Member of the Year Feedback Thread

Twilight Sky said:

Some of you are arguing that people like Hikari10, or Forever are winning categories repeatedly, but what some of you really neglect to notice is that it really took work on their parts as well to become positively looked at around the community. I'm not really going to pull any punches here. Yes, there was a time where Hikari10 was looked at as the noob of PC. And yes, there was a time when Nica was looked at in that very same light. A lot of very "popular" members(so to speak) weren't always that way, but they put so much effort into changing around their behavior, fixing around their flaws, that they deserve to be recognized for that. Nica and Hikari made themselves known. I mean for pete's sake, I bet there hasn't been a damn thread that Nica hasn't posted in yet, her postcount is like the highest in PC, and I know that postcount itself shouldn't really accomodate for much, but you can't really ignore that she really puts herself out there. Not just modding-wise, but helping out our users the best way that she can. The same goes for Hikari. I think she joined like a year and a half ago and no one really knew who she was. It took a gargantuan amount of effort on both of their parts to get where they're at now.

I have a bit of advice for those of you, underdogs or not, who want to "win" or be noticed in MOTY: You work for it. The same way you work for modship or just about anything else, anywhere else. It's not always easy to win a position in MOTY, and it may not be easy in any meaning of the word. But that's, again, where the work on your part comes in. If you're not willing to put in the work that's required in order to be recognized by some of the community, and establish the friendships and relationships and "connections"(so to speak), then don't really expect to win anything. I don't really want to be harsh, but throughout my observation of MOTY so far, that's what I've come to notice.

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I second what Derk above me said, popular users like me and Nica were once massive noobs and then underwent that sudden personality change, becoming more helpful and putting loads of effort into the forum. Nica may have the highest postcount of anyone here and being a mod and all is one of the reasons why she's very well-known here. Come August she'll be celebrating her 3 year anniversary as a mod. I'm active here almost every day and I am quite diverse in where I post but most of my time is spent in the various Pokemon-based sections, the trivia boards, Pokemon Clubs and New Users/Welcome but I have been involving myself in various other sections as of late. The only ones I never usually post in are the creative boards and Other Clubs, and some Pokemon-based boards.

I was shocked to have gotten mentions in 2011's MOTY especially given how noobish I was back then, but thanks to motivation from staff members I eventually diversified my activity and I have even found myself helping new users, then when my supportership upgrade kicked in, it made me want to contribute more and you know, in this year's results I was a runner-up in a lot of categories (most were those which Nica won) and the votes for Favorite Female was a close one, where I beat TwilightBlade by just two votes so you can tell it was a close one. And then I got mentioned in the Pokemon Gaming Central, Black & White and Black 2 & White 2 categories, all for being helpful and answering questions.

According to Derk, getting a mention in MOTY takes almost as much work as becoming a staff member cos you need to work hard in order to have your talent recognized. Each member has at least a talent for a specific part of the forum, and if their specialized forum is in need of a mod they get modded in their appropriate section. The two runner-ups for Member of the Year (MidnightShine and GolurkIsDaBomb) only joined last year so it came as a shock for them to actually get that close to winning it.

And like Derk said, it's all down to luck, personality, activity etc. Remember that working hard to get a mention in MOTY is almost like working hard enough to become a staff member. I did enjoy the format last year, especially the different sections holding their own variant of MOTY.

AlexOzzyCake said:

We don't want to ignore anyone - everybody should feel as happy as possible about the events and competitions that we run. If you're feeling like this then chances are you're not alone, so if you can help us think of a way to resolve the issue for everyone feeling this way then that'd be more helpful than anything else. I don't feel the same about the contest as you do so any solution I could offer most likely wouldn't cover everything you're concerned about which is why we need feedback from members like you to tell us exactly what's wrong and suggest methods to fix this. So ignoring people isn't an option :)

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I've been thinking about this in the back of my head the whole day, and I've decided…

I think ignoring the people who complain is the best route of action. Why am I sticking to such a suggestion? Because I am one of them who complain about these "popularity contests".

