Expansion

[ralphfan]

Yes, I did just sticky yet another thread.

We have been talking a lot about if we will expand to more Awards. Most of this has been aimed towered the Userpedia Awards and the 'Shroom Awards. I will post a full list of those once I can get to a computer where I have the document ready (should be about 20 minutes).

DISCUSS!

Here is a list of the current plans for Awards. This will be modified frequently.

 

[Super Mario Bros.]

Hey SMB, I have one suggestion for the awards that came up to me while watching the Grammys. How about an award honoring someones trajectory? Like a Person of the Year or Lifetime Award. Perhaps it can be named Stephen Shinn Award to the Lifetime Achievement or something cheesy and complicated like that

This is an idea that Tucky had. I don't mind too much, but I'd suppose what we'd have to do is go out and decide some of the most influential members of the community. Not sure if this would qualify as a Userpedia award or as a standalone, one-award category (which could possibly be called "P1" for Person of the Year, or something like that :P). I don't know how Tucky exactly envisioned this, as this is all the information I got about it.

 

[ralphfan]

I love this idea, but I'd consider it more of a Userpedia Award.

Here is the list of last year's Awards.

 

[Super Mario Bros.]

Okay.

Also, if I recall correctly, there were plenty of demands made for expanding the awards (the most prominent figures that demanded this expansion were Gamefreak, Marioguy, and me; all of us made a ton of suggestions and even offered to work on more presentations than we did last year to help cover awards). Here is a recap of some of the ideas that were suggested:

*Keep Mario Awards at 30 - It is the golden number.

*Expand Userpedia to 10/15 Awards - 5 for historical/factual things that went on in the community, 5 for fiction, and 5 for The Disconnected. I was the only one who really pushed for adding 5 for The Disconnected, and I don't really think that needs to be done at this point (considering the fact that the magazine isn't too popular on the site as of now).

*Expand Fail to 15/20 Awards - Easily one of the most expandable categories. I think 15 might be a good number.

*Expand 'Shroom to 10 - The 'Shroom Core Staff has been drafting up some ideas for this. This is perhaps the area that I'm most interested in seeing expand. I think the ideas that the staff has come up with will garner in some votes and I also feel that the ideas for the awards are pretty good. The suggestions will be posted up soon.

*Add a new category - Either NIWA Awards or Non-Mario awards, as those both were relatively highly suggested categories last year. Non-Mario Awards would probably be the easiest to add, as it would be more open than NIWA awards, and we'd probably have to consult the folks at NIWA and each member wiki for permission for NIWA awards. Non-Mario is the best we can go with and also would probably appeal to the audience as more of a ceremony targeted for a broader gaming audience rather than being targeted at members of the NIWA group.

There were also suggestions about possibly expanding to two nights, but I really think we could have it all on one night if we play it out correctly.

 

[Gamefreak75]

Keep Mario Awards at 30.

Expand UP Awards to 10. I don't think the Disconnected has a lot of members, so I don't think they deserve five awards (afaik, they only had 4 or 5 staff). I haven't really been keeping up with discon so I have no idea.

Expand Fail awards to at least 15; 20 if possible.

Expand Shroom to 10.

Add non-Mario awards to major franchises (i.e Kirby, Pokemon, Zelda, Metroid, and misc.). 2 awards for each category: one for favorite game, other for favorite character in the series).

 

[ralphfan]

I say no to non-Mario and a maybe to five NIWA Awards. The more Awards we have, the more people will say "tl;dr" and not vote. I'd like to set a cap at 60 or maybe, just maybe 65, for now. First of all, some of our ideas for Mario Awards are bad, such as Favorite Move and Favorite Species (too similar to Enemy). Let's take care of what we have before expanding. Disconnected is way too minor to have awards for, and we shouldn't expand Fail. We would just end up with a bunch of what we already have as Mario Awards, except with "Worst" in front instead of "Favorite" or "Best".

 

[Turboo]

I don't think we need more than ten Fail Awards; Userpedia and 'Shroom should be expanded to ten, though. I'd like to hear more about Tucayo's idea (it should probably be grouped in with the Userpedia awards if we end up accepting it). Not sure about NIWA Awards, but I don't think we need non-Mario.

