TWCL

Chilari · Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:20 pm Post subject: Judging and Judges

Ok, so how do we want to judge the awards? The options we have are as follows:

Firstly,
1A. Everyone can nominate and vote.
1B. Only webcartoonists can nominate and vote.

Secondly,
2A. Those eligable to nominate and vote are the ones who choose both shortlist and eventual winner
2B. Those eligable to nominate and vote narrow down a shortlist and then the judges vote for the winner.

Thirdly, if there are judges,
3A. Are their webcomics excluded from the category/ies they're judging?
3B. Are there different judges for each category, to reduce workload, or one set of judges, to reduce the total number of judges.
3C. Are they all from within TWCL community?
3D. Do we branch out and ask other prominent names in the webcomic industry?
3E. Do we branch out further and ask big names that aren't so connected to the webcomics comminuty (but perhaps connected with comics in general or other creative pursuits)?

Does anything else need to be considered? And what does everyone think?

We can maybe have a poll or three about this once things have been discussed a bit, if there's not an obvious consensus in this thread.
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Novil · Joined: 01 Sep 2008 Posts: 392

1B. Only webcartoonists can nominate and vote.

2B. Those eligable to nominate and vote narrow down a shortlist and then the judges vote for the winner.

3A. Are their webcomics excluded from the category/ies they're judging?
No.

3B. Are there different judges for each category, to reduce workload, or one set of judges, to reduce the total number of judges.
One set of judges so that voting is consistent. It would be also hard to find that many judges for every category.

3C. Are they all from within TWCL community?
Absolutely not.

3D. Do we branch out and ask other prominent names in the webcomic industry?
Yes, after the rules are established and the website is online, etc.

3E. Do we branch out further and ask big names that aren't so connected to the webcomics comminuty (but perhaps connected with comics in general or other creative pursuits)?
If possible.
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LukeSurl · Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:37 pm Post subject: Re: Judging and Judges

My 2 cents on a few of these.

Quote:

1A. Everyone can nominate and vote.

Don't think this would be particuarly useful. We already know which comics are popular.

Quote:

3A. Are their webcomics excluded from the category/ies they're judging?

Yes, and possibly all catagories. As is the comic of any person involved in the awards in any organisational or technical capacity.

Quote:

3B. Are there different judges for each category, to reduce workload, or one set of judges, to reduce the total number of judges.

Depends on how many judges we can get. Smile

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3C. Are they all from within TWCL community?

I agree with oppy in the other thread

oppernaR wrote:

I have to agree with some points mentioned though; an all TWCL panel would not only be a poor representation of the entire webcomic community, it would also undermine the credibility of the entire award.
And let's be honest, bringing people in from outside (bigger fish? perhaps cewebleties with no link to webcomics?) would also mean free promotion *cough* .. I mean.. yes, free promotion of thewebcomiclist ¬_¬

Quote:

3D. Do we branch out and ask other prominent names in the webcomic industry?
3E. Do we branch out further and ask big names that aren't so connected to the webcomics comminuty (but perhaps connected with comics in general or other creative pursuits)?

Sounds good to me.
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wendyw · Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:57 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Firstly,
1A. Everyone can nominate and vote.
1B. Only webcartoonists can nominate and vote.

I go with option C, webcartoonists and established community members, but in both cases with conditions that they would have to meet.

Quote:

Secondly,
2A. Those eligable to nominate and vote are the ones who choose both shortlist and eventual winner
2B. Those eligable to nominate and vote narrow down a shortlist and then the judges vote for the winner.

I say B

Quote:

Thirdly, if there are judges,
3A. Are their webcomics excluded from the category/ies they're judging?
3B. Are there different judges for each category, to reduce workload, or one set of judges, to reduce the total number of judges.
3C. Are they all from within TWCL community?
3D. Do we branch out and ask other prominent names in the webcomic industry?
3E. Do we branch out further and ask big names that aren't so connected to the webcomics comminuty (but perhaps connected with comics in general or other creative pursuits)?

Judges and major organisers' comics should be completely excluded in my mind. Having their comics eligible leaves things open for allegations of rigging and puts the legitimacy of the awards in question.

