Scummies Ideas, Suggestions and Comments Thread

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Scummies Ideas, Suggestions and Comments Thread

Post Post #0 (isolation #0) » Thu May 03, 2012 3:47 am

Post by Scummies »

This thread has been created to allow community members to make suggestions, discuss ideas, and to comment on the current Scummies procedures.

Please keep it civil. This is for productive discussion, not snarky takedowns.

Understand that while we certainly value input, ultimately the has to make the call that it believes is in the best interest of the Scummies and MS. It is not a democracy.

If you don't wish to be included in the Ceremonies, please PM this account.

This thread is not for nominations. Go here to make a nomination of a player.


For the Mashies Ideas and Discussion Thread, click here.

And finally, for the Mashies Nominations Thread, you can go here.

:)
Last edited by Ircher on Sun Jan 21, 2024 12:02 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Post Post #244 (isolation #1) » Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:39 am

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An Announcement Regarding Judging Process This Year:


Due to the overwhelming amount of work and delays that happened with the judging process last year, the Scummies Steering Committee has decided to introduce a new process in order to help limit the amount of work at year's end. Rather than do "first half" and "second half" judging, the Scummies Steering Committee will be judging in smaller 'blocks' every couple of months. During this process, we will attempt to narrow down the one or two best nominees in each valid category for each block, so that at the end of year, we can present the larger group of judges with a streamlined, narrowed-down version of the nominees list.

If you were wondering why we haven't collected judges for first half voting yet, this is why.
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Post Post #342 (isolation #2) » Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:46 pm

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Scummies Writers Needed!


If you've got a knack for writing and want to help out on this year's Scummies, shoot us a line and let us know! Judging will be wrapping up soon and we want to get a head start on the writing.
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Post Post #464 (isolation #3) » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:04 am

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Bump, since this years are over.

Any feedback on awards that work/don't work - a gap you feel is missing and could do with being deserving of an award?
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Post Post #499 (isolation #4) » Fri Mar 28, 2014 6:40 pm

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Scummies Steering Committee announces 2014 changes


First off, the Scummies Steering Commitee is proud to announce that
Untrod Tripod
and
Venmar
have joined our ranks! We're very excited to have some new blood on the crew and hope it'll allow us to keep on making the Scummies a great MafiaScum tradition! We'd like to think
Cogito Ergo Sum
,
AGar
, and
SpyreX
for their work these past couple of years and want to make sure everyone recognizes that without them, the Scummies wouldn't have been completed.

Second off, after deliberation and discussion among the current SSC members (Untrod Tripod, zoraster, xRECKONERx, Faraday, and Venmar), we're announcing the following changes/clarifications for the upcoming year (and following years):

Spoiler: Award Changes
Best New Role
&
Best Mechanic / Mutation
are being merged into a singular category, encapsulated by the name
Best Mutation
. We felt this change was a healthy one to keep the viability of the categories alive. Sometimes, it is hard to distinguish where a mechanic ends and a role begins. A great example of this would be the winner of Best Mechanic / Mutation this year, OhGodMyLife's Mind Reader Mafia. While the way the setup works is actually hinging on a special
mechanic
, the Mind Reader itself could have been nominated as best role... but, the role wouldn't work without the mechanic being considered. Similarly, in 2010, while the Tentaculat won Best Role, it was such a heavy role integrated into the mechanics of the game that it couldn't be separated form the core structure of the game itself. The aim of both categories was simple: award brilliant innovation in the game of mafia. We feel this new merged category will encourage healthy competition for the award, as well as unifying the two categories under a more concrete ideal goal.

The
Best IC Player
category is being rolled into
Professor Mafia
, and the definition for the award is changing. The change for this award was two-fold. Number one, we saw a dearth of nominees and competition in the Best IC category and realized it was mostly the same one or two players being nominated every year. We didn't want the award to get stale, as we felt putting in time to help people learn to play the game was valuable and should be rewarded. But... number two, Professor Mafia was already a role that, in essence, rewarded people for contributing to the mafia community by helping people learn or understand the game better! With Professor Mafia being a Body of Work award anyway, we think allowing contributions as an IC in a newbie game to be considered in the judging process will allow for a wider array of nominees and keep the judging for the category away from being a contest of "Whose one-off theory thread was bigger this year?"
In addition
, we are stripping the following from the "Professor Mafia" award:
  • Best Contribution to Mafia Discussion/The wiki
    -> Best Teacher & Contributor to Mafia Discussion
  • Contribution to the wiki will no longer be considered for the award
  • Judges will focus on body of work more than a single individual thread or post
We are stripping out the wiki portion of Professor Mafia, because we are expanding the scope of
Community Contributor
. We felt focusing this award previously on the purely social atmosphere on the site was a bit too narrow. Now, the award will focus on contribution to the site in any way. This can mean someone who does a bunch of work updating wiki pages; or, it can mean someone who creates a really great discussion thread (see: Ether giving out avatars); or, it can mean a community member who hosted a meet and provided a home for wayward scummers; or, it can mean someone who organized Skype or chat mafia games to keep the community playing. We feel this change was probably
intended
when we designed the award, but not communicated well enough since we did not want to step on the toes of Professor Mafia. Both awards will be healthier now.

