[Amendment] Codifying VOTM Medal

[Augustus Lucifer]

Proposer: Augustus Lucifer
Supporters: Pøntifex
Additional Supporters:

Section V - Additional Provisions

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Article II. Community Awards

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Small Awards

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Video of the Month Competition

Winners of the Video of the Month competition (VOTM) qualify for the VOTM medal. The medal will be awarded according to the following circumstances:

• 3-8 wins - Bronze Medal
• 9-14 wins - Silver Medal
• 15+ wins - Gold Medal

Any member can qualify for this award.

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Rationale

The Video of the Month competition, a recently spawned offshoot of PotW and AAR competitions, already has awards assigned to it. These have not been explicitly defined in the Constitution, so this change seeks to do that as with all other awards. The current numbers listed are based on the numbers provided by Legio in this post and currently listed on the medal.

Personally, I think they're too high, being the same as PotW but in a competition that only occurs monthly, making the odds of anyone ever getting Gold astronomical(unless there's that few applicants). I think it would be better off modeled after the MAARC, whose format it more closely mirrors, with a couple changes:

MAARC Award

For each contest points will be awarded as follows: * 4 points for the winner * 3 points for the runner-up * 2 points for the third one * 2 points for a UEVW win * 1 point for a category win (awarded by a jury) The medal will be awarded according to the following schedule: * 6 points - bronze medal * 12 points - silver medal * 24 points - gold medal Any member can qualify for this award.

...or something along those lines, since they also incorporate bi-annual competitions in the current plan. Input from managers of it here would be helpful. The specifics of the numbers aren't as important as simply defining it though.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Support. {Unless Hesus says Hell to the no}{or someone displays oppositional merit}.

[Augustus Lucifer]

As well, don't just support or oppose guys, it would be good if we could have some suggestions about other possible ways to award these medals, such as the one I suggested in the OP. Basing it on the types of competitions currently defined here and trying to balance it so the frequency roughly mirrors that of MAARC/POTW would be advisable.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

^^^^^ Damn, I knew I shoulda have enough sense not to post in one of your threads. Kay lemmie go research, talk to Papa, and my 1st born.
No reading of War & Peace for me for the next few days....

You just gonna get Deep Fried Southern though. If you want mind shattering eloquence go jack up VP or theo....

We gonna make this lickety Quick ..."yo"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mmm-Kay?????

[karamazovmm]

i think that this is a great idea, I wonder if it follows what has already been established with AAR, POTW, TOTW.

If it does, I can't argue against, since this would be a mere formality, a adaptation per se

[M D]

MAARC Style

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

I support the proposal to normalize and codify a VOTM medal structure into the constitution (as the POTW and MAARC have been). I do not support the current medal structure associated with competition, but I support AL sentiments that the structure should mirror the MAARC structure.

While the comp is still young, there is a fairly common perception amongst participants that the requirements for medals are unduly strict, given the time required to produce a submission (in comparison with the other regular contests such as MAARC and POTW). The current month's submissions are pretty typical of the previous competition, and likely indicative of future ones. The simplest vid would have required about 3 hours of work. The most complex (Naxzul's) took nearly 80. The median time to produce a vid in comp #2 would be around 9. In hours and effort alone, the VOTM is more comparable to the MAARC comp than to the POTW.

Initially, the rationale for having a strict medal structure was due to the perception that the machinimist pool was very small (risking having the same 1 or 2 people win every month). It has since been discovered that this is not the case, and that the talent pool is larger than previously though, and it is growing (due in part to the recently completed video course). Some participants feel a change is warranted with regard to medal structure. This issue has been previously discussed in several threads by participants and the moderator: HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.

Although these are not my words, I do hereby acquiesce to there meaning. Nanny, from here it is upon you to follow this initial statement up in the
Curial Commentary Thread.

Support. for the concept. However I oppose the quotas presented for garnering Silver and Gold Medals. The current levels are too severe.

[MasterBigAb]

I totally support it as i also think judging the "best" vid is harder than juding different screenshots
Vids have so many different aspects and styls and the competition is once a month, so it is 4x as likely to win in the potw in a month and even there only one has the silver medal, and it's already up for a long time - so the current system is totally impossible to even reach silver and has to be changed !!!
When changing it to a point system it would become way fairer in my eyes as there also might be some guys who almost win every month for half a year and noone else although he might to epic vids has any chances...
I am a totally supporter of the points idea - if it comes to a vote, would this count from now on or also be transfered to the competition/s already done ??

MasterBigAb

[Belisarius]

these guys put alot of work into their projects for us to enjoy, Old Guard Support.