Different judges would be nice to reduce workload and maybe allow for people to judge things that are more personally relevant to them, allow humour writers to judge humour comics and so on, but we'd have to see how many people we could get on board to see if that would be possible.

I'd also say that we should definitely look outside of this forum for at least some of the judges.
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Chilari · Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:11 pm Post subject:

wendyw wrote:

Judges and major organisers' comics should be completely excluded in my mind. Having their comics eligible leaves things open for allegations of rigging and puts the legitimacy of the awards in question.

I agree.

wendyw wrote:

Different judges would be nice to reduce workload and maybe allow for people to judge things that are more personally relevant to them, allow humour writers to judge humour comics and so on, but we'd have to see how many people we could get on board to see if that would be possible.

Hmm, good point. Perhaps, depending on how many judges we can get, we could have a core of say 4 judges judging all categories, plus three judges in each category who are only judging one or two categories each. So someone who's involved in humour comics would judge the humour category but not the longform category. Does that sound sensible? (Of course, it also assumes we can get a minimum number of judges).

wendyw wrote:

I'd also say that we should definitely look outside of this forum for at least some of the judges.

I agree.
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Dutch · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:12 am Post subject: Re: Judging and Judges

Gonna slightly alter this one...

Novil wrote:

3A. Are their webcomics excluded from the category/ies they're judging?
No.

No, but they are excluded from judging that category if they are nominated in it. Can't have any possibility of compromised choices.
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KEZ · Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 778 Location: Not anymore!

Quote:

Firstly,
1A. Everyone can nominate and vote.
1B. Only webcartoonists can nominate and vote.

Neither. I think you guys will run into the same problem with the WCCAs. The SAME webcomics nominated time and time again. Is it a popularity contest or is it an award ceremony?

In a perfect world, I think you guys need to nominate 10 people to go out there and FIND the comics that don't know about this, to nominate the gems we don't know about rather than the ones that already receive all the attention. If that's not possible, in the real world, than definitely 1B.

Quote:

Secondly,
2A. Those eligable to nominate and vote are the ones who choose both shortlist and eventual winner
2B. Those eligable to nominate and vote narrow down a shortlist and then the judges vote for the winner.

2B. 2A still makes it a popularity contest, not an awards ceremony.

Quote:

Thirdly, if there are judges,
3A. Are their webcomics excluded from the category/ies they're judging?
3B. Are there different judges for each category, to reduce workload, or one set of judges, to reduce the total number of judges.
3C. Are they all from within TWCL community?
3D. Do we branch out and ask other prominent names in the webcomic industry?
3E. Do we branch out further and ask big names that aren't so connected to the webcomics comminuty (but perhaps connected with comics in general or other creative pursuits)?

Judges must never judge a category where their comic is included, but that doesn't mean they must be excluded from the whole contest. You'll need back-up judges to fill in, in case one judge's comic gets nominated for their round.

I don't think there needs to be different judges for each category. What is more important is that the judges are all qualified, but have diverse enough experience to cover all sorts of comics they will come up against.

3D/3E: when I was talking about this same type of thing on Twitter, I argued for nearly all judges to be out of the webcomic community, to validate the awards. However, starting up, especially if this is the "TWCL Awards," I don't think it's important yet. It's not the universal "Webcomic Awards." It's more community-oriented, right? If this gets big enough though, definitely ask the established ones, and the guys that made webcomics into what they are today. Scott McCloud, for instance, regardless if you agree with him or not, that's true clout and validation right there.

For judges, you guys may want your own nomination round for that. Community-chosen judges that meet certain criteria would be a good choice for the "first annual" (hopefully, right?) awards.
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jaygee · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:32 am Post subject:

KEZ wrote:

For judges, you guys may want your own nomination round for that. Community-chosen judges that meet certain criteria would be a good choice for the "first annual" (hopefully, right?) awards.

