ICE and the ENnies

[eyebeams]

Coming from an academic philosophy background and knowing that you come from an academic philosophy background I'd think you'd understand that accusations of inconsistency seldom lead to constructive debate and typically just leave departments in shambles while everyone accuses everyone else of being a hypocrite, albeit in code-words.

I'm not really interested in mudsligning. But if you're arguing on the basis of a certain set of values shouldn't those values inform a position about the whole policy?

You're exhorting me to trust the voters. My reply is that you can trust the voters all the way to getting rid of the judges -- and all of the sudden, the primacy of voter rights seems to erode. If this restriction sits with you in principle, and the current restrictions also sit well with you, it is difficult to see how slight adjustments to them -- since they already exist -- would suddenly be a problem.

I don't think it's logically impossible that a good system have limited rules regarding who can be a candidate, and yet still have those candidates do the stuff that candidates do in representative democracies.

Representative democracies include legal and social consequences that extend to candidates' public lives that are not even vaguely approximated by gaming awards.

First, I didn't make that response to Tim Dugger.

I didn't say you did. But an argument based on making the awards more convenient is related to a chunk of other arguments that people have argued against vigorously,

Second, what I was saying is that I don't have the time to devote two or more full time weeks to poring over scores of RPG books that came out over the last year. That's very different from spending a few minutes to half an hour going through a website to vote for your choices.

Is that an unreasonable distinction?

I think it overstates things. No judges doesn't obligate gamers to study all the books themselves. Gamers can simply give props to the products they've encountered and enjoyed. In fact, the latter seems like a much more representative mirror of the hobby than having products go from a publisher to a judge without there being anything resembling the normal process of purchasing and appeciating rpgs.

If you *do* have judges, then that means it's desireable to come up with mechanisms to make sure they resemble a broad range of authentic fan responses. Having a broad range means it's certainly less desireable to have incumbents. Having "expert" repeat judges doesn;t have any parallel in ordinary fan experience at all.

 

[Erik Mona]

Feel free to copy and paste your problems from earlier in the thread, but let's get the specifics on the table so that they can be addressed substantively.

I was disappointed that the pre-show party ran out of cheese cubes last year. Until this gross injustice is addressed Paizo Publishing will not deign to participate in these broken awards.

--Erik

 

[Treebore]

I was disappointed that the pre-show party ran out of cheese cubes last year. Until this gross injustice is addressed Paizo Publishing will not deign to participate in these broken awards.

--Erik

Drinking some Bacardi tonight?

 

[Hypersmurf]

I was disappointed that the pre-show party...

Erik, please review the moderatorial request earlier in the thread:

So, all of you who are defending the current ENnies processes and methods - take care when you respond. Most of you are effectively guilty of feeding the fire. Note that there is no such thing as a "sense of humor" in this thread. If you cannot be polite, if you feel too strong an urge to be witty, or sly, or get a dig in, or if your emotions are otherwise engaged, you do more harm to your cause than good by responding.

Thanks.

-Hyp.
(Moderator)

 

[Erik Mona]

Ok, ok, Paizo will participate. That part was snark.

But I was disappointed there weren't more cheese cubes. They were delicious.

--Erik

 

[billd91]

I think it overstates things. No judges doesn't obligate gamers to study all the books themselves. Gamers can simply give props to the products they've encountered and enjoyed. In fact, the latter seems like a much more representative mirror of the hobby than having products go from a publisher to a judge without there being anything resembling the normal process of purchasing and appeciating rpgs.

If you *do* have judges, then that means it's desireable to come up with mechanisms to make sure they resemble a broad range of authentic fan responses. Having a broad range means it's certainly less desireable to have incumbents. Having "expert" repeat judges doesn;t have any parallel in ordinary fan experience at all.

It sounds like you'd rather have best-seller, large publisher bias be introduced into the nominee selection process. But, since you've also inimated that the ENnies are too tied to ENworld (being a promotional tool), wouldn't that also virtually guarantee a strong d20-orinted bias as well?
I'd rather vote for judges, even with incumbancy, to review submissions from publishers of all size and sales success levels to try to find things of high quality. If I don't like the job the judge is doing, I can try to run to be one myself or convince other voters to support another candidate.
High sales volume is its own reward, awards for quality should be something different. The awards shouldn't mirror exactly what's going on in the marketplace. They should reflect things going on in design and writing and go to where good and exciting things are happening even if the marketplace doesn't endorse them.

 

[DaveyJones]

Some of the judges have industry ties. And they fudged the rules for their own categories with Shackled City. If you believed otherwise on the latter, you wouldn't have voted against including it, would you?

that's not what i said.
nor what i voted for or against.
go reread what i said.

edit: by the way you got your wish. i won't be running this year

 

[SteveC]

that's not what i said.

edit: by the way you got your wish. i won't be running this year

This is regrettable. I think you brought a different perspective to the nomination process and made the entire awards more fun. I hope you'll consider it again in the future.

--Steve

 

[eyebeams]

It sounds like you'd rather have best-seller, large publisher bias be introduced into the nominee selection process. But, since you've also inimated that the ENnies are too tied to ENworld (being a promotional tool), wouldn't that also virtually guarantee a strong d20-orinted bias as well?

I'm not really concerned with a d20 bias. After WotC everybody's in the same boat, and WotC (or any company) can still choose to not participate. If you get information from the companies ahead of time (which is already done) and post which products are ineligible, the remainder will reflect a bias toward games that sell, but that's not a big deal. 5 or so noms per category should cover that. I think there would be some advantages with respect to companies like SJG and Palladium, which have significant fandoms that are not at all represented by the awards.

I'd rather vote for judges, even with incumbancy, to review submissions from publishers of all size and sales success levels to try to find things of high quality. If I don't like the job the judge is doing, I can try to run to be one myself or convince other voters to support another candidate.

High sales volume is its own reward, awards for quality should be something different. The awards shouldn't mirror exactly what's going on in the marketplace. They should reflect things going on in design and writing and go to where good and exciting things are happening even if the marketplace doesn't endorse them.

Now you're second-guessing the fans. If fans of a lesser-known product feel sufficiently strongly about it, they'll submit in a higher proportion than fans who just went through the motions with a popular brand. Why can't fans just do the noms themselves?

If that's unworkable, then again, the ball bounces back to admitting that judges have a regulatory, non-democratic function, which means that tinkering with the parameters of that doesn't violate the principles of the awards at all.

 

[fusangite]

Ok, ok, Paizo will participate. That part was snark.

But I was disappointed there weren't more cheese cubes. They were delicious.

They were but they cost the earth. They ended up costing something like $3 per cube given what we paid.

The sage darby lasted way longer than the other cheese. Did you include this in your calculations?

Representative democracies include legal and social consequences that extend to candidates' public lives that are not even vaguely approximated by gaming awards.

Really? I thought the consequences were pretty similar. The main one is not being re-elected.

If you *do* have judges, then that means it's desireable to come up with mechanisms to make sure they resemble a broad range of authentic fan responses. Having a broad range means it's certainly less desireable to have incumbents.

Agreed. That's why we have changed the voting system to remove the system-based bias that existed in favour of incumbents.

I guess what I am not grasping is why you are demanding additional changes when you have yet to see what this round of changes has delivered.