[Harry Lime]

AL codifying?

It's electrifying!

[Spiff]

Maybe the two medals could be combined into one (still awarded in separate competitions of course)? Could call the Artistic Tournament medal or something equally snappy - so if I win picture of the week and the video of the month then I get two medals to contribute towards my total for receiving a silver medal when appropriate. That way if you contribute to what is essentially the same sort of thing in varying capacities then both will work towards gaining a gold medal in that field.

Then again the argument could be made that some people would rather have two bronze medals than one silver or gold. Who knows.

Either way, it's just an idea - I'm not a huge fan of having so many unique medals when we have a perfectly good "issue reason" field which is sorely neglected. In that sense, I also consider having maces, screwdrivers and quills unnecessary when we could just have one "Staff Member" medal then in the issue reason just put "moderation/content/technical". But, that's just me.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

In that sense, I also consider having maces, screwdrivers and quills unnecessary when we could just have one "Staff Member" medal then in the issue reason just put "moderation/content/technical". But, that's just me.

Embrace multiplicity. Diversity is the foundation of any great Community. As you said though, just my opinion........

[Spiff]

It's not so much that I dont like diversity (I was a strong supporter of the Picture of the Week medal in the first place) it's more that I don't like the aesthetic of the medals visually as a whole in how the are just kind of randomly plastered under peoples avatar with no consistent design, alignment or boundaries. So long as the current design philosophy continues I will take a position generally against creating more medals when there are other options.

What I generally mean is something like this:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/foru...28-Singularity

They have nice little equally sized boxes to represent their medals and a huge amount of diversity in them (theyre more like "achievements" you'd find in games really, but its the same sort of thing). I designed a set based of a similar system over a year ago here (note, I'm a poor graphic artist):

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=228666

Which was then followed up by Desperado's excellent alternative here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...20#post4533820

Neither ever caught on though. Le sigh.

[MasterBigAb]

It's not so much that I dont like diversity (I was a strong supporter of the Picture of the Week medal in the first place) it's more that I don't like the aesthetic of the medals visually as a whole in how the are just kind of randomly plastered under peoples avatar with no consistent design, alignment or boundaries. So long as the current design philosophy continues I will take a position generally against creating more medals when there are other options.

What I generally mean is something like this:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/foru...28-Singularity

They have nice little equally sized boxes to represent their medals and a huge amount of diversity in them (theyre more like "achievements" you'd find in games really, but its the same sort of thing). I designed a set based of a similar system over a year ago here (note, I'm a poor graphic artist):

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=228666

Which was then followed up by Desperado's excellent alternative here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...20#post4533820

Neither ever caught on though. Le sigh.

Videos have too long been "ignored" i think !
When you supported a medal for pictures, and consider how much more work you have to put in a vid, especially if you wannna win against all these ecellent movie makers, than i think for videos a medal would be even more "deserved"
I for example won my potw medal because i only won in unedited screenshot, that was more a search and a bit of luck that i found good sitauations and just posted it, and voilà - an award....
Now making a vid, and even win with your vids several times, is much hard work and time you have to put in it...

To sum it up i think to be fair, we should also award (and with a fair system) the until now not recognized videos when we also award all other stuff...

[Spiff]

When I supported the PotW medal I dont think there even was an official video of the week competition - or at least if there was then it must have been fairly new - so don't take the fact that I only supported PotW at the time as a sign that I don't recognise the work that goes into videos. In fact the last time I won PotW was in 2005 or something so yeah, I've been out of the loop for a while in that regard for a while.

Even then though I dont think this is relevant to my suggestion of combining the medals into one - it gives you much more flexibility to run other artistic competitions in the future without the need to go through the hassle of having more medals designed and implemented by the administration. if there's just one catch all set of medals then you could have people's work in videos/pictures all contributing to the goal of receiving a gold medal.

For example what If I wanted to make a unedited video of the week competition, or an award for best picture of the month - these would be incompatible with the way the medals currently exist. If we had a more general purpose recognition of artistic competitions then any current or future competitions would have a nice standard "currency" for rewards

[Viking Prince]

Sorry AL -- I am throwing a bomb here.

It may be a misunderstanding on my part though.

When was the VotM authorized as a medal and competition? I must have missed the Curial action on this one.

Well the TotW and the MAARC all contribute to the same medal. I do not understand the reasoning behind having distinct medals for VotM and PotW, but a single medal for TotW and MAARC. It would seem more reasonable to run both towards the same medal and then to structure the points for the weekly competition and the monthly competitons the same. So going with AL's reasoning -- I can agree that the monthly process could have a higher value to a win. I will disagree though if it means a distinct medal though. Lets keep it to two medals -- on for writing and one for visual presentation.