The last big award change is that of changing
Most Enjoyable Game
to a more fitting title... the
Game of the Year
! Watching the judges gnash their teeth in judging this category every year was painful, to say the least. If you did not play in a game, how much can you
really
judge whether a game was enjoyable or not? Did the players say it was enjoyable? Well, of course they did, they nominated the award... which means the category comes down to a very broad, loose, subjective quality that nobody has ever been able to really define. This award was supposed to be the "big one"... it's the award that finishes off our ceremony every year, and it's supposed to be our Scummies equivalent of "Best Picture". This new category will certainly consider if a game was enjoyable or not in the judging process, but it will consider EVERYTHING. How well did the players perform? Was the flavor written well? Did the setup fire on all cylinders? Were there any new/interesting mechanics introduced during this game? Was the moderator efficient with vote counts and prods? Did the activity level stagnate? How well did the reviewers balance the setup? Were there memorable moments in the game? Every aspect of a game will be considered... think of it as the catch-all award. It doesn't have to be the BEST at every category, but it has to do enough things right to warrant a victory. Maybe another game won Best Flavor... but the Game of the Year's flavor is still good, AND this game had fantastic performances, whereas maybe the Best Flavor game didn't. This will be the game we point back to and re-read for years to come when we want to see the best that MafiaScum had to offer that year.


Third, we're going to try and streamline the process for judging and writing the Scummies so we do not have another emergency last-minute ceremony. We've found that judging these categories has been immensely time consuming and even giving a group of people two months to deliberate sometimes isn't enough. We are aiming to find a group of
year round judges
, assisted by the Scummies Steering Commitee, to judge new nominations as they arrive. While this will not be possible for the Body of Work categories, it will make the judging for single-thread categories much simpler. I.E., Game1 is nominated for Best Scum Team. They are the de facto winners, until Game2 is nominated. The year-round judging crew will decide between the two games right then and put one through as the "finalist". When Game3 comes in, it will be judged against whichever of the previous two games was found to be better. Not only will this break up the judging process into small, bite-sized chunks and make it easier to manage, it will also make the process a lot more structured and less vague. Similarly, we are attempting to devise a system to write small portions of the ceremony throughout the year to keep the end year workload to a minimum.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts, or questions, we'd love to hear them!
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Post Post #544 (isolation #5) » Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:15 am

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So, now that the 2014 scummies are done any suggestions/improvements/critique is welcomed so we can try and improve for next year.
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Post Post #552 (isolation #6) » Thu Feb 26, 2015 2:29 am

Post by Scummies »

In post 547, saulres wrote:Actually, why
not
"Scummie Nominated" for the finalists? Maybe not a banner but an alternate/additional title?

Huh. That's not awful imo
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Post Post #636 (isolation #7) » Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:29 am

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We’re happy to announce the upcoming changes to the Scummies for 2016! Below, you’ll find a collection of the awards, along with their descriptions:
Spoiler: Awards
BODY OF WORK AWARDS

Best Mafia Catcher
: Also known as the Paragon of Mafia Hunters, this award is given to the single town player who, across all of their games for the year, exhibited the best ability for nailing those dirty scumbags and bringing the bad guys to justice while playing as a pro-town role.
Rising Star
: This award is given to the player that is a rising star in the game of mafia, showing great promise to join the elite echelon of mafia players. This award replaces both the Best Newbie award and Most Improved Player awards, and judges may consider elements of both those previous awards in deciding this award.
Excellent Moderation
: Also known as the “The Modfather” Award. This award is given to the moderator who, over the course of the past year, exemplifies the best qualities of a moderator in the operation of the game, including but not limited to quality and frequency of vote counts, organization of the game, dealing with issues that arise, keeping players active, and so forth. Judges may consider how challenging the games a moderator ran were, but they shall not penalize a moderator for only running more basic games. A mod must run at least 3 games to completion in the calendar year to be considered for this award.
SINGLE GAME - PLAYER

