Voting for ENnies but not knowing all the nominees?

[Turanil]

So I voted for the ENnies, but I feel something is wrong with some of my votes.

First question was about websites, so it was easy to check them all and then vote for my prefered. But then, was a vote for the best cover art, and I knew only two out of the five. I could have chosen the one I prefer from the two and vote for it. Yet it was easy to check with Google to see the other three; so it happened that I finally voted for two out of those three I didn't know of in the first place.

Then, for all the other votes, I rarely knew every of the five nominees, and thus only voted for what I did like from what I actually knew! So, if I had known all the nominees, my votes could have been very different in many instances. I guess it's probably the same with most people who don't know all the nominees... So we not necessarily vote for what's the best out of the five, but also we somehow vote for the most widespread nominees. :\

 

[MonsterMash]

I'm in the same situation with most of the nominees, which means that if I know a product and like it I'll vote for it, otherwise if I know it and think its not good then I'll just register no vote in that category.

 

[johnsemlak]

I think the system is designed to account for voters who don't know all the nominees. If you don't know about the product, simply don't cast a vote for it at all--that's how I understand it.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I think the system is designed to account for voters who don't know all the nominees. If you don't know about the product, simply don't cast a vote for it at all--that's how I understand it.

That's pretty much it. You aren't harming the system one bit if you only vote for stuff you know and like. It's built that way

If you are really interested, I can attach a "Plain English" writeup of the voting system.

 

[Turanil]

If you are really interested, I can attach a "Plain English" writeup of the voting system.

Yes I am. Thanks!

 

[Li Shenron]

Then, for all the other votes, I rarely knew every of the five nominees, and thus only voted for what I did like from what I actually knew! So, if I had known all the nominees, my votes could have been very different in many instances. I guess it's probably the same with most people who don't know all the nominees... So we not necessarily vote for what's the best out of the five, but also we somehow vote for the most widespread nominees. :\

It's the same identical reason of why I simply don't vote for the ENnies at all.
(I could vote for the websites if I can find enough time to browse the sites which I don't know yet, but let's see if I do find it.)

Unfortunately it's the bad side of the ennies (and any poll can have this problem, not excluding political elections...), that people who don't know more than one canditate just vote what they know. Popular candidates win more easily than better candidates

However, now that Wizards books are not part of the ENnies (AFAIK), I think it's not completely bad. I suppose that there is probably not a huge difference in how many people own candidate book #1 only and how many own candidate book #2 only etc... But still I'm afraid that outsiders or small companies' jewels have little chances of winning.

In fact, with all the great effort done by the judges, I'd rather prefer if the ENnies did NOT end with a public poll, and I wish instead the winners were decided by the judges completely.

 

[Teflon Billy]

When people vote, they often have more than one objective. The most common objective when people vote are the following:

• Ensuring that one's favourite candidate wins
• Ensuring that one's least favourite candidate loses
• Ensuring that the winning candidate is one of one's favourites
• Honestly "answering" the question put to one on the ballot

In many voting systems, one or more of these objectives come into conflict. Depending on which of the above four priorities the voter places first, his ballot will look very different. There are lots of examples of these problems in real world politics. When a voter chooses one of these objectives over the others, people label this behaviour as "strategic voting."

While the Ennies are not as consequential as voting in a real world election, strategic voting can be just as big a problem as in a national election. The reason for this is simple: gamers, especially those on ENWorld, have to master systems more complex than simple voting systems. As a result, they can easily distinguish between the above four objectives, figure out which is more important, and design a voting strategy accordingly.

How, then, do we solve the problem of strategic voting for the Ennies? By choosing a system in which the above four impulses are not in conflict. Instant runoff voting/alternative vote is a system that has been used in many countries for local and national elections for just this purpose. Good web resources include:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
http://www.fairvotemn.org/resources/tools/irvprimer_11142002.html
http://www.fairvote.org/?page=21

Sample Problems

Rating and Borda Count Systems

Voting systems in which the voter must rate all the products, both those he likes and those he dislikes are notorious for producing strategic voting. The most famous example of these systems are Borda count systems in which every voter is told to rank all his choices in order from favourite to least favourite; points are then assigned in reverse order (a product with a rank of 1 receives 5 points; 2 receives 4; 3 receives 3; 4 receives 2; 5 receives 1).

A sample Borda system ballot might look like this:

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax 1
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards 5
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker 4
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 3
Hatred vs. Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger 2

Let's suppose that the voter, in this example, is a fan of mainstream D&D and actually dislikes products that make it and its designers look bad. However, let us suppose that the Gygax book and the Ranger book are practically neck and neck, with the Gygax book lagging just slightly behind.

Now, the voter has divided loyalties. Yes, it is important to ensure that the Parker and Edwards books are defeated; but is this more or less important than ensuring that the Gygax book comes out on top? If ensuring Gygax wins is more important to the voter than guaranteeing the defeat of the Edwards book, then it is in his interest to mark the ballot as follows:

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax 1
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards 4
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker 3
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 2
Hatred vs. Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger 5

On the first ballot, in which the voter accurately represented his preferences, Gygax gains 1 point on Ranger; but on the second, in which the voter voted strategically, Gygax gains 4 on Ranger. Rating systems, such as those used by ENWorld last year, encourage voters to review products inaccurately. And often, the better the product is, the greater the incentive to be inaccurate.

