GAA Community Discussion

[SveinR]

Soon the GAA process will begin again, and I feel it will be helpful to let the community join in on the discussion of how the GAA is supposed to be organized, what categories to have, voting process etc. This is something that's been missing in the past, usually the jury members just decide these things with little to no input from the community.

So, this is your chance to have your voice heard! If there is anything you think would be a good change, please make your suggestion here. Also, if you don't think anything needs to change, if you are satisfied with how the process has been the last couple of years, I would like to hear your input as well. See the GAA 2011 topic to get a reminder of how the GAA was last year.

Possible topics you may consider:

• Voting - Community vs jury, how to get the balance right
• Voting process - Does it work satisfactorily? How to increase voter turnout?
• Categories: Additions, removals, definitions? Levelpack and Improver/Breakthrough have been suggested as additions
• The final show
• Something else?

[Orcc]

Voting worked very well with Ville_J's page. I think it shouldn't be mandatory for one to make at least one suggestion to be eligible to vote. Just make sure that there are no phantom voters.

For categories improver would be nice addition. For levpack category I think there aren't enough packs out there.

[Morgan]

New categories:
1) skills in uphill
2) skills in spin-levs
3) skills in pipes
4) skills in ff
etc.

[Lukazz]

New categories:
1) skills in uphill
2) skills in spin-levs
3) skills in pipes
4) skills in ff
etc.

would be more interesting than "best rookie", "best website" or "best cup" when there's noone to nominate.

[Tigro]

yeh, cups are slowly fading away these days and only few sites are new/improved enough to get GAA. I think rookie is still eligible category, every year there is someone new who gets the "elma flow" and improves his times greatly.

[Labs]

Show points (vote count), to everyone, me and i think many player want to see the full results.

[twipley]

Do uphills/Nekkit still exist? I hated them, but now I think I am craving for them.

[pawq]

Do uphills/Nekkit still exist? I hated them, but now I think I am craving for them.

sure

me and i think (...)

this made me laugh :D (i know the context fixes it...)

[Labs]

Do uphills/Nekkit still exist? I hated them, but now I think I am craving for them.

sure

me and i think (...)

this made me laugh (i know the context fixes it...)

Ye, very funny pawq, just laugh on my bad english, and make offtopic from conversation.

[SveinR]

Voting worked very well with Ville_J's page. I think it shouldn't be mandatory for one to make at least one suggestion to be eligible to vote. Just make sure that there are no phantom voters.

How difficult is it to just write "Internalist: Zweq" though? The reasoning behind having that criteria is twofold: One, to promote the community to give valuable suggestions for the jury, and Two, to ensure voters have at least shown a bit of interest/activity. In any case, the biggest problem in terms of turnout have been in the third step (the actual voting), not in the suggestion step. The new automatic voting site helped a bit on this.

For categories improver would be nice addition. For levpack category I think there aren't enough packs out there.

That has been part of the reasoning for not including it in the past. However, could having such a category stimulate people to make more levpacks?

New categories:
1) skills in uphill
2) skills in spin-levs
3) skills in pipes
4) skills in ff
etc.

I see where you're coming from, but I think having such specific categories would make the GAAs too diluted and fragmented. And another point: Can you actually think of 10 worthy candidates for each of those categories? That wouldn't be the same every year?
Having a few more specific categories could be good though.

Show points (vote count), to everyone, me and i think many player want to see the full results.

Under the current system showing the full point results some times had some unfortunate reactions (if the winner was not the one with most community points), which is why we decided to not show them.

[Chris]

Show points (vote count), to everyone, me and i think many player want to see the full results.

Under the current system showing the full point results some times had some unfortunate reactions (if the winner was not the one with most community points), which is why we decided to not show them.

I believe that final phase of voting should be done entirely by community, given that jury influence is limited as you explained some time ago. I see no point of hybrid system. Jury should just deiced who should be nominated to exclude any ridiculous proposals and the jury job should be over.

[SveinR]

I believe that final phase of voting should be done entirely by community, given that jury influence is limited as you explained some time ago. I see no point of hybrid system. Jury should just deiced who should be nominated to exclude any ridiculous proposals and the jury job should be over.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you here. The problem is that in some categories the voter turnout from the community is very low. Thus, a few people with limited knowledge and/or biased opinions can decide the whole thing, and the winner won't actually be the community's favored choice, as a whole.

