AMV Contests - This whole trolling issue

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:54 pm

Ok,

Again, MY OPINION here and keep in mind I don't think anyone is right or wrong entirely, but I do hve to express my views on some of the suggestions stated here...

First of all, I can't believe someone would even Suggest having a entry feee (collecting money!) to offset costs.. And when people sell thier AMV DVDs to offset costs, the same person is in an uproar over charging money for AMVs even if it's non-profit... This is the WORST idea and will NOT solve trolling... It only means people with money (and there are lots of us out there) will be trolling and the poor people will not be able to enter period... And then how would we even know someone is not makming a profit and pocketing money!

Second, I don't agree with the solution to trolling of forcing people to come to a contest. If a contest wants to do it, will it is thier decision, but Say if I live in a country and can't even get a visa to the USA, so does that mean I can't enter a contest beacuse I cant come? Or how about if I am relativly poor and there is no close contest, so I can't enter becasue I'm not one of those fortunates to live within s\a short drive to a con! Personally I WANT to encourge international competition, not discourage it.. Besdes, most of use do make all effort to be there when we can..

Thirdly, Local cons should belong to the locals???? So if I was to only have local competition at Anime Evolution I would have less than 6 enties.

Lastly, AND MY WHOLE POINT. We can't even decide on trolling amoungst ourselves so who gives us the right to become the Troll police here and tell contests and creators what to do.. By some people's opinions, I've been a Troll and I can name a TON of other creators who would too
!!!
Who gives us the right to to say who can and can't enter and how many times? Morally, I agree with there being limits (I beleive that and have my own judgement I follow). Now, we are all entitled to an OPINION and I don't see anything about descussing trolling or even stating an opinion on an individual considered to be Trolling, but YOU CANT FORCE THE PERSON to stop. Quite frankly this is up to each contest in how they handle it and define it. Each contest will have diferent definitions and criterial for DQing a Troll video and they are the ones who make that decision, not us... If a creator does not agree with a contests definition of Trolling. they do no have to send in an entry...

I will stand by all my descions I make for any contest I will run. If I feel a video is trolling by the rules I have set in place, I'll DQing it if it does not meet those rules, but even if others think that, but I don't, then I will let the video compeate.... Simple as that...

Vlad

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:03 pm

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:Lastly, AND MY WHOLE POINT. We can't even decide on trolling amoungst ourselves so who gives us the right to become the Troll police here and tell contests and creators what to do.. By some people's opinions, I've been a Troll and I can name a TON of other creators who would too
!!!
Who gives us the right to to say who can and can't enter and how many times? Morally, I agree with there being limits (I beleive that and have my own judgement I follow). Now, we are all entitled to an OPINION and I don't see anything about descussing trolling or even stating an opinion on an individual considered to be Trolling, but YOU CANT FORCE THE PERSON to stop. Quite frankly this is up to each contest in how they handle it and define it. Each contest will have diferent definitions and criterial for DQing a Troll video and they are the ones who make that decision, not us... If a creator does not agree with a contests definition of Trolling. they do no have to send in an entry...

Vlad, always coming in late and repeating what I said

j/k

With that said, I wholeheartedly agree. We can't force someone to do what we feel is 'right' and in the end it is up to the creator. We all have different opinion on this supposed definition.

At the same time, something that does need to be said since people are getting a bit pissy, is that we *can* discuss what our own morals are about this and what we follow. However as Vlad sid, we cannot enforce them upon others. There are a number of times I disagree with a person's choice, but at the same time I have no right to condemn them or force them to stop this behavior if it is technically allowed.

I'd be lying if I said I don't have my own definition and my opinion of others can be affected by this, but by no means can we as a community decide on this and well..ultimately agree upon it.

With that said, I think that a lot of people need to realize (on both sides) that we should be able to discuss this in a calm fashion and without pointing fingers. Now of course no one is "right" per se,...actually sort of everyone is right in their opinions on this matter and I'm sure it'd be interesting to see how others feel on this and how they correlate with your own views.

Machine · Post by **Machine** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:19 pm

BogoSort wrote:I started making amvs so that I could participate in all of these fun holy wars.

Amen to that Mr. Bogo

BogoSort · Post by **BogoSort** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:52 pm

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:First of all, I can't believe someone would even Suggest having a entry feee (collecting money!) to offset costs.. And when people sell thier AMV DVDs to offset costs, the same person is in an uproar over charging money for AMVs even if it's non-profit... This is the WORST idea and will NOT solve trolling... It only means people with money (and there are lots of us out there) will be trolling and the poor people will not be able to enter period... And then how would we even know someone is not makming a profit and pocketing money!

