The TLS Awards 2015: Discussion

[AvecAloes]

To be fair to Lex, I also thought you sounded rather pissed off. Opening with "what fucking gives" and closing with "this fucking blows" does somewhat convey anger. Double posting an hour later because no one had the chance to reply yet conveys an urgency that is normally coupled with anger.

That said, I understand why you must be annoyed. It wasn't clearly stated that the length of the polls would be shortened. I wouldn't necessarily call it a "fucking shitty move", as it was done in what was believed to be the best interest of the polls and the forum, since it seemed the general consensus that the voting all be over and the awards announced by the New Year. Since you weren't aware of the changes, would you like to PM me what would have been your votes for the polls that have already closed? I can do whatever needs to be done to make sure that those votes are counted.

As far as the rest of the polls are concerned, I vote in favor of Fangu's suggestion. I think we should continue to post the polls every couple of days, but leave each poll open for a week. Overlap won't kill us, and it might remind people to make sure they've voted on everything available when they see a new poll's gone up.

The de-modding of Carlie was rather sudden, and Lex graciously volunteered to finish the Awards out this year. I know from when Force was handling them that it's not necessarily a fun or easy task. Something about it is always going to end up pissing someone off, which is honestly a bit silly to me, as it's just something that we keep doing for the fun of it. It just never seems to be very fun for the poor soul who ends up having to run it, especially in a case such as this when someone had to step into it midway, after it had already been delayed in favor of the TLS FF song contest thing. Those polls, by the way, have lately only been open for a couple of days now that we're in the final rounds. I missed several of them along the way, because I hadn't been as active on the forums as I used to be. That fault lies with me. Turns out, that the world didn't stop turning, and I was mostly annoyed with myself for having missed them. Not that my votes would have made a difference anywhere, though



EDIT: I'm going to hold off on putting up the next pulls until I hear from at least a couple of people about how we should handle the rest of the polls.

 

[Lex]

I'm not angry at all, why are you assuming that? I'm annoyed because I didn't even know Carlie was destaffed until last night. I found a problem and I vocalised my concerns, why should that equate to anger?
It's bloody annoying because from the outset we were told things would be done one way, then without any warning it was changed so I've missed out on a shitload of votes. I know it's for shits and giggles but if it's going to be done, do it properly or don't bother. If no-one else is prepared to take it on then it ought to be scrapped.

I get what you're saying, it was just the way it was phrased. I'm totally happy to take on board any criticism (not meaning to use "management terms" here) but genuinely if there's a problem I'll sort it, I didn't take your post in the best way.

Does anyone have a problem with leaving them open for 3-4 days? Is that too long/ too short?

EDIT: sorry just saw Avec's post. Can't thank you enough for posting the next round of polls. The awards are fun for everyone but I try to take a backseat with them, running them this year isn't something I was exactly excited about but I don't mean that in an "oh fuck this" way - I'll do whatever needs to be done to make them right for everyone.

 

[Flintlock]

I didn't know they were only going to be open for a few days at a time now. I think Carlie originally had each one open for about five days. I have no problem with the change but it could have been advertised better. Then again, I haven't been paying that much attention, and it's no big deal if I miss out on voting in certain polls anyway. It's only a bit of fun.

 

[Cabaret]

I haven't really been round much, but totally missed the awards which makes me sad. Were they moved to a different section? It's not a big deal and I'm glad you've stepped in Lex, it's always hard to pick something up half way through.

 

[Joe]

If there's any more polls after Avec's round I'd be happy to post them up. There's a sort of charm to having different members throw up the categories, almost like celebrity guests announcing winners at an awards show.

 

[Kaneki]

Why not work them the same way that acf used to run award. Put em up at the beginning of a month and let them run till the end that way they are all done and dusted on the same day and the results can all be done pretty much the next day. Also allows members who aren't particularly active a chance to dive in and out when they have spare time.

 

[Cabaret]

I thought that is how we did them, but I don't tend to pay attention to the details on these things!

 

[Mage]

Well TIL if I swear a lot I'm angry.

Right, I'm gonna do this in bullet points so we're in as little doubt as possible.

- Yes it's a bit of fun. But it also reflects on how the forum is organised and run, a little snapshot if you will. Right now it's looking very disarrayed.
- I double posted because it was late at night and I was hoping for an answer before I retired, not exactly unreasonable given that Lex was online at the time.
- I called the rearrangement a 'shitty move' because it was poorly conveyed to the memberbase what changes were taking place.
- Doing things in the 'best interests' of an event without notifying anyone concerned seems rather odd and having each poll shortened without telling the memberbase does tend to raise the eyebrow - in short, it's a bit suspicious. Carlie's destaffing is clearly the reason for this move though, and I understand that.

Those polls, by the way, have lately only been open for a couple of days now that we're in the final rounds. I missed several of them along the way, because I hadn't been as active on the forums as I used to be. That fault lies with me. Turns out, that the world didn't stop turning, and I was mostly annoyed with myself for having missed them. Not that my votes would have made a difference anywhere, though

This actually sounds a little patronising. I made a point of checking the polls at the weekend and there were no new ones. The lack of notification on the matter was the problem here, not my lack of participation. Had I known what the hell was going on I'd have made an effort to log in with plenty of time to vote.

