Opening can o' worms

[Varianor Abroad]

Are there any other competitions that even entertain discussion about the format of their voting or their selection criteria for judges?

 

[Umbran]

Someone who works for EN World or the ENnies, both of which solicit and receive monies from publishers, simply has the perception of a possible conflict of interests when seated on the nominations committee. There's no way around it and it is obvious. Sorry.

I reiterate - the staff of EN World isn't paid, and that is public knowledge. We don't see any of the money. We only have as much to lose or gain as any other user. Shall we disqualify anyone who likes EN World?

Oh, I note that RPG.net sells advertising. So they "receive monies", too. Actually, even worse, they are in competition with EN World for advertising dollars! Shall we go and disqualify their staff and users too? Because they obviously have the same sort of potential perceived conflict of interest...

We quickly see that this "perceived conflict of interest" line gets pretty darned silly.

 

[Mark]

(. . .) the staff of EN World isn't paid (. . .)

That's splitting hairs. It doesn't matter if they are paid or receive perks or merely some sort of additional status from their position at EN World or the ENnies. By virue of that position there is the perception of a possible conflict of interest and it is a simple as that.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Again, not saying one has or even will occur. But the perception that one is possible given the positions of people is there. A conflict of interest is a conflict between the public and private interests of somebody in an official position, or conflicts between a number of public positions. Someone who works for EN World or the ENnies, both of which solicit and receive monies from publishers, simply has the perception of a possible conflict of interests when seated on the nominations committee. There's no way around it and it is obvious. Sorry.

I see your point, however the significant word you keep using is "perception". Perception is subjective. You cannot cannot expect the ENnies to "sail a strait course" based on subjective speculation. Where does it stop?

Last january I participated in the "ENWorld song contest". You sent a PDF as a prize to everyone who entered (I still owe you a review on that, there were some nice details there). Some people might "perceive" that as a conflict of intrest. Should we disqualfy everyone who has received a free copy of something for a prize or review purposes?

Aside from that, if people believe that a publisher can "buy" a good reveiw from an ENWorld Staff reviewer, then keeping them off the judges panel won't save the awards. Russell can pass a bribe to judges just as easily as reviewers. (Not that I think he is doing either.) Personally most of the complaints I have heard about ENWorld reviews is that we are too hard on publishers.

I think the current limits (no one who has published within the award period) is sufficient

 

[Dextra]

If EN World published gaming materials, then perhaps it could be considered as a conflict of interest for ENW staffers to judge. There is a reason that EN Publishing does not enter the ENnies, nor any of its staff run for judgehood.

I agree that reviewers who receive product from the publishers to review might constitute a relationship with said publishers, but then again, what does an ENnies judge do? She receives product from publishers to evaluate. By that definition, we should essentially eliminate all past judges because they have some sort of relationship established with publishers.

I think you'll find that with the new STV vote and us opening the polls to all gamers- not just EN Worlders- that the faces of the judges will change. I also hope to double the number of votes from last year's 660 to make things more interesting. Russ and I will make sure that we have one experienced judge and one new judge from the top ten selections and ensure the judges meet all the criteria, but other than that, it'll be up to the gaming world in general- and not just ENW- to select the judges. It should be a good run!

 

[Umbran]

That's splitting hairs. It doesn't matter if they are paid or receive perks or merely some sort of additional status from their position at EN World or the ENnies.

No, it is drawing lines at reasonability. Every single user of this place has some small interest in it staying active, so everyone has a tiny bit to lose or gain. But we have to be reasonable, and admit that at some point the benefit the judicial candidate stands to gain is too small to impact judgement.

By virue of that position there is the perception of a possible conflict of interest and it is a simple as that.

Technically, no. There may be the potential for such a perception. You've yet shown any evidence that the perception actually exists, much less exists among enough folk to have an impact on the awards. You are suggesting we make rules for ghostly suppositions, and suggesting that the rule would be a superior way to deal with the problem than being open wiht the facts.

 

[Mark]

There may be the potential for such a perception.

That is true but Dextra has made the point moot. Fortunately, by having this discussion in an open manner prior to the process, the issues are not such that anyone can claim they weren't given fair forum. So, while the potential still exists for some diffuclties in this area, at least folks can know what to be on their guard against. Provided we don't see any actual cases where a potential conflict of interest causes problems, it's likely this issue will not need to be discussed further until next year when a review of policy and its function is again in order.

 

[grodog]

Judge Selection: Should judges be able to self-nominate, or should they receive a nomination and second before being put on the ballot?

I think self-nomination is fine: it's worked well to date, but requiring some seconds/thirds/whatevers from the community is a worthwhile idea. Would seconds posted at other sites (rpg.net, The Forge, etc.) be valid seconds?