If I see an established amv contest that ever decices to charge money for processing fees as an attempt to reduce the number of trolls, I may just have to take a bunch of those long hair troll dolls, and create stop frame animation of them reenacting various scenes from anime for a paid submission.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 9:05 pm

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 10:43 pm

Tom the Fish wrote:
dwchang wrote: Welcome to the (un)wonderful world of AMVs ^_^
Ugh, yeah. This has really soured my views about AMVs on the whole.

Tom

Well, this all proves how everyone's opinion varies so much on it... I think it's a good thing that everyone got thier toughts out in the open... I belive each of us have to go with what we theink is right and follow and contest rules and thats that! After that, let the fun begin

Vlad

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 10:50 pm

The only other thing I'll mention is that if anyone feels they would like to put all thier opinions to practice on trolling, etc, the I say run a Anime Music Video contest and find out what it's like...

After spending all your free time and resources on it, negotiating with the con committee for the best time slot and equipment, getting awards, making judging tapes and coordinating judges + having to deal with all of this kind of stuff and other things people throw at you then we can talk... I think those that do such a good job on the contests and go to bat for all use creators who enter and try to do the best job at having as many vidos as possible shown should be altleast trusted that thay are dealing with all the issues as best they can....In the end, we should try to constuctivly help build up this AMV community instead of pointing fingers too many times at all of this...

Vlad

Hitori · Post by **Hitori** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 11:27 pm

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:In the end, we should try to constuctivly help build up this AMV community instead of pointing fingers too many times at all of this...

Vlad

Yes! Wise words from a wise man! *up*

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 12:13 am

mexicanjunior wrote:I also just wanted to add I loved that Yatta vid when I saw it at Akon ("bus! bus! bus!" :p ) and applauded when it stomped on my poor Sasami video. I think it has every right to compete in as many contests as they wish it to. If people don't like that, make something better and beat it.

Whatever tiny chance my comedy entry to Otakon had will no doubt be crushed by "Happaness" (which I haven't seen, BTW). But that's all ok by me. May the best vid win and all that.

To the bahara team: I hope you guys (and girls?) will ignore the naysayers and stick to your plan. GO for it...and good luck! (P.S. Send it to AWA, too!)

Hitori wrote:It got ominously quiet on the mailing list since TJ -asst AWA VAT director- posted his thoughts on the issue....I agree with him on everything TJ said!! *up*

Me, too - except I said it first

(my page-1 post to this topic). I don't know how many ways to repeat it, but these contests and exhibitions are not for us creators (with rare exceptions).

One other thing about suggestions that "trolling" (however defined) is acceptable at large conventions (AX, AWA, Otakon) but not at the smaller, local ones. This is exactly opposite of the way it should be. Submission limits can help to reduce the workload for the big contests. But a small con needs every entry they can get.

PortConMaine would have had only three vids, all by the same person (?), if trolling limits had been applied there. Anime Evolution's contest would be a half hour long, if that. Even Sakura-Con (my "local" con and not all that small) would be less than it could be without out-of-town entries and past winners.

This whole discussion has motivated me to drop my self-imposed limits when entering contests. I don't enter many of them anyway, but when I do, I'm going to try and evaluate each situation individually rather than apply some simplistic rules. I think this is what dwchang and Vlad are getting at and it's something I can agree with.

Now...back to the important stuff...digitallyimported.com & Perpetuous Dreamer.......

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 1:07 am

TaranT wrote:I'm going to try and evaluate each situation individually rather than apply some simplistic rules. I think this is what dwchang and Vlad are getting at and it's something I can agree with.

Well not only that...my MAIN purpose of my first few posts is that everyone has a different definition and needs to ALWAYS take things into account before blindly submitting or not submitting. They need to think about their fellow creators, their recognition to this point, the rules and so on. And we in turn need to respect whatever decision they make (within the context of the rules).

Each of us obviously has our own set of morals, guidelines and restraint and it would be stupid for us to impose them others. At the same time, yes, I do have some 'rough' guidelines when thinking about submitting and yes, I am human and when I think a video is trolling...I THINK that...HOWEVER, I do not condemn and say that "according to RULE A, you are trolling" or something like that.

What I am getting at is that this entire discussion needs to be more constructive (as Vlad said) when discussing our own points of view and whatnot on this issue. All I see is either people pointing fingers or on the other side blindly defending their side and not listening. I thought the point of this thread was to start a constructive conversation?

Now onto what you said, yes I believe that we need to evaluate each con and submission on a one-to-one basis. They're not all the same. As BaHaRa has illustrated, they REALLY wanna submit to Otakon. I am the same with ACen (my home con). These are obviously different when I think about submitting and whatnot correct? We obviously can never make these set-in-stone rules...if anything these rules about trolling are just a gentleman's agreement (stolen from Hitori).

This entire issue comes down to one thing...respect/courtesy. That's probably the main problem within any community like ours. We need to keep the other people's feelings in mind...oh and I am NOT only referring to trollers to other creators. I am also referring to other creators respecting the wishes of the 'troller.'