Here we see that priority #1 (ensuring that one's favourite product wins) beats out priority #4 (answering the ballot question accurately).

Plurality Systems

In plurality systems, voters can mark an 'x' for products they consider to be worthy of their support. Let's assume that the same products are in the running but the Edwards book is doing very well, running practically neck and neck with the Ranger book. Although the voter likes the Gygax book better than the Ranger book, the Gygax book is lagging behind. So, while this ballot represents his preferences most accuratel,...

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax X
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman
Hatred vs. Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger

...it is more important that Edwards be defeated than that his favourite wins. So he votes like this:

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman
Hatred vs. Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger X

Here, we see that priority #2 beats out priorities #1 and #4.

How Does One Mark an AV/IRV Ballot?

AV/IRV ballots are marked very similarly to ballots counted under the Borda system. In Borda systems, as shown above, the voter numbers all candidates in order from favourite to least favourite. Under a Borda system, he would give the two lowest ranks (4 and 5) to the anti-D&D products. In an AV/IRV system, the voter withholds his vote from any product he does not want to see win under any circumstances. Thus, the same ballot marked under this system would look like this:

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax 1
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 3
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger 2

Why would a voter leave certain options unmarked? Because, when a voter ranks a product he is basically saying, "If my other choices all lose, give me vote to this one." Thus, the ballot, above, could be translated as follows:

[bq]"I want D&D: The First 30 Years to win; but if not enough people support it, I want Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations to win; but if not enough people support it, I want Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation to win; but I don't want either Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming or 3E D&D: The Windows 95 of Gaming to win at all."[/bq]

Choices that the voter would feel comfortable with winning should be ranked. Choices the voter would not feel comfortable with winning should be left unranked.

How Does One Count an AV/IRV Ballot?

Counting AV/IRV ballots is simple and well-described in the above web resources. In the first "round," all ballots are assigned to the first choice candidate of each voter. Let's assume that the sample election breaks down as follows:

Candidate Votes %

D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax 361 29.41
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards 374 30.48
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker 18 01.47
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 119 09.70
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger 355 28.93

Total 1227

If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the bottom candidate is eliminated and the votes of those supporting it are transferred to the voter's second choice candidate.

Candidate Votes %
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax 361+2 29.58
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards 374+6 30.97
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker 18 01.47
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 119+1 09.78
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger 355+9 29.67

Total 1227

As shown above, the people who supported the Parker book generally favoured Ranger as their second choice but all candidates gained votes due to its elimination. However, all candidates are far from a majority, with only one at over 30%.

As a result, the next lowest-scoring candidate is eliminated.

Candidate Votes %
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax 363+38 32.84
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards 380+38 34.23
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 120 09.78
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger 364+38 32.92

Total 1221

As shown above, the people who supported the Hickman book were divided perfectly evenly amongst the remaining competitors, except for six voters whose ballots must have looked like either:

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 1
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger

or...

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker 2
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 1
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger

or...

Candidate Rank
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards
3E D&D: the Windows 95 of Gaming, Stuart Parker 1
Dragonlance: A Tale of Merciless Exploitation, Tracy Hickman 2
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger

Still, none of the three remaining candidates has a majority. The bottom candidate is then eliminated and his votes are transferred to the remaining two competitors:

Candidate Votes %
D&D: The First 30 Years, E. Gary Gygax 401 32.84
Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming, Ron Edwards 418+100 42.60
Hatred to Ambivalence: 30 Years of Church-Gamer Relations, Jeff Ranger 402+296 57.40
Total 1216

Thus, the winner would be Hatred to Ambivalence with the support of over 57% of voters.

The Runner-Up

Although AV/IRV is typically used in elections with a single victor, it is pretty easy to see how a runner-up and even a second runner-up can be declared. The runner-up in an AV/IRV system is the losing candidate in the final round; and the third-place finisher in the penultimate round.

 

[IronWolf]

I am certainly one of the first to say I am not familiar with all of the nominees. But, since I have at least a week or so to look over the entries I can look at what I can including maybe some of the reviews and bring myself up to speed somewhat. Still not as good as being familiar first hand with some of these products and for the ones I am still not comfortable enough to influence the voting I will probably bypass that category.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I was actually mildly surprised at how many products I DIDN'T know made it on there, and how many I actively disliked were on there.

I feel so ... niche ... now.

I wasn't able to vote for every category, and I wasn't able to educate myself about all of them, but I voted for the things I did like, and I think that's important.

--fje

 

[Henry]

I don't know about anyone else, but I wish Teflon Billy's books were real -- With titles like those, I'd read them.

It's the same identical reason of why I simply don't vote for the ENnies at all.

As TB explains, it's still worth voting even if you don't know all the candidates. Unless it's a moral or ethical decision to not support the award itself, the voting is pretty shenanigan-resistant.