AWA Professional Awards 2017 Category Selection

[Kireblue]

I think we have to weigh the degree of any potential benefit and ask ourselves if it's worth changing the way things are.

The thing you're not accounting for is that things have already been drastically changed from the way pro used to be handled. Again having been at this contest alone 15 years, there is a distinct difference in the traditional approach of the contest. I'm not saying this is necessarily good or bad but the fact remains every year since about 2010 there has been the distinct modification to the interpretation of the rules. For many of us some of these changes have been incredibly hard to swallow and it has caused a few people specifically to leave the contest behind. I don't think that's right, we shouldn't be causing people to leave the contest we should come to some kind of compromise. Which is what I'm proposing. Not everyone has to like it and not everyone probably should like it, but let's not pretend like this is the way things have always been. We're bending far too much for one group of individuals who have one vision of the contest and those of us who have been doing this for a very long time are starting to be ignored. And that's a cycle that it continues we'll tear this apart from the inside. We need Fair dialogue and we need compromise.

please explain to me exactly what about Pro has changed over the last 15 years that have been hard to swallow and have caused people to stop entering. Also, what points are you trying to find a compromise on?

[MycathatesyouAMV]

lets not confuse what bias means. Bias would be me saying that I know that editor ABC made video #XYZ, and he's a terrible person that nobody likes. Everyone voting against the video for that reason would be grounds for claims of bias. Me saying that I don't like video #XYZ because it has the wrong aspect ratio and bad audio quality is just me expressing my opinion on the video. People can either disagree or agree. People can argue with me, tell me that my speakers are bad, and saythat the video sounds fine to them. People that were unsure if it was their speakers can can say, "yeah, I hear the bad audio as well". Whether people change their opinions in a open discussion or not doesn't necessarily equal bias.

Ok replace "bias" with the word "influence" then.

Why does this necessarily have to be a bad thing though ? I feel like it's a healthier environment when people get to have serious discussions about the merit of the video. I think it can lead to good things such as going back and rewatching videos, or realizing a certain something about a video that they may have mistakenly missed before. There's the argument of people just going and voting for what ever someone they look up to is voting, or someone just shoving their opinions down peoples' throats, but from what I've seen in the viewings, none of that really happens. And I trust the majority of the people I've seen entering to not do so.

People can also still vote for themselves, while being "influenced" by something else someone else said. They don't have to listen to them. They have the option of taking what they said into consideration and are able to think upon it, thus they are still voting for themselves.

If not saying a single damn thing about the videos is the way you're supposed to vote so you can truly "vote as yourself" that doesn't exactly work because our beliefs and standards in terms of AMVs has been shaped heavily by the people we talk to in this hobby. Therefore we've already been "influenced". Hell, if we never talked to people about or videos, we'd likely all be terrible. This is a "peer-review" competition, thus I think having healthy discussions about videos that may or may not "influence" people's opinions can be a good thing.

In terms of the claims that have been made so far regarding pro changing negatively / not going one side's way, I fail to see what those changes were, and I'm not seeing any explanations of them, so to me it seems like people are just making up things that don't exist / are overreacting. In before it's the "pro isn't blind anymore" argument, which is bullshit because having 2 beta testers in the contest and your fucking dog know your video doesn't mean pro isn't blind anymore.

On another note, people need to realize that causing drama about "older traditions" that have started to become out-of-date / unwanted is driving away newer editors from the contest, which Pro really needs at this point, because it's not growing. Alot of people don't want to see some anti-social boring noninclusive contest where we hide any and all information or discussion in the shadows anymore.

[EnQuatre]

The thing you're not accounting for is that things have already been drastically changed from the way pro used to be handled. Again having been at this contest alone 15 years, there is a distinct difference in the traditional approach of the contest. I'm not saying this is necessarily good or bad but the fact remains every year since about 2010 there has been the distinct modification to the interpretation of the rules. For many of us some of these changes have been incredibly hard to swallow and it has caused a few people specifically to leave the contest behind. I don't think that's right, we shouldn't be causing people to leave the contest we should come to some kind of compromise. Which is what I'm proposing. Not everyone has to like it and not everyone probably should like it, but let's not pretend like this is the way things have always been. We're bending far too much for one group of individuals who have one vision of the contest and those of us who have been doing this for a very long time are starting to be ignored. And that's a cycle that it continues we'll tear this apart from the inside. We need Fair dialogue and we need compromise.

Why should the fact that changes have taken place in the past have any bearing whatsoever on what changes take place in the future? Pointing to how Pro has always changed is irrelevant to whether or not this specific change ought to take place.

Changes in the past likely took place with the goal of improving Pro. Conversely, I have no doubt that historically proposed changes have also not taken place because the consensus was that they would not improve Pro, and that editors were similarly dismayed that said changes did not occur.

To reiterate--how much of a real improvement in the quality of voting would result from restricting discussion to after voting is complete?

Lets say we push this change through. How many people would actually vote differently? I for one doubt that we would see a massive shift in the patterns for how people vote, and I am extremely skeptical that it would solve enough problems to justify what the change will take away from editors.

And, as I mentioned in my earlier post, I don't understand why there is such a focus on this one aspect of the contest when other aspects of the contest such as category selection arguably have a far, far larger impact on how people vote and who ends up winning.

To justify this change, one would need to establish two things: one needs to convincingly argue that discussion and reviews are harming the impartiality of voting, and one needs to build a strong case that restricting reviews/discussion to after voting would relieve this problem enough to compensate for the impact that such a decision would have. Personally, I remain unconvinced that there has been any negative impact from discussion/streams this year. Furthermore, I'm of the opinion that in this case the ends don't justify the means--curtailing discussion would remove a significant part of the Pro experience for many editors, and in exchange we would see no tangible impact from this theoretical rule change.

I'm also perplexed to hear that online discussion streams and review threads are being perceived as disenfranchisement of older editors, even though both venues are open and welcome to all editors competing in Pro. I also think it's more than a little unfair to characterize newer editors as sheep that can easily be channeled into voting for certain videos based on the flow of discussion. Once again, if we can be trusted to be honest participants throughout the Pro process, we ought to be trusted to discuss and review the entries while remaining honest judges.

[Xophilarus]

I will also say the conversation has derailed a lot from the original purpose of the thread. I feel like we honestly should focus on the more important issues with Pro now... The category stuff.. I will try to post about my category thoughts tomorrow if I feel better. I think it would be a lot better if that's what we focus on here, and after we figure that out, we can talk about the other issues ^^. A lot of posts with some GOOD points, like Celia's have been completely ignored in favor of drama.

[SeanPNG]

Yea i agree with the voting idea Celia had. there were alot of strong videos that i feel should have gotten recognition for their originally but didnt exactly fit any of the themes we were given.
For example this is one of the only cons that doenst have a rule for specifically using anime and thats what makes this contest unique, so i feel that should be encouraged.

[Shin-AMV]

[Rider4Z]

I will also say the conversation has derailed a lot from the original purpose of the thread. I feel like we honestly should focus on the more important issues with Pro now... The category stuff..

AWA has 4 threads this year already I didn't want to make another one

[Shin-AMV]

Time for a subreddit for all this

[shorisquared]

Time for a subreddit for all this

via Imgflip Meme Generator

[jingoro]

I'm sorry I've been quiet, I've been on vacation with family. I'll comment when I get back and have a chance to review things.