Most Cunning Manipulator
: Also known as the “Don Corleone” Award. Awarded to the player who has the strongest single game performance as mafia. In rare cases, where a player feels an entire scumteam gelled to create a strong cohesive scum performance, multiple members of a team may be nominated.
Best Performance Third Party
: Also known as the “Hannibal Lecter” Award. Awarded to the player or players that performed the most impressively in winning their game as a third party.
Most Memorable Event
: Also known as the “Kodak Moment” Award. Awarded to the player or players who were involved in the most memorable event in a game of mafia. Fake claims, funny claims, awesome exchanges, etc. may all be considered for this award
SINGLE GAME - MODERATOR

Best Setup
: Also known as the “Rube Goldberg” Award. Given to the moderator who designed the best setup. Judges may consider the roles involved in a game, how those roles interacted, how balanced a setup was, whether it furthered any particular theme, how the setup interacts with a mechanic, or any other factors the judges deem relevant. This award is distinct, however, from the “Best Mechanic” award in that it does not consider how good or bad any change to the basic way a Mafia game is played.
Best Flavor Text
: Also known as the “Paperback Writer” Award. Given to the moderator who wrote the most compelling flavor text. Judges should consider the flavor text of all parts of the game, including Role PMs and Day/Night scenes. Where appropriate, Judges may consider how well the flavor works with the announced theme.
Best Mechanic/Mutation
: Also known as the "Mad Scientist” Award. Given to the moderator who figured out the most compelling way to change the basic mechanics of the game of mafia, and/or created the most compelling new role or adaptation to increase player enjoyment. Judges shall consider both the basic idea behind the game as well as how well it was executed, and the uniqueness and quality of the role/adaptation.
SITE AWARDS

Game of the Year
: Also known as the “Player’s Choice” Award. This award is given to the moderator of a game. It is given in recognition of the overall excellence of a game. The Game of the Year award is a "catch all" award for the best overall game throughout the entire year, considering all aspects of the game from moderator quality, to the excellent design and composition of the game, to the performance and cohesion of the playerlist. A Game of the Year is meant to be the game that we can all point to later and say "This game was the best game the site could offer that year in terms of Design, Playerlist, and moderating capability." This is a PUBLIC VOTE.
Behind the Scenes
: Also known as the “Name Should Be In Orange.” This award is given by mith/Thesp/zoraster to the community member or members who have best helped in the operation of the site.
Outstanding Mish Mash Game
&
Outstanding Social Game
&
Outstanding Mish Mash User
: Awarded by the Mish Mash Janitor and their assembled panel of judges.


There are a lot of changes coming your way this year, and we want to help shine some light on those changes and the reasoning behind them.




WHY'D YOU CUT MY FAVORITE AWARD?


There are certainly a lot of awards going away this year, and we know not all the changes will be immediately kosher with everyone. Here's a quick breakdown of each removal.

Best Replacement
: Instead of giving out a subjectively judged award for Best Replacement, we felt that replacing should simply be done if someone wants to help out. However, we are happy to announce that the staff will begin giving out "Replacement Hero" pins to users who replace into games and complete X number of games in a calendar year. These "pins" will be small JPG bars that'd go above Scummies banners or below titles in your user profile to show that you've pitched in and helped out a mod in need. The exact number of games needed for this pin is still being determined, but expect more updates on the Replacement Hero pins from zoraster in the near future!

Professor Mafia
: Simply put, Mafiascum is not in the same place it was when the Scummies were determined. A decade ago, lengthy treatises and theory essays were commonplace in Mafia Discussion because the game was still in its internet infancy. In the past few years -- even after merging this award with Best IC -- we have struggled to even find one or two nominees for this category. We feel mafia theory and discussion is pretty well established at this point and there's not much more to "reward" here, so the award is going away.

Funniest / Most Enjoyable Player
: This award was too subjective and wound up being either "nobody gets nominated", or "nominate your friends". There's not a very good way to objectively list criteria for this. When we removed Most Enjoyable Game a couple years ago, it was for a similar reason. Judging this award feels like a crapshoot -- what I find funny, you might not. Who I find enjoyable, you may find obnoxious. The next time you would nominate someone for this award, shoot them a PM instead and let them know how much you appreciate them!

