AnimeMusicVideos.org

I vote for 2 additional categories:
Best Story
Best Serious

Turbo wrote:I vote for 2 additional categories:
Best Story
Best Serious

x2

I approve of both categories. While I know it's too late for this year (at least, I think, not sure...), I'd really like to see them for next VCAs, especially Best Story, of course as in "Best Original Story" (I suppose that's how it was intended). I think that a video that has its own story needs its own reward.

mirkosp wrote:I approve of both categories. While I know it's too late for this year (at least, I think, not sure...), I'd really like to see them for next VCAs, especially Best Story, of course as in "Best Original Story" (I suppose that's how it was intended). I think that a video that has its own story needs its own reward.

If I remember right, Best Storytelling used to be a category, but I guess it fell out of use a few years ago.

godix wrote:

jasper-isis wrote:Mark my word, the day you actually defeat that mentality is the day that I will willingly abuse my admin powers and hand you Most Helpful.

(j/k... kind of...)

If I ever actually earned Most Helpful I would instantly have to pull an asshole move to get myself banned if for no other reason than the sake of principle. Actually earning an award, christ, that's against the entire point of godix for most helpful.

godix for head admin!

jasper-isis wrote:So are you going to just sit back and defer to that mentality, or will you actually do something to make things better?

angelx03 wrote:All in all, most the voters will be the lurkers who never posted or come to these forums (I wonder if they even go to this particular sub-forum).

I hope that some of them do wander in here eventually. And I would hope that when they do, they'd find something more than just topics full of lists and a load of cynicism.

Some people around here are always complaining that the rest of the community "doesn't understand" what makes a really good AMV or whatnot. Well, this is your chance to point out to them exactly what makes certain AMVs great. Nobody's gonna be convinced one way or another if you don't even try to give a reason.

Phade used to call this forum "Shameless VCA Promotions," and nobody was allowed to promote just their own videos. If circle jerking is the reality today, then it's practically the same thing as self-promotion. There's nothing shameless in recommending videos that you truly like, but if there's going to be a lack of discussion in the process then once again, it might as well be the same thing. It's up to you to actually help make this forum (and this entire community) useful.

If you don't want to help out, that's your call, but don't come around lamenting the state of the community when you've chosen to lounge around in cynicism instead of at least trying to improve things.

I've been lazy (OK sorta busy too) and been meaning to reply to you so here goes...and before I go further I'm definitely quite cynical now, so let me preface by saying that I agree with your proactive approach and respect that. I wish I cared as much nowadays .

Anyway, in the past I actively posted against this board even existing. As Phade noted it was shameless then and it's shameless now. Also as someone already mentioned, ultimately they don't serve too much of an impact on the results since most lurkers just vote however they want and have decided upon it for quite some time. A forum isn't going to change it. The forums are a lesson in futility and honestly just show me how close-minded most sheeple are and what the cliques are (note I said *most*, not all). It doesn't take a genius to see thread upon thread of x2 and the same people putting the same names or videos to realize this.

To put my asshole hat on, it also doesn't help when I actually look at a number of the videos that are garnering a lot of support on these boards and see some pretty mediocre to downright terrible videos. I know it's a "different strokes for different folks things," but seriously...it's frustrating and wastes my time (how pretentious of me to say my time is more valuable then yours ). I'd also like to think downright crap is fairly easy to agree upon and seeing so much agreement among people only leads me to conclude what I've concluded (being the asshole that I am).

In a similar asshole-manner, I've also used to actively post against having a semi-finals. Having ~20 videos in the semi-finals just rewards mediocrity. Out of the 20 or so videos nominated, how many are actually good? Deserve to be considered 'the best' of a certain category? Probably about 5? Sounds like we should just have one round with 5 like it used to be prior to...2005 maybe 2004? I don't remember the details, but I remember when I actually was active and actually watched all 20 videos for a category it was a waste of time and kind of offended me at how these were considered 'the best.' Then again, I'm part of the "old school" group that says videos aren't good anymore so take my statements however you want.

