Member of the Year Feedback Thread

[Mr Cat Dog]

Thanks for participating in Member of the Year 2012, and a happy new year on behalf of the entire PokéCommunity staff team. You can have a look at the results in this thread, if you haven't done so already.

If you have any comments, questions or feedback about MOTY 2012 or just MOTY in general, please use this thread to vent your proverbial spleens. We really do appreciate any constructive feedback you can give us, so please be as honest as possible. We don't bite… really! If you loved this lil' feature, say that; if you hated it and want it to be stricken from the forum, say that; if you liked/hated the new forum-specific MOTY ballots, mention it.

Just anything that comes to mind, really. When the end of 2013 comes around, the staff will take a look at this thread once more and bear these comments in mind for future events such as MOTY.

Thanks again, and happy 2013! :D

 

[Kura]

I'm glad this was brought up! I quite liked this MOTY because it had a good balance. I feel some of the categories could've been pruned or replaced a bit..
Like for me.. I found "favourite male/female" etc pretty hard to vote for because I didn't want to single anyone out. Not saying that it should've been taken out because they are nice for others to vote in, but maybe have more options for stuff like "Most optimistic" etc.. and take out the ones like "most likely to listen to Whitney Houston" because that seems pretty specific.

Sorry I'm a bit braindead right now (sleepy) so my post is coming out kinda garbled..
Oh on that note, maybe "biggest TL;DRer" or "person who loves to debate the most" or in the RP section something like "most convincing poster" I dunno.. I'm just throwing some random ones out there.

What I'm saying is I liked those other sections where I could be like "Oh this reminds me of this person who I've seen knocking around, I'd like to put them here."
Something that could be fair, you know? Cause I know I tried my best to think of lots of people for MOTY instead and just tried to think of who'd work best in that category.


Oh god I'm rambling now.. @_@ Like I said.. braindead. I will edit this post later maybe.. if it's not making sense (which it probably isn't.)

 

[antemortem]

I was also not a fan of the 'Most likely to [etc]' categories, as they seem to be passively focused on a single party. I'm aware they are not, of course. They're supposed to be fun categories, I'm sure, but ones that seem more personality-oriented, such as Kura's example, would be more enjoyable, I feel.

 

[Sydian]

I liked the format for this year, but I think it was better on paper than it was in practice. The ballot for GPGD got enough votes for me to count on a single hand, and that was really unexpected. Challenges got...about as much as I predicted it would really, lol. But anyway, I think a lot of people were deterred from voting in the section specific ballots since you had to go to each of them and vote instead of it all being in one ballot like in previous years.

Basically, I think we should just go back to the original format from 2010. I know staff already knows how I feel, but I just thought I'd go ahead and post this in here anyway, lol.

 

[Squirrel]

Like Syd said the section-specific votes were a great idea, but in practice I'm not so sure they really worked. I know from my point of view it was difficult posting in some of them as since they were in the their specific sections it felt like you had to at least be a semi-regular before you could vote seriously in them and that was pretty off putting in quite a few cases, but I guess it's better that you have the people who know about the section voting there for a more accurate view on things so I guess it's about finding a balance between the two. Personally I'd prefer to see 2013 (if it happens again)'s edition take on the same format as this but with a few changes to make the forum-specific sections seem a little more accessible, or at least a tad more well-advertised to build up some hype for them. We didn't have any problems with this in PoC, but it was quite noticeable in some sections. D:

I wouldn't totally be against having an event forum dedicated to MotY next year much like the Get Togethers have with a different thread for each section, but in practice I'm not sure how that'd work out at all. On one hand it would gain a lot of publicity but there's also a lot of obvious repercussions so it'd need a lot of discussion before anything like this went forward. I'm not really supporting the idea myself either, just throwing it up as a "this could happen what do y'all think?" concept haha.

 

[pikakitten]

Well I didn't win any categories, but my vote did get some people to 3rd place minimum.
Post Count Obsessed
3. Laugh (3)
anyways, I'm still pretty happy about this years MotY, congrats to all who won! xD

 

[droomph]

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.

 

[Captain Fabio]

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 popular (and deserve it tbh). 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.

The idea that the whole event is a popularity contest is a feeling not just shared by you. We understand that there is an element of 'popularity' in people's voting, but it is very difficult to get around that problem as we can't influence someone saying "don't vote for your friends."

To be constructive on the matter, would you say the problem is to do with the categories that are in place? Do you think it is something that could be addressed, or do you believe that it will always fall victim to being just a 'popularity contest'?​

​

 

[droomph]

What I'm saying is that I already knew these things, and this is just pushing it in my face about it.

Like, who could argue that any of the winners aren't, say, funny or interesting? I don't know, it just feels weird to me.

again, I'm just never popular wherever, so I don't like these things. I'm not saying "I WILL CAMPAIGN TO REMOVE THIS OUTRAGE OF A CONTEST", but rather just how I saw it in the past two or three weeks. Don't take it too harshly because I'm just wayyyy too sensitive on popularity issues.

 

[Meganium]

I liked how the concept worked this year, despite last year when we have to combine all the forum specific MOTY ballots and put them in one giant long tl;dr ballot (which tbh it was disasterous). Having forum specific MOTY ballots, despite not able to vote for them because I was mostly inactive for the most part, were a better idea. It was more organized, and it brings members to reflect on what happened in the section during the year. I hope you guys can do this again next year, it was a cool idea. :)

I *think* that's all I have to say regarding the contest. For now~

 

[curiousnathan]

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.