 

[2257]

I don't really think niwa awards are a good idea. Niwa is basically a steaming pile of fail, and joining it was pretty much the worst administrative mistake made since I started paying attention. I mean, we'd have to get permission from the various niwa members as well as the group as a whole, which has a pretty signifigant potential for stonewalling progress because some random niwa person thinks we're going to drag his wiki through the mud. and what sort of questions could we ask? "Favorite Niwa Wiki"? 99% of the votes would be us. And I can't even think of another category, really. I doubt we'd get up to 5. If we did something like "Favorite Zelda, Favorite Kirby, Favorite Metroid", that would basically be non-Mario awards.

And out of niwa and non-Mario, I'd really prefer to see non-Mario. For one thing, we wouldn't need to get anyone's permission. More importantly, there's a much wider scope of possibilities for non-Mario awards. We can easily manage 5 or 10, and if they end up being wildly popular we can add a lot more next year.

The more Awards we have, the more people will say "tl;dr" and not vote.

Is this actually a problem? The directions before the poll basically say "skip whatever doesn't interest you" already.

 

[Gamefreak75]

Yeah. NIWA awards are kinda stupid. If we dont want ten awards for non-Mario, then we can just shrink it down to five and leave it at best game for the major series.

 

[Garlic Man]

The Userpedia awards I don't understand. Shouldn't that be done by a separate Userpedia awards ceremony? After all, they have no relation to us.


As for the Mario Awards, 30 is fine. Too many will just make voting a pain for people. We can replace the categories with new ones as needed, but the number of awards themselves can stay the same.

Fail Awards can expand. 5 more is probably good for now, as we don't want too many.



There is seriously no way to expand the 'Shroom awards. There really aren't that many possible categories without getting too far-fetched.

 

[New Super Mario]

I think we should get more userpedia awards: 5 for comics, 5 for fanfics, 5 for Disconnected, 5 for users and other things.
Fail Awards, definitely more.
Mario Awards, I like that amount
Shroom, add some more.

 

[ralphfan]

No reason to do Disconnected. It's way too small a project for now. Please look at the lists of previous awards to see what we could consider doing for Userpedia.

2010 list

2009 list

Garlic: Tucky has been coming up with some good ideas for 'Shroom Awards, actually, but we should see if the categories are too narrow.

And also, I don't want to have the same people presenting every award. We could barely get enough presenters for 50 awards last year. There's no way we could get enough for any more than 60.

If we are going to expand, before we decide that we will, let's make sure we have enough legitimate awards, especially in the Fail category. Also, if we expand more we'll probably need to expand the ceremony to two days, which would hurt attendance.

 

[Super Mario Bros.]

The Userpedia awards I don't understand. Shouldn't that be done by a separate Userpedia awards ceremony? After all, they have no relation to us.

Wayoshi pretty much allowed the Userpedia awards because it would drive up the amount of votes in the ceremonies (or so I'd assume). They do cover aspects of the MarioWiki, and every Steward of UP and Director of the Awards has agreed each year to continue it. I believe this is the same case this year; I certainly want UP Awards this year, a good portion of the users in the community do, and Ralph is even open to discussion in regards to expanding it.

I think we should get more userpedia awards: 5 for comics, 5 for fanfics, 5 for Disconnected, 5 for users and other things.
Fail Awards, definitely more.
Mario Awards, I like that amount
Shroom, add some more.

There isn't enough fiction production, in my opinion, to justify 5 for stories and 5 for comics. Just stick with 5 for fanfiction in general. Also, as Ralph said, The Disconnected is just too small of a project to have awards in the ceremony this year. I still stand by 5 for factual and historical events in the community, and 5 for fanfiction. Whatever awards these might be, we all need to discuss it.

There is seriously no way to expand the 'Shroom awards. There really aren't that many possible categories without getting too far-fetched.

I'll post up what The 'Shroom staff discussed. I personally love what we came up with.

 

[New Super Mario]

Yeah, the Disconnected isn't that popular.

 

[ralphfan]

Here is my policy: We will not expand until we have Bowen enough good awards.

Also, remember how much work goes into each award. There are polls to set up, Awards to tally, and presentations to write. Tallying the votes is a bitch. It takes forever, especially when I have to sift through the write-ins. (I'm not in any way suggesting we remove write-ins. That would be stupid.)

 

[New Super Mario]

Here is my policy: We will not expand until we have Bowen enough good awards.

Also, remember how much work goes into each award. There are polls to set up, Awards to tally, and presentations to write. Tallying the votes is a bitch. It takes forever, especially when I have to sift through the write-ins. (I'm not in any way suggesting we remove write-ins. That would be stupid.)

