About the judges and judge selection
This is some info culled from posts from other boards/forums:
The judges for the 2006, as in past years' awards, were selected from amongst EN World members by EN World members in a publicly-viewed poll-style post.
This year we're changing that, so that anyone can throw in their hat, anyone can cast their secret vote (IP addresses will be tracked to reduce cheating), and the tabulation will be via
single transferrable vote. Our brilliant programmers are setting it up to give us a list of the top ten candidates, then the Board of Directors will have to choose the top five that meet all the requirements including ensuring that we have at least one experienced judge on the panel (to ensure some continuity and guidance) and one new face (to avoid stagnation and predictability). I anticipate the elections taking place in late September to early October.
A potential judge can nominate herself (I'm hoping to have nomination threads on EN World, The Forge, and RPG.Net, depending upon the moderatorships of each of the boards), but she needs to receive a second to get on the ballot. If someone nominates another person, that person must accept the nomination. In either case, the nominee must certify that they meet the selection criteria and agree to abide by the guidelines as set forth below, and by the Board.
Basic requirements of the judges include:
- No affiliation with an RPG publisher in the past year, nor reasonable expectation of the same over the course of the following year. This includes writing credits, being a formally-recognized volunteer, etc. This largely stems from the fact that these are fan awards, not industry awards, so we want the judges to be fans. Having professional credits in the past is fine, and can be quite handy, but we also don't want any potential for accusations of conflict of interest.
- Being 18 years of age or older.
- Ability to read and write in English and communicate on a regular basis online
- Signing and upholding of a code of conduct and non-disclosure agreement. An important part of the code is the clause that should a judge be disqualified for noncompliance or neglect, said judge is responsible for all charges related to shipping product to their replacement
- Ability to pay for any duties on products shipped to them (it has happened, especially for non-US resident judges)
- Willingness and ability to sacrifice literally thousands of hours fairly evaluating hundreds of products
- No impairments that would prevent proper evaluation of all submitted products including but not limited to: music CDs, books, PDFs, dice, software, etc.
- Participation in intense discussions and the ability to check in on the judges discussions every 48 hours in late June and early July
Judges receive somewhere around 4-8 boxes full of books and other RPG products which they need to evaluate, but then keep or dispose of as they see fit once the nominations have been announced.
They receive a free 4-day pass to Gen Con Indy and a spot in one of the staff hotel rooms (shared with 3 other people) for three nights.
If judges can make it to Gen Con Indy and avail themselves of the free pass and/or room, they are expected to man the ENnies booth for at least one shift and while at Gen Con, if wearing the ENnies badge, to represent the Awards in a professional, dignified and impartial (ie. no wearing publisher merchandise) manner.
Usually judges take at least one week off work to be able to completely evaluate all the products. Since we are starting the submission period far earlier this year, though, we anticipate there being less of a time-crunch. I already have one full box of exciting product ready to ship just from the stuff I picked up from Gen Con, so judges would be kept in reading material from that alone until Christmas, I suspect!
The way things will work this year:
- After election and the proper paperwork signing is done, we list each judge's address on the ENnies web site. This is an unfortunately necessary loss of privacy so the publishers can ship product directly to each judge. Publishers using courriers may requeste a phone number, but I will not post those publicly. Publishers send product directly to each judge, and submit an entry form to me. We used to offer a central shipping option, but since one entire box got eaten on its way from the Submission Coordinator's house by the US Postal Disservice, we are reducing our liability (and eliminating the entry/shipping fee).
- The judges each evaluate the product received. This year I'm issuing a 1/3 of a page product tracker that has a score of 1-10 for Cartography, Cover Art, Interiour Art, Writing, Rules, Production values, Type of Book, and Overall, with room for comments. This will help judges keep track of what they liked and disliked about each product, and be a useful memory jog come nomination time. Each judge has their own values and criteria by which a product is evaluated, but at least this can help beginner judges get a handle on what we look for. The numeric scores aren't used for anything other than personal reference.
There is a private, judges-only forum where they can discuss what they liked or didn't like about individual products which you can take or leave. Judges are expected to check in at least once a week during the submissions period to track what they've received.
- The submission period closes in early to mid-June. A few weeks later, I expect the judge product nominations. These will be emailed to me, and the Board will tabulate the results. For most categories, judges pick five products which they assign a full point, and one product they give a half point. We tally the scores and the five highest rankers get nominations, the sixth place an honourable mention. In the cases of ties, we have a run-off vote.
- Then we announce the nominees, encourage the publishers to put up samples of their work so voters can familiarize themselves with the product, then a week or two later we open the polls for two weeks. Tabulation is via the alternative/instant runoff vote, which is quite nicely explained on the ENnies web site.
- The winners are announced at a gala ceremony on the Friday of Gen Con Indy.