I have played with the idea of letting the community decide everything if the voter turnout is higher than a certain number - say, 30 or 40 voters. This might also stimulate people to vote, which is a good thing.

[Madness]

We could set a minimum number of voters that's required to leave it all to them. The lower number of voters, the stronger influence of the jury.

[SveinR]

We could set a minimum number of voters that's required to leave it all to them. The lower number of voters, the stronger influence of the jury.

That's basically just what I suggested. It's certainly something which will be discussed among the jury as well. The bad thing about this could be that some will vote just for the sake of voting (to get full power), without giving it much thought. But I don't expect this to be a big problem really.

[Chris]

I believe that final phase of voting should be done entirely by community, given that jury influence is limited as you explained some time ago. I see no point of hybrid system. Jury should just deiced who should be nominated to exclude any ridiculous proposals and the jury job should be over.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you here. The problem is that in some categories the voter turnout from the community is very low. Thus, a few people with limited knowledge and/or biased opinions can decide the whole thing, and the winner won't actually be the community's favored choice, as a whole.

I have played with the idea of letting the community decide everything if the voter turnout is higher than a certain number - say, 30 or 40 voters. This might also stimulate people to vote, which is a good thing.

Unless I'm horribly mistaken, the jury aren't going anywhere and they can still vote, just as community members. One person= 1 vote. Jury should ensure that there aren't any random people nominated in final. I guess there is bigger problem with unpopular categories, but as I said jury can always vote after nominating. The process will be more transparent, beside that the end results shouldn't change dramatically. Maybe the final presentation of categories and nominations should contain more information and be presented in more attractive form to make it easier for people to cast the vote.

[pawq]

We could set a minimum number of voters that's required to leave it all to them. The lower number of voters, the stronger influence of the jury.

That's basically just what I suggested. It's certainly something which will be discussed among the jury as well. The bad thing about this could be that some will vote just for the sake of voting (to get full power), without giving it much thought. But I don't expect this to be a big problem really.

we wouldn't know anyway... you may just be dissatisfied with the results afterwards

[SveinR]

Unless I'm horribly mistaken, the jury aren't going anywhere and they can still vote, just as community members. One person= 1 vote. Jury should ensure that there aren't any random people nominated in final. I guess there is bigger problem with unpopular categories, but as I said jury can always vote after nominating.

Sure, this is a possibility. The irony, though, is that such a system may very well end up giving the jury more power vs the community than now (in terms of being able to "overthrow" the winner from the community).

[Chris]

Unless I'm horribly mistaken, the jury aren't going anywhere and they can still vote, just as community members. One person= 1 vote. Jury should ensure that there aren't any random people nominated in final. I guess there is bigger problem with unpopular categories, but as I said jury can always vote after nominating.

Sure, this is a possibility. The irony, though, is that such a system may very well end up giving the jury more power vs the community than now (in terms of being able to "overthrow" the winner from the community).

Jury may be reduced to absolute minimum to ensure that there is no conflict of interest (no self nominating). At the end of day they are just another community members. The system will more streamlined. Nominating can also use some transparent system, but it's not necessary.

[gimp]

What do saveload recs go under? art? i feel like i remember bringing this up before, saveload should have its own category. other than that the only other thing i think should change is that community has full power over votes not jury members votes count a little more or whatever that is. a true democracy.

[anpdad]

imo sl shouldn't have any separate category, it's merely a toolbox where anyone can sketch styles (almost regardless of skill) and practice tricks, no ingenuity is required in driving with sl, just pretty straightforward and time-consuming work. Ideas are worth something, not sl-recs themselves.
Beautiful sl runs can be viewed as art, and styles that sl helped to invent should be treated as styles. And iirc this is how it's been a year ago.

[Grace]

It is very subjective but if we use last year as a guideline, the only saveload recs that were nominated in any categories were those nominated under "Style."

[SveinR]

What about new categories related to levmaking? There have been some in the past who have wanted more emphasis on that, for instance separate category for Battle Levels.