How the rest of the polls plays out now is neither here nor there to me - I've been in and out all day with Mother's appointments (with more to come), my son has broken up for the school holidays and I'm working from home next week with a day on site so it's unlikely I'll actually have much time to spend on here. To be perfectly honest this year's awards are a fucking disappointment.

 

[Lex]

@Cab: the awards have always had their own section. The section was created by Yop at the start of the awards. At the end of the awards they're moved to the archives.

@Mage: I've had a drink today so I'm not in the best frame of mind to respond generally to your post. Sorry if you feel that way.

 

[AvecAloes]

Mage, you're right, my last paragraph does read as patronizing. I'm sorry that I conveyed my thoughts in such a poor manner.

Al of the points you've given are valid concerns and observations. You're right that the awards have been pretty disheveled this year. To be honest, they seemed like an afterthought this year. I honestly didn't even think they'd actually end up happening, given that Aaron had been running them over the last couple of years, and his departure seemed like it might impede them. The noms were done quickly, and then everything was halted for the FF song contest. Lots of starts and stops, lots of hands changing, etc. We definitely don't have our best face forward as far as they go this year. And yes, it is a shame that they're not better, but given the relative debacle that doing them at all this year has been, I'm impressed that they're still happening at all. So you're right, it COULD have been handled better, more smoothly. I'm sorry that it wasn't, in that you ended up missing out on some of the polls, and that a definitive decision about how they would be handled wasn't clearly conveyed. If we had made a collective announcement in the beginning or middle of the week regarding the changes, though, would you have seen it? You might have still missed the decision and announcement. I'm not saying that means we shouldn't have made one - we definitely dropped the ball on that one. But we still might not have waited til every possible person on the forums would have been able to see the announcement to move on with the polls.



Guys, at this point, what should we do? Should we re-do ALL of the polls and just leave them all open til the end of the year? Should we make the next set of 9ish polls open for 5 days? A week? Should we open the rest of the polls that haven't been done yet and leave them open til the end of the year? If there is some sort of general consensus about what we should do with them by tomorrow evening, I will at that time put up the polls, in whatever fashion we decide would be best for the rest of this year's go at it.

 

[Flare]

Guys, at this point, what should we do? Should we re-do ALL of the polls and just leave them all open til the end of the year? Should we make the next set of 9ish polls open for 5 days? A week? Should we open the rest of the polls that haven't been done yet and leave them open til the end of the year? If there is some sort of general consensus about what we should do with them by tomorrow evening, I will at that time put up the polls, in whatever fashion we decide would be best for the rest of this year's go at it.

I know I'm not involved in putting the polls out, so not sure if this counts for anything, but IMO, I think at this point it would be best to either re-do all the polls and open them all up at the same time and leave them open 'til the end of the year, or just open up all the polls remaining and leave them open 'til the end of the year.
It seems like what some would like the most anyway, and it should allow for everyone to have a chance to vote for the polls submitted; ultimately I'm fine with whatever's decided.

Oh, and multiple choices please if there's lots of nominees from now on! I know Lex said multiple choices would be available from here on out, but just wanted to mention it as a reminder.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Seems to me here that on multiple fronts, the routine that usually works this whole shindig just kinda fell apart. Not any one person's fault, to quote the great philosopher Didactylos "Things just happen, man. What the hell?" When shit goes down like that communications fails here and there are almost inevitable. Like I, recently returned as I am, didn't even realize The Man was away, and anything about Carlie being destaffed was a straight miss for me.

I think step one is just to stay frosty. Nobody beat themselves or anyone else up over it, shit happened, we clean it up. Same as it ever was, right? Everybody in here so far is just being themselves (remember Lex, we nominate and vote Mage for Most Likely to Need a Swear Filter for a reason) and trying to suss shit out. No big.

As for what to do at this point, I can see why nobody would want to up and start the whole thing over. I also see the merits of doing just that, make sure all the nominations are good to go and set us up again. Its a tough call, and if I were in the shoes of you lovely folks running things I'd probably have to flip a coin. I personally err on the side of a do-over, where things get kept as close to the standard we're used to from these awards as possible, but that could just be the "hehe I don't gotta do it" talking

 

[Flintlock]

Speaking of Carlie stepping down from the staff, I was wondering, are announcements archived somewhere so they can be read after they have stopped being "announced"? They'd be a handy way of catching up with the big news after a long absence.

Also: no surprise that a Pyro and a Flare agree with one another. I don't mind whether we restart or not. For what it's worth, I'm sorry the music contest has run so far into the time that is usually reserved for the awards. I incorrectly thought that last year's awards had started after Christmas and thought it would be alright for my event to run until Christmas as a result. I'm not sure what else I could have done, though; it wasn't my decision to start the event with as many songs as we did (almost 300), and I think running any more simultaneous polls would have been too heavy for people.

