The 'Shroom:Issue LXXVIII/Awards Committee Commentaries

Awards Committee Commentaries

I think that last year, I said something like "I hope that we can make next year's ceremony the best one yet," and what can I say? Despite needing to replace quite a few presentations and getting down to the wire with things, I think that this year really improved on a lot of things. Even with the last-minute rush, there were a lot of stand-out presentations, and the ceremony itself went pretty smoothly.

Once again, there's not much to say here due to the lack of anything super-notable happening (which might be a good thing). I have no doubt that we can improve even more next year, and I hope to be there for it!

Hello, readers! Your subdirector Superchao here, commenting on this year's awards. At least this time I started as the subdirector rather than basically usurping the position from SMB, haha. Anyhow, the meetings at least went rather well! ...I'd admit there was a lack of ideas for new awards, though. Which is why we had to salvage the Mario ones from others!

Now, the meetings may have gone well. And the tallying took a bit, but that wasn't too bad either. The presentations, though... those were not fun. We ended up cutting it a record close in terms of how late some of those got in. We were missing like a third the week before ceremony, and one of the presentations we got on the day of the ceremony itself. That was stressful. Luckily, in 2014 it seems we'll have more time, so if I'm back then it should be a little less "oh god panic".

Not that I minded doing the ceremony! That, at least, was pretty enjoyable - and guest hosting one of the ceremonies was actually pretty fun. Maybe I can see about being a full host in 2014... I'll admit, some of the results I could have done without. But that's a problem to deal with after the election, ahaha. Anyhow, all in all I don't think I'd mind at all redoing this next year.

Hey everybody, SMB here again. I want to congratulate Turboo and Superchao on another year well done– the ceremonies were fun, there were many great events this year, and they did a lot to ensure that everything went as well as it did. I had a lot of fun hosting 'Shroom Awards IV this year (which was a bit refreshing after having hosted the Userpedia Awards for the past couple of years) even if I ended up posting a lot of the presentations, haha. Turboo and Superchao have always been willing to work with us at The 'Shroom to make sure that our ceremonies go well and to open up the doors to new projects and collaborations such as the trading of 'Shroom Tokens for Awards Tokens, which started this year. I am glad to have been able to work with them again this year and I look forward to the wiki's ninth anniversary!

Also, I had a lot of fun participating in Awards Mafia III (hosted by Ralphfan and Smasher) and the second Team Fortress 2 tournament (hosted by Groden and Stooben Rooben). Both were particularly fun events that had a lot of planning behind them, and I think they were done excellently. I hope that we will be able to enjoy these sorts of activities, as well as the other ones that others of us participated in, in the time leading up to and following the ceremonies next year.

This year, unfortunately, I was unable to attend the actual ceremony because of work, but as a Userpedia Steward and thus Userpedia Host, I was able to have a hand in how the Userpedia portion was shaped along with the rest of the categories and keep tabs on progress, all of which I enjoyed and hope to continue next year!

My goal this year was to take big steps to modernize the UP awards—make the categories and nominees things and people who are actually relevant today. Our history was good and all of the people who helped start the site deserve some praise, but glorifying 2007-2008 year after year does nothing but drown out any newcomers with new ideas. Being a site for the community, we (the UP staff) felt that we needed to turn our focus more on the community instead of our own history. While I believe that we still have to work on that for next year in terms of recognizing more contemporary users and less on things that people really know nothing about (Dry Bones Jr. grrrrr), the way voting went overall this year showed that progress has been made and that more work will only yield better results. We’ve already got some ideas floating around on how to remedy some current problems, and will welcome any suggestions!

I was also able to participate in the Pokemon tournament and (very briefly) the TF2 tournament. I really hope that events like these continue, and participation in them goes up since they’re rather fun!

Congrats on hard work well done by the Awards Committee, the Shroom and Userpedia staffs, and presenters!

Oh, yeah, the AC Commentaries. I could give a huge lecture as to why we should restrict voting in the Community Awards, but people probably want to hear some positive stuff, so I'll go with that. I want to commend all the hosts - for both the ceremonies and the events -, the Awards Committee members, and presenters for their outstanding job. I'd also like to give some major kudos to my friends Turboo and Superchao for putting together such an amazing ceremony, you're awesome. This year was a bit different for me; for the first time I didn't know the 'Shroom results beforehand, which was nice. I also participated in my first TF2 tournament, in which I had a blast. I took part in the Mafia and Guess The Results again, and my results were pretty much the opposite; in the former I was part of the winning faction, in the latter I got second-to-last place.

It's been around six months since the Awards Committee first met to discuss the 2013 Awards Ceremony, and the fact that I can't remember much from the meetings we had must be an indication that things went rather smoothly (I'm interpreting my selective amnesia that way, anyway), and if there were any issues, they were easily resolved. Outside of the committee meetings, I thought that there were a fair number of interesting and engaging events this year. Awards Mafia III was a lot of fun, and it was nice to participate in the Mario Kart 7 tournament after missing last year's, even though I didn't get very far. Even though I did not get to see them during the ceremony itself (I came online toward the end of the Mario Awards, if memory serves), this year's presentations were, for the most part, entertaining, engaging, and of good quality, though it is evident that more effort needs to go toward ensuring presenters have access to information on or are knowledgeable about the subjects of the awards for which they sign up to create presentations. In any case, I enjoyed my time on the committee (as I did last year) and would gladly offer my time and input in order to serve on it again.


 * Main article: TF2 Tournament Thoughts

Hi there. To fall with the door inside, I pretty much enjoyed being on the Committee. As a newcomer, I didn't exactly knew what to expect after all. Nonetheless it all went fine, I even got a few nominations through. :P

I think, along with others, that next year the polls in the Userpedia and 'Shroom awards need to be improved, as in avoiding guests voting on their favorite name, instead of their feats. Seeing the informed voting pages didn't work out as expected, a different approach is needed. I would say something like having a short information window before even being allowed to vote. I know it may scare some off, but I think votes will be more informed.

Apart from that, the ceremonies went great! I also originally planned to only stay with the 'Shroom and Userpedia Awards, because it would be over midnight then, but I stayed through all of the ceremony. It was 4:30 when I went to sleep. Of course I also did that for the meetings, but there I could also sleep before the meeting, not just after.

I also had a Mario Kart 7 Tournament, which went better than previous year's. I go into detail about that here. I plan on doing Mario Kart 8 next year, seeing that will be out then.

I sure hope next year will be even better than this year's! (Though I bet this will be said every year.) Good day.


 * See also: MK7 Tournament Thoughts