These people are certainly sensitive to the fact that they didn't win, just like I am. But see, eventually, the hate for the contest will boil down to the energy that the people use to try to win the distinguished title of Member of the Year.

And the people who don't use that energy are best left ignored, because they simply don't care enough and want food shoveled into their face the whole day. I don't think this will offend anyone, because I strongly believe that most people aren't like this, and to the ones who are - you need the wake-up call, or we can't save you.

Whether it be a life-or-death situation, or just a trivial game, everything teaches you a gigantic lesson. The lesson here is, work for the goal you want. That's the biggest message. And just look at the people who won. They worked for their goal. I will admit that. But I didn't. I just was an average joe for the majority of the year, bouncing around forum to forum and posting blah blah blah average stuff. But the winners, they put that extra mile in. They tried making everyone feel at home like they felt, and they tried making the place lively. And no better testament to that are that the two biggest winners, Forever and Hikari, tried to liven up the VIP section. (I'm not releasing any specific info, so I feel that this shouldn't be leaking.)

They worked long and hard, to make the VIP lounge a lively place, where people would be rushing in to be partying with us, crashing PayPal's servers just so they could get a piece of the action. Of course, they failed (blame the rest of us, because yeahhhh laziness is a real thing) but this is a testament to their dedication. And of course, they won the Member of the Year. Coincidence?

So my best advice is to simply ignore the haters (ie DON'T POST THIS THREAD :ccc) and let the initial anger boil down every year, because that's how things happen. Dedicated people get rewarded. That's how life works, and there's a lesson to be learned there.

okayyyy so that's what I needed to get out.

droomph said:

Well, you said to…

I'm just gonna say here, the popularity contest are kinda rude tbh. I mean, I kinda already knew that Forever, Hikari, all those people, they're by no doubt popular, they deserve it, and I'm sure as hell not questioning that they're more popular than me, other people, whatever. But this is just pushing in my face "you're not cool enough" type of thing. Maybe I'm just too sensitive, but that's what it felt like.

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thats pretty much how i felt, i thought i would be a shoo-in for best username but no one knows me so i didn't get a single vote. i don't remember the winners but some of them didn't make much sense.
DON'T REPLY TO THIS! i gave my 2 cents, no need to chuck them back at me.

I like MotY, as long as there's deserving winners. For example last year I was opposed to it, like, how I almost beat DA for best battler when all the big names were there and I had only played competitive for like four months then, while winning this time even with DA around, it makes sense given that I am one of the best here (not to sound up myself!!) And overall, this year it did make sense in terms of who won what, I think.

Partially a lot of people's issues are actually my fault. I wanted to remove a few categories I won this year just because every year I won before, and I figured there were more deserving winners, but I didn't remove them because I figured people would take note of that. One of the issues is that people do vote for popular people, that's true, but I do disagree with me being the most likely to refresh PC for example. Unless I want something from someone I barely refresh it much, and when it's down I just forget about it and do something battling-related. And most PC spirited... last year maybe but I really think that should've gone to Hikari this year, while for optimistic I dunno, for those who talk to me I'm not always the most optimistic lmao. Then there's the specific categories, for statistics. Honestly I just added in stuff to fill up space so the ballot looked neater. The only one with an obvious winner was the Whitney Houston one, but that was 2012 in review, and she did in fact pass away. I even wanted something related to Gangnam Style but it was decided not to be included because it'd relate to specific users possibly, so that kind of stuff at not being geared to specific people does actually go on, and overall I tried to make it as loose as possible, without distinct winners being obvious. However the flaw with that was that there were less votes for the categories without "distinct" winners, being the random stuff in Statistics. However, while I like MotY in a way of seeing how people feel about you/where they think you fit each year, or if they come to your mind, the actual awards part isn't necessary for recognition. Within we all know how good we are at certain things, and if we have confidence within then we can win in our lives, and not necessarily in MotY. I guess it's like, I don't need to be told what I'm skilled at when ou already know within and the recognition is being able to do it in the first place. Same for taking it seriously I guess, if you're paired with someone you love and you don't win favourite pairing, then don't take it so seriously because you know that in your heart you're truly happy with who you're with and the people voting in MotY can never see it all. Much like personalities too, such as most talkative here could be really shy IRL, but we'll never know the full picture, unless you do meet them, go into your minds. MotY is good I guess though for what people see on the outside of you, and how it can be improved/better. If you don't win a certain thing just think about why you did/didn't win it rather than complain. If you haven't flown to the moon yet, it's your own doing, rather than everyone else's.... not really sure that was relevant but I felt motivational.