I also like Umbran's idea of judges needing to rating a product so that folks have a sense of the judges' thinking prior to voting for her or him. Perhaps having the judges provide an evaluation for one of the previous year's nominated-but-not-winning products would be worthwhile, or perhaps for an entire category of nominatees (all of the Best Adventure [or whatever] books). That would give voters a sense of how the judges rate a range of products, and what matters to the judge (this judge is a nitpicker on editing, that one hates bad cartography, this one is very influenced by the artwork, this one loves gaming fiction, this one hates splatbooks, this one love WotC products, this one hates OGL books, etc., etc.).

On the whole judges conflicts of interest/appearances of conflicts of interest thing, I think I understand Mark's points about wanting to create an environment where the possible perception of a conflict of interest should be avoided, but, in general, I fall on the side of those who have argued that established reviewers (whether staff or not) are already well-qualified to render critcial evaluations of products. Plus, if Umbran's above idea is adopted (to provide a primer on each judge's judgements, so to speak), then I would hope that the judge primer info may provide sufficient detail for the community, so that during voting, the community can weed out those who are deemed less-qualified (whether due to experience, possible conflicts of interest, lack of interest in their judging approach, etc.).

[*]d20: I would like to keep the best d20 category as a nod to the origins of the Awards as well as reflect the unique advantages and disadvantages of using the d20 STL, but redefine it so that a product cannot compete in the Best Game as well as Best d20 Product.

I think that's a good idea, and also think it may be worthwhile to consider carving out the OGL books vs. the d20 books vs. the non-OGL/non-d20 books, so that there's clearer distinction between them, especially with the increasing number of OGL-only books that are entering the market.

Mega Books: With the increasing number of mega-books with content spanning multiple genres, should we limit the number of categories an individual product in which a product can compete in the "Genre" domain (best adventure, best campaign/campaign setting supplement, best monster/adversary, best supplement)? Ie. publisher picks one? Or do we reward the products for their content, so in theory a Ptolusesque product could receive nominations in all?

As others have commented, I think defining the categories more tightly would be good, so that campaign settings aren't in the adventures or the supplements categories, for example. I'm don't think that limiting the number of categories that a book can compete in is a good idea: if a book could viably fit into two categories, it's already at a disadvantage in both categories compared to books that focus on providing just one type of content (example: a monster book with adventures in it, a la NG's Glades of Death). If the catgories are defined more tightly, with language along the lines of "in order to be eligible in the [adventure/campaign setting/supplement/etc.] category, at least one third of the content in the book needs to clearly fit in the category" vs. "primary focus" as in the existing definitions, then I think that may help to unmuddy the waters a little.

I also like the suggestion that Glyfair made, that portions of books could be nominated (i.e., the adventure X in an anthology of adventures or in a campaign setting book, the short fiction Y that prefaces a rulebook, the chapter on new rules Z in a setting book, etc.). The Origins Awards have done this for a number of years, FWIW. This would be done at the publisher's discretion, of course, but it may be worthwhile to be able to recognize self-contained portions of products for their excellence, especially when some books/projects are written/designed by teams of writers (i.e., overall this book was average, but wow, the chapter on Crafting Artifacts was phenomenal).

Additional Categories: I am contemplating adding the "Best Paraphernalia" category to the list to include items such as T-shirts, RPG fiction (and comics), dice bags, RPG movies, etc. In other words, the Aid/Accessory category would be open to products that enhance game play, paraphernalia to products that enhance gamer lives.

I think this sounds fine in concept, but when you get into the lands of trinkets, how do you judge the quality of one mug with a logo on it versus another?

Category Definitions: how are we doing with the definitions as is?

I made some comments above, but also think that the best web enhancement shouldn't be allowed to include best web site: I think most folks think of WE's as single items that are freebies, generally tied to a product but sometimes a product in and of themselves; so why allow for the possibility of further category confusion by allowing a web site to also be considered a web enhancement?


Semi-relatedly, how does the Grognard Award currently work, in terms of the judges selecting the winners, and are there any plans to open that category to general voting too? If so, given the number of old school gamers on ENWorld (see Lanefan's poll thread @ http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=170490: 30%+ of ENWorlders began to game in or prior to 1980), and the general resurgence of old school gaming that's underway, have you considered expanding the Grognard Award into a small group of categories:

• best grognard publisher
• best grognard web site
• best grognard discussion forum/chat room/ICQ channel/etc.
• best grognard adventure module
• best grognard campaign setting
• best grognard maps
• best grognard artwork

Many of these would obvoiusly overlap with the main awards categories, so I'm not sure how you'd juggle that, but I liked the idea of the 2006 Grognard Award, and think it would be cool to see this expand.

 

[Alzrius]

Hm, well, somehow I missed this thread before. But now that I've found it, this is as good a place as any to repost an idea I had before.

I'd like to see a new category for Best Short Product. This would be for any product, print or electronic, of up to sixteen pages in length. This would be a good category, I think, to showcase things that would otherwise be lost under larger books that (oftentimes) have greater production values. Just because a book only has a few pages doesn't mean that it's necessarily less useful, or interesting, or well-designed than longer products.