Can't the poll just automatically count it?

 

[ralphfan]

It doesn't do the write-in stuff. Olol, autocorrect changed something to Bowen.

 

[Marioguy1]

NSM: The poll can't tell the difference between weegee, weegee., weege, weegie, wiegee, wygee or however else people can misspell it; ralph can.

 

[Garlic Man]

What is "disconnected"

 

[New Super Mario]

NSM: The poll can't tell the difference between weegee, weegee., weege, weegie, wiegee, wygee or however else people can misspell it; ralph can.

Oh yeah, I forgot about misspellings.

What is "disconnected"

The Userpedia Newspaper

 

[Marioguy1]

What is "disconnected"

The Userpedia Newspaper

MAGAZINE D:<

But yes, the Disconnected is Userpedia's equivalent of The 'Shroom, except we have a different format. Overall they are both community-run news projects.

EDIT: Something to note is that if you look at the new Shroomfooter, it has a link to The Disconnected; they are affiliates.

 

[BEEEEEAAARRRS]

If someone can name categories that would be good and have a variety of options to vote for for userpedia, lemme hear it. I cant really think of much that would qualify for userpedia.

 

[Garlic Man]

Toadbert.

 

[ralphfan]

Well, SMB should be posting his ideas here soon. Then we can debate over it.

We have set a maximum at 60 awards. We can either introduce five more UP, five more 'Shroom or neither. There are currently five of each.

NO NSM WE WILL NOT HAVE 15 USERPEDIA AWARDS THAT IS OUT OF THE QUESTION

To clarify why I feel we should stop at 55:

We barely had enough presenters for 50 awards last year, and that was with Stooben doing seven presentations and Gamefreak and I each doing five. I can't possibly imagine we can get many more presenters, especially with the people who were angry after what happened during last year's ceremony.

We cater to a lot of young voters with a short attention span. Part of running a good show is knowing your audience. There are a lot of young children who are voting as well as a lot of non-users. For the young children, the more awards they see, the more likely they'll get bored and not vote on some of them. The non-users won't know what The 'Shroom or Userpedia are, and though a few will join once they hear about it, most will just ignore it.

It will be tough to even fit five more awards in. Last year's ceremony took just under five and a half hours (the Mario Awards, the main focus, taking about three). If we include more awards, only half of the ceremony will be the actual Mario Awards, which is supposed to be the spotlight. We wouldn't have a show if it weren't for the Mario series itself. In addition, a lot of people can't just sit at their computer for six hours on a Friday afternoon/evening. Stretching the ceremony out to two days will make it even harder for people to attend since they have to schedule more things out of their way. There are a lot of older users, many of whom are retired, who swing by for the ceremony. Some even rearrange their work schedules to come. Changing one day is hard enough. The schedule can't possibly handle any more. It's as saturated as it can possibly be.

 

[Super Mario Bros.]

Userpedia and 'Shroom Awards

Hello everybody. As I'm sure you've all heard, I have some suggestions and announcements to make for the two ceremonies listed in the title.

I'd like to begin by just saying I'm extremely disappointed in the fact that there is a 60 award cap and that the Userpedia (which already suffered losses last year) awards and The 'Shroom awards (which I see a lot of potential in even though they are the newest of the bunch) are the ones that will be affected by this limit. I'm also especially disappointed in seeing that five awards about the worst aspects of the Mario series would be more important to include than extra 'Shroom and extra Userpedia awards; considering the historical and community relevance of UP and the paper, I would expect that these two would at least match the amount of Fail Awards, especially since some of the Fail Awards themselves are simply slightly altered main Mario Awards. This is just my opinion, though; I will not force everybody to think what I feel.

But that is not the main purpose of this post. I felt the need to address that now so that it would not become a surprise later on down the line. The main point that is to be addressed are the options I wanted to share for expansion of the Userpedia ceremonies and 'Shroom ceremonies.



I drew up a list of possible UP Awards if we were to expand to 10 again. I felt, when drawing up the list and possible nominations, that a lot of these would be important to cover throughout the community, Userpedia, and other things.

I made the general makeup of the UP awards as follows:
-5 factually relevant awards relating to the community.
-2 Userpedia fiction related awards
-2 Disconnected Awards
-1 User of the Year award

I understand some of these topics were disputed, some accepted, and others not even discussed. But please observe my reasoning for each award and its nominees.

