PokéCommunity Member of the Year 2011 (Feedback & Suggestions)

[Nick]

We want to know what you thought of Member of the Year last year.

For the most part, rules were the same. But we tried something different, and had the individual forum moderators of the sections put forth candidates that stood out to them to then be voted on by the community as whatever they were nominated for. Do you feel like this is good?

Overall, what are your suggestions and what do you have to say about the voting and selection process of Member of the Year? Do you think nominations should be done away with, and we should go back to how things were before, do you think they're good, do you think they should stay, but add a write-in field where you can put forth a name that you feel better represents something? Have anything to say on the rules, or anything else you feel needs to be changed, removed, or added? We want to hear your thoughts on how to improve it for next year.

Do not use this thread to voice your opinion on who should have won. That's rude and disrespectful and hurtful to those you disagree with!

 

[Hybrid Trainer]

I quite liked the new format. The categories negated slightly that its a bit of a popularity contest, it can't remove it completely but it made it a lot fairer.
I'd like to see it in the next years contest :3

 

[Zet]

Add a 'Staff of the Year' option, so users can be allowed to vote for a staff member.

 

[Sweet Candace]

Add a 'Staff of the Year' option, so users can be allowed to vote for a staff member.

Yeah, adding a Staff Member of the Year would be a good idea, especially after all the people who voted for Razor Leaf before he became modded.

 

[Moltres Rider]

Feedback: I seem to cannot find where the winners are posted... when you guys have winners, you should post a link to the list of winners somewhere!!! I have no idea who won or what! no link, no notification, no anything! a link to the list of winners on the homepage or in this thread or somewhere easy to find would be helpful!

 

[Perriechu]

Feedback: I seem to cannot find where the winners are posted... when you guys have winners, you should post a link to the list of winners somewhere!!! I have no idea who won or what! no link, no notification, no anything! a link to the list of winners on the homepage or in this thread or somewhere easy to find would be helpful!

You should kinda look around before blowing your top. :x it's right here

 

[Esper]

Having candidates seemed to give those questions more responses, which is good, but only having three options on most of them seemed kinda limiting. I'm not sure if that was the preferred format, but if the idea was to make sure that people who deserved "special mention" or something had a chance to win by having their names down as "suggestions" shouldn't there have been a write-in option so that anyone could still have a chance to win if people really thought they should? I mean, yeah, that could just turn into a popularity contest, but so could having candidates.

 

[Kenshin5]

I thought it was nice for them to be preselected, but myself I thought there was more deserving people that should have been nominated to categories above me. Like "Most Helpful pokemon gamer" I questioned that nomination when I first saw it, cause all I really do is send reports in my eyes(but regardless thanks to the person or people who did nominate me). That is one reason why I believe it's not good to have predetermined selections. Some of the categories I really didn't care for, but that is why I abstained, like it seems some where almost expressly geared toward a specific member from the get go.

 

[Vrai]

Hello!! My name is Vrai. I appreciate the fact that you guys decided to come with a feedback thread! I have, indeed, come here with some fairly distinct feedback. Something with a little more substance than "i liked it" is what you're looking for, yeah? Well, that's wonderful. So what did I think about Member of the Year?

I would like to do away with MotY, in every possible way. I hear there are few complaints about Member of the Year, so let me speak for those afraid to voice themselves or those that just don't give a crap about it and believe that speaking up will get nothing changed. I am not here to glorify Member of the Year.

Firstly, why is MotY still around? I thought we would never have to deal with them again back when we removed MotM. It was removed because the same members time after time were winning the same categories, aye? It was simply a monthly popularity contest. What makes MotY different enough that it should not be removed under the same guidelines? The only plausible argument I can even conceive right now would be "OH! But there are different members every year!" but... a popularity contest is a popularity contest at its root. Simply changing the name and the timeframe does not change it. As Shakespeare put it,

A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.

...I really wouldn't compare MotY to a rose, though. Perhaps a Rafflesia, a parasitic plant that smells like carrion, would do the trick.

