State of the Viewers Choice Awards

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Kireblue
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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by Kireblue » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:48 pm

spoondiddly wrote:Opening this to the general interwebs is a good idea, but does cause a few complications with management.
  • Open submission is probably the best way to go, since a form on the main page won't limit this to .org users the way forum submissions will. That said, even with a clever database there's quite a bit of management you'll need to verify info, release date, and sort duplicates due to mispells, bad info, multiple video locations, etc. At least some of those can get sorted against the org's own database, but expect this will take much more effort than in previous years.
  • There's no way to prevent submissions on another's behalf without their knowledge. There needs to be some way to contact the original editor, both in the case they win an award and in general, so they know they're nominated or can opt out.
  • YouTube users in particular can be very bad for reup'ing other's videos. Sorting out ownership will take some effort.
  • Verifying dates could be problematic if the only source available is an upload time.
One requirement should probably be the videos are publicly available in some form.

The VCAs have always doubled as a membership and donation drive (to some degree at least), but as its scope changes expect the effect will be more indirect.
CrackTheSky wrote:These are all super legitimate points and raise the question of what you (meaning you, the .org administration) hope to get out of it compared with all the extra work that would come with opening the contest to multiple communities. Like, I get that the VCAs were once a big deal, but the past few years there's been barely any activity on the VCA forums and I'd be curious to know how many people even voted over the last couple years (I don't expect this data to be released, but I suspect it's a very small number). If you really, truly believe that you can revitalize interest in the VCAs by expanding this out into the wide world of the Internet At Large, then by all means, go for it, I just think that it may be too much work for comparatively little reward.

Also -- starting a new VCA program in March seems like it'd be too late, especially given all the extra work that would come from spreading the word out to multiple communities, getting buy-in from them, having them advertise your new plan to their members, and then sorting through each and every video submission you get (however that might look) to verify that they all meet the proper standards as outlined by spoondiddly above, and then going through multiple rounds of judging to get to the winners. This is, frankly, a discussion we should have been having months ago, not a month into the new year. I think it's possible to do all this, but I think that, if we're going to be realistic about it and really want to represent the best videos of the year, it might be worth it to put in a lot more planning and scrap the VCAs this year, so that instead of some half-baked plan that ends up falling flat, we do it right the first time next year.

For what it's worth, a lot of people are coming out of the woodwork to comment on this so it's clear there's still interest. And I don't want to be seen as someone who's just being a naysayer, but I think everything that's been put forth so far is somewhat unrealistic for the proposed timeframe, and by March of the new year most people won't even care about last year's best videos (which could result in lack of interest from other communities). The VCAs should, imho, always be started within 1-2 weeks of the new year when the previous year is still fresh in everyone's mind, and they should be advertised heavily across multiple communities with a solid plan of action like a month in advance of that.
That's why I suggested having the judges pick the first round videos. The "general public" would simply post youtube links to their favorite AMVs of 2017, and the judges would use them as a reference to nominate videos which will then be voted on in the next round. It will also be left up to the judges to verify the release date and ownership of the videos that they choose to nominate. This would be a lot easier than verifying the information of every single video that gets suggested for consideration by the "general public". And so the nomination round would actually be similar to a delegate system where the judges don't necessarily represent any particular group of users, but still use their opinions as reference to make their own vote. And so the concerns that you expressed about database management don't really apply. Sorry for not explaining the nuances of my idea in the initial post better.

In terms of timeline, starting this in late February/ early March isn't really that far off from what we've done in past years. Here is the nomination - Final voting timelines since 2012

2017 - 2/13 - 3/27
2016 - 2/14 - 3/23
2015 - 2/08 - 3/16
2015 - 1/31 - 3/01
2013 - 2/23 - 3/22
2012 - 1/19 - 2/22

And in terms of interest. Yes, voting and participation has been declining over the years. So that's why we decided that a change was needed. I don't have the exact numbers unfortunately (I really should start keeping a permanent record of that), but over 180 people voted in the final round last year. Last year was my first VCA as a admin, and so I don't know exactly how much of a decline this was. But I do believe that opening the VCAs to the wider AMV community will increase participation not only from new members, but also older members that started to feel that the VCAs were too flawed at the time. The VCAs have always been a great time for the community to come together and interact with eachother, and so my primary goal for this is to keep that experience alive and expand upon it. Both of you are correct though when you say that the VCAs are also a time where donations for the Org tend to increase. And so I can't deny that Org has a monetary incentive to keep the VCAs alive as well.

