Member of the Year Feedback

Member of the Year Feedback​

Once more into the fray, as they say.

Member of the Year has just concluded again. Like the past few years, we want to offer you a chance to provide your reflection on the event. Not much changed this year since last. However, we do have some ideas for improvements to the event next year in hopes to make the activity more accessible and convenient to participate in, such as changing the time of year the event is hosted. December is hectic, being chock full of holidays and seasonal activities, so it might be hard to find time to do forum-related things, so we want to move it to a more convenient month such as January. Details are still being discussed, but this thread will also help us decide things like this, and whatever else you have in mind. Don't be shy!

Furthermore, we'd like to provide some questions to act as a baseline for your feedback, if you so choose.

• Did you like the categories in Member of the Year 2014?
• If you voted, did you feel the categories easily related to other members?
• Were the categories fun and/or engaging as far as choosing who fit them best?
• If you didn't vote, how come? What would make you more likely to vote in future MotY activities?
• If you could suggest anything for future MotY activities, what would you suggest?
• Anything else you want to say?

Take your time and think about your responses. We'll take everything into account and hopefully provide a better experience in the future. Member of the Year is a classic, though it doesn't have to always remain the same. Anything that engages and provides a conducive experience for all is what we're looking for!

this shit was rigged because I only won two things and I didn't win member of the year. I demand a recount.

I didn't understand a few of the categories (I assume they're in-jokes from other boards or from Times Of Old) but other than that they were good, if a bit BORING. but I mean I don't have any more exciting suggestions so like yeah. other than that it seemed to go smoothly. although a category like Best New Member (that joined in the past year) would be good, and I'm not just saying that because I joined in the past year (what good would that even do me the voting is over).

that's all the info I have. Happy New Year.

Did you like the categories in Member of the Year 2014?

Yeah, there were both fun and actual categories.

If you voted, did you feel the categories easily related to other members?

I voted only on the main MOTY because I felt like I should give credits to some people who deserve it. I'll vote more next year :D

Were the categories fun and/or engaging as far as choosing who fit them best?

Mostly, yeah.

If you didn't vote, how come? What would make you more likely to vote in future MotY activities?

I am sure you'd get more votes if you made a bigger deal of it. You could barely see the notification on the top of the forum. Make a freakin' banner/picture/whateveritscalled thing so everyone see it and acknowledge it! :D

If you could suggest anything for future MOTY activities, what would you suggest?

I don't know, but I repeat, ti should be more emphasized and exposed.

Anything else you want to say?

There hasn't been many votes in the Fourth Generation but I appreciate being acknowledged as an active member so yeah, thanks guys for voting for me ^^ :)

Also congrats to Peitharchia for being the member of the year! :D

Did you like the categories in Member of the Year 2014?
Yeah they were pretty fun categories

If you voted, did you feel the categories easily related to other members?
Yes all of them for me

Were the categories fun and/or engaging as far as choosing who fit them best?
Yes

If you didn't vote, how come? What would make you more likely to vote in future MotY activities?
I'll always vote ;)

If you could suggest anything for future MotY activities, what would you suggest?
Stressing more how important it is to vote thats about it haha

Other notes:
Firstly yay Peinthcaria! Im glad i voted for you and i knew you would win congratulations and you deserve it!

I do believe more people should have voted i mean we do have more than 10,000+ members active so for those of you that didnt vote i urge you too next year!

Did you like the categories in Member of the Year 2014?

Why yes, the categories were lovely. My only concern is that there were less categories to vote from, compared to past years, and there were little to no callbacks to the categories under the BEST of 2014, other than the Most likely to drop the Dedenne.

If you voted, did you feel the categories easily related to other members?

Yes. When I see one category, a name just pops up in my head pretty easily.

Were the categories fun and/or engaging as far as choosing who fit them best?

Yeah, but again, there weren't much funny categories to choose from aside from the Dedenne and the username one.

If you could suggest anything for future MotY activities, what would you suggest?

Add Breakout Female of 2015 and Breakout Male of 2015, which only add members who joined in that year?
Add more BEST of YEAR categories since we need them.
Do it in November imo, if December was more hectic for MOTY, I guess it should be fitting that MOTY should happen within the year.

Anything else you want to say?

