Awarded User Titles

[SunfallE]

[COLOR=RoyalBlue][quote name='Desbreko][color=#4B0082]Thoughts? I figure there would be a running discussion thread in the staff forum to point out cool things members have posted (sort of the opposite of the infamous "Deal With This Member" Thread), to help with the nomination process. And with the event only being once every three months I wouldn't think it would be too much of an extra workload on the staff.[/color][/QUOTE]If we were to implement this idea I think a thread like that would be perfect. It would be a good way to help keep track of members who would be good candidates to be nominated for the award. Then when the time comes each moderator could pick a member from the list and then nominate them and give examples and reasons as to why they think the member should get the award. Then a thread could be created with the nominations asking the members to vote. [QUOTE=Gavin][SIZE=1']As for having members ultimately decide, well I've already said I disagree with it but really I suppose it's down to whoever chooses how best to implement the system, though as James has said there are other tasks that need to be down before then. By having it as a seasonal Event controlled by the Moderators but effectively decided by the member population you're introducing an unpredictable element into it, by having the Staff decide you're having people who know the forum inside and out making the final and most logical decision. [/SIZE][/quote]Actually I think that having members vote on the final selections is a good idea. Especially if there is an explanation of why the member is being nominated for the award. Kind of similar to how members described why they nominated someone for the nifty fifty.

Basically even though moderators would be making note and choosing members to be nominated, in the end I think it would work best if the members make the final decision by voting on who they think should get the award. By having the moderators choose the nominations it would help to eliminate the bias of members only choosing their friends to get the award.

Although it?s true that it wouldn?t eliminate all bias I think it's a good start. For myself the people I am best friends with here are moderators. Since staff would not be included it would be fairly easy for me to choose members based on their contributions to the forum instead of whether or not we are friends. [quote name='Shy][size=1'](And of course, current staff members get NOTHING. These awards are for the members.)[/size][/quote]I have no problem with that. I?m perfectly happy with my current title of Moderator of Otaku Lounge [/COLOR] ;)

[Retribution]

[quote name='Shy][size=1']Apparently you haven't read the Otaku Awards' threads in a while, have you? I'm not naming names, but it became obvious that leaving the nominations up the regular members turns everything into a popularity contest. At least doing it with staff we can hide behind our titles, and pretend that we have ethics.[/size][/quote]
[size=1]Precisely my point -- members having say in these awards would boil down to what would essentially be a popularity contest. And of course, hiding behind our titles is the way to go. Say something about it, and we've got a warm, toasty IP ban waiting for you. Big Brother's watching.

A suggestion I want to throw out there would be, why not have representation for each forum based on the amount of activity is going on there? It'd be like the US House of Representatives -- smaller, poorer states like Mississippi and Manga Workshop (kidding...) would have fewer people picked than say New York or Otaku Lounge. I guess the frequency of the votes would vary, so the Manga Workshop might have a biannual appointment, whereas Otaku Lounge might have one every three months.

Yes? No? Maybe so?[/size]

[Dagger]

[QUOTE=Shy][size=1]
On an related note, I have a feeling preparations for Otaku Awards is going to end up delaying "OtakuBoards Yaoi-Fest" once again. Sorry everyone.[/size][/QUOTE]
[Vader] NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!11!!!! [/Vader]

Seriously, though, I've been lurking in this thread for a little while, and I think it's an interesting idea. I'm still quite skeptical about whether there will be any real diversity as far as the nominees are concerned, but people come and go, and you've already suggested a few measures which will probably help in that regard.

Retri: Honestly, that sounds like it would be a huge hassle to keep track of, since the awards would all end up being staggered. Not to mention the fact that forum activity levels are far from static.

~Dagger~

[sakurasuka]

[QUOTE=Retribution][size=1]
A suggestion I want to throw out there would be, why not have representation for each forum based on the amount of activity is going on there? It'd be like the US House of Representatives -- smaller, poorer states like Mississippi and Manga Workshop (kidding...) would have fewer people picked than say New York or Otaku Lounge. I guess the frequency of the votes would vary, so the Manga Workshop might have a biannual appointment, whereas Otaku Lounge might have one every three months.[/size][/QUOTE]

[size=1][color=gray]I do think this idea of appointing members for the job has merit, but I think it would be too much to keep up with to have different numbers of members, and the award given at different times.

*Shrug* Not only that, but people may complain that there are more awards given in the Art forum than the Anthology forum, or visa-versa.

But I must say that most members stand no chance at winning these, because here are the scenarios-

a) Members vote/are appointed to pick members for the award. They either pic friends, people they know, someone they share an opinion with, etc. Most people would not give an award to someone they debated against in a thread, anything done this way will be extremely biased.

