AAR of the Year 2012 - Results!

**Ybbon** · November 09, 2012, 09:25 AM

Each of these was an outstanding AAR in it's own right and it is a shame some had to lose, but that is the nature of competition. Congrats and rep fiorthcoming to all the medallists.

**Knonfoda** · November 10, 2012, 05:21 PM

Originally Posted by Radzeer

When we set this up the staff decision was to keep the identity of voters hidden. We felt that this removes some of the pressure given that this is a once a year competition.

Also, what Shankbot said: due to the edits when people did not use all three votes at first, the list would not match the count anyway. After editing the poll (i.e. adding those extra votes to make sure everybody voted for 3 entries), the software updates the count, but not the list of voters.

Thanks Radzeer, I understand now.

Originally Posted by ybbon66

Each of these was an outstanding AAR in it's own right and it is a shame some had to lose, but that is the nature of competition. Congrats and rep fiorthcoming to all the medallists.

Indeed, it was a tough competition!

I would like, however, to offer some suggestions for either the next AAROTY or the MAARC's in general. There are two things I would change personally, and I would like to know if anybody else feels the same way. Both are interrelated too.

The first is, from now on I think ties should be left as is, and two winners proclaimed. There is never going to be more of a sense than "everybody wins" than this. I mean, if the community votes equally and decides two or more entries are worthy, then who are we to force them to decide again? I feel this is an excellent way of avoiding what, for a lot of voters and even authors, is an extra week or month of voting.

Secondly, and like I said, related to the above. I would either diminish the extra votes to only one, or none at all. There is a massive difference between suspense and repetition, and lately the extra weeks of run-off voting and tie-breakers have been more exhausting than anything else. For authors, there is a lot of pressure in writing good episode and getting your "vote's worth" of releases before the vote, and if there is a run off, it is a massive effort to keep up. Speaking to readers, a lot of them feel like "Oh, another week before I find out... huh" ... sort of thing.

So my two suggestions would be. Allow multiple winners - so what if you have two gold or silvers? All the better... and, get rid of extra votes, which only make run-offs more likely, and will probably make even joint winners less likely too. A bit of streamlining, that is all.

**Shankbot de Bodemloze** · November 11, 2012, 09:55 AM

Thanks for your suggestions mate I'll take them behind-the-scenes, and if anyone else has any thoughts please post them here.

**Yeepeep** · November 16, 2012, 01:26 PM

Congrats to all, fantastic stories throughout! Imho there are no winner and losers here, I really think of the twcenter AAR community as one big happy family that, regardless whether you write or read, always wins with every posted paragraph.