distributed, informed vote. Let's use a possible example from last year. Let's say in the "best setting" category, the informed voters all picked (and I list these three only because I assume they're the best-selling nominees of the category from last year) Oriental Adventures, Rokugan Campaign Setting and Ghelspad, with some variation to the other two nominees that end up cancelling each other out. The result being that the "informed" segment of the voting populace managed to give these three products (totally random number) 5,000 votes each give or take. Now enter the partisans and the uninformed who, rather than vote for 3 prodcuts, will vote for only one. The partisans will vote for their favorite company more than their favorite product. S&S and AEG muster what partisans they can, but can anyone doubt that the force of wizards.com pointing people to a ballot simply trumps any effort the rest of the industry can muster? Next you get the uninformed. These are the people vote based on the one product they own. As I think everyone can attest to, the overwhelming odds here are in favor of WotC.The solution, we found, has to be in stymying the efforts of the uninformed and the partisan. You require every voter to rank their top 3 choices in the category. The product they rank as #1 receives 3 points, the product they rank as number 2 receives 2 points, the product they rank as 3 receives 1 point. The product with the most points at the end of voting wins.To the partisan, this says: you're not allowed to simply pick your favorite company and vote. You have to actually think about this category and determine your favorite three here. If you can't do that, you're too partisan to vote. To the uninformed it says: you need to actually experience the splendid variety of the d20 market to vote for this award.The argument levied against this mechanism is quite simple: "what if there really is only one product I consider worth voting for. I own them all and I hate all of them but one." This is where you have to put faith in your nominating committee that they won't pick 4 stinkers and one winner (which, based on last year's nominees, they clearly won't). If it actually comes to pass, despite the best efforts of the judges to come up with a hot ballot, that you just can't see voting for others in the category, then you just don't get to vote in that category. Suck it up. Democracy is hard. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> The best result of this mechanism is that it often ends up rewarding products that the overwhelming majority of people didn't put as #1, but that everyone, everywhere agrees is in the top 3. This is good, in my opinion, as it shows what product the majority of voters feel is a top product rather than giving power to the passion of a distinct minority. There you go. Very, very long-winded post concluded. Sorry if it's too much. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Aaron</blockquote>

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