#Favorite Rename of a User (Volke, Red Barchetta, Smiley The Hun, Don't Fear, "Henry Clay"-styled names)

A traditional Userpedia Award, we always have some sort of name changes going on in the community. Volke, although he had established his common name as Volke for a while, pretty much got it officially recorded on Userpedia when he changed his username to it within the last year. Packy had several name changes, Red Barchetta being the most recent. Smiley The Hun, although was a sockpuppet of Grapes, recently had confessed and had her Grapes account over at UP changes to STH to reflect this. Tabuu also is notorious for his name changing, so his most recent was listed. There was also the name-changing incident earlier this year when Plumber requested people to change their usernames to something related to "Henry Clay"; several people did.

#Favorite Retired User (3Dejong, Son of Suns, Salty, Plumber, My Bloody Valentine, Wayoshi, Scarecrow, Tucayo, Ghost Jam)

A definite must. All of the users listed are here due to extreme prominence in the community before their retirement, and even after in most cases.

#Favorite Community Project (Featured Articles, Proposals, The 'Shroom, The Disconnected, PipeProjects, Super Mario Wiki Anniversary, MarioWiki Community Polls)

Something I felt would be a little interesting and unique. We've not had an award like this before, and caters to the MarioWiki, Userpedia, and even Fantendo community in certain choices listed.

#Favorite Artist (Castle Toad, Edofenrir, Totodile3456, Girrrtacos, Super Luigi! Number one!, Mason, Stooben Rooben, KingBowser99)

Due to a resurgence in artwork being done in the Userpedia community, as well as the amount of artists in general, I felt it would warrant bringing the award back. All users have been involved in making Userpedia artwork and are listed in the Userpedia Artwork Committee pages.

#Favorite User-Created Site (Userpedia, The Xephyr Board, Fantendo, MCD Forums, )

This one is incomplete. Several sites have lost notability and are not presented in this year's suggested version, and some others (like LinkJorge) crashed and are no longer (and weren't really) relevant to begin with. This list might be incomplete: I know there are other users out in this community that have their own user-created sites that are starting to develop their own sub-communities.

#Favorite User Design (Uniju, Walkazo, Edofenrir, Henrydamoose, Beanbean, Peachycakes 3.14, Mason)

Suggested by Edo publicly that we keep this award, with Mason being added to the list of choices. This is a good award to begin with.

#Favorite User Creation (The Resolutions of 132, Uniju Holiday Theatre, Spirit Lies, User Soup, Master Wikians, The Three Mushketeers, Friday Night Live, Bodacious Legends of Ambiguous Hilarity, Brawl of the Wiki)

Several old creations were kept, while some were replaced with newer ones that are beginning to be more prominent in Userpedia.

#Favorite Disconnected Issue (Issues 1 - 20)

I understand we initially disagreed to have Disconnected awards due to "lack of influence", but I must say that this is not the case. Given the amount of energy that has been put into the magazine for the past two years (minus a few months...), how high it was put in the priority listing of Ralph, me, MG1, and SLNO, and the fact that the focus of the magazine has changed and the layout has also changed several times... It is a little more than not relevant, and in comparison to other projects on Userpedia, is extremely more important as it survived a possible cancellation early on in its history, unlike several other projects on the site (such as Featured Articles and Proposals). The amount of users that have signed up recently, the increased interest, and the fact that the magazine has had its fair share of supporters and critics throughout its tenure, I feel it is relevant enough to have an award or two.

This award can specifically represent favorite changes from issue to issue, how it was presented, and several other factors. It will reflect a lot about the effort put into a certain issue and the sizes as well.

#Favorite Disconnected Director (Walkazo, Stooben Rooben, Ultima Bahamut, Super Mario Bros., Marioguy1, Ralphfan, Super Luigi! Number one!)

In contrast with the award above, this one would focus on a certain era in Disconnected history, whether it be in the handling of the project in its prehistory or in its contemporary era. Different directing styles, goals for the magazine, and other things can be accounted for when a user places their vote, as well as overall approval for each individual's job in furthering the magazine along.

#User of the Year ( )

This was one that Tucayo suggested and that we all said should be put in this year's Userpedia Awards ceremony. I didn't want to put in nominations for this one, as it would be up to everybody else. The goal of what this award will represent is kind of obvious: which user has had the most influence, accomplishments, and overall effectiveness in the community.