[roope]

I don't think it would be too complicated if there was a category for battle levs and everything else (cup levs, pack levs etc.) in another category. Dunno what would the latter be called though :p

[Igge]

I agree. Battle levels seldom get the attention they deserve. Sure, there are always some nominated by some jury members who played them, but except for 2010 I don't think a battle level has ever won? Many battle levels are better than cup levels, but they just don't get enough attention as they are not hoyled for weeks by large portion of the scene, even though they should be!

[ville_j]

Now that the GAA discussion is started I want to ask some feedback for the voting site. I remember it was suggested that one could still see what they voted after voting/verification, but does someone have any other ideas?

[SveinR]

I don't think it would be too complicated if there was a category for battle levs and everything else (cup levs, pack levs etc.) in another category. Dunno what would the latter be called though :p

I'm just gonna throw something out there, just to get a feel for what people think:

We could have like three separate level categories,

• Level (overall)
• Cup Level
• Battle Level
• ...

Likewise, it could be possible to do something similar for players,

• Kuski (overall)
• Internalist
• Externalist
• Battler

I think this could be kinda cool, but it would increase the number of categories and make the show take considerably longer time. Also nominating would take longer and be more difficult, and perhaps the nominees in overall wouldn't be too different from those in one of the other categories either.

[Bludek]

We could have like three separate level categories,

• Level (overall)
• Cup Level
• Battle Level
• ...

Likewise, it could be possible to do something similar for players,

• Kuski (overall)
• Internalist
• Externalist
• Battler

I think this could be kinda cool, but it would increase the number of categories and make the show take considerably longer time. Also nominating would take longer and be more difficult, and perhaps the nominees in overall wouldn't be too different from those in one of the other categories either.

The reasons for NOT having these categories separated like this, seems to be considerably more important than "it would be kinda cool"

I think new categories could be "Battle Replay" and "Battle Level", since EOL (and its balles) are dominating the scene. "Level" and "Replay" categories would remain the same without the possibility to nominate battle stuff (ofc). Maybe they could be renamed somehow. But this would increase the amount of categories as well, so personally I would exclude (or remake) some categories, that seem to be a little "rusty".

For players there could be only:
Internalist
Externalist (but this would include the "Battler" category")
The reason behind this is that the Level packs and level cups are less frequent and (at least for me) it seems to be hard to find enough suitable "Externalist" (in the normal meaning) candidates.

"Contribution" and "Community award" looks like two very similar categories. We can choose only one of them and leave it like that (maybe do some mix of 'em). Also only few people actually vote in the latter one.

There is only few Teams left on the scene. This category could be excluded too. It seems to be a lil extreme case, but think about it

last note: I disagree with ppl, who say "Rookie" should be excluded. New blood is important for the scene and taking care of them is important

[Grace]

I disagree to remove Team aspect.

many teams

[Tigro]

+1 blu.

[Orcc]

By the way: We wanted to add some more categories suited for the designers (e.g. a splitting of Level into different types, or inclusion of Levelpack) but decided not to this year. If you want such categories in the future, I urge you to:

1. Focus on making good levelpacks that are played
2. Vote in the Level category! The past years this category has seen quite low turnout which is why we thought a split might not be helpful

People have been giving !lev and !rec ratings for ages but what are they good for? It would be easier to remember good battle levs and recs if the ones with the best ratings could actually be seen somewhere.

[Zweq]

the whole rating thing has turned out to be impossible( and a joke). I didn't foresee it happening when people were encouraged to use !rec and !lev. Perhaps it was obvious, levs are essentially art and people are rating for different things. I personally often vote 10 for 'theoretically interesting' even if playbility is crap. Some other person might like the visuals and another person gives 10/10 just for a tight simple battle. le impossible

[Bludek]

Ye, zweq, it is not perfect, but it will always be about personal preferences. How else can you measure "quality" of levels? It's impossible to measure it "objectively". What is your point?

I think whole "!lev" and "!rec" thing is good. Can someone (and i mean someone's simple program) go through EOL chat in the last year and take out all the levs with many "!lev 10" ratings?

[Kopaka]

But still some stats of those votes can remind people which levs they liked and thus which they wanna nominate for GAA. Maybe "my !lev 10 votes" stats would be the most useful?

[Igge]

Maybe that's a good thing to think about for elma2 as well; being able to rate levels and sort after rating. Could be really nice. But ye, a first step could be keeping those stats on your EOL profile.

[Kopaka]

tadaa http://elmaonline.net/battles/designer