ICE and the ENnies

[fusangite]

I have done my best to follow eyebeams' arguments and I think that it comes down to a misinterpretation of Morrus's role. Morrus and E N Publishing have no role whatsoever in selecting judges or products. They function as sponsors for the awards, just as Gen Con does.

To accuse Morrus of a conflict of interest is essentially the same as accusing Peter Adkinson of a conflict because his convention hosts and co-sponsors the ENnies.

Let me assure you that Denise and the crew would welcome additional sponsors for the ENnies and would continue to do a fine job of maintaining the firewall between a non-partisan voting and adjudication process and the awards' enthusiastic sponsors.

 

[Pramas]

It involves a vast amount of honest work for no pay, and the reward you get is that people jump up and smear your name in every way possible. They accuse you of dishonesty, bias, incompetence, and who knows what else.

This actually describes a typical day working for any RPG company and that's precisely why the ENnies are valuable. They are awards you can win and feel proud to have done so. I look forward to the ceremony every year. If any of you involved with the awards have taken the cautionary comments made by those of us who had a front row seat to the Origins Awards imploding as an attack on the integrity or excellence of the ENnies, let me assure you that was not the intent. The ENnies are something rare--an award that means something--and we want to see them secure and vital for years to come. That's where I'm coming from anyway.

 

[eyebeams]

While you don't want to waste your time trying to make everyone happy, you also don't want to create a climate that silences dissent. I don't see that necessarily happening here, but it'd be a pity if people felt they couldn't speak up.

I think that having personal insults and an actual threat of violence from other posters pass without moderation indicates something that's not partucularly healthy about the climate of discussion regarding the ENnies. I can't think of another thread on this site where a comment like:

if you wish to say otherwise, i'm gonna tell you where i'm gonna stick my foot for calling me a liar

Would ever be tolerated.

As a result, while I started off in this thread disagreeing with Tim Dugger in almost every respect, I can now see some merit in what he has to say. This is specifically because of how this thread has played out.

I also wanted to add one thing. I think some of Eyebeams' points relate to *potential* abuse, but I disagree that they demand an immediate address. Any award system can suffer abuse, but I think the Ennies are transparent and the people involved in running them have consistently shown they are trustworthy. I see some of his suggestions as change without clear improvement.

"Abuse" is a perjorative term. I don't think any individual is motivated to consciously adulterate the awards' integrity or would be, in most situations. While people have been seen fit to take comments personally, I have always discussed a *systemic* situation that has to do with the organization of the awards.

Currently, the judges have a regular proportion of people with non-trivial industry ties and repeat position holders. This isn't because individuals want to necessarily make sure Crothian or Joe G Kushner is always a judge or something. But it hardly explores the diversity of fan opinion to have the same double handful of people opt in and out year after year.

I have *never* claimed there was individual agency involved. Before you reply or polish off any of the stawmen who have been used to raggedness in this debate, remember that.

Changing the judge selection rules would lead to judging from a large, variegated pool of fandom. I would find arguments as to why this is not desireable to be, well, pretty *interesting* to read.

I can't say much more about the idea of organizational bias without the risk of it being conflated with accusations personal bias or conspiracy, when they are not the same thing. But I can't stop anyone from acting like they are, either.

 

[billd91]

I think that having personal insults and an actual threat of violence from other posters pass without moderation indicates something that's not partucularly healthy about the climate of discussion regarding the ENnies. I can't think of another thread on this site where a comment like:



Would ever be tolerated.

You did call the integrity of the judge into question. I'm not surprised at least one of them took offense at that. It was an insulting thing to do. Disagreeing with their decision about putting SCAP in multiple categories is one thing, but that's not merely what you did. So, you might want to look in a mirror when complaining about insults in this thread.

 

[eyebeams]

You did call the integrity of the judge into question. I'm not surprised at least one of them took offense at that. It was an insulting thing to do. Disagreeing with their decision about putting SCAP in multiple categories is one thing, but that's not merely what you did.

