Time for a change in award voting

[rory 1,916]

hi it's rory, here's my suggestion thread for 2021!

here's why voting sucks:
-secret ballot

-secret reasoning

-only half the eligible voters voted and it really skewed the votes imo

here's my fix:

-lots of active people now, so re-make the awards committee

 

thanks!  

[Frank 5,209]

Also find those ballots for Jeffrey Pines!

[JeffD 648]

[Jubis 1,348]

[Banackock 8,044]

Ya

[Josh 1,670]

[Gustav 6,407]

I think a good rule of thumb for any voting system, be it BOG, Award Committee, or whatever, is:

 

ACTUALLY MAKE PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THEIR VOTES AND JUSTIFY THEM IN VOTING THREADS.

 

Obviously I'm not here to point fingers and I don't even know who voted for what (that's not my business to know anyway) but I can think of multiple instances where someone won an award based on one person's argument...and I'd assume everyone else just silently agreeing and not contributing. I've been guilty of the same at times (including one season where I straight-up forgot to vote), so don't take this as me putting myself on some sort of moral high ground as that isn't the intent.

 

I actually agree with the concept of votes being released publicly (as in, I'd be fine with it if Victor came in and listed off everyone I voted for; I can take whatever heat anyone's got), but I do worry about how that would be used. I don't want to see people getting personally attacked, accused of voting to serve their own interests, voting to help their own predictions, and whatever else that would probably constitute a Code of Conduct violation worthy of punishment if it didn't inevitably gain popular support if it were worded well enough.

 

...which I think brings up an interesting debate. As a member I'd certainly be interested in seeing who voted which players for which things and who didn't (I don't even have access to that information myself). As someone in the BoG I'm fine with my own votes being plastered all over the forums or Discord, because as stated earlier, I get that people are going to get irrationally angry over some stuff and, if that happens over my votes at any time, it's nothing I haven't dealt with before either on here or in real life. That's my own situation. I can't speak for other people on this, because it should be fairly obvious that being trashed for your own opinions isn't something that anyone actively wants, regardless of whether or not anyone's actually cool with it happening. And also regardless of whether or not anyone's cool with it happening, if specific people being singled out and put down becomes something that routinely happens every season...is that really the way we want the community to go? Is it really the look we want to give off, especially to newer people right before their first big draft(s)? This community is great most of the time, but let's be honest--threads can get messy. And they often do when the topic is controversial.

 

So my opinion is this: transparency = good, definitely opening the door to drama and potentially opening the door to harassment = no good. Either way this goes, there's a big negative to point to.

Edited March 12, 2021 by GustavMattias

[rory 1,916]

if they can't justify why their voting for that person to the rest of the league then why are they voting for them at all lmfao

 

also it's stupid that nine people got to decide the vote when theirs 170 active people in the league (at least from the slobo votes). down with the top 5%!

[Jericho 917]

We actually used to have discussion threads in BoG during my time, not sure if they still do or not but that was the response previously when this issue arose.

[Gustav 6,407]

9 minutes ago, Jericho said:

We actually used to have discussion threads in BoG during my time, not sure if they still do or not but that was the response previously when this issue arose.

 

We do. It's hit or miss, sometimes I think there's a lot of great, educated debate and some other times I question who's reading the threads and who's just filling in the ballot.

 

Again, I'm not trying to put myself above anyone else in BoG. As I mentioned in my last post here there was one season where I forgot about voting entirely.

[Blazzer 759]

4 hours ago, rory said:

here's my fix:

-lots of active people now, so re-make the awards committee

THIS

[gorlab 4,321]

I believe the BoG has a thread literally identical to this, created in May of 2017. I assure you, they are well-aware of the issue and have discussed resolving it. 

[IamMOOSE 361]

26 minutes ago, gorlab said:

created in May of 2017

 

[bigAL 2,176]

9 hours ago, rory said:

only half the eligible voters voted and it really skewed the votes imo

wait wat really? There were 9 votes on every trophy. How many of these bog-people are there??

 

7 hours ago, GustavMattias said:

ACTUALLY MAKE PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THEIR VOTES AND JUSTIFY THEM IN VOTING THREADS.

This. Even if it’s just a media spot that explains their ballot. Release them publicly. Every decision on here was made rationally and logically, and I want to see what logic each of them operated on. As a stinky pleb, I don’t get to see what goes into an award decision because I’m not in the swamp forum. You overlords tell me what’s good. Is the Slotz only about scoring goals or are SBs good too? Looks like there’s some competing ideas there already. 
 

My rule of thumb when it comes to opinion is: you can say absolutely anything you want as long as you can reasonably justify it. (CoC notwithstanding). 
 

If you think Lahtinen won all the trophies again this year, that’s fine, but he prepared to explain it when challenged. Every decision we ever make, from picking out your socks in the morning to voting on spreadsheet hockey awards, was done with some sort of metric or reasoning. If you don’t know the logic that goes into your decisions, you’re just not looking hard enough. If you don’t know or can’t explain the reason you picked Red Lite over Zetterstrom, then maybe you aren’t reading or contributing to the discussion and shouldn’t be given a vote.