Nevertheless! I did take MotY too seriously but what matters more is having enough confidence in yourself to know that you're still awesome without it being told to you in a popularity contest on a Pokemon forum. idk. I had more then I got distracted with hangman.

Also section-specific is a good idea but people are lazy which is not good. Maybe we should just reduce it to the sections with enough activity to sustain a section-specific MotY??

I also feel people need to realise that there will always be people who will miss out. (Whether by a few votes, or aren't mentioned at all). I understand it can be a little disappointing not to win a category, but people need to accustom themselves to the fact, that at the end of the day, somebody will cop the bad end of the stick; and there's nothing that can be done to change that.

Also section-specific is a good idea but people are lazy which is not good. Maybe we should just reduce it to the sections with enough activity to sustain a section-specific MotY??

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But that wouldn't be fair for those sections who juuust don't make the cut. Who says there isn't a future Member Of the Year in some of the most inactive sections of the forum?

Waaahhh my post didnt send.. :c ok lemme try this again.

First of all, i forget who mentioned it originally (so very sorry) but i do like the idea of private votes. I was thinking maybe we can do both but like have the posts in the thread be able to be amended up till the closing date but pmed votes cant be amended. This will help avoid confusion. Also it will help with members who may be deterred from honestly voting and may also help those not feel as bad because they mightve been mentioned privately too! Also my apologies for the typos i typed up smething more eloquent from my phone earlier and the signal died and its a pain to correct stuff on the browser sorry!!!

But what do you all think about combining public thread and private pmed voting?

Kura said:

But what do you all think about combining public thread and private pmed voting?

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If there was a reliable way to combine the two then I'd be completely in favour of this, unfortunately I just can't see it working in a way that'd keep everyone happy. There'd be the main issue of who is collecting the votes to ensure everyone is happy that they're trustworthy, how we can be sure the results are valid, having that one person count every single vote on their own (even harder when they're all in separate PMs), etc... On paper I'm definitely for the idea of private voting or attempting to combine the two, but in practice I just don't really see it working. But it's certainly worth discussing since I'd love to see something like this happen if we could come up with a suitable way of doing it.

Imo higher staff is reliable. I also dont think our supermods would skew votes. I mean.. they are higher staff and appointed this for a reason. If we cant trust all of them for something as simle as copypasting a pm into a thread in a staff lounge to be tallied by staff then how would mrmber think abiut staff runningth forums? i doubt they wouldve been appointed as staff to help run the forums as it stands if thry couldn't be trusted right? . I trust them, and maybe ppl can pm the onrs they trust most,bubut if they are not trusted then vote publicly or dont vote at all.

Just my thoughts. Again sorry for typos. Sorry if this comes off bluntly..hard to type on here.

Instead of all of the h-staff members receiving votes, just designate two or three people to and of the ones they are given, they tally and by the end of the event come together with their individual point totals. As Kura said, it shouldn't be terribly difficult, especially since the h-staff should be trusted, else their positions would be for naught. If it means corralling situations like this from happening anymore than present day, I'm all for it.

