Move sucessfully completed, and I am back online again (3+ days with no internet.... shudder....)
Cthulhu's Librarian said:I agree that we need definitions, but I will say that when the judges decided on the definitions for this years categories, we thought we had made it clear enough what was expected for a given category. We wanted them to be broad enough to include all titles that could reasonably fit, while being narrow enough to eliminate things that didn't fit. <snip>[/QUOTE
I have an issue with the above comment. Specifically the part where it says "judges decided on the definititions for this years categories". No matter how you attempt to rephrase it, and how it comes out, it boils down to the judges determining the definitions, and it implies that they do so every year. This implies that that definition of a given category can change from year to year as well.
Cthulhu's Librarian said:There is a balance point, and I am confident that it can be reached.
So am I. I have full confidence in this year's judges (even if I disagree with some of their decisions), and have absolutely no complaints against them.
However, some of those decisions have highlighted a problem that I would like to see fixed for next year, and future years.
Please let me be very explicit. I am strongly against ANY company gaming the awards system. The nomination of SCAP for both Best Adventure and Best Campaign/Campaign Supplement shows that the awards CAN be gamed. I am NOT claiming that they were gamed this year. I most certainly do not think that Piazo intended to or tried game the system. However, I do think that the judges decisions have pointed out how it is possible to do so.
Now, in post number #121 -- http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2940732&postcount=121 -- Numion made the comment (and several others also followed up on this) how more and more products were likely to cross boundries. Those boundry crossings could be used to game the system.
Steel_Wind , in post #210 -- http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2944371&postcount=210 -- articulates this very well. Simply put, a product should only be eligible for a SINGLE MAIN CATEGORY, not multiple main categories.
Ghostwind said:There are no clear boundaries here. And it is likely to only get worse as games continue to mature.
Which is why I fully agree with Steel_Wind's "PICK ONE" philosophy for the categories under the "Type of Product by Content" classification. I have no issues with products being nominated for multiple awards for categories outside that classification (Best Art, Best Cartography, Best Writing, etc..).
Look at it this way. The categories under "Type of Product by Content" are looking at the product AS A WHOLE. While the other categories (with the exception of the Meta categories (i.e. Best Game, etc..) look at specific portions of the products.
SCAP was nominated in two different categories under "Type of Product by Content" because the judges were still looking at portions of the product, not at the product as a whole.
JoeGKushner said:As products become larger they're simply able to do more than they used to. They can wear many hats.
Yes, they may be able to wear many hats. However, do they have the right to try and wear all those hats AT THE SAME TIME (during the awards process), OR should they be required to pick one hat and wear it (and perhaps give them honorable mentions for their other hats - yes, this would mean changing the definition of what Honorable Mention is for).
woodelf said:There is a better way. IMHO, the same thing applies to the ENnies that i've been espousing for the Origins Awards for around 3 years now: popular voting for the nominations, judge voting for the winners (i.e., the exact opposite of the current ENnies procedure). Popular voting to get things on the ballot assures that obscure games don't get missed--they all have *some* fans, *somewhere*.
huh?? If it requires popular vote to get something on the ballot, then obscure games/products are therefore LESS likely to be on the ballot because they will have a much smaller fan base to vote for them and get them on the ballot.
woodelf said:Empaneled judges determining the winners assures that it isn't just a popularity contest--if we want to know what's the most popular, we already know, more or less--it's the thing that sold the most. But if we want to know what's best, we need a process that tries to weed out the influence of popularity. And, it seems to me, the whole point of awards is precisely to do this--to measure something *other* than popularity.
If you are wanting to remove "popularity" from the process, then you have to remove the public voting aspects, period. As long as the general public can vote, the awards will be nothing more than a fancy popularity contest. That is something publishers just live with.
All that the judges do (talking in abstract here, not the actions of any specific judge or group of judges) is to weed the list down to managable proportions.
And even then, it does little good since people (again, talking solely in general, and this is NOT intended as an insult) will vote for what they know. In general, they will not check out the competition to see whether it is good or not. Yes, there will be those who are exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule.
And as I said before, it is just something that publishers live with and accept.
Well, I guess this is a long enough post....