As for 'Shroom Awards:

*Favorite Director - HK-47/Sadaharu, Wayoshi, Plumber, Glowsquid, Stooben Rooben, Tucayo, Super Mario Bros.

Kind of obvious as to why we would have it. Who has led the 'Shroom most effectively and who has set the best goals for the paper.

*Favorite Sub-director - Garlic Man, Tucayo, Stooben Rooben, Twentytwofiftyseven

Over time, the role of the Sub-director has changed substantially. Initially, it wasn't a glorious job that got a lot of the praise and consideration it does now. However, it soon rose up to hold a huge prominence over the paper. The sub-director in some points of time have been considered as co-equal with the Director and has had a boost in influence.

*Favorite Sub-Team - Fake News, Fun Stuff, Music & Artwork, Pipe Plaza

Which sub-team is preferred.

*Favorite Sub-team Director - WarioLoaf (Fake News), Confused (Fake News), Xzelion (Fake News), 3Dejong (Fake News), Stooben Rooben (Fake News), Glitchman (Fake News), Xpike (Fake News), Ralphfan (Fake News), Super Mario Bros. (Fake News, Music & Artwork, Pipe Plaza), Edofenrir (Fake News), Volke (Fun Stuff), Tucayo (Fun Stuff), Gamefreak75 (Fun Stuff), YellowYoshi127 (Music & Artwork), Paper Pikachu (Music & Artwork), Fawfulfury65 (Music & Artwork), Marioguy1 (Pipe Plaza)

The choices in blue can be removed if necessary. Many sub-team directors have played important roles (especially in recent 'Shroom-history) in shaping the paper, and especially their entire section: which one has done their job and used their influence in the best manners possible? If the list is too large, I can settle for using only current sub-team directors to narrow it down.

*Favorite New Writer - New writers that have joined anytime since June 2010 that are prominent writers.

We would need to hold a meeting to discuss nominations.

*Favorite Veteran Writer - Writers that have joined anytime before, and not including, June 2010 that were prominent writers.

We would need to hold a meeting to discuss nominations.

*Favorite Retro Issue - All of the issues that HK-47, Wayoshi, Plumber, and Glowsquid directed (24, including 2006 Beginnings).

*Favorite Recent Issue - All of the issues up to May that Stooben, Tucayo, and I directed (27).

At first, I was not willing to budge on singling out which issues to use. However, at this point, I'd be willing to do preliminary forum voting to reach conclusions on these to narrow the choices down for each one.

*Favorite Section - Review Corner, Entertainment Section, Interview, Should Have Been, Brawl Tactics, Wheels Tips Corner/Cosmic Tips Corner, Fading Into Obscurity, Character Reviews

Sections (that are not sub-teams) that have been in recent issues.

*Favorite Event - Includes the election debates, events held on the forum (e.g. 'Shroom mafia, Family Feud), and events directly on The 'Shroom (Special Issue XXX, Issue XL, Holiday Issue, UCT, etc.)

This one is for special 'Shroom events not covered in other awards.



I ask that everybody please have an open mind and please understand that I only want the best for the show. I worked really hard on establishing the list of potential Userpedia awards throughout the week in preparation of suggesting them tonight, and the 'Shroom staff had put a lot of hard work into establishing the list of potential 'Shroom awards for a couple of months.

If necessary, I might ask that we take out several Fail Awards or if I could be permitted to cut posting time of the scripts for the UP Awards in half to be able to fit all awards. We've all worked very hard to see the Awards night become a success throughout the past years, and I feel that if we make these inclusions, we can satisfy that goal yet again. I'd be willing to do whatever it takes to add these awards, including:

-Advertising the Awards on Userpedia and posting up polls for the UP Awards on the wiki as well.

-Extensively advertising meetings, voting, and the ceremonies in general in the Director's Notes of The 'Shroom, in #mwchat, in #mwshroom, Userpedia forum, The Disconnected (I can probably convince SLNO to let me do so), and such.

-Working with the Poll Committee to perhaps work out a system of allowing two polls on the Main Page: one poll being the regularly biweekly poll, and the other spot being a more frequent rotation of polls from the Awards.

-Adding a link at the bottom of the Community Poll template on the Main Page leading to the Awards voting page when it comes.

-Writing back-up scripts for every single newly suggested award in both ceremonies.