When did I call his integrity into question? Did I accuse him of lying, taking bribes or engaging in any form of unethical behaviour whatsoever?

So, you might want to look in a mirror when complaining about insults in this thread.

I'll direct you to this:

I have *never* claimed there was individual agency involved. Before you reply or polish off any of the stawmen who have been used to raggedness in this debate, remember that.

and this:

I can't say much more about the idea of organizational bias without the risk of it being conflated with accusations personal bias or conspiracy, when they are not the same thing. But I can't stop anyone from acting like they are, either.

 

[billd91]

When did I call his integrity into question? Did I accuse him of lying, taking bribes or engaging in any form of unethical behaviour whatsoever?

You said they fudged their rules and implied that they cooked things to get a specific desired result. If that isn't calling the panel's integrity into question, we must have different definitions of integrity. I mean really, how did you expect the judges from last year to take those comments?

 

[2WS-Steve]

Responding to the debate part:

...
Currently, the judges have a regular proportion of people with non-trivial industry ties and repeat position holders. This isn't because individuals want to necessarily make sure Crothian or Joe G Kushner is always a judge or something. But it hardly explores the diversity of fan opinion to have the same double handful of people opt in and out year after year.

...

Changing the judge selection rules would lead to judging from a large, variegated pool of fandom. I would find arguments as to why this is not desireable to be, well, pretty *interesting* to read.

From what I understand judge candidates express their interest and post a brief bio and/or answer questions, then the public votes for the candidates they prefer.

As far as I can tell there are no official rules against anyone running (someone correct me if I'm mistaken).

But, generally, the people running have limited or no professional RPG industry experience.

After the nomination/declaration period is over, the vote is then thrown to the public and they decide who the five judges will be, now using the Single Transferable Vote system.

While one could also debate whether or not a representational system is best, or how many representatives such a system should have, I'll limit myself to one 2000+ year old intractable political debate per post.

****

Since the current format is purely democratic, I take it you're suggesting that there should be some additional formal rules restricting who can be nominated or nominate themself -- perhaps something like term limits, or some algorithm that prevents people with certain kinds of RPG industry experience from applying. But I'll let you present your own ideas since I'm not sure what restrictions you have in mind.

Certainly some rules might make sense. We don't want three-year-olds as judges. However, the process already seems to cover that sort of issue.

While I can understand a general desire to include a rule that prevents, say, Monte Cook from entering since that might lead to a bunch of professional full-time designers (with their superior name recognition) all being judges. However, I think any formal rule would either be too convoluted to parse, or rule out people like Piratecat who a large portion of the voting public would actually like to have the chance to vote for.

As it is, we have the fallback plan of simply relying on the voters to decide who's too much of an insider to allow as judge. And that seems to have worked pretty well so far.

As far as judge recidivism goes, we can at least come up with a clear rule regarding that. Perhaps no more than two or three years in a row, or some other format. I think ruling out any recidivism is a very bad idea, since past judging experience on such a major undertaking would be really useful.

However, I also don't see and haven't seen a problem with just letting the vote handle that part too. It's not like congress where there's a big monetary incentive to stay in, nor do ENnie judges build up massive campaign war chests gleaned from all their E-publisher swag that help ensure that they get re-elected.

That said, I am more open to some sort of rule that helps formalize the process of keeping new blood involved, maybe something like 4-5 years on necessitates 2 years off.


Finally, I do want to point out that any such rules are anti-democratic. They are ways of achieving through legislation what one cannot achieve by convincing the public (unless the public is given a chance to vote on the meta-rules). As such, there is at least some reason to think that the default position should be to simply let the voters decide.

When/if you rely to this please include some specific examples of the rules or restrictions you'd like added. It might be too late for this year but perhaps there could be a public vote on judge nomination rules for next year's ENnies.

 

[eyebeams]

You said they fudged their rules and implied that they cooked things to get a specific desired result.