Or...

b) The moderators will have much more on thier plates, but it would probably be less biased, as I'd expect moderators would be more likely to pick members deserving rather than popular.

However, it is up to whomever appoints what the term 'deserving' means. High post-quality? Thought-provoking ability? Frequency to the forum? All of the above?

At any rate, I do believe that OtakuBoards already has an award given to its members and any other outstanding thread, person, etc. called the Nifty Fifty, no?[/color][/size]

[Retribution]

[size=1]I'd probably say that it's an "all of the above." Not only those attributes, but that the member is friendly and civil even in the hottest debate thread. I also think contributing ideas such as Awarded User Titles would be deserving of a User Title in and of itself.[/size]

[2010DigitalBoy]

What if you formed a specific council to shell out the titles each 3 months? Just find like 5 members/mods who have the spare time to handle something like this, and let them do the honors. Then, they could give the results to a mod (or if theres a mod in the group, he would use the results and that mod could simple apply the titles to the winners.

You could call the group "The Coalition of the Willing" XD

[Desbreko]

[quote name='Dagger']Retri: Honestly, that sounds like it would be a huge hassle to keep track of, since the awards would all end up being staggered. Not to mention the fact that forum activity levels are far from static.[/quote][color=#4B0082]I'd also have to agree that trying to have different numbers of people and varying frequencies for the awards being handed out would only make the whole thing more complicated. It's two more things to keep track of for a pretty small change.[/color]

[QUOTE=sakurasuka][size=1][color=gray]But I must say that most members stand no chance at winning these, because here are the scenarios-

a) Members vote/are appointed to pick members for the award. They either pic friends, people they know, someone they share an opinion with, etc. Most people would not give an award to someone they debated against in a thread, anything done this way will be extremely biased.[/color][/size][/QUOTE][color=#4B0082]If you were to have a completely open vote, like the old Otaku Awards, sure. That sort of thing turns into a popularity contest in no time flat. But, in my proposal, members would only be able to pick between two or three nominees to vote for. I think that would cut down on a vast amount of blind votes for friends.

It also wouldn't be overly difficult to make them give short reasons for their votes, like in the Nifty Fifty, to discourage people just going down the list of nominees and voting arbitrarily. And if you look back at the Nominations thread, at the people who actually posted in there, you'll see a lot of members who I think are at least above average when it comes to voting fairly.[/color]

[quote name='sakurasuka][size=1][color=gray]At any rate, I do believe that OtakuBoards already has an award given to its members and any other outstanding thread, person, etc. called the Nifty Fifty, no?[/color'][/size][/quote][color=#4B0082]Yeah, but you don't get a title for winning a spot in the Nifty Fifty. And because the Nifty Fifty can be comprised of anything and everything on OB, not just members, it would be difficult to award specific titles for winning. Which, I think, is why this suggestion exists in the first place; people want special titles, but there's currently nothing set up to award them.[/color]

[QUOTE=Tical]What if you formed a specific council to shell out the titles each 3 months? Just find like 5 members/mods who have the spare time to handle something like this, and let them do the honors. Then, they could give the results to a mod (or if theres a mod in the group, he would use the results and that mod could simple apply the titles to the winners.

You could call the group "The Coalition of the Willing" XD[/QUOTE][color=#4B0082]The problem with involving members in that sort of way is that the people we'd want to select for the council would probably also be some of the most deserving people for the titles. But if they're on the council they wouldn't be able to give awards to themselves. So doing that is kind of counter-productive.[/color]

[Baron Samedi]

[size=1]Despite the difficulties I mentioned earlier, I think Moderators are the best choice for nominations, hands down. They should be the least biased, or the ones least likely to be killed by those who don't get an award....yeah. Anyway, I think a good system would be if each Moderator nominated two or three members from their forum who they felt stood out [and who hadn't received an award within the last [i]X[/i] periods of time], along with a short description of why they chose them. This list would then be compiled and put somewhere in a thread where members could come and vote on which of the nominees they felt was most deserving of the award. Any nomination system involving members is probably a bad idea I'd say.[/size]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]Well if people are determined to have the member population decide who should get the awarded titles, I agree with the general consensus that the Staff should forward a list of candidates from which the winners would be picked, no more than three per forum because at the end of the day there can be only one winner. Another consideration for the voting process might be to have a relatively short period for votes to be cast, maybe forty-eight hours in total, that way the whole thing can be done and wrapped up relatively quickly. Perhaps an additional way to speed it up even further would be to have the nominations set as a Poll, making counting a hell of a lot easier and more clear, it would also yield results far quicker than traditional counting.