I don't know the statistics, but I'm willing to bet it doesn't take that many votes to make the semi-finals given the quality of some of the videos. That means it doesn't take that much ballot stuffing to get in (and let's be honest, we all know the VCAs aren't corruption free). I'd be willing to say it takes < 30 votes to get into the semi-finals. How is that fair or a good benchmark for naming something 'good?' If I'm wrong then please correct me. If you don't feel comfortable sharing that, I also understand. Then again, that is a bit counter to what I'm saying about lurkers and how this forum doesn't matter so maybe it doesn't matter either way. Then again, I guess one could argue that group think among a small group is enough to at least make semi-finals.

On a personal note, I also don't understand why folks even care about this forum so much and whore themselves out accordingly (although I will admit this was definitely more relevant when people self-promoted more). To put out my e-peen, whenever I won a VCA or was nominated, it meant a hell of a lot more to me because I won after *not* promoting myself. It meant my videos and the quality of them spoke for themselves and people genuinely liked them and felt they deserved to win. They didn't need external factors and felt more 'pure' to me. Maybe 'winning' is really important for people, but does it really feel that good to 'win' after whoring yourself out? I guess that's high and mighty of me, but well...I can honestly say I feel better about it and take pride in my wins because of this.

At the same time, as I said at the beginning of my post, I can respect your proactive mentality of "don't complain and do something about it," but call me a pessimist. There's too much group think and cliques that it's hard to motivate yourself to 'fight the power' so to speak. I will however say that I'll put my money where your mouth is and actually recommend some videos in the forums this year (you don't need to worry about descriptions from me if you've seen how long an opinion from me is). I almost never do this for the reasons I've outlined, but well...I'll take you on your challenge for once . Honestly though, I imagine it'll just offend people (mostly friends although I'd like to think they don't care) since I honestly only enjoyed maybe 5 or 6 videos all year. Given I'm not as active and don't watch as much, but *shrug*. I can at least say most of them are relatively 'unknown' and thus deserve some views. We'll see.

Damn you Helen for making me write so much!

tl;dr Old Man says "GET OFF MY LAWN" and most of you need to be honest with yourselves and stop following group mentality. Not that it matters though b/c the forum community is the minority and lurkers win out.

Edit: And before everyone gets their panties in a bunch, I never said *all* recommendations were like this. I'm sure there are some quite useful ones in there, but there's too much spam and crap to find it in my (elitist) opinion.

tl;dr the quarterbacks have bigger influence than the intelligent people.

WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT?!

lol I'm sorry dwchang, it was a really good read though.

The only person I've really seen shamelessly self promoting is...


Brad

Not to join the mindless hordes who x2 things without every bothering to express their own opinion but I x2 everything dwchang just said.

I will note the circle jerking isn't as bad as one might think though. I've pushed godix for most helpful several years, enough so that it's become it's own little meme entire beyond my control now. That has gotten me into the semi-finals and even final rounds but I have yet to actually win it. Which I think is a sign that for the initial voting org circle jerking rules however the final voting pulls in enough non-forumites that circle jerking won't win. In a way 'godix for most helpful' has failed to produce the results or make the point I initially intended it to. OTOH last year Brad won and IIRC not even Brad knows what he did that was so helpful so obviously there's still issues.

Note: none of this is to discourage anyone from voting for me, go do it. You know you want to. Come on, it'd be fucking hysterical if I won, especially if I happened to be banned when I win which is always a real possibility.

Now groupthink, that is a real issue in voting but in the end the entire point of VCAs is to celebrate groupthink so I'm not sure anyone except a few observant assholes think it's actually a problem.

godix wrote:OTOH last year Brad won and IIRC not even Brad knows what he did that was so helpful so obviously there's still issues.

I'm with ya. I wouldn't say that I was UN-helpful last year. I did post every now and then in the help forums and helped people on a one-on-one basis, but compared to Tim, Alan, etc., it wasn't nearly as much. So, who knows

My guess is that godix and tim split the vote, and I happened to be in 3rd.