 

If you DO know why you did that, own your decision, justify it, and don’t back down. You’re special, you are entrusted by the league to have a vote, and at the end of the day that’s all that matters. You decide the winners, and us up here in the peanut gallery can argue all day and night, but can’t change the winner. But, we can demand an explanation of why you chose that winner. 
 

Finally, it sounds like we need some extra consistency and explanation of what each award actually is. Making voters explain their views shows us what’s valued more than others, what actually goes into a “defensive defensemen” or a “two way forward”. We can get pissed when the goal posts change every year based on who’s friend is up for which award, or we can applaud the consistent logic streak from season to season. 
 

Tell us what the award is. Tell us who won and why. Be proud to be on the awards committee, own your decision, and deal with the fallout. 
 

ok actually finally this time: we have to trust our community. Our mods are awesome. We’re getting better at self policing even without the reds. You can’t be making decisions to shield yourself from the potential of personal attacks. That’s the extreme opposite of transparency. With voting especially, I’d like to think that we could handle this. Lots of things here are very personal, but the award voting is one of the most non-human-personal things we do. Elembeck aside, awards are completely about on-fake-ice characters and performance. Bek didn’t win shit last night, but Mikko Lahtinen had to rent a truck to haul all his trophies home. Yes, people are deeply invested in their players and their teams, but the voters arguments begin and end with the objective, quantitative SimonT index. On awards night, it’s all about the players, and I think most of the angry mob you think is waiting for you in the comments knows that too. 

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

15 minutes ago, bigAL said:

wait wat really? There were 9 votes on every trophy. How many of these bog-people are there??

 

I've voted on awards maybe a handful times since I've been in the BoG. I don't pay enough attention to the individual performances of players outside of my team to have an educated enough opinion on the topic.

[Enorama 2,038]

Also, bring back rank choice voting while we're at it

[Dom 1,445]

13 minutes ago, Tate said:

 

There hasn’t been a single time I won an award where people didn’t complain about it. I wish I could ignore that about the league as it can be very discouraging but it’s just a part of the game. There’s always going to be hurt feelings and outrage, and many of the debates have been documented and contested since they first occurred. 

I get how that can get disappointing and annoying for you with the time. You can celebrate, you didn’t steal that trophy. At the end, the votes were pretty close and both players made sense. Of course everyone has a preference but I do not think you robbed it.

[Jubis 1,348]

Is it flawed ? .... yes !  Do I have an instant solution ? NO! 

 

Still can't believe Couture wasn't even discussed for the Funk. 

 

6 goals to 33 goals.  Yes i said 6 goals !!!

29 points to 65 points 

Biased  as ex calgary gm but still

Mind = blown 

Wheres the 1st gen love when it comes to awards??

 

How is an almost 30 goal ,50 pts player. scoring 40 goals , 90 points a bigger improvement. 

 

 

My 2 cents. 

I'm not a GM anymore so expect a much more edgy outspoken jubis  from now on. 

 

 

 

[Doomsday 4,130]

13 minutes ago, Jubis said:

How is an almost 30 goal ,50 pts player. scoring 40 goals , 90 points a bigger improvement. 

 

As someone who voted for Mingle, he went from a developing player into an elite power forward in the blink of an eye. If Lahtinen doesn't have the crazy amount of points he did, Mingle arguably wins the Boulet instead of simply being in the discussion. Couture was dramatically improved, but how many people outside of Calgary felt that impact as opposed to the improvement of Mingle?

[Peace 1,531]

Ah yes the good old “most impressive improvement” vs “most actual improvement”.

[Jubis 1,348]

30 minutes ago, Enorama said:

Also, bring back rank choice voting while we're at it

Ooooou what is this ?

Edited March 12, 2021 by Jubis

[bigAL 2,176]

48 minutes ago, Tate said:

There hasn’t been a single time I won an award where people didn’t complain about it. I

Yeah and I didn’t  mean to add my voice to that, that was just one example that jumped out at me in the thread. But you’re right, minimizing opportunities for personal nastiness is an important goal. Good point. 
 

31 minutes ago, Enorama said:

Also, bring back rank choice voting while we're at it

Yesssss. Lots of grumpiness might be helped with that extra layer of transparency. It’s easy to get mad when you were nominated and didn’t even get a vote. Maybe you were top 3 and with those numbers and an explanation you might not be so salty. 

[Beketov 9,025]

1 hour ago, bigAL said:

If you think Lahtinen won all the trophies again this year, that’s fine, but he prepared to explain it when challenged.

To be fair I only won 1 that was privately voted on. The Szat and Brooks were automatic and the Slobo was public. It's not like I made some deal with the devil to get all the private awards; hell I actually argued against myself for the Campbell (I also don't vote as a commish in case anyone is curious). Not that I think the point you were trying to make was anything more than using Lahtinen as an example but just pointing it out.

[Enorama 2,038]

8 minutes ago, Jubis said:

Ooooou what is this ?

 

Each voter doesn't just pick someone for each award, they rank them in order (usually top 3-5). The votees are assigned points in reverse order of their ranking.

 

For example, here's how it worked out the one time we did it:

 

[Crstats23 340]

As someone who ended up being nominated for the Funk, it surprised me to not see Couture even on the ballot, I’m even surprised I was on the ballot over them