Opening up the Awards Forum

[usedbooks]

I'm thinking a decent compromise would be to allow judges who wouldn't mind telling the creaters (if they want to hear it) what they thought.  That way you only have judges who want to share what they said sharing, and only people who want to hear crit hearing it (or reading it, rather). I wouldn't mind telling people what my impressions of their comic were.

I said that in one of my many edits of my last post! XD Basically, no don't open forums up, but no one takes a blood oath of secrecy either.

[Nicotine]

I'm thinking a decent compromise would be to allow judges who wouldn't mind telling the creaters (if they want to hear it) what they thought.  That way you only have judges who want to share what they said sharing, and only people who want to hear crit hearing it (or reading it, rather). I wouldn't mind telling people what my impressions of their comic were.

I said that in one of my many edits of my last post! XD Basically, no don't open forums up, but no one takes a blood oath of secrecy either.

xD I didn't catch it!
But then again, we wouldn't want people being harrassed, either.

(See me not name any names, Nicotine? I'm so evil.)

>_> Hey now (j/k! xD) Pfft, if you ask me, getting featured is slightly overrated; I felt like there was so much pressure on me to "live up to" the feature @_@. Toward the end, I was happy to be off the main page ^^;

[genejoke]

Harkovast already knows what I said about his comic, he paid well for my help to get  the awards...   whoops.

[usedbooks]

Pfft, if you ask me, getting featured is slightly overrated; I felt like there was so much pressure on me to "live up to" the feature @_@. Toward the end, I was happy to be off the main page ^^;

Gelotology got featured. It was nice to be, um, recognized. I draw that comic solely for my mother, so if anyone else enjoys it, that's icing. I'm not out to impress anyone, and my mom thinks I'm awesome. XD  (But feeling eyes on you is weird. I wanted to hide under the table at my first convention.)

UB is my passion, but I figure after four years and practically never missing an update, the admins just don't like it. XD Anyway, that's beside the point, featured comics are most prominent in the DD Awards because people have HEARD of them. So, I perk up my ego knowing my comic can get here without ever being in the top comics or featured or anything like that. (Technically, I draw that one solely for ME, but it is more part of me, so if people like it, it's kinda like liking me. Like.) And, yet, it is also intimidating because at least one good comic critic/admin saw something in those other comics. Heh. ^_^; So, don't go shrugging aside that honor, Nic. You wouldn't have gotten it if you didn't deserve it.

[Nicotine]

Aww, don't say that! There are many comics that have been around here since forever that are just getting featured.  I'd say don't fixate on it too much .

It is an honor, but I felt so much pressure that right after that my updates starting lacking a lot and I lost a lot of readers xD. But all in all, the TRK is for me honestly.  I know what you mean about UB being your passion; I very much feel the same way about TRK, I've never put so much energy into a creative endevour before.  As for conventions, the thought of displaying my work at one scares the crap out of me o_o. I feel safe hiding behind the internet lol. If I were to sit there and talk about my work I'd freeze up @_@.

[genejoke]

Pfft, if you ask me, getting featured is slightly overrated; I felt like there was so much pressure on me to "live up to" the feature @_@. Toward the end, I was happy to be off the main page ^^;

Gelotology got featured. It was nice to be, um, recognized. I draw that comic solely for my mother, so if anyone else enjoys it, that's icing. I'm not out to impress anyone, and my mom thinks I'm awesome. XD  (But feeling eyes on you is weird. I wanted to hide under the table at my first convention.)

UB is my passion, but I figure after four years and practically never missing an update, the admins just don't like it. XD Anyway, that's beside the point, featured comics are most prominent in the DD Awards because people have HEARD of them. So, I perk up my ego knowing my comic can get here without ever being in the top comics or featured or anything like that. (Technically, I draw that one solely for ME, but it is more part of me, so if people like it, it's kinda like liking me. Like.) And, yet, it is also intimidating because at least one good comic critic/admin saw something in those other comics. Heh. ^_^; So, don't go shrugging aside that honor, Nic. You wouldn't have gotten it if you didn't deserve it.

I like Gelotology.

[usedbooks]

I like Gelotology.

M...mom? o_0

[zaymac]

You know, it's not like we are forcing the creators to come back and look at the forums after the judging has ended.

If you don't wanna know what others said about your comic, you could just stay away. Just a thought.

[usedbooks]

You know, it's not like we are forcing the creators to come back and look at the forums after the judging has ended.

If you don't wanna know what others said about your comic, you could just stay away. Just a thought.

That's not the point.

The point isn't what the CREATORS want. It's the judges' privacy. It's having known you were engaged in a confidential discussion and then instead having it made public.  It's future potential judges feeling they have to censor themselves.

I don't think we can come up with a compromise on this. Thinking about it further, even if all this year's judges consent, it could still both dissuade and censor judging discussions next year.   Keep in mind that the decision this year was made to not let anyone even know who was on what panel. Making people privy to the actual conversation would be even more iffy.  

(It doesn't stop you from sharing your thoughts with creators if you like.  I'm sure most would be happy if you dropped by and left them a long comment on their comic or PQed them after the awards.  I've gotten critiques in my comments that had more detail than nearly every discussion in this forum.)

[JustNoPoint]

Yep. My biggest concern was the judges. Basically if any judge didn't want me to do this I wasn't going to do it.

Though I didn't think about the whole asking the judges. Maybe that can be a good alternative?

[El Cid]

Wow. I'm torn. On the one hand, I already know that my comic got ripped to shreds by the judges and I'm morbidly curious to see what was said. But on the other hand, I might have been a bit opinionated with my own categories and I'm not sure I'm okay with having a bunch of people read what I had to say. Buuuut... I guess since I already shared with the other judges in my categories there's no real reason for me to worry about sharing with the other judges. JUST the judges.

Probably a better idea though would be to release the discussions as an anonymous transcript, though that probably wouldn't be very easy to do. But that way at least you could release it to the general public and no one would likely object. I for one can say that I probably wouldn't have judged the way I had if I thought the whole world was going to be scrutinizing me after the fact.

[usedbooks]

Yep. My biggest concern was the judges. Basically if any judge didn't want me to do this I wasn't going to do it.

Though I didn't think about the whole asking the judges. Maybe that can be a good alternative?

Just keep in mind that the assignment of panels/categories was also anonymous and should remain stuff.

We aren't only concerned about this year's judges but the approach to judging as perceived by future volunteers. (Who might censor themselves if they know it could "get out." )

[JustNoPoint]

Meh, this is too much trouble to figure out a decent compromise.

All of you curious guys are all screwed. XD

I really want to show authors that want to improve. I loved reading the good and bad that was said about my comic last year and found it very helpful.

But I cannot compromise the awards. I keep wracking my brain trying to think of a good approach but it is simple, there isn't a good way to open this up.

I thank you all for the feedback though. I won't bring this up any more in the future now that it has been thoroughly discussed properly. There will be no opening of the awards.

[El Cid]

Well that's no fun! I'm all for the anonymous option. How about if the judges help out? I'd be willing to transcribe my three categories; I'll just rename the judges Judge A, B, and C. Since the identities of the judges for each category are known only to the admins and the judges themselves, it's perfectly anonymous, everybody gets to snoop, and nobody ends up with a death warrant over his head.

[Nicotine]

Bah! Oh wells, I guess it can't be helped.  I'll just hijack mod status next time (j/k xD)