I'm really wondering why this even exists in the first place. It seems to me that it is here simply to glorify and confirm to those that are already popular among the community that they truly are loved by all. Is this really necessary? And you can't simply say "OH THESE OTHER PEOPLE CAN WIN" and expect that to be a successful argument against calling this a popularity contest. Obviously popularity changes over the course of a year; some people leave (Hiiro, for example), and new ones come (Yoshikkko, for example), and some of them stick around the whole damn time (Forever, for example). MotY is simply a diluted version of MotM, which was dubbed by many as a popularity contest. Why does diluting it make it any better?

I mean, consider this. In Member of the Year 2010, I originally filled out a ballot and named colcolstyles as my choice for member of the year. But, a week or so later, I received a PM from an upper staff member informing me that staff members were no longer allowed to be voted for in MotY! As far as I know, it was because the staff members running the show here wanted to give the regular members a shot. But wait... doesn't the fact that staff members were overwhelming in their votes for MotY simply EMBODY the fact that this is a popularity contest where people just vote for the names they recognize the most?

But, I can tell you guys sort of recognized this issue already and attempted to fix it with the newest addition to MotY: that whole category/nomination thing, whatever you want to call it. It seems like a brilliant idea, in theory. "Narrow down the choices to people that are relevant for each topic, and then people will be forced to choose from the cream of the crop!!" But, uh... think about it. You're LIMITING the possible votes here... and to the most popular users, no less! By cutting off all other options, MotY became even more of a popularity contest than it was previously. I'd like to give a nod to my section in particular, CBC. It's widely "known" throughout the forums that Dark Azelf is the "best" battler on PC. Time and time again, he easily won that category in a landslide. It's hard not to expect otherwise, especially when he was in the nominations field, which limits his competition even more.

Ugh, there were various problems with that whole "nominations" idea. I don't know if this was the case for other sections as CBC is the only one I care about at all, but what the hell? Look at the nominations for Best Battler. Of those, the only ones that frequently battle competitively and to a very high standard are myself and Dark Azelf. Forever and Twilight Sky, while both are doing their best to improve and are doing much better than when they begun, would both agree that there are battlers yet above them in skill on PC, if confronted. Lalapizzame is historically known by actual regulars of CBC to not battle. In fact, he evades it in any manner possible and often simply sits and talks to the regulars on the server.

And yet, somehow, Forever was nearly able to pull away first place from the historically victorious Dark Azelf. If you paired Forever and Dark Azelf together for 100 battles and forced both of them to play to the best of their ability, DA would likely win 95 of those battles. Forever was voted for in this category in MotY because she was a name that most members would recognize -- not because of her actual battling skill. This is the very definition of a popularity contest, guys. No offense to those that run it, but MotY is nothing but a blown-out-of-proportion popularity contest that we've already decided to remove once. I know you guys "work hard" to put this sort of stuff together, but it's a wasted effort and frankly serves to only glorify those that already have their name known around PC.

Forever requested me to amend this post with my opinion on the format. I liked it. It was very neat.

Have a nice day.

 

[The Void]

I'm actually very sad that Staff weren't able to be voted as Members of the Year. Seriously, every person I could think of were Moderators, which meant I had a hard time thinking :(

And I half-agree with what Vrai here said, really...

 

[Sydian]

I think we should, alongside Member of the Year, have Moderator and Higher Staff of the year, or just Staff Member of the Year.

I completely hated the nominations system and would prefer we do MOTY 2010 style again in the future. People go unnoticed by the moderators that nominated (Yes, even I missed people. I was seriously pressed for some of those nominations.) and it was just a stupid idea. It seemed nice on paper, but how it went down was a less enjoyable and more restrictive ballot. Isn't it Member of the Year? Shouldn't the members be voting for the best challenger, best artist, and all that? And I hate to sound a bit rude and maybe egotistical, but I dislike that moderators can't even be voted for in their own section. I have been doing plenty of events, off-site challenges, and a really grueling long challenge that I've been working on over a year. But I get no recognition for it. I'm not upset over this though, I just find it a bit unfair to me, and to anyone else, moderator or not, that didn't get nominated in their frequented forum. I already brought up these points in the discussion thread we had about it before it was even posted, however, I did it a little too late.

I wouldn't want to do away with MotY. It's not as bad as MotM where the same people were winning every month. This one gives you a year to accomplish things, instead of just doing something within a month. Though I can't say it's still not a popularity contest...it is a bit, especially with the preset nominations.

 

[moments.]

I'm with Vrai on this. However, if I had to argue under the impression that MOTY would remain, I'd get rid of the nominations.