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Mol
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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by Mol » Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:23 am

nvm i think it can work , just do it . Think might be smart to grab some ppl that sit a lot in yt amv community :dino:
Still better than that MMO.
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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by seasons » Thu Feb 08, 2018 1:17 pm

Mol wrote:Think might be smart to grab some ppl that sit a lot in yt amv community :dino:
What do you mean?

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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by Mol » Thu Feb 08, 2018 1:26 pm

Basically to help pick cool vids : d But i guess it's in consideration
(i kinda wonder how will it would work other way around, with normal voting opened to all and just some ppl filter entries, but probably not too good)
Still better than that MMO.
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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by savagecatgt » Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:13 am

God to cancel the amv awards would brake my heart it's one of the few things I look forward to in the hole year I always loved voting and watching the talent of this community grow to what it is today. I don't have a lot of answers but just not having a contests is probably not one of them.

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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by zest » Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:15 am

Before you change the VCA,
make this website worth using again.

.org used to be the place to be now it's like a subway station no one uses.


So instead of focussing on the VCAs, why don't you work on a massive concept that's 2018 and future worthy.

You need to give people the Power to Organize MEPs on your Site, Organize their Studios here, work with Achievements and all that shit...
Focus on Content. when you visit .org it'S hardly imagineable that there are even videos hosted here.

.org was fit for 2003 but it's far from being fit for 2018, 2019, 2020 and so on. Don't rush it but work on a Relaunch for late 2019 / 2020 that makes a-m-v.org worth using again. Ask yourself what content editors deliver, how they can help you to form a better platform and create an envoirment that helps editors to spread their work, gives viewers the opportunity to enjoy amvs the most easy and pleasend way.

Don't forget the oldschool but don't stick to it like a c*cksucker, yeah michael jackson was great but people talk about different people now.

I'd be happy to help you guys with branding, concept in layout
KIZ!

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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by Kionon » Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:59 am

zest wrote:You need to give people the Power to Organize MEPs on your Site, Organize their Studios here, work with Achievements and all that shit...
Focus on Content. when you visit .org it'S hardly imagineable that there are even videos hosted here.

.org was fit for 2003 but it's far from being fit for 2018, 2019, 2020 and so on. Don't rush it but work on a Relaunch for late 2019 / 2020 that makes a-m-v.org worth using again. Ask yourself what content editors deliver, how they can help you to form a better platform and create an envoirment that helps editors to spread their work, gives viewers the opportunity to enjoy amvs the most easy and pleasend way....I'd be happy to help you guys with branding, concept in layout
All I really feel like saying to Zest is, "I'm not dead yet!" (and that I found the removed comment in my quote somewhat offensive...)

The kind of things you are asking for, honestly, are things that very few people currently involved in the Org can do. I am an IT director for my labor union and I can't do the kinds of things you're asking for in the website. Not even close. We'd have to completely rewrite the entire site code. There are few enough coders as it is (less than can be counted on one hand, I would guess, I don't have the education, training, or hobby knowledge to even imagine much of what they do), and those folks aren't necessarily the same people as the Admin/Mod team.

What you seem to be asking for (give people the power to organize MEPs on the site, organize the studios here, work with achievements), you're talking social media platforms. You're talking YouTube/FaceBook/Instagram/Twitter levels of interaction and connection between website functions. Frankly, put, as a small group of volunteers, we just don't have that kind of ability. We don't have the money to pay professionals for that kind of work either.

It's great that you're willing to help, and if you DO have those skills, lay it on us. I am sure the admins would be interested in what you can offer. The reason Kireblue was discussing changing up the VCAs is because that's something we can do.

For me, I support the idea of opening it up wider. I would ask, as a representative of the offensive comment "old school" that we have a judge from my generation, but otherwise, I don't have an eligible video anyway.