Definitely a good idea!
a) Maybe elect judges who are prepared to solely judge the comic (i.e. art, story line, writing etc) and not the webpage design/functionality. There's great art out there - however sometimes on pages with slow loading speed and a navigation that sucks...?
b) To allow a judging process as unbiased as possible, maybe agree to certain key points that need to be addressed by each judge during the judgment of each comic? However, these key points could be genre/category/whatever specific...(these genres don't need to be strict, however, I think some categories are needed to enable a judgement as fair as possible).

And just to kick some ideas around - key points for let's say a long-form space opera with some action content and some quirky humour (I just made this up - no offence to any space opera with action and humour!) could involve:
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1.) how well do art and text match (i.e. are they an entity?), 2.) is the story flowing nicely? 3.) How are the protatgonists/aliens characterised? Do they fit into the story or are they simply a decoration for incredibly sophisticated background drawings of the universe? 4.) How does the artist deal with gadgets/spaceships/planets/the milkyway? 5.) How is the comic as a "package"? etc...

when every judge has "scaled" their comics along these keypoints, the average could be used to come to a final decision.

Would this work? Could this work?
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Kallisti · Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 709 Location: Der Interwebs

I'm with Kez about my fears that this will turn into another mind-numbingly boring popularity contest, especially if the final judging is opened to the masses. Between PA, LICD, XKCD, QC, GG, and a handfull of others, there'd be little-to-no room for anyone else unless the category was something like a "best comic created within the last year" award, and even then I somehow suggest one of those would figure out a way to sneak in and win it.

I just wish we could make it like independent film awards do, where they put a limiter on it to prevent the top big-budget movies from completely destroying everyone else.
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wendyw · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:27 am Post subject:

I'm inclined to accept both Kallisti and Casual Notice on their offer to be judges, which gives us two so far.

I have a couple of other people I'm going to speak to today and see how they feel about it.
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LukeSurl · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:52 am Post subject:

Are we deciding on judges - those who actually decide who wins - or a committee - those who will sort the multitude of grey-areas and questions about the rules?

If it's the former, isn't that a little premature? We haven't even got the format fixed yet. We should probably at least get the catagories decided before we decide who judges them.

And, with no offense to Kallisti and Casual, I think we can go bigger in terms of jury personalities, I'm thinking people who have their own (or at least their comic's own) Wikipedia pages sort of thing. For example, I reckon, given a little time, I could persuade this nice lady to be involved, and between us we could probably get a host of quite widely respected people.

Also having forum members on the jury leaves us very open to allegations of insularism, and could be a nightmare if another forum member is shortlisted or even wins.
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Kallisti · Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 709 Location: Der Interwebs

I guess the real question is... what sort of awards are these supposed to be? Do we really want them to be whole-internet awards, or a TWCL-based community effort?

To me, there doesn't seem to be a lot of point in even *calling* it the TWCL Awards if all the comics we nominate and the people who we have judge are people who aren't members of the TWCL community... is there? That'd be like having a Friar's Club Roast featuring people who aren't in the Friar's Club.
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wendyw · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:27 pm Post subject:

My thoughts on the matter were that we can combine the two, with judges consisting both of community members and people brought in from outside of the forums.
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Chilari · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:35 pm Post subject:

I think we should have a mix; while we don't want it to be too insular, it's still TWCL awards, so at least one or two forum members should be judges, especially since Casual and Kallisti have volunteered (and both have them have know-how and experience, so I see no reason they shouldn't be judges). Then we ask a few prominent names - the Halfpixel guys, perhaps, or Scott McCloud, or creators of huge big popular and well known webcomics, or even get a bit more ambitious and ask someone like Neil Gaiman on the off-chance (though maybe being that ambitious should wait til next year, when we'll have some kinks ironed out and some sort of precedence).

Though really we should discuss who we want to ask when we have other things sorted, like how many judges there will be, when it'll be, and how much we expect the judges to actually do.
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wendyw · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:40 pm Post subject:

Chilari wrote:

Though really we should discuss who we want to ask when we have other things sorted, like how many judges there will be, when it'll be, and how much we expect the judges to actually do.

You're right. First we need to know for certain what people will be voting on and the structure of how the voting works.
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