EDIT: Found out what happened with Graphics and Photography nominations, but still, if for whatever reason, unable, or unwilling, if a subforum has no nominations, it should be left open to choose. Yes if there aren't nominations, there isn't a whole lot you could've done, besides kept it open without the nominations, but really, it is unfair for those (like me) who felt they couldn't vote in the area that concerned them most, and those that they feel can give a good, fair input.

How to fix this problem, either remove nominations completely, or make it possible to vote outside the nominations. Yep.

Formatting was ok, the thing that always daunts me is the sheer length of it and having to churn through it, but that's nothing major. I've never actually voted in a MOTY / MOTM before because of what Vrai said, which is still my stance.

 

[Kevin]

Eh. I didn't really like the pre-selected candidates for some categories.
I do agree with Vrai also, in a way.

Like Sydian, I preferred the 2010 voting system better than 2011's.

 

[Abnegation]

I'm with Vrai on this. However, if I had to argue under the impression that MOTY would remain, I'd get rid of the nominations.

EDIT: Found out what happened with Graphics and Photography nominations, but still, if for whatever reason, unable, or unwilling, if a subforum has no nominations, it should be left open to choose. Yes if there aren't nominations, there isn't a whole lot you could've done, besides kept it open without the nominations, but really, it is unfair for those (like me) who felt they couldn't vote in the area that concerned them most, and those that they feel can give a good, fair input.

How to fix this problem, either remove nominations completely, or make it possible to vote outside the nominations. Yep.

Formatting was ok, the thing that always daunts me is the sheer length of it and having to churn through it, but that's nothing major. I've never actually voted in a MOTY / MOTM before because of what Vrai said, which is still my stance.

You know why I didn't want to add nominations now at least. I didn't want to break up our community of graphic artists by distinguishing who was best. I like a little healthy competition, but I'd never want someone to be seen as the "best" artist in G&P, it's art, as many say "it's subjective".

In addition, I was very much for the 2010 system. Which I did point out a lot in conjunction to my option to leave out nominations for graphics this year. Some sections just don't agree with the system, and I was unaware that I could have left them blank in the first place. In saying that, I think I'll always avoid having a #1 graphic artist regardless. Especially due to activity not being very high in G&P anyway.

 

[Her]

Quite frankly, I don't see what all the big fuss is about. First and foremost, it's a popularity contest on a Pokémon forum. A forum of which the majority of posters are teenagers. The more prominent members are always going to win, no matter how you try to fight it. I like the system MOTY had this year, where the moderators put forth members to be voted upon in the categories. Although I there should have been a wider range of people to choose from, it cut the crap out and people knew who the frontrunners were for those categories. Of course, people who didn't have any idea who those people were didn't vote and that's fair enough. Look, I'm ranting and I'm going to go back to what I was originally going to say. MOTY is a popularity contest and that will never change. But, guess what. I know this idea may seem a bit radical, but, if you don't like it, just ignore it! Let the people who want to participate and vote do that, and if you don't like the people who have been nominated, who cares? It's a popularity contest, just ignore the whole thing completely and let the people who like MOTY despite all of it's flaws have their fun.

 

[Haxorus]

I'm pretty much fine with the current format, sans the ballots, I'd prefer getting to choose who I pick for each honor rather than being forced to choose from a list of pre-approved candidates.

 

[Rogue planet]

I also preferred the 2010 system. I can understand why mods were asked to nominate people, but it's basically letting staff hand out the medals and then the members decide which one of the medals are gold and calling it a voting system.

 

[AshPikastar]

I barely remember 2010 MOTY system. I was new when I joined around that time of year so I didn't really pay attention to it much but I do remember when I looked at both 2010 and this years, I noticed that the Pokemon Anime section was the only section that didn't get mentioned in the MOTY voting. There a lot of active members that still post in the Pokemon Anime section that could easily get nominated onto the voting list. Maybe the Anime section goes under the Pokemon General, I'm not even sure but other then that, I do like the idea for having Staff member of the year. I don't know that many staff members on here but having a staff member of the year would be nice to have.

 

[Legobricks]

I don't think changing the system in any reasonable way is going to make it particularly objective.
Now, I personally would rather not have to vote in ten categories prior to make an eligible vote. That's all.