As for whether the Org has value or not in its current state, I believe it does, but only if people use it to communicate. A lot of newer editors, and some of even the younger (in age) but older (in time spent in the hobby) veterans, can't seem to easily function on old style forums. Whereas for me, things like Discord or social media are for COMPLETELY DIFFERENT purposes than I use this forum for (this extremely long answer is a great example). I found that two or three sentences on Discord or social media platforms means people stop listening, or even complain! And in turn, they find forums too slow, too wordy, and not shiny enough. Digital immigrants (after all, I remember a time before home computers were really a thing except for the few) vs digital natives (and the differences between those of us using forums or even usenet in university, versus those that could barely talk before YouTube existed).
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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by Cenit » Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:58 am

I haven't read all of these walls of text. So what i'm writing has probably been said before. I think you should try to keep the VCA alive. I won't trust a pre-selection by judges though. This is why the JCA's never worked. I mean, i know that all contest are biased in a certain way. And editors should always take that into account. If i as a viewer get a nice list of AMVs in the end that's probably all i can ask for. But how about this:

Have submission forms. Everybody can submit videos of their own. All submissions get judged by the viewers in the first round. Maybe have some judges to submit good videos missing from the list. But every AMV entered should be allowed to participate in the first round, regardless if it's part of the catalog or not.

Also, please throw out some of the useless awards like Single-Anime, Trailer and Rookie. Also while at the org opening itself up to YouTube, how about fixing the site or building a new one? Just asking.
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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by Kireblue » Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:55 am

KeiichiFace wrote:
MadMegatax wrote:An alternative to the Crunchyroll format is the way that r/anime on reddit is doing awards. From what I understand, they have popular vote determine three entries for a category, and then a panel of judges selects three additional entries for the category. So half are by popular vote, and half are jury selected. Then voting happens like you suggested.
I think this is a good idea. To just have judges choose the entrants gives a lot of space for bias, and I think one of the good things about the viewers' awards is the community involvement.
Kroner92 wrote:I think that the best way is to find a way to people to propose videos ( i just can't came out with a smart idea btw), collect the most shared opinion and then let a jury( made by selected people from different countries) decide. In that way we can listen to every single people who want to vote, but be fair in the final judgment using ( I hope) super partes judges that should just think about the awards interest.
spoondiddly wrote:Open submission is probably the best way to go, since a form on the main page won't limit this to .org users the way forum submissions will. That said, even with a clever database there's quite a bit of management you'll need to verify info, release date, and sort duplicates due to misspells, bad info, multiple video locations, etc. At least some of those can get sorted against the org's own database, but expect this will take much more effort than in previous years.
Cenit wrote:Have submission forms. Everybody can submit videos of their own. All submissions get judged by the viewers in the first round. Maybe have some judges to submit good videos missing from the list. But every AMV entered should be allowed to participate in the first round, regardless if it's part of the catalog or not.
Since so many people have been suggesting this in various forms, I decided to rack my brain a little harder to find a way to combine your ideas into a compromise/ solution. Her'es what I came up with. Since allowing the community to vote on a list of every single AMV made in 2017 is impossible, how about I create a list that consists of only the videos that get posted in the suggestion threads? Whenever someone posts a link to "suggest" a video, I'll update the google form by the end of the day to include it. I'll also turn on the feature that allows users to change their votes if a video gets added later on that wasn't available at the start. The top 6-8 videos will automatically make it to the next round, and the judges will be responsible for nominating 6-8 more videos. The judges will also kick out any videos that get voted on by the community that absolutely doesn't fit a category (like a pure romance video getting trollishly voted on for action)

This idea is pretty much exactly what MadMegatax suggested combined with a manual version of spoondiddly's database suggestion. I think that it was Cenit's way of wording his post that made me think that maybe it wasn't as impossible as i initially thought. This will cause just a little more work on my part, but nothing more than what I was already prepared to do. So what do you guys think? :up: or :down:

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Re: State of the Viewers Choice Awards

Post by Mol » Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:22 pm

It's interesing. Might give it a shot and see how it works (pretty hard to say without testing the waters on this website, but looking how many people actively post it might not go positive way, yet vca at same time drags some people in. It might be interesing initative to get active too I guess)
Last edited by Mol on Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Still better than that MMO.
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