Ennies Judge Election Closed - Winners Inside

[haiiro]

There were 16 categories not counting the special award for Contribution to Open Gaming.

I would love to see this expanded to a full-on category: Best Contribution of Open Game Content. I know I've heard jgbrowning mention something like this (and probably others as well), and I think it's a great idea.

Most consistant quality from a 3rd Party Publisher

I think this is an interesting idea, although it is at least partly covered by Best Publisher. It might also be quite difficult to implement -- how do you judge consistency of quality without having every product put out by every third party company at hand?

Just to throw in my two coppers on the "big three," I agree with Mark (and many others) on all points: PDFs judged alongside print products, no runners up, and WotC must be considered.

Edit: clarification.

 

[jgbrowning]

I guess that's my impassioned plea for tonight. Thanks for listening.

Nicole

I hadn't really thought of it that way. I guess there are what? 700+ products out per quarter for d20 material. Picking the best (leaving out websites) 3 out of 13.... Picking the best 39 products out of 2800 is the still the top 1.5% or so. And im sure im missing a whole slew of PDFs.

Hrm.. Its food for thought. thanks for the post.


joe b.

 

[Lela]

To keep the ENnies the dynamic, well respected awards that they are, change must be constant, reflecting the current market's complexion.

Or, change must not occur. Everything must stay the same. Tradition is all. Dive in and fight everything regardless of how badly it will smack the heck out of you.


Actually, I think putting out more categories (not more than 2 or 3) this year is a good idea. Best product under $10 (US) is just one good idea. I hope adding more is seriously considered by the Powers that Be.

 

[Mark]

I think there are enough competent, informed indivduals who step forward to be ENnies Nomination Committee Members to suggest the follwing...

No more than a 40% of the number of members that have previously held a position on the nomination committee should be on any year's nomination committee.

Allow anyone to run, incumbant or not, but only allow no more than two members from any previous year to be part of any year's nomination committee.

It is the best of all possible worlds.

It allows for experience to maintain some standing on the committee but also makes sure that at least three fifths of the committee is new blood each and every year.

Even if top incumbants (or winners of any previous year) receive the majority of the votes, only two of those recipients may win seats on the nomination committee in any given year.

Thoughts on this?

*edit* I might also add that I think that professional reviewers should stand down from even being on the committee, should they understand this request. Quite frankly, this is not a critics award and as such professional critics should maintain their own professional status as professional critics and stand apart from these awards which were originally intended to be a "people's choice" type of award program. When I speak of professional, I am of course using the same broad brush used to identify professional d20 publishers as would I use to identify professional d20 critics... Anyone who gets paid or is staff of any identified, or organized body set up to promote, publish or critique d20 products. *end edit*

 

[Umbran]

I think I can understand Morrus' "academy" idea. I still think that the number of folks who decide to vote is small. To the point of being slightly embarassing. Maybe the awards aren't terribly invalidated, but more people should vote, darn it!

I also see no shortage of volunteers. No need to go looking for more. With 32 candidates, and 317 votes (at present), I hardly think finding more candidates is the issue.

No more than a 40% of the number of members that have previously held a position on the nomination committee should be on any year's nomination committee.

Allow anyone to run, incumbant or not, but only allow no more than two members from any previous year to be part of any year's nomination committee.
[...snip...]
Thoughts on this?

Uh, sticky wicket, there. What happens when (as we'd expect, given previous years), the vote is won by more than 40% incumbants? Is it really fair to say "We'll only take the top two incumbants, and then take the top three non-incumbents," when the non-incumbents have... something on the order of half the votes that an incumbent does?

If it happens regularly, a 40% turnover is perhaps enough to avoid the "These Five Guysies" effect. It isn't what one might really call "sharing the wealth", but it would keep people from thinking it funny that it's always the same judges.

 

[Mark]

Uh, sticky wicket, there. What happens when (as we'd expect, given previous years), the vote is won by more than 40% incumbants? Is it really fair to say "We'll only take the top two incumbants, and then take the top three non-incumbents," when the non-incumbents have... something on the order of half the votes that an incumbent does?

If it happens regularly, a 40% turnover is perhaps enough to avoid the "These Five Guysies" effect. It isn't what one might really call "sharing the wealth", but it would keep people from thinking it funny that it's always the same judges.

No sticky wicket in the slightest. It would then be simply understood that no more than two incumbants (or winners from previous years) can be reinstated and any others simply must give way to 60% new comers.

It is certainly no more invalid than only a handful of the actual community voting and perhaps will lead voters to be more choosey about voting for those 3 "others" who aren't part of the incumbancy. It stands to reason that if that is understood, people will perhaps vote for two incumbants and take a less complacent look at who the new blood candidates happen to be.

