Some of you may have caught wind of a recent series called the Daily kOscars, an awards series all things Daily Kos in 2009.
You didn't hear about it?
REALLY?
Well, this will get you started. There were dozens of diaries, three of which were recommended, and a few mentions on the front page as well.
I'd like to wrap up this year's effort with a discussion of what went well, and what might need fixing if and when it happens in future years.
If you enjoyed the series, join the discussion below to determine how the series will work if/when it happens next year.
This has been a community effort from the onset, so everyone's input is valued in deciding the best way to do things. There were many polls in the early diaries to help determine the categories, etc. In fact, the polling results (only 1 "Nay") were what made this idea become reality.
First, the positives.
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What went right.
• There was a steady growth in interest over the course of the series.
It helped a great deal when other people began posting diaries (cfk being the first to do so, Patriot Daily followed shortly thereafter).
I think that it's clear that the only way this concept was successful was the groundswell of grassroots support, if you will. Had this idea been seen as one person's franchise, contrary statements in opposition would have gained traction instead of being generally disregarded as the opinion of a tiny minority.
With that said, I truly hope that if/when this happens again, future participation will be a completely collaborative effort even more so than this year's series. My pitch would be to have a large pool of people posting diaries submitting nominations, a smaller number posting voting diaries, and have one person post the results.
This concept is stated more succinctly by by exmearden here
an excellent idea and one that I hope continues each year. Hopefully with a lot of collaboration so that just a few aren't carrying the major load...
Having done the brunt of such work this year, I am going on the record as fully willing to pass off any and all such roles to others. My sense is that PDNC feels similarly. We could both serve as consultants and/or trustees if others were enthusiastic about running the day-to-day side of things.
• Lots of buzz was generated.
Props to PDNC for passing along info to the front pagers who complied by pimping our efforts in the midday open thread and Cheer & Jeers. Lots of people also took it upon themselves to pimp the voting diaries in Top Comments, Open Threads and the like. Turnout would have been much lower without such pimpages.
• Florida 2000 was not repeated
At times, people posted comments about their frustration with the suspense. "We want to know the results now!" Or something to that effect anyway. Granted, DKos' polls always show you the current numbers, so I can understand why people are conditioned for such instant gratification.
However, my early decision to keep the tally hidden until after the polls closed seems to have been the right thing to do. There were no voting irregularities, hanging chads, or SCOTUS ativism that changed the results at the last minute. PDNC watched the polls on a daily basis and she can confirm that nothing suddenly shifted to suggest FReeping a nominee to victory or the like.
• Nominating others' work exclusively
Keeping one's eyes focused outward instead of squarely on our own navel was the other primary motivation for this idea. (The other being rewarding good work instead of reverse Pavlov, lavishing attention to the trolls and other asswipes in Hate Mail, etc.)
Encouraging people to be less than 100% ego-centric (interested in only their own comments, diaries, and "pet issues") helps make this a better place. In fact, it might be what makes this site great.
• Nobody complained about the award statue.
Even though it looks like one of JeffLieber's "statues".
In fact, people were clever enough to come up with a name for it. Just like the Oscars is not the name of the actual movie awards ceremony (um, you do realize it's called the Academy Awards, right?), we can have two names for our event and its prize.
Thanks to Seneca Doane, with an assist from LaFeminista's quirky typing:
I think that, like the statute given to winners of the Academy