Zachary Houghton resigns as an ENnies judge

[Crothian]

The fact that your quote appears on the book means that you had access to the book prior to its release. Therefore, the judge at the very least had "behind the scenes" access to the material, or he was directly involved in its creation.

With the release of PDFs before print books it is possible to see a book in PDF form along with anyone else that wants to buy it well before the print version is out. I've been quoted on the back of a book before from a review I wrote and that was what happened.

Also, I don't see how getting a book before its release anyway would equal bias. I've gotten books early and some of them have still sucked. If he was involved in its creation then that is bad but I haven't seen any evidence of that.

 

[jdrakeh]

ZOMG! So for 39 days they did nothing!?!

Exactly. I dunno about you, but where I come from, a "cover up" requires some. . . erm. . . covering up. Discussing policy and taking no action to hide an error despite at least one suggestion to do so is pretty much the exact opposite of that, as far as I can tell. And then you have the whole publically announcing the error bit. I mean, if publically announcing an error isn't the exact opposite of hiding it from the public, I'm not sure what is.

I call that the begining of an email conversation 39 days ago, that may have easily lasted a whole month.

That's the other thing. While the snippets of email may be damning when examined in a vaccuum, if one considers all of the other explanations and action taken (or not taken) the emails themselves prove almost nothing that Zachary claimed, past the fact that one guy (a staffer, not a judge) suggested policy be retroactively altered to hide an error that was, in fact, not hidden and, instead, publically announced in the end.

From what I gather, though I haven't seen an official statement, it was to the affect of "mailed cds didn't work so links were allowed in a few instances".

I actually believe that there was a quote to that effect in one of the supposedly damning emails, as well.

Zach ponied up the first set of emails pretty quickly, why not this set.

Yeah, I'm skeptical about the claims of death threats given that the first lot of email didn't contain what he claimed it did. Also, I'm under the impression that most of the people involved on the ENnies side of things wish that Zachary would go away and, therefore, seem very unlikely to have issued threats urging him to stir up even more drama.

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, but what happened actually?
Nothing!
The policy was not altered retroactively.
The error was not made public to the interested parties (voters & competitors).
The award was not revoked.

1. The plan was in place to announce the mistake and own up to it as soon as a PR director was put in place. Zachary jumped the gun because he apparently couldn't wait a couple weeks. Bear in mind, the ENnies are managed in people's free time, so sure, the folks in charge weren't bending over backwards to make the announcement right away, but they were going to do it. Sarcastic congratulations to Zachary for 'whistleblowing' something that was going to be announced anyway. Now he just made himself look unprofessional, and he's damaged the reputation of good people.

2. As you say, the policy was not altered retroactively. The ENnies staff was going to own up to the mistake, not try to cover it up.

3. The error was going to be made public.

4. Revoking the award would have been a bad idea. A lot of people agree on this. Malhavoc made an honest mistake in submitting it, and the ENnies staff made an honest mistake in accepting it. You should only revoke awards due to malfeasance, not accident. The plan was to acknowledge the mistake, apologize for it, and put in place safeguards to make sure it didn't happen again.

So, what do you call that? I call that misinformation to cover up a mistake. And that´s lying in my book.

I call it Zachary over-bleeping-reacting. If he was upset that it was taking too long to come out, he should have emailed the ENnies folks and said, "Hey, what's taking so damned long?" He jumped the gun, and so what was going to be an honestly, openly disclosed mistake (albeit one announced once proper policy was in place to make sure it didn't happen again) turned into a cluster-bleep.

 

[RangerWickett]

Also, I know some people have concerns about the awards, and the appearance of impropriety. I'm not trying to be dismissive of your concerns. This thread has had a fair bit of unnecessary arguing, and I think the ENnies staff might do well to come out with an FAQ addressing each of the concerns that has been raised, point by point.

 

[One Horse town]

That said, as a huge fan of Epic since reviewing it I would have made this known and excused myself from judging the product in question — as Zachary should have (and possibly did, for all I know). He was also a big, unabashed, fan of Epic and one of its boosters on various different forums (notably RPGNet and theRPGsite, though).

That would pretty much make any judge that plays and reads games ineligible to judge a good wedge of any products sumitted wouldn't it? You can't be a writer or a publisher, now you can't be a fan? Might as well line up a bunch of publicans to judge, as the only d&d they are likely to know is drunk & disorderly.

The submitted product was a re-issue of previous books, better formatted for easy access and released in hardcover format via Lulu.

I thought so. So basically the game has been out in different iterations, which pretty much rubishes claims made upthread.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Just a suggestion that I'd like to see.

For future ENnie award ceremonies, I'd like to see each category have three prizes - a Gold, a Silver, and a "Judges' Choice" award.

Now back to your regularly scheduled debate.

 

[billd91]

That would pretty much make any judge that plays and reads games ineligible to judge a good wedge of any products sumitted wouldn't it? You can't be a writer or a publisher, now you can't be a fan? Might as well line up a bunch of publicans to judge, as the only d&d they are likely to know is drunk & disorderly.

That's mroe than a bit of an exaggeration of his point. There are times when someone is a particularly strong fanboy (or hater) of a product to the degree that he can no longer judge it responsibly. Whether or not he recuses himself from that particular deliberation, he should at least be upfront about it with the other judges and allow them to take the fore on deliberations.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Fusangite made a fool of himself back at theRPGsite,

No, he really didn't, Sett. If he did, then you certainly are doing the same thing here.

 

[One Horse town]

That's mroe than a bit of an exaggeration of his point. There are times when someone is a particularly strong fanboy (or hater) of a product to the degree that he can no longer judge it responsibly. Whether or not he recuses himself from that particular deliberation, he should at least be upfront about it with the other judges and allow them to take the fore on deliberations.

Yeah, it was.

I trust that discourse of this sort happens on each panel and that folks can tell the difference between enthusiasm and bias.

 

[GwydapLlew]

I'm amazed that so few people realize that the judge everyone is claiming to have tried to change the submission date was NOT trying something underhanded. Look at the logic in his statement:

1. The ENnies have a submission date.
2. Last year something was inadvertantly accepted past the submission date.
3. In his opinion, this means that the ENnies last year made a case for moving the submission date.
4. In his opinion, the submission date could be seen as the date that the late entry was accepted.

Nowhere did he rub his hands together, cackle about how eeeevil his plan was, or attempt to subvert a process that had already been handled. How do you expect a sitting judge to affect an award's eligibility from a prior year in which he was not a judge?