What I don't like in MOTY 2014 is that the buildup was real nice, but when it came to the end, it was lazily put together. I mean, it didn't have CSS and the cool descriptions like in the past years. Also, there are numerous categories that didnt have the number of votes, and who came in 2nd or 3rd? And for MOTY, we don't even know who were the runner ups :/ Tbh, those were the things I wanted to see in the results.

But other than that, Congratulations to Ashley for winning MOTY, and to all of the other members who won a category or came in second or third? :)

Leijon said:

What I don't like in MOTY 2014 is that the buildup was real nice, but when it came to the end, it was lazily put together. I mean, it didn't have CSS and the cool descriptions like in the past years. Also, there are numerous categories that didnt have the number of votes, and who came in 2nd or 3rd? And for MOTY, we don't even know who were the runner ups :/ Tbh, those were the things I wanted to see in the results.

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I wanted to quickly respond to this: As far as descriptions go, I'm sorry; that was a complete oversight. I was in literally no rush, it's just something that didn't cross my mind this year. However, I didn't want to put together any CSS because not everything needs to be decorous to be exciting. I was more concerned with getting the results out to everyone! And in regards to some categories lacking 2nd and 3rd - those were the "best" categories and I thought it'd be more special to the winners if they got the limelight to themselves in those cases. Some of them weren't even close tallies, though.

Did you like the categories in Member of the Year 2014?
Yes, they were adequate. I think there is a lot of potential for expandability and extensibility as far as what is to be voted on, though.

If you voted, did you feel the categories easily related to other members?
Not very much. There were only a few I felt really fit snugly with the members I picked for them, but like I said above some tweaking may fix this. Also, maybe some preplanning/prediction work could be done in anticipation of results to help relatability...?

Were the categories fun and/or engaging as far as choosing who fit them best?
This question seems a bit too similar to the above. But yeah, I had a rather difficult time matching things up on some of them. Results anticipation may remedy this.

If you could suggest anything for future MotY activities, what would you suggest?
That's the very thing that would help this! At the moment MotY (as far as I see) is the contest itself alone - I think it would benefit a lot from a plethora of peripheral activities being setup aside from voting and I also think such a thing will take focus off the negative aspects of the contest better (popularity contests in general can grind people's gears). Some specifics I could throw out there would be media competitions, group chats, collaborations, but more importantly than anything we need additional things that take the focus off of the competition aspect of MotY that it roots itself in now. It really makes it feel dull.

Anything else you want to say?
Honestly I do smh a little bit at MotY every year, but what can you do. If people like it I really don't have much of an argument as its purpose is fun, so the only argument I could have against it is if it wasn't fulfilling that need. atm it's not, so yeah.

I only have one thing.

Can we please for the love of god let Lerroux die already? I swear it's been involved in every single Member of the Year since we did it. It wasn't that good/impressive/funny, and I was Larroux. Let's move onto something else now please, thanks.

it seemed like it was just going through the motions
bland categories, rehashed jokes, etc

Read the OP now.

In regards to:
Were the categories fun and/or engaging as far as choosing who fit them best?

No. They weren't.
If you voted in one Member of the Year in the past, you've voted in them all.

99.99% of the topics are the same.
The ones that aren't are inside jokes that most of us aren't aware of.

Honestly I can't tell if moty is just boring now or I cared way more years ago or the members are lacking in personality or all three

Did you like the categories in Member of the Year 2014?
I think the categories weren't too bad. Not as much shout-out categories as previous editions but it still included a lot of the basic ones that are staples when it comes to the ballot.

If you voted, did you feel the categories easily related to other members?
Yeah, at least most of them. I think it's often been the case in every MOTY ballot I've voted in since joining.

Were the categories fun and/or engaging as far as choosing who fit them best?
Definitely! I always enjoy the fun of picking the votes, even if the decision is hard at times. But still, I think those who won in something definitely suited their voted category very well.

If you could suggest anything for future MotY activities, what would you suggest?
A Breakout Member category like Gunner suggested is not bad, and also I agreed with her mention of a Best of the Year category which looks like a lot of fun. But going away from the actual awards, maybe holding the ballot in like maybe November or even the January of the following year might bring more attention given how hectic of a month December is compared to the rest of the year.

Anything else you want to say?
In my opinion I would have loved to see more people vote, but then there's all the real life stuff that gets hectic around the voting period. Also, I know most of the time staff are biased and are expected to win in a few areas but what I'm happy is that this time around I've seen more non-staff getting recognized, and I do hope it can stay like that for the 2015 edition.

