Voting for ENnies but not knowing all the nominees?

[Crothian]

I should hope that voters are voting based upon their own opinions, rather than someone else's. Do we want people deciding what product is worthy based upon what other people say about the product, rather than their own personal knowledge and opinions?

Personaly knowledge has to be built off something and many times reading and listening to others opinions helps people form their own. I'm not saying rely completely on other peoples opnions but use that knowledge along with other resources to learn about the product. I'm suggesting this to help people gain personal knowledge and form an opinion.

 

[Dark Psion]

I left all of them blank when I voted.

I have never heard of many of these books and the ones I have heard of, IMHO, were not the best in that catagory.

 

[fusangite]

I should hope that voters are voting based upon their own opinions, rather than someone else's. Do we want people deciding what product is worthy based upon what other people say about the product, rather than their own personal knowledge and opinions?

Choosing to defet to someone elses's judgement is as legitimate a way of forming an opinion as any. In my view if you're good at finding people with good judgement in areas where you aren't a skilled decision-maker, it may be a preferable way of forming opinions.

 

[Crothian]

I left all of them blank when I voted.

I have never heard of many of these books and the ones I have heard of, IMHO, were not the best in that catagory.

Then start a thread and tell us what we nominated that should not have been, and what should have been nominated instead.

 

[RangerWickett]

I heartily want to entreat all the publishers to include samples of their products as pdf downloads on their sites. In fact, I'm going to go pester folks about that now.

 

[Gomez]

I had felt that I was fairly well versed in what games and such was out but I have to say that I didn't know about many of the selections. The Best Game catagory had no games that I was familiar with. Boy I must be slacking or something.

 

[Monte At Home]

For whatever it's worth, my take on it is like this: it seems like from the voter's POV, the ENnies are like a guy coming up to you and saying, "here are five good books, are you familiar with any of them?" If you are, he asks, "do like any of them?" If you like one, you "pick" that one. If you like more than one, he asks, "of those, which one do you like better?"

And if you're not familiar with any of the books of that particular group, the guy smiles and says "that's OK, although they're pretty good--you ought to think about checking them out."

And that's a perfectly valid way to do it. They aren't asking you to be familiar with every choice, and they're not even really asking what is the "best" product in a given category (because what you think is "best"--whatever that means--might not have been nominated, or it might not have even been submitted). They're just asking if, among a handful of good stuff, there's any you agree are indeed good.


(And cheers to the ENnies organizers for making the voting period longer this year!)


Edit: And I'll also add that I don't think it's any kind of judgement or strike against you if you aren't familiar with all the nominees. "All rpgs," even in today's market, is still a vast field and I'd go so far as to say there's no reason even the most avid fan should know the ins and outs of every game out there. I certainly wasn't familiar with every nominee either. I think I had to leave at least one whole category blank, although now I don't remember for sure.

 

[Clueless]

I think I missed the post for it: Just how long is the voting time this year?

 

[Crothian]

I think I missed the post for it: Just how long is the voting time this year?

I think it going to be open for a few weeks. More then 2, perhaps 3.

 

[Crothian]

I had felt that I was fairly well versed in what games and such was out but I have to say that I didn't know about many of the selections. The Best Game catagory had no games that I was familiar with. Boy I must be slacking or something.

There were more then I realized new games in this past year. New games I feel are the hardiest to keep up with since it normally involves learning a new system, setting, terminology, and if you want to play stopping what you are doing and convincing the group to make the switch.