First off I'd just like to point out that no matter what we do, there's always going to be a part of MOTY that is influenced by popularity. That's like any, if not most, other contests in the world that require voting.

Personally I found a few of the topics a little too aimed at certain members but overall, I really liked this year's layout. I was a little let down by the inactivity the voting threads in most of the sections had, but I suppose it's - like many of you said - having to visit the sections served as a deterrent. Although, it's only a few clicks away to get to a certain section's voting thread (3 simple clicks, so...yeah, I think it's also down to laziness.)

 

[Captain Gizmo]

Crap, I'm not popular enough.

Gratz to the other people who got chosen :D

Will you keep the same balots or you will have different ones for the MOTY 2013?

 

[Oryx]

It generally changes quite a bit year to year. Some usually stay (favorite male/female/mod/hstaff), but a lot of them change.

 

[droomph]

First off I'd just like to point out that no matter what we do, there's always going to be a part of MOTY that is influenced by popularity. That's like any, if not most, other contests in the world that require voting.

As I've said before.

again, I'm just never popular wherever, so I don't like these things. I'm not saying "I WILL CAMPAIGN TO REMOVE THIS OUTRAGE OF A CONTEST", but rather just how I saw it in the past two or three weeks. Don't take it too harshly because I'm just wayyyy too sensitive on popularity issues.

I never said I directly had anything against it, I just said that really, it felt a bit weird for some reason.

 

[curiousnathan]

I didn't say you have anything against it, I was just reiterating what often becomes ambiguous to most.

 

[Livewire]

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.

It's not being pushed in your face or in anyone's face. People voted according to how they feel. I doubt anybody went through the ballot to intentionally exclude you or to say "Better not vote for droomph" or anybody else for that matter. It's just how it worked out.

Honestly, while the Section Specific MOTY's were kinda dead and tanked, overall it worked pretty well. It went much smoother than last year's. Much less drama and it was less of a headache to organize.

 

[droomph]

It's not being pushed in your face or in anyone's face. People voted according to how they feel. I doubt anybody went through the ballot to intentionally exclude you or to say "Better not vote for droomph" or anybody else for that matter. It's just how it worked out.

Honestly, while the Section Specific MOTY's were kinda dead and tanked, overall it worked pretty well. It went much smoother than last year's. Much less drama and it was less of a headache to organize.

goodness gracious let me explain this again

As I've said before.

again, I'm just never popular wherever, so I don't like these things. I'm not saying "I WILL CAMPAIGN TO REMOVE THIS OUTRAGE OF A CONTEST", but rather just how I saw it in the past two or three weeks. Don't take it too harshly because I'm just wayyyy too sensitive on popularity issues.

I never said I directly had anything against it, I just said that really, it felt a bit weird for some reason.

I don't feel like it's OMG rude, but rather, just something didn't feel right.

 

[Nick]

I mean, obviously it's a popularity contest but being popular and being a good member tend to go hand in hand for most cases, granted there are great members that keep to themselves.

You need to make some sort of impression on the forum to be recognized. The people who make more impressions with others are usually the people who the userbase considers popular. The point of Member of the Year is to vote on your experiences and who you know (or know of) and who you think should win.

That said, I think the results usually tend to get it right in the end.

 

[droomph]

I mean, obviously it's a popularity contest but being popular and being a good member tend to go hand in hand for most cases, granted there are great members that keep to themselves.

You need to make some sort of impression on the forum to be recognized. The people who make more impressions with others are usually the people who the userbase considers popular. The point of Member of the Year is to vote on your experiences and who you know (or know of) and who you think should win.

That said, I think the results usually tend to get it right in the end.

Since the thread was to see how everyone felt about it, I did what they told me to - tell how I felt about MOTY.

And I told them. I was butthurt. I'll admit that. No point in not to, everyone knows. Something else also didn't feel right, that I can't put my finger on. That's how I felt. Sorry.

 

[Riku]

I actually, even though I didn't and do not vote in these things myself, thought the idea of dividing it up was nicer than before. The ballot didn't look as tedious. It also seems like it eleviated pressure to put down votes. I can almost guarantee there was probably at least one person who voted someone for a certain category just to not have the choice blank in at least one of these MOTYs, be it this one or one of years past.

Having said that though, I echo droomph's sentiments a bit... I highly dislike MOTY aside from the technical categories (i.e. best sig, post count obsession, whatever) because they're more light-hearted and actually far less open to bias. A lot of the more broad categories are generally set up to pick personalities and, given how I've seen in the past, only really seem to bloat egos or upset others. You think someone is a good member, I don't think you should have to rely on a contest to tell them so.

Also @Patchisou: you're right. There are many great members, many of whom DO go unrecognized. To be perfectly fair, it's not about making an impression to people in general, it's about doing it to the RIGHT people, which goes back to my last paragraph a bit. MOTY is not a good way to recognize outstanding members. It's a way of playing favorites.

And finally, I'd like to point out that, while yes it's voluntary, it's always the same people that vote year after year it seems. That kind of supports my statement of impressing the right people gets you the prize of a title. Furthermore, something else I'd like to point out is that this appeasement of these same people only reinforces their position as the go-to people on the forum, which only reinforces this trend every year and, from what I've seen from all of my stalking, affects community-wide relations in general. I'm not saying it's specifically MOTY that does this, but MOTY is indeed a contributing factor to it and I feel it appropriate to bring up here.