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The Forum Awards: Feedback, Suggestions, and Standards

ProStar

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An uncolonized sector of the planet Mars
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2020MAHO01
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Hello!

Unless anyone has a legitimate reason to oppose this, I am taking up the mantle for hosting the annual forum awards for 2024. Over the years, these have proceeded with variable levels of complaints and conflict. I’m aware that we are currently in January, and thus quite far from the announcement of this year’s forum awards, but I wanted to give a place of discussion to the community.

At the end of the day, regardless of who hosts them, the forum awards are a community effort, and wouldn’t be possible without all of us participating. Therefore, rather than just randomly announcing in December that I’m gonna run the forum awards this year and doing it all my way, I’ve decided to start now and give the ability for others to give their feedback on the forum awards process.

Introduction out of the way, here’s what I want to discuss:

Time
This includes announcement, nominations, voting, and result times. Personally, I’d vote for a December announcement (potentially even late December), with nominations proceeding until the end of the year (or maybe a couple weeks before). Then a couple weeks of voting period, and finally results announcement around mid-late January.

Format
This includes the format for nominating, as well as the voting format. I prefer public nomination, where users post in the forum awards thread their personal nominations for any/all categories. For voting, I’m fine with a Google Form or equivalent private voting system.

In the past, voting has always been simple plurality voting (most votes wins). For categories with several nominees, I believe this is a terrible way of voting. I would suggest a preferential voting system, likely something simple like instant runoff. Put very simply, in instant runoff you vote by numbering the nominees (minimum of 1, maximum of however many there are). Then, the system simulates eliminating the least preferred nominee and then doing the election again with those remaining candidates, with the eliminated nominee’s voters being distributed toward their second preferences. This process is repeated until a winner is chosen. (This was a bad explanation, feel free to look it up). I believe a system like this (or really any preferential system) would work best, and be rather simple to implement and use.

Categories
For now, I am planning on using the category list from 2020, as it is more comprehensive than previous years, and I prefer it.

THE CATEGORIES

SpeedSolving.com

Best Post:
Best Thread:
Best New Member:
Best Profile Picture:
Best Signature:
Best Debater:
Most Helpful Member:
Most Deserving of a Hug:
Funniest Member:
Funniest Thread:
Funniest Post:
Greatest Return From a Hiatus:
Most Improved Noob:
Most Ambiguous Member:
Most Under-Appreciated Member:
Biggest Fanboy:
Best Series on YouTube (Cubing):
Best New Method Proposal:
The Best and Worst of Everything:

In honor of:
Mike Hughey Award for Nicest Member:
Bruce Norskog Award for Smartest Member:
Rob "Brest" Stuart Award for Best Member:
Kirjava Award for Wackiest Member:

Cubing
Best Reaction to a World Record:
Biggest Cubing Rivalry:
Biggest Controversy:
Best Cubing Parent:
Best Cubing Couple:

My only suggestion would be the potential rename of the “In Honor” categories, as detailed here.

Other
I wrote this up rather quickly, so if you have any other suggestions/feedback for the forum awards, feel free to share it!


Overall I hope this thread is an opportunity for all the community to take part in shaping this year’s (and hopefully future) forum awards, and make them as good as they possibly can be. I look forward to hearing feedback and adjusting the format.
 
Time
This includes announcement, nominations, voting, and result times. Personally, I’d vote for a December announcement (potentially even late December),
In my opinion, there should be no reason to vote for the thread being posted in late December. That (as I have been emphasizing almost every year) is how it should be (for the remainder of forum award threads that are to come).

With nominations starting in November or October is ridiculous. I mean vote on just 75% of posts/threads of the year? Why not vote on 100% of the posts/threads of the year?

with nominations proceeding until the end of the year (or maybe a couple weeks before). Then a couple weeks of voting period, and finally results announcement around mid-late January.
I see no reason why this should be a problem. Due to that time of year being when people typically go on vacations, it would be good to have the voting period starting a week to 10 days before the end of the year until maybe January 7th - 10th. (No reason to have it longer than that because kids start to get busy with school again.)

Obviously the additional headache it gives you is that you've got to make sure that posts voted on are no later than December 31st.

And there is the problem with time zones. I suggest to use the default forum time... just to set an unbiased standard.
 
In my opinion, there should be no reason to vote for the thread being posted in late December. That (as I have been emphasizing almost every year) is how it should be (for the remainder of forum award threads that are to come).

With nominations starting in November or October is ridiculous. I mean vote on just 75% of posts/threads of the year? Why not vote on 100% of the posts/threads of the year?

Agreed, but I wanted to allow for discussion in the subject.

I see no reason why this should be a problem. Due to that time of year being when people typically go on vacations, it would be good to have the voting period starting a week to 10 days before the end of the year until maybe January 7th - 10th. (No reason to have it longer than that because kids start to get busy with school again.)

How long of a nomination period would you suggest in this scenario? If voting opens a week or more before the end of the year, nominations will have to begin at least a week or two earlier, which would put us in early-mid December. I’d be inclined to have a bit later of a voting period if it means giving a longer/later nomination period.

Obviously the additional headache it gives you is that you've got to make sure that posts voted on are no later than December 31st.

As long as nominations close right before or after the new year, it shouldn’t be a major issue. I imagine posts from previous years will be just as big of an issue.

And there is the problem with time zones. I suggest to use the default forum time... just to set an unbiased standard.

I’d likely use UTC+0:00 (GMT), as it’s considered the universal neutral time zone. I believe this is the default for the forum as well, although I may be mistaken.
 
I have an idea for another award. The most typos award! Similar to the ambiguous member, except people can actually understand the person after talking to them for long enough! If you think @fes_77 is the obvious winner, we could have it as an in honour award. Fes_77 award for most typos!
Finlly sumtin i kan cumpeet in.
 
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