No, I said they fudged their own rules (which they did; ironically, Diaglo thought the double-dipping wasn't appropriate, indicating as much) but I did *not* say they cooked things to get a "desired" result. I didn't imply anything, but you did infer something fairly foreign to what I was saying.

The fact that you seem to consider some kind of physical threat appropriate behaviour is kind of interesting, though.

 

[eyebeams]

Responding to the debate part:
From what I understand judge candidates express their interest and post a brief bio and/or answer questions, then the public votes for the candidates they prefer.

As far as I can tell there are no official rules against anyone running (someone correct me if I'm mistaken).

No, there are already rules against having industry involvement for a one year period. This is insufficient (I recommend at least 3 years and probably 5). The fact that this regulation exists indicates that it obviously isn't as difficult to ascertain involvement as many suppose.

Since the current format is purely democratic, I take it you're suggesting that there should be some additional formal rules restricting who can be nominated or nominate themself -- perhaps something like term limits, or some algorithm that prevents people with certain kinds of RPG industry experience from applying. But I'll let you present your own ideas since I'm not sure what restrictions you have in mind.

There are already rules. My point is that I don't believe they support the apparent intent of the awards. My sggestions are:

1) An extended moratorium on industry involvement for judges to weed out candidates who have a delayed product in a release queue or who do regular annual or biannual work.

2) Rule that judges may not hold the post again for two years, to prevent elections from a static pool of nominees.

While I can understand a general desire to include a rule that prevents, say, Monte Cook from entering since that might lead to a bunch of professional full-time designers (with their superior name recognition) all being judges. However, I think any formal rule would either be too convoluted to parse, or rule out people like Piratecat who a large portion of the voting public would actually like to have the chance to vote for.

As I said, this is a misrepresentation of the complexity of things, since the ENnies already have a rule about industry involvement. Any critique like the above extends to the rule as is, and as nobody to my knowledge has taken issue with the current rule I doubt it's created significant administrative problems

As far as judge recidivism goes, we can at least come up with a clear rule regarding that. Perhaps no more than two or three years in a row, or some other format. I think ruling out any recidivism is a very bad idea, since past judging experience on such a major undertaking would be really useful.

I think the current pattern is not really acceptable. This is not because of any deficiencies in the judges. A three year limit doesn't change the pattern and unnecessarily bars former judges for life, which is why I suggest a two year waiting period before reapplying.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Trying to keep the quoting to a minimum without sacrificing the core of the post:

No, there are already rules against having industry involvement for a one year period. This is insufficient (I recommend at least 3 years and probably 5). The fact that this regulation exists indicates that it obviously isn't as difficult to ascertain involvement as many suppose.

...

There are already rules. My point is that I don't believe they support the apparent intent of the awards. My sggestions are:

1) An extended moratorium on industry involvement for judges to weed out candidates who have a delayed product in a release queue or who do regular annual or biannual work.

2) Rule that judges may not hold the post again for two years, to prevent elections from a static pool of nominees.

...

I think the current pattern is not really acceptable. This is not because of any deficiencies in the judges. A three year limit doesn't change the pattern and unnecessarily bars former judges for life, which is why I suggest a two year waiting period before reapplying.

Regarding the particulars, I, personally, won't argue much over whether the RPG experience was limited to one or three years. My main concern would simply be to avoid conflict of interest. I'd want to make sure that none of the current nominees (as of this posting) are ruled out, assuming that there's full disclosure.

I do think that 1 year on two off wouldn't work. I've run a couple grad student conferences and for any group undertaking, experience is invaluable. The first year you screw everything up; the second you screw most things up; and the third year you start to get an idea of how things really work. Again, I'd probably go with 4 on/2 off as a limit.


That said, I already get to promote those rules by voting and telling others what I think. You can promote your guidelines or rules in the same ways.

Is there a compelling reason to formalize the rules further? Especially given that there will be people who disagree with both your and my set of guidelines.