The 'Shroom talk:Issue 164/Awards Director Election

Awards Committee Director Election

Here is where you can post your campaign! Have fun, and good luck!

Anton / Turb
Hey peeps, Turb and I are here to run again as your Awards Committee Director/Sub-Director! As we’ve been at the helm of this for some years now, we feel that we’ve got a good flow with how to process all of the labor and structure of the events, limiting the amount of trouble while still keeping up as many fun events as we can. Our constant focus is refining the whole undertaking by always examining what worked and didn’t work, and approaching it logically and informed working with the Awards Committee to gather multiple perspectives.

To briefly introduce us if you aren’t too familiar, both Turb and I are two people who have been members of this community since 2008/2009 and have been involved in many aspects of this community, most relevant to this being having been Awards Directors in the past, including our partnership in the last couple of years. Outside of Awards, we are both active in Chat as members as well as admins, which is where you will likely find us at any given moment of every day. You can typically find me blabbing about food, while Turb is ever-trying to get a game of D&D running.

We intend on maintaining the current flow we've had in managing all of the Anniversary events, in terms of structure and layout of meetings and the ceremony, as well as the persistent focus on keeping the award categories fresh and relevant. The largest changes and focus we anticipate currently revolve around keeping tabs on varying levels of activity: what do people want to do? What do they not want to do? What do they say they want to do and then not actually do? These are trends we need to follow to fill up our time with things that are actually happening instead of dead space.

Our goal for this year is to maintain the tone and strength we’ve helped develop in the last couple of years, all while keeping both staff and the community interested and active without requiring an oppressive amount of attention and work, and instead prioritizing the focus on fun and creativity. Projects and ideas that show good potential will be given support and care, while those that feel to be waning (i.e. tokens) will be given a check for future viability. We are looking forward to your support if you wish to give us that chance.

Both of us have years of experience directly involved in running the Awards Committee and ceremony events, but below you'll find a more expanded list of our qualifications, kept brief to what's relevant to the position, as well as a basic outline of some thoughts and plans for the upcoming year.

Relevant Experience
Anton (Director):
 * Current Director of the MarioWiki Anniversary Awards Committee (Mario Awards X (2016) – Mario Awards XIV (2020)), Co-Director (Mario Awards IX - 2015)
 * Awards Committee member (2011 – 2020 (Mario Awards VI – XIV)).
 * Current 'Shroom Critic Corner Director (Issue 112 – Present); 'Shroom Contributor (Issue LXXXVII – Present)
 * Current #mwchat Founder (June 2014 – Present) and Chat / Discord Admin (3 November, 2010 – Present)
 * Current Userpedia Steward (18 November, 2012 – 31 December, 2017 [Closed])
 * UP Awards Host (2014, 2015)

Turb (Sub-Director):
 * Current Sub-Director of the MarioWiki Anniversary Awards Committee (Mario Awards X (2016) – Mario Awards XIV (2020)); Former Director (2012 – 2014)
 * Current Fail Awards Host (2016 – 2020)
 * Current Sysop (19 March, 2014 – Present) and former MarioWiki Patroller (30 April, 2013 – 19 March, 2014)
 * Former ‘Shroom Sub-Director (October 2013–January 2015)
 * Current #mwchat / Discord Admin (5 July 2010 – Present)

Plans
Major changes we made previously and intend to continue included:
 * Longer intermissions between ceremonies. While just a simple extra 5 minutes, it certainly helped people catch up who either fell behind or were busy enjoying a longer presentation before.
 * Ensuring that there is a 3 week work period (2 weeks normal, 1 after soft deadline) for presentations, as shifting calendars can create situations like in 2016 where, while our general schedule of events doesn't change, the allotted time for creating presentations ended up being only 2 weeks. This tighter focus on scheduling in 2018 made a noticeable difference in alleviating stressful impending deadlines, within reason, and continued having success in preventing undue deadline stress the following years.
 * Continuing to keep older awards in check for relevancy, including creating annual rotating award categories for Wario, Yoshi, and DK representation to cycle various aspects of each brand (levels, characters, etc.) to maintain their level of inclusion while still providing fresh and interesting poll results.
 * Maintaining an Awards Committee application system to help create a more focused and responsive group, which we found to be successful with plenty of applicants who were willing, motivated, and active.
 * A formal partnership with the Poll Committee to balance Main Page space and rotation for our Mario and Fail Awards Polls to guarantee a high amount of exposure to keep up our consistently high polling numbers as of the last few years
 * The appointment of an Awards Record Keeper to help maintain consistency, accuracy, and quality of information and documents. While it was an extra layer of red tape, it allowed for a vastly lower amount of late-stage minor errors that chip away at tight deadlines and nerves.
 * We plan to continue working with experienced Awards Committee members and consultants, upon personal confirmation, to provide technical support, advice, and information management.

There are some improvements and changes that could be made, of course, which we plan to work with the AC to explore, develop, and potentially implement:
 * Likely the most important change for 2021 will be the shift in use for Crowdsignal (formerly PollDaddy), as their site is severely limiting or doing away with free accounts. Either a shift in use, locating a new poll host, or just simply coughing up the funds, as well as other potential options for it will be looked into.
 * Viewing time for presentations:
 * It has become a large enough concern among people following the ceremony in real time that some presentations are lengthy, extending beyond the 5-minute slot they are allotted, causing congestion and backup, or forcing a viewer to just set it aside in order to keep up with the flow. While improved upon in 2020, we will continue to assess needs and desired changes.
 * Ideas were floated to increase the time between each presentation, which I personally do not want to see done; or to arrange presentations in a way that attempts to prevent backup by avoiding placing long presentations next to each other, which is currently not possible due to lax adherence to presentation deadlines.
 * We intend on brainstorming with the Committee possible solutions to this issue within the parameters of workload vs. value.
 * More to be determined as necessary throughout the year.

As always, this is a general list of plans and will be expanded upon as time moves forward. The Suggestion Box from the Awards Board before and after the Ceremony helps shape our agenda and direction, and will continue to be used as a resource of our community's priorities and interests. If this sounds good to you and you trust us with the handling of the Mario Awards XV, we will be delighted to have your vote!

Thank you very much, and here’s to another successful awards celebration in 2021!