Best Pro-Town Team
: Yeeeesh. We tried to find a way to make this one work, but it feels rather wrong. In mafia, there's really no "cohesion" among town -- with no information, there's no way for people to reliably "team up". In theory, this award was a counter balance to the Best Pro-Scum Team award. In practice, this wound up being given to a town team where about 50% of the team (or less) really deserved the award, while everyone else got carried. Having that many banners floating around for what basically amounts to "congratulations on getting a town role PM while X, Y, and Z were your alignment" devalues the Scummies all around, so the award has got to go.

Best Scum Group
: We'll go into detail on this a little later, but the changes coming to Don Corleone make this category pretty redundant.

Community Contributor
: Dan Harmon, we hardly knew ye. This award was introduced to try and reward OOC/community-based contributions to the website, but with each passing year, "outstanding" contributions became slimmer and slimmer. The award was not even given out last year, and for the most part, feels a little too narrow for the Scummies. It also reflects poorly to reward "real life" connections/accomplishments like hosting meets with subjective judgement behind the scenes, so only a few years after its test run was introduced, we're calling the experiment a failure and closing shop.




WHAT ALL IS CHANGING IN THE REMAINING AWARDS?


I'm so glad you asked!

Excellent Moderation
: We feel too many moderators are being nominated for this for simply doing what a good mod should do-- they're keeping up with votecounts and prods in a timely manner and being obedient to their own deadlines. We are implement a
three game minimum
to be eligible for this award. If someone wins Excellent Moderation, they should feel like a "must-play" moderator. Their flavor, their setups, their role PMs, their
everything
should coalesce to make them "THE" mod to play under for that year, and it's hard to judge that quality if they only run one or two games. This will ensure the nitpicky aspect of the award is limited and instead focuses on the bigger picture behind what makes a mod "great".

Most Cunning Manipulator
: *gasp* It's changing! For the first time, Don Corleone will be given for a
single game performance
instead of a body of work. Someone winning for pulling the wool over everyone's eyes in every game in a given year is rather rare -- eventually, people wise up to how good someone was. This change means we'll have a much narrower view of good or bad scum play and will make the judging process easier. Plus, it'll be a lot easier for a mafioso who loses but puts on a great performance to take home the award when we're not having to check every last minute detail in every game played in order to give someone the advantage. It's no longer about winrates and lynchrates -- it's about gambits, subtlety, masterful manipulation, patience, and, well, damn good scum play. The removal of Best Scum Group also means this is the catch-all scum play award -- you can nominate a group, a single person, or anything in between. It's one game, one award, one focus.

Game of the Year
: We like most of the changes to the Game of the Year category, but in practice, there are still some issues with judging such a category. That's why we are making the Game of The Year the "Player's Choice" award -- that is, the general public will be voting on this award, and not the Scummies judges. This is for the players, the fanboys, the mods, the spectators -- this is for those crazy moments you talk about at meets YEARS after the game completed. How can a small group of judges possibly understand all of that? Now, you get a direct preferential vote on the Game of the Year nominees, so the award truly is the players' choice.




These changes will cut down on the judging workload -- they'll go from judging 16 categories, to judging 9. The decrease in overall banners floating around will hopefully add positive value to the Scummies, where in recent years they have felt rather disappointing and nominations have been lacking. We're also bringing some changes to the nomination process soon! Self-nominations will not be allowed, but "seconds" on the nominations will no longer be required, and we're going to streamline the entire nomination process using Google Forms to clear out the jumbled mess that is the Scummies nomination thread each year.

We'd also like to thank Faraday for his years of help on the Scummies Steering Committee. He played a huge role in shaping the Scummies for the past six years and helped make some of our ceremonies truly memorable. He stepped down late in the year and his loss will definitely impact the SSC, but we're happy to have had him on board for so long.

On that note, xRECKONERx is rejoining the Scummies Steering Committee in order to help out again after stepping down early in the Summer. We're glad to have him back on board in the wake of Faraday's resignation.




As always, the ideas thread is open and the SSC will be around to respond to any questions or comments you might have. Here's to a great 2016!

MUCH LOVE,
The Scummies Steering Committee


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Post Post #1289 (isolation #8) » Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:42 pm

Post by Scummies »

We've made an official thread for the Mashies

I'll add it to the OP when it is updated!
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