All in all I think we've hammered this out pretty well.[/SIZE]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Gavin][SIZE=1']All in all I think we've hammered this out pretty well.[/SIZE][/quote]

So the only question is, when does it start?

[Petie]

[quote name='Gavin][size=1']Perhaps an additional way to speed it up even further would be to have the nominations set as a Poll, making counting a hell of a lot easier and more clear, it would also yield results far quicker than traditional counting.[/size][/quote][font=Verdana][color=blue]I'm with you on this one. I meant to mention this earlier but completely forgot. I think if members are voting, the best way to do it would be to use a poll and moreover. I guess if members would like to leave reasons for their votes, they could, but I think it would be more interesting to do this anonymously by making the voting thread strictly a poll with no posting at all. After all, reasons for the votes cannot sway the results in one way or another as it's just the numbers that will matter in the end.[/color][/font]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I was also thinking a poll thread would be handy, except that people would be voting on multiple titles. So either there'd have to be a separate poll, and thus a separate thread for each title, or it would have to be the kind of poll in which people can vote for multiple options. In the first case, that would clutter up the Event forum really fast, and in the second case, what would stop people from voting for multiple people for the same title? I or Dagger could check who voted for what through the admin control panel, but then, checking through all that would probably be just as much of a pain as counting posted votes. (Only we wouldn't be about to foist it off onto Shy. :p) Or I suppose we could just not care about it in the first place, but I don't like that idea.

Another reason it might be better to go with posted votes is that it takes more thought than simply clicking through a poll. People would actually have to write out who they're voting for, so hopefully if they care to take the time to do that, then they've actually put some thought into why they're voting for who they are. The theory being that the harder it is to vote, the less random/thoughtless votes will sway the outcome.[/color]

[quote name='Tical']So the only question is, when does it start?[/quote][color=#4B0082]Whenever Shy decides how exactly he wants to do this. And then, if that way involves the rest of the staff, as it most likely will, whenever we have time. Which could be a while.[/color]

[Petie]

[font=Verdana][color=blue]Ah, I see what you're saying about the polls. I didn't think of that at first but you're right - it would appear that unless we can find a way to make custom polls (Multiple questions in one pole with different sets of answer choices, which doesn't appear to be an option or an easy one to implement), text-based voting seems to be the best way to handle it.[/color][/font]

[Obesepanda]

I for one don't care very much, The titles are small and i don't read them much if the mods feel as though the new members need to be made to "Deserve" the titles i have no objections, So i agree with whatever they do because i don't quite care.

[Shy]

[size=1]Polls can be manipulated very easily, so I would rather see members writing in lengthy responses (even if it means I have to count them all.)

Also, how would everyone feel about making the awards monthly, but only giving out one or two titles each month? Just a thought...

-Shy[/size]

[Retribution]

[size=1]I'm still adamantly opposed to letting members have a say in the decisions. It'll all boil down to a popularity contest (i.e. Otaku Awards...), and not necessarily who is deserving of the title.

As for having one or two titles per month... that'd be a good idea - a nice way to spread things out.[/size]

[Petie]

[quote name='Retribution][size=1']I'm still adamantly opposed to letting members have a say in the decisions.[/size][/quote][font=Verdana][color=blue]Personally, I'm with you on this one but it would appear that the general consensus is to let the members vote. Though in theory, it may still work since they'd have to select from a list of Staff-chosen candidates.[/color][/font]

[Shy]

[size=1]Otaku Awards have always been a thinly-veiled popularity contest, and the Nifty Fifty / Nifty Fifty Committee was created as an alternative to that. There should be an outlet for members to receive meaningless titles based on their popuarity in the forums, and the Otaku Awards can fill that void.

No matter how we run this, I think certain members' popularity are always going to outweigh the quality of their posts; but by creating a committee to give out these titles the Otaku Awards make the Nifty Fifty redundant.

Having run both OA and Nifty Fifty in the past, I believe that Otaku Awards should remain an event where the person with the most votes wins. Bt continuing to vote for the [i]best[/i] nominees, rather than the one who is your friend (or whatever) you ensure that the awards themselves maintain some level of objectivity.

-Shy[/size]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]I admit I didn't take in full account of the difficulties with polls when I suggested it, again I forgot that there would be more than a dozen forums with three or more potential nominees for each. Honestly though I think some semblance of anonymity would give it a more genuine result as people wouldn't have to worry about the inevitable "Why did you vote for him/her ?" conversation.

