Scummies Ideas, Suggestions and Comments Thread

[MattP]

There is a very good reason to make the deadline for noms be the last possible moment of the year of noms, so 6 hours before EST time (i.e. if it's 5:59AM EST Jan 1, then a game would still qualify that ends at that moment because it's 11:59PM Dec 31 in some part of the world)

That is the only clear-cut, fair way of handling things. If someone was in a best game of 2012 and a game that ended in 2013 beat it, it's such a slippery, crappy slope that will undoubtedly generate bitterness. It's more fair to have a player wait to be judged for the year of their completed game than let them be judged earlier and possibly influence an actual 2012-completed game.

Gist of the argument: Slippery slopes are slippery and there's no need for one so just make it clear cut, and make the cut be that a game's completion time stamp is what determines its completion year. Simple.

[MattP]

Was I late to the party?

[MattP]

Something I don't get honestly is using "The past few years noone has qualified for this award" as reason to remove it. Like, then an award can exist but just not be given every year. That's like commonplace for a lot of awards. It makes it even more meaningful when it is given.

I read most of this but not everything so maybe I missed some rebuttal to this so YOLO but I'm just gonna say it

[MattP]

Like Professor Mafia and Community Contributer are the ones I am thinking of. I don't agree we live in a post-theory world for mafia. It's a game of psychology. I don't think we will ever have it fully figured out. And site meta slowly changes and new theory becomes relevant. Just because noone right now cares about writing theory doesn't mean that it's all solved, I just think site meta wise noone is particularly interested in writing theory. I just don't get what the harm is of having the award around as a possibility that's not always taken advantage of rather than making it no longer an option. If we suddenly get a handful of really avid professor mafias midway through 2016 they won't be able to qualify for the award based on...the premise of us assuming that wouldn't happen? It just seems like a silly reason to remove it. And it's such a small amount of work too to decide if someone qualifies for professor mafia or community contrib

[MattP]

For community contrib, yeah, it reflects poorly to choose someone based on them hosting a meet, so then we could just amend it so that meets won't be taken into account for the award rather than removing the award altogether

[MattP]

I also as a lesser thing that probably would never happen kind of think it would be cool to have "Most Enjoyable" be a people's choice award (as in, a popular vote), because yeah why should a few people try to objectify enjoyability, that's stupid, but it would also add a nice little extra mechanic to the scummies of having the average person on the forum having a say for one of the awards. And if the counter-argument to this is, "it's basically then just a glorified popularity contest"...so what? Isn't saying someone is the "most enjoyable" just an extension of saying they are the most popular in games? And I don't think it would hurt anyone's feelings, we wouldn't need to say who got 2nd, 3rd, etc, just the winner.

Ok I'm done hurray for quadruple posting!

FTR I agree that Best Town was good to take out even if it's racy and I agree the problems with most enjoyable made it stupid to have as an award I am not trying to just systematically pick apart every change. I just think changing the way we look at community contrib, prof mafia, and most enjoyable could make them easily still usable while also adding very little extra work. It makes most enjoyable be up to the users, and the other two don't need to be awarded every year

[MattP]

My concern though is this - suppose

this year

we have someone who has exceptionally stood out as a community contributor / professor mafia and people make a point of that. Their work won't be acknowledged because the award can't be reinstated this year. Then the award is added back beginning in 2017 because of that individual's work for the year of 2016, and that year we don't have any bodies of work to acknowledge with the award because worthy nominees are sparse.

It's like, many years the Pulitzer prize for drama isn't awarded but they don't just cut the award because of it

Best fakeclaim is stupid, that's a good reason it shouldn't be around, but I definitely don't think that stands for comm contrib or prof mafia

[MattP]

I mean I just feel like the major issue being raised with comm contrib and prof mafia is that they often don't get awarded I just don't see how that's a reason it shouldn't exist or what benefit that offers, it's so sparsely nominated that it adds like no work and all removing them does is prevent someone who truly deserves it some year from having a chance of getting it until them deserving it "sets an example" for why the award should come back. Like the way this feedback system works is basically someone needs to not get recognized for their work in order for the award to get reinstated, which just seems not productive

[MattP]

The award won't come back until someone basically clearly deserves it and doesn't get it, that seems to be the feedback system to me

[MattP]

So much more... subdued...

yeah, but have you seen what he can do to a klondike bar