I'm more interested in seeing a greater part of the community feeling a real sense of involvement than worrying about the perception of total gamer support. A stronger commitment to new blood speaks well of the awards as representative of the whole actual community and can't help but be invitationally sound toward that end rather than giving the perception that it might indeed be some sort of "old boys club." It sets the right and proper precedent.

As we already know, there will only ever be only a percentage of total gamer support, the plan I propose at least engenders a definite commitment to a broader base of support rather than a continued and increasing percetion of an exclusionary and isolated self-fulfillling end.

 

[Psion]

But that's an effect of the way the contest itself is structured. (HINT: Let people vote Don't Know instead of forcing them to pick for every catagory....) Otherwise the distortions in voting for less well known catagories are pretty big.

That's a good point, one that I will strongly recommend.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Should this proposal be named The Teflon Billy Edict

 

[Umbran]

No sticky wicket in the slightest. It would then be simply understood that no more than two incumbants (or winners from previous years) can be reinstated and any others simply must give way to 60% new comers.

As a note - I'm largely arguing this as "Devil's Advocate". Whether or not the thing should be done, it should be thoroughly discussed from all sides beforehand. I'm making sure this is done.

It is sticky, in the sense that in some ways it isn't fair. I'm pretty sure this isn't a mere popularity contest. Looking at the top dogs in the race, it's fairly clear that they are higly qualified. Many of the traits that make them qualified are what make them popular people on these boards. Is it fair to tell the community that they shouldn't have the most qualified judges? That in all likelyhood, the majority of the judges will be taken from the folks they probably feel are less qualified?

We asked the community who it was they wanted as judges, and these are the people chosen. If the community at large felt that they didn't want incumbents, they wouldn't have voted for them.

A stronger commitment to new blood speaks well of the awards as representative of the whole actual community and can't help but be invitationally sound toward that end rather than giving the perception that it might indeed be some sort of "old boys club." It sets the right and proper precedent.

You cannot legislate commitment. Either the people behind the awards are committed to new blood, or they are not. Your proposed rule won't change what they think. And if the Ennies are supposed to be vox populi (or vox academy), then is it right to bend the judging into something the academy is clearly not supporting now?

 

[Mark]

As a note - I'm largely arguing this as "Devil's Advocate". Whether or not the thing should be done, it should be thoroughly discussed from all sides beforehand. I'm making sure this is done.

Noted and NP, Brother Umb.

It is sticky, in the sense that in some ways it isn't fair. I'm pretty sure this isn't a mere popularity contest. Looking at the top dogs in the race, it's fairly clear that they are higly qualified. Many of the traits that make them qualified are what make them popular people on these boards. Is it fair to tell the community that they shouldn't have the most qualified judges? That in all likelyhood, the majority of the judges will be taken from the folks they probably feel are less qualified?

Fair or unfair is a conclusion that cannot be drawn without knowing exactly who voted for whom, and why. Truly most of the candidates are probably overqualified for the task. No one is saying the community shouldn't have qualified judges, and indeed the most qualified, but I am not convinced that most of the people on the list don't fall into the category of most qualified. I'm just considering the field of most qualified to be broader than you seem to be supposing. I'd rather, if you plan to be devil's advocate, that you do not attribute such assumptions to me as you are doing. That's not debating the issue, that's debating my motives, and I do not think that you really want to debate my motives (judging by what you have said regarding playing devil's advocate.) Fair enough? Then let's continue...

We asked the community who it was they wanted as judges, and these are the people chosen. If the community at large felt that they didn't want incumbents, they wouldn't have voted for them.

I'm guessing that not many people chose all incumbants, though certainly a few people may have. It is also more likely to me that if someone has chosen an incumbant they have done so because they were familiar, not necessarily because they wish to have a full membership committee of incumbants.

You cannot legislate commitment. Either the people behind the awards are committed to new blood, or they are not. Your proposed rule won't change what they think. And if the Ennies are supposed to be vox populi (or vox academy), then is it right to bend the judging into something the academy is clearly not supporting now?

It is also likely that people are committed to new blood but that they just have not all decided that the same new blood is the best new blood. This leads each individual new blood candidate to be getting less votes than those who are familiar. It's easy enough to say that we should just keep the same committee members for as long as they choose to serve, but if this were truly what people wished, then no new blood candidates would have offered to serve nor have any votes at all, right?

Let's look at the numbers, then...

Of the 1283 votes cast, less than forty percent have been cast for incumbants, and less than fifty percent have been cast for people who have served in any previous year. This is how I arrived at my suggestion of 60% new blood. Clearly the desire seems to be for new blood to some degree and I was willing to let the numbers speak to that issue, regardless of how the actual voting fell in the end, because of the various reasons I have given. It's not that the people are of one mind and therefore choose incumbants, it is that the field is so broad, and there are so many new blood candidates, that when the tallies are done the wish for roughly 60% new blood isn't reflected in the final results, IMO. That's not legislating something that the people do not desire, that's setting up a policy to guarentee their desires, at least to some extent.