A simple suggestion about the VCA.

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:30 am

It's fairly common knowledge that the VCA has one failing, only those videos that have been the most popular get voted for. If someone is asked which video is best, A, B or C, and he's only SEEN B, he will most likely vote for B, and A and C get screwed.

Currently, the best way around this is massive pimpage of nominated AMVs in hopes of getting seen.

So I have come up with a suggestion so simple it's sadisticly simple:

For the VCA, require that for a member to vote in a catagory he must have downloaded all the AMVs in that catagory. Thusly, if he's seen them all he can vote fairly, if he hasn't seen them all he will be forced to see them all before voting.

I belive that this will help level the playing field, comments?

Declan_Vee · Post by **Declan_Vee** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:36 am

Hmm, with the downloads recorded I don't see how this would be too difficult to implement. Well I like it.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:45 am

Well if a vid deserves to win, don't you think it would have been popular in the first place?

Trident · Post by **Trident** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:00 pm

Good idea, but some of us don't have the hard drive space for that, or we just haven't seen the anime.... there are probably other reasons why it might not necessarily be the best idea. Don't mind me, though... I like to play the devil's advocate a lot.

Declan_Vee · Post by **Declan_Vee** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:04 pm

Zarxrax wrote:Well if a vid deserves to win, don't you think it would have been popular in the first place?

You make a point. I guess it can't be helped.

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:09 pm

Zarxrax wrote:Well if a vid deserves to win, don't you think it would have been popular in the first place?

Some videos have much more exposure then others, such as those that have been shown all around the Con circut, if they are created by very popular creators they also recive more exposure, thusly giving them an advantage not necessarily related to the quality of the video itself.

If a video can win, even if the voter has seen all the videos, it means it's a more fair judgement. In the first VCA, ErMaC won an award that even he said he shouldn't have won, and the video wasn't deserving. He's popular, so he recived that advantage thusly.

It's not like this threatens the chance of the wellmade AMVs winning, it just makes things more equal.

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:19 pm

I do think this idea has merit but I'd like to debate about it from a slightly different perspective.

This is similar to a question that I remember being debated a LOT on the old forum - "How do you get recognised?"

The answer is pretty simple - you make a really really good video.

Usually, the popular videos become so by word of mouth - one person saying "Hey, check this video out" and so on. I can name a whole bunch of sucessful AMV creators who dont visit the forums much to pimp their stuff and yet still get lots of recognition.

Laura Fremmerlid, David Appelman and Kurt Perry have all done deservedly well this year just by making really good videos.

Of course, convention sucesses have a huge benefit as well. Otakon winners, for example, tend to become some of the most popular videos around simply due to the huge amount of coverage they get at the convention.... but yet again, that's all thanks to making a good video (and entering it into Otakon... I really ought to try that one day)

So, yeah, it sucks that there are people who haven't been noticed but a lot of the time it is because the video doesn't blow people's socks off. OK, there are many videos that are better than some by "hugely popular" people but each of those popular people gained their recognition for at least one very memorable good video.

This isn't to say that videos miss out - because they do - but it's not usually because of lack of forum pimping and it's certainly not due to lack of availability (like it was in previous years).

EarthCurrent · Post by **EarthCurrent** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:01 pm

Hmmm...

Well, it is also hard to determine if a person has downloaded a video unless that person got it off the donut.

It might be that the VCA should, in the future, angle itself toward only nominating and awarding those vids that are placed on the donut. =\

DJ_Izumi · Post by **DJ_Izumi** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:05 pm

AbsoluteDestiny wrote:Usually, the popular videos become so by word of mouth - one person saying "Hey, check this video out" and so on.

Hypothetical question:

Lets say Koop went a different way with Euphoria, the video itself was just as it is now, but instead he made a new a-m-v.org account, uploaded the video locally, and never did anything else. Never linked to it, never mentioned it, it never went to cons, it was just slapped onto org and left to fend for itself.

Would it be as popular as it is now?

Nappy · Post by **Nappy** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:11 pm

I thought about forced downloads on noms too, but it wouldn't work on non-locals. Also vids you might have downloaded before it was local, now you'd be forced to get it again o_O It would also hurt the 56k users who would need to download 100+ vids (minus repeated noms, and ones they've d/led locally before) Perhaps lowering the total vote count to "round up your friends and win" numbers :P

There's also the fact some ppl just don't want to download spoiler vids or even ones with animes or catergories they have no interest in. Even the oscars doesn't force voters to see everything, they just give them the means to see it, and assume they did :\