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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 3329450" data-attributes="member: 697">OK, I think I understand the root of our disagreement.I don't see Morrus's involvement in both EN World Publishing and the Ennies as a conflict of interest. Instead, I think that his involvement speaks to the transparency of the process. We all know that Morrus is in charge of both the awards and a publisher. We also know that the awards are linked to EN World. Since we know all that, we can make better informed judgments on the awards.If, for example, one company kept winning awards, and it was later revealed that Morrus was involved in that company, there's clear ground to make a judgment there.There's an element of trust in an award process that things are fair and proper. While on the face of it having the same guy run the awards and a PDF house looks suspicious, I think the awards have earned more respect and trust than other awards. I agree that, taken as a theoretical, such an arrangement isn't great, but looking at the results I haven't seen any sign of undue influence. Is there potential? Of course, but the Ennies are transparent enough that informed gamers could spot conflicts of interest.For example, I think it's a terrible reach to say that Shackled City's wins last year were due to any improper influence. Morrus doesn't run Paizo, and I think that reasonable people could disagree with SC's placement in the awards. In this case, I trust the judges and Morrus to make the call. OTOH, if SC was an ENWP book, then I could see a justified demand for change. In such a case, the awards would (regretably) lose their prestige.In comparison, the OAs were consistently opaque in their processes. Both rounds of voting were completed by either a group chosen by the people running the OAs or by people willing to pay AAGAD dues. It's easy for a publisher, through social connections or by simply buying memberships, to slant voting.The Ennies have open voting for judges, open nominations for judges, open entry for publishers and designers, and a final, open voting process. The people in charge of the award are clearly idenfitied and their biases known. That's not how the OAs work.In the case of EN World, we clearly see which publisher could have an unfair advantage, yet we haven't seen that advantage exploited.I think there's also an issue of ownership at stake here. You mention that voting is centered here on EN World. Is that ideal? I don't think it matters either way; it has to be voted somewhere, and the 'net is fluid enough that whether I vote at URL A or B, I don't think it matters. It's not like we're asking voters to drive to a polling place 50 miles out of their way.More importantly, the people behind EN World took the time, effort, and energy to build these awards and make them what they are. Why should they move to a different site? Again, the market will bear out whether they make the right decisions. So far, things have worked well enough. Why should Morrus lose control of the awards he created when he has, thus far, proven more than capable of the task?Again, it comes down to transparency. We can see what the stakeholders have to gain here. If the Ennies thrive, EN World gets more traffic. If in someone's view that's an unacceptable conflict of interest, so be it. But I think that reasonable people can see that such a situation has yet to come to pass and shows no sign of looming as a threat.As to the Ennies as a populist triumph, the awards have flourished without any direction from publishers other than Morrus*. They've completely avoided the passive-aggressive in-fighting and masturbatory backslapping that plagues industry discourse. The OAs exist as a warning for what happens when the people who win awards also run them. They're a clear testament to what happens when the portion of the hobby who decides whether awards mean anything or not (gamers) decides to put together an award.*It's worth noting that, AFAIK, Morrus was not a publisher when he started the Ennies. The first ones were awarded in a chat room back in 2001. I believe 2002 was the first year they were presented at GenCon.</blockquote>

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