I'd be highly against any form of private voting. I actually see no benefit to it, not to mention people like to change their votes during the competition, which would be extremely untidy if they had to start PM'ing the hosts over and over. I read all the previous posts and see absolutely no benefit to making this a private thing. In my opinion, it takes out the lightheartedness of the competition and forces it into a private ordeal with a private voting system.

If MotY was an important and illustrious competition, then maybe more security measures and privatized voting could take place. But it's not, it's not serious, and it's not for any hard achievement. This is a forum, and we show the world what we think through our posts. What's the point in hiding that?

There are also a lot of pages of posts, who else other than the people who are tallying are going to look through all of them? Maybe if you're on the first or second page people will see, but anything past that nobody is really going to seriously look at all of them (I'm assuming?).

Why would it matter if the voting is private or not? I seem to be missing that. (I haven't been here for a previous MOTY voting so if my opinion doesn't make any sense don't listen to me)

Yeah fair enough. Just trying to make everyone happy here. I was thinking.. it could be pretty fair that PMed votes couldnt get amended and Public votes could.. no?
And for tallying them.. the mod who gets the PM just copy/pastes it into a thread in the staff lounge for everyone to tally when the MOTY is over. I thought it could be fair, but I see what you mean about it becoming more serious that way than it's meant to be.

I wanted to bring it up because I think that, at least to me, it holds a bit of importance. (I know to me I shamefully take some pride in being noticed for something good here ;o;..) And so I think it's wrong to say it's not a big deal, or to say how people should take it, because everyone is going to take it a bit differently, and it's only natural. :33 (I mean even if you've been here for a year it's a noticeable achievement right?) :3 I thought private votes might help but who's to say there's not a better answer for this? So let's think some up!

So maybe the private voting wont work. Maybe people can PM someone before MOTY commences to say they don't want to be included in the voting?
Maybe there could be categories that people can work towards in an alternate thread kinda like PCX you know? So like I dunno.. like something like the Lerroux impersonation. And then in MOTY have "best Lerroux impersonator" or something. People could have a bit more fun with it. It may be a bit harder to organize, so I can understand if you are against it, too. Just throwing some ideas out there.

Maybe actually.. we can change it so that we're only allowed to vote for the same person 3 times or 2 times instead of (i think it's) 5? Then people can really have a think of who to vote for in what section? Or maybe you have to mention at least 4 or 5 different members for your vote to be counted? I'm just trying to make this more diverse. We have a lot of cool members so I dont think that would be too difficult unless a new member is voting, but that's where section specific voting might be handy for them, yeah?

I dunno.. what do you think of this stuff? Any other suggestions here? I'm trying to rattle my brain for some!

Kura said:

Maybe there could be categories that people can work towards in an alternate thread kinda like PCX you know? So like I dunno.. like something like the Lerroux impersonation. And then in MOTY have "best Lerroux impersonator" or something. People could have a bit more fun with it. It may be a bit harder to organize, so I can understand if you are against it, too. Just throwing some ideas out there.

Maybe actually.. we can change it so that we're only allowed to vote for the same person 3 times or 2 times instead of (i think it's) 5? Then people can really have a think of who to vote for in what section? Or maybe you have to mention at least 4 or 5 different members for your vote to be counted? I'm just trying to make this more diverse. We have a lot of cool members so I dont think that would be too difficult unless a new member is voting, but that's where section specific voting might be handy for them, yeah?

I dunno.. what do you think of this stuff? Any other suggestions here? I'm trying to rattle my brain for some!

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1. I was planning to do a voting for best Lerroux of the year in VIP forum, however it was way too inactive so I decided not to go ahead with it. Something like this for MotY probably won't really work out unless it's the text version, and even so, people have already submitted text versions earlier. :(

As for voting for stuff, people kept complaining about voting for 5 things only, because some people did fit into a lot of categories. That might make MotY into too much of a competition, where really people want to vote people to where they think they suit, rather than making it into an actual competition where things get competitive and people could get hurt. Restricting it even more just seems unfair honestly.