As for Ashley aka Peitharchia winning the main title, I think she totally deserved it. 2014 really gave her the chance to shine because not only is she a great staff member, but she does so much more than just mod work and that's why we all love her!

I've said this elsewhere that MOTY really does need something to spice it up. Even though it's been a tradition, its hype and popularity is definitely not going to last forever (evidently, given this thread and the turn out). Different time? Completely renovated categories?

curiousnathan said:

I've said this elsewhere that MOTY really does need something to spice it up. Even though it's been a tradition, its hype and popularity is definitely not going to last forever (evidently, given this thread and the turn out). Different time? Completely renovated categories?

Click to expand...

well, what made moty/motm so popular in the past was that it was so hands on. it tended to involve the entire community and wasn't just some list drawn up by staff once a year behind closed doors. there were problems obviously but i'll talk about those later.

what made motm enjoyable was that it was a real public affair, anyone and everyone could get involved. categories tended to reflect the entire community, since it was a different person every month who made the list. of course, the results got rather stagnant because it was so frequent. not only that, but the people who tended to win were those who also tended to get thread-making rights. but, since anyone could apply to make the thread, that matter was combated.
anyway, my point is that it needs to become a community affair again.
i don't believe i'm remembering it overly fondly as i don't particularly care about moty, but since other people care about it, it should be spiced up for those who do maintain an interest in it.

in short, my suggestions:
- take the interactive aspects of motm and learn from them.
- make it a little bit more frequent, like twice a year or something.
- never make another lerroux reference unless you want me to report every post in the thead.

All I want to know is what is this Lerroux thing

Zekrom said:

All I want to know is what is this Lerroux thing

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He was some fake admin created for the subject of PC's April Fools Day joke in 2012. Seriously it was a very well-talked about AF event in PC's history, and lots of staff members at the time were almost threatening to quit.

Zekrom said:

All I want to know is what is this Lerroux thing

Click to expand...

April Fools 2012, where a dictatorship led by Lerroux and his followers nearly started a revolution among staff, a mass-exodus of members, and basically just plain anarchy.

And I do agree on the category, Lerroux didnt even show up for 2014, ever >.> Let it go plz

EDIT: OMFG CAN EVERYONE STOP NINJA'ING ME LIKE SRSLY >(

curiousnathan said:

Completely renovated categories?

Click to expand...

I wanted to throw out a ton of old categories, but I thought that the classics should all remain so that the event didn't seem like it had changed so much in that respect. Then again, maybe some things - like, admittedly, Lerroux jokes - are way outdated at this point. I apologize for bringing something so irrelevant to 2014 to the activity lol. Anyway, creating more PC-relevant categories next time around are well in my personal sights, even if I end not being the one hosting it for some reason.

Aphrodite said:

well, what made moty/motm so popular in the past was that it was so hands on. it tended to involve the entire community and wasn't just some list drawn up by staff once a year behind closed doors. there were problems obviously but i'll talk about those later.

snip

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I like everything in your post, so I'd like to be able to draw some comparisons with Member of the Month. Do you know about what year(s) they were hosted so I have a place to start in my search? PC's search function isn't exactly the most efficient in searching for ambiguous phrases.

Zekrom said:

All I want to know is what is this Lerroux thing

Click to expand...

Read the April Fools thread in 2012 in the staff lounge for all the other details.

We made a fake staff forum, filled it with fake threads, fake arguments (most of which were me against myself, since I was Lerroux for 80% of the posts), and whatnot. Some staff were "demoted." Then on April Fools, made it public. We did whatever we could to make it as believable as possible, including making him an admin a week beforehand.

Pretty much, I sort of feel like that year was more for the staff than the community at whole. Which was great then, since I was involved, but I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it if I wasn't on the staff at the time.

Antemortem said:

I like everything in your post, so I'd like to be able to draw some comparisons with Member of the Month. Do you know about what year(s) they were hosted so I have a place to start in my search? PC's search function isn't exactly the most efficient in searching for ambiguous phrases.

Click to expand...

i think it was a regular thing up until 2010, but it might have survived into 2011 at the latest
but they were all hosted in what is now general chat so start there i guess

edit: i found a few
https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/181370
https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/193142
https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/164983

i actually hate the customised categories that i've seen, maybe because i'm now 21 and not 15 anymore, but you get what i'm saying about how community focused and interactive the motms were