I'm sure a lot of things would have happened differently if Aaron hadn't left TLS. Credit to everyone who has stepped in to try to make the best of a bad situation.

 

[AvecAloes]

For the record, I don't mind at all that the Awards were put on a hiatus for the song contest - doing so many polls simultaneously would have been painful to navigate!

 

[Joe]

Personally I feel like a do-over is the best way to go about this. We give more time to the awards that have already passed and can make the larger ones multiple choice much like previous years. I also vote in favour of putting all the awards up at the same time, giving everyone time to mull over their decisions. Given where we are in the month I say we have them run all the way up to the new year and announce our winners during the first or second week of January. If we wanted, we could close all the polls at an agreed time on New Year's Day, or perhaps some time after if we'd prefer more time.

I'll reiterate that I'm happy to do as much as needed to have this run smoothly. I'm happy to take over if Lex would rather not - which is totally fair as it's something he very suddenly inherited - or if others want to be involved too we could split up some responsibilities. Either way - I volunteer as tribute

 

[Channy]

I'm just gonna throw this out there, but if a do-over is done, on the extreme, why not wait until the New Year? People may have plans, will be having family nights in for dinner, etc, etc around the holidays.. so why not wait and throw all the polls up again after Jan 1? Leave em up for a week or 10 days or so...

Just a thought.

 

[Lex]

Kay I've slept for four hours but due to the unseasonable heat in awake and can't get back to sleep. Somehow feel sober also.

Thanks for offering to take over those who have. I did try to hand this over to other people last week but nobody wanted to do it, I think we can all see why that is now. The person who runs the awards from here on in should be a mod, for reasons of thread moving/poll editing. Whether or not that means a current mod does it or the person who takes over (such as Avec or Joe) is given temporary mod powers, just let me know and I'll sort the permissions out.

I was absolutely the wrong person to run the awards because I treated it too casually - I legit didn't think people would take the TLS awards so seriously since no one ever has before. I tried to fix the mistakes I made but obviously not in a way everybody was happy with, I was just trying to get this done in a reasonable time frame. Sorry for disappointing you folks, it hurts my heart.

My personal opinion: whoever does it, try to get them done before the new year. IMO the 2015 awards shouldn't run into 2016. Yes that happened last year but that was just lateness if you read the older threads, it wasn't intentional. Also you shouldn't have to re-do the first 9 polls because they were up for the week as planned.

Whoever wants to do it post in here and we can put it to a vote? Or just split the responsibility between those willing? I think Avec would do a really good job.

 

[trash panda]

I vote for Avec. Of course, I can help with these next year assuming that I'm not being royally screwed over with the same work hours. I'd love to put some effort into revamping the awards next year too and pruning through the award titles. I.e. less physical appearance awards and more "you're totally awesome" sorts of awards.

Anyway. I still wanted to help this year but there is no just way with my work schedule.

 

[Lex]

For the record aswell: I will help whoever wants to take over, I'm just not running them. Like I'll put polls up and stuff if needed, I'm not just dumping this on someone else .

I agree the awards should be completely re-evaluated next year Howl, it's just that we've tried to do that before and some people are vehemently like "THERE WILL BE A BEST ASS AWARD", which is partly why I tend to take a back seat with them. One person's humour is another's offence and all that.

 

[Jason Tandro]

I support Avec's idea of finishing up with the polls, leaving open for a week with the overlap.

I also support staying chill. These are awards for a fansite forum, we're not voting people into office here. Except of course for the "member you'd most like to bone" award. (Edit: Or should I say, voting people into ORIFICE; #dadjokes)

 

[Lex]

Also if we're going down the route of just opening all the polls now it would make more sense to re-open all of the older polls rather than re-posting them, which I can do if need be.

 

[Fangu]

^ I'd like to see them re-posted tbh, with the old "multiple choice if > 3" rule intact

Also, Forza Avengu. Excuse me - Avec

 

[Lex]

That would make every poll multiple choice though - are we sure that was the rule before?

I just don't see the sense in re-running polls people have already voted in. Polls that are supposed to be multiple choice should obviously be re-done (remember that Carlie's polls 1-9 had the multiple choice options, it's only polls 10-18 that I recently posted that are fucked).

I propose the following:

- Multiple choice if there are 7 or more options (max 4 votes pp)
- Open all polls and leave them open until 29th December
- Reopen closed polls
- Completely re-do the polls between polls 10-18 that should have been multiple choice

(These are obviously suggestions since I'm not running this anymore)

 

[AvecAloes]

I second Lex's proposals. I think that they are perfectly reasonable, and I would be happy to take on the task if people are cool with me stepping in to do so.

If it ends up being me, I'll make a site-wide announcement of the changes and the general rules in addition to all of this talk that's been going on in this thread, just to make sure as many people get the info as possible

 

[Jason Tandro]

Thirded. Sounds like the easiest way to resolve all these issues at once.