Hmm well i just gave lerroux as an example.. doesnt have to be exactly that. And i dont mean 5 things only.. i mean give it a good random minimum that could be fair. I'm throwing numbers out here as a suggestion, it doesnt need to be exactly what i say. Its why we are brainstorming. If you think its fair the way the numbers are now then thats ok. Im just trying to give suggestions to improve moty. I thought the more people you could mention the better so it can give lots of people a chance to place for something right? I think it's more lighthearted that way than seeing ballots where only 2 people are mentioned in like 5 places and that's all. I dont personally like seeing ballots like that because it doesnt seem to have been given as much thought in general, but maybe that's justme? I think mentioning more people does the opposite: it makes it less restrictive :3

If you have any ideas of how to make it more fair then please help me out here guys haha.

Also sorry again for typos.. phone again.

I think Stand Alone was pretty on key with some of the people who choose not to participate in Member of the Year. There are simply some people on our forums that aren't comfortable with naming names like what's required for Member of the Year, and for those, I think privatized voting should be used. While I'm against the motion of privatizing all voting for reasons Abnegation already stated, I do think catering to those who are uncomfortable with publicizing their member preferences and allowing them to send in their votes through a PM would be reasonable.

I wouldn't mind having the option to have private or public votes, either. I'm just worried about the private voters and wanting to edit their ballots haha. Cause I know I edited mine a ton, and then you have some cases where people get modded or remodded and you want to add them to favorite moderator or whatever, and it'd be difficult if your PM is already sent, though there are obviously solutions to that.

But yeah, if you want your votes private, I don't see any harm in that. Though like I said, if both are an option, that'd be great.

Sydian said:

I'm just worried about the private voters and wanting to edit their ballots haha. Cause I know I edited mine a ton, and then you have some cases where people get modded or remodded and you want to add them to favorite moderator or whatever, and it'd be difficult if your PM is already sent, though there are obviously solutions to that.

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I suppose we could always make it so that you can only send your votes via PM during the final few days of the competition so you have as much time as you want to change them beforehand and there's very little risk of needing to change them? It makes keeping up with them a little harder but if it's divided up between, say, the whole of hstaff, that's not going to be many PMs per person to post/count.

In addition, we could not let people who PM edit their votes like Kura suggested.

I really liked the Forum-Specific categories!
I felt some of the other categories were a bit specific, but since it's supposed to just be for fun, there's not too much harm in it. My only concern is, if you're rather new, or not as active, you won't have an easy time voting already, and categories like "Most likely to participate in the Olympics one day" might deter even more people from voting. I know (think? I can't remember!) you don't have to vote for each category but from experience I know that if there are too many categories that the voter can't think of who to put down for it could very well stop them from voting altogether.

As for private versus public voting, I agree that having both options would be beneficial. Having the option of private voting might make the whole event seem more "serious," but it would help to bring in the votes of those who don't want to call out specific people.

It was still good overall. There were a lot of categories in general and that was nice. I would have voted, but I really didn't think I was active enough to cast votes that made sense (and I know it's not that serious, but anything with titles like "best..." and "most..." is bound to be taken seriously by some!).

Don't know whether it was mentioned yet but I was glad the nominations like from last year were gone.

Also it seems to me like there are constantly categories that sound like they're aimed at a certain person and it's not a coincidence that usually that person ends up winning them too. I don't know if this is like a sort of running gag among the mods or whatever but it makes the whole contest come off as kind of silly or a big joke, it's hard to take it seriously when there's things like "person most likely to listen whitney houston cd's on repeat" or like last year "person most likely to hate wikileaks the most" or whatever it was, it's kind of obvious who those categories are for. But anyway I think it was better than last year.

And I can understand why some people don't like MOTY or are bothered by it like Droomph when there's a select few people that always win the same things. Like "most PC spirited", if that was Nica last year then it will be her this year, and the next lol, so it's just kind of silly.