Seeing Retri and Petie and I are those against any member involvement at any stage it seems we're overruled, still however I think that having the titles being awarded simply on a popularity basis mightn't be the best idea, perhaps along with the nominations people could add some evidence as to why they deserve a vote, threads they've created, posts they've submitted for instance. This way at least people would be able to make a more informed decision.

As for having one or two titles given out every month, well we have sixteen forums altogether including the sub-forums, so doing it that way might work out slightly better than a one week spectacular of awards. I still stick by the idea of having a relatively short period for voting, after all many countries of the world decide their governments in one day, why should we be any different.[/SIZE]

[Retribution]

[quote name='Shy][size=1]Having run both OA and Nifty Fifty in the past, I believe that Otaku Awards should remain an event where the person with the most votes wins. Bt continuing to vote for the [i]best[/i'] nominees, rather than the one who is your friend (or whatever) you ensure that the awards themselves maintain some level of objectivity.[/size][/quote]
[size=1]Unfortunately, that won't happen... it rarely does. Having members vote for their favorite nominee is something I would equate to high school elections. The President isn't elected based on policy or what they've done, they're elected because they had more friends than their opponent. I fear OA and these user titles will be headed down the same path, even if we let the members vote for mod-chosen nominees.

And you're talking about these titles as if they're the Otaku Awards... are they?[/size]

[Shy]

[QUOTE=Retribution][size=1]Unfortunately, that won't happen... it rarely does. Having members vote for their favorite nominee is something I would equate to high school elections. The President isn't elected based on policy or what they've done, they're elected because they had more friends than their opponent. I fear OA and these user titles will be headed down the same path, even if we let the members vote for mod-chosen nominees.

And you're talking about these titles as if they're the Otaku Awards... are they?[/size][/QUOTE]
[size=1]I was under the impression that we were calling the Title Awards the Otaku Awards, but really any name is fine.

But honestly, if you kids want it to be an anonymous poll then I see no reason why it's even worth having in the first place. The goal with [i]community[/i] events is to get the membership involved and active, and having a secret society hand out these titles seems completely uneccessary.

My personal opinion is that everyone is taking this too seriously, but ultimately it's up to you guys to decide -- I'm only the one who actually has organize the event, post the thread, count the votes, etc.

-Shy[/size]

[Petie]

[font=Verdana][color=blue]Shy, I do see what you're saying as this really is a community driven site. I guess it's really time to give a reason for my thinking that there be no member involvement in the selection.[/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue][/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue]Having only the staff choose the titles does not completely remove it from the community - after all, only the community can receive the titles. What it does do though is eliminate any complications due to voting, counting, and popularity. The staff would be better suited to give an unbiased judgement based on facts. The community end would come when the awards are announced - we could still have a thread listing the winners and maybe even a running thread listing everyone who has won since the beginning.[/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue][/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue]It seems that there's still quite a bit to be worked out but I think when we hammer out the fine details, this could end up being really fun, assuming it's done correctly.[/color][/font]

[Gavin]

[QUOTE=Petie][font=Verdana][color=blue]Shy, I do see what you're saying as this really is a community driven site. I guess it's really time to give a reason for my thinking that there be no member involvement in the selection.[/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue][/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue]Having only the staff choose the titles does not completely remove it from the community - after all, only the community can receive the titles. What it does do though is eliminate any complications due to voting, counting, and popularity. The staff would be better suited to give an unbiased judgement based on facts. The community end would come when the awards are announced - we could still have a thread listing the winners and maybe even a running thread listing everyone who has won since the beginning.[/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue][/color][/font]
[font=Verdana][color=blue]It seems that there's still quite a bit to be worked out but I think when we hammer out the fine details, this could end up being really fun, assuming it's done correctly.[/color][/font][/QUOTE]

[SIZE=1]Personally I agree with your line of logic completely Petie, it's along the very same lines that I've been suggesting that the Staff be solely responsible for the Title Awards, still as my grandmother is fond of saying "if you cannot plough with horses, you must plow with *****". In terms of a name for the awards, we could call them "The Adams" as a kind of take on the Oscars due to their similar high profile status.[/SIZE]

[conpiracymonki]

[size=1][b]The Adams > Otaku Awards[/b]

*exits thread and watches the slowing debate from afar*[/size]

[Gavin]

[QUOTE=AJeh][size=1][b]The Adams > Otaku Awards[/b]

*exits thread and watches the slowing debate from afar*[/size][/QUOTE]

[SIZE=1]Heh, I think the debate is all but over at this stage Ajeh, still nice to have your input. Oddly enough I've asked people what they thought of calling them The Adams and most people didn't like the name.[/SIZE]