It may also be a good time to redesign the MAARC medal to reflect the contributions from the TotW.

It may also be a good time to design a new medal for a combined contribution from VotM and PothW competitions.

Of course the other path would be four medals for the four competitions. This would mean splitting off the TotW from the MAARC and issuing new point accumlations for all based on whether the competition in monthly or weekly.

[Augustus Lucifer]

Sorry AL -- I am throwing a bomb here.

It may be a misunderstanding on my part though.

When was the VotM authorized as a medal and competition? I must have missed the Curial action on this one.

Hex authorized it, presumably, or at least one member did since the medals exist. When I restructured the Medal section I made it official that Hex can create and grant medals independent of the Curia, something they did anyways. That of course doesn't mean we can't codify these medals into the Constitution retroactively, such as was done with the 'Artist' award which was previously ad lib.

Well the TotW and the MAARC all contribute to the same medal. I do not understand the reasoning behind having distinct medals for VotM and PotW, but a single medal for TotW and MAARC. It would seem more reasonable to run both towards the same medal and then to structure the points for the weekly competition and the monthly competitons the same. So going with AL's reasoning -- I can agree that the monthly process could have a higher value to a win. I will disagree though if it means a distinct medal though. Lets keep it to two medals -- on for writing and one for visual presentation.

I don't necessarily disagree, but that's probably a matter for the manager of those to rule on. Video and picture are also different mediums in many senses, more so perhaps than the distinction between short story and periodical, not least because video incorporates the third common medium, audio. As well, the PotW and VotM have something kind of like TotW in their unedited offshoots.

It may also be a good time to redesign the MAARC medal to reflect the contributions from the TotW.

It may also be a good time to design a new medal for a combined contribution from VotM and PothW competitions.

Well, the writing does say 'MAARC' on it, but otherwise the imagery is not distinctly here not there. Not my expertise at any rate.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

I do not understand the reasoning behind having distinct medals for VotM and PotW, but a single medal for TotW and MAARC.

Teacher, don't you dare pick on "Wall of Text"....

OT: Listen for the record, I hate that TotW does'nt have it's own award, but since VotM is so labor intensive I definitely think they've earned thier own award. Plus it's already catalogued.

Gee, I hope I did'nt misread, perhaps too much mocha in da coffee. Tarnation, AL already responded, now this just looks really flakey.

[Viking Prince]

Not to mention -- where are the medals for whatever competitions exist within the graphics content area. I am clueless what they compete in, but I do not recall seeing any medals either.

I am guessing that the whole ball of medals for monthly and weekly competitions might be a task for the Forum Magnum to sort out. I would like to see some regularized rules, standards for achievment, and probably contributions from several areas to be combined for medals. Maybe a nice combination of contributions from all 4 (or more) fields for a bronze. Contributions for silver divided between visual and written for two distinct silver medals. And for the Gold -- distinct contributions limited to a specialized field (in this case that would be individul gold for TotW, PotW, MAARC, and VotM. This is a bit differant from what we have done. It may require some sort of a resort on the existing medals if a member wishes, but I would never suggest that a medal once given should be taken away. Only an exchange at the wishes of the member.

Reasoning:

I believe that members starting out should be encouraged to try all fields. Having a Bronze to recognize this will help encourage these members to experiment and test out their interests. Then give out the higher medals for more specialized achievement. Among other things, this might encourage participation that will lead to other work. Contributions that might encourage a member to eventually seek out citizenship.

To recap what I would view an idea medal structure:

A single Bonze for Artistic merit.

Two silvers:
Visual
Written

Four (or more) Gold
TotW
PotW
MAARC
VotM
plus ???

[Legio]

VOTM, POTW, and its related competitions are not part of the MAARC, never have been, and never will be. With all due respect, I don't see the point of making it fit MAARC standards or even asking the opinion of the MAARC manager. I don't even see the point of bringing the Curia into this, until we have at least had some discussion in content staff about it- as the VOTM, MAARC, and others are all part of that branch of the site. That having been said, I am the manager of VOTM and POTW, along with a lot of help and input from The Nanny. I'll not post an opinion on the bill yet, and I'm hesitant to codify anything until myself and the nanny et al come to a conclusion satisfactory to all parties regarding the competitions and the rules themselves.

As such, I'm opposing until we have a more concrete structure of VOTM itself. If you have any questions PM myself or The Nanny, as I trust in his opinion as well. Bear in mind that anything he and I say at this stage is unofficial- we have to think things through first.

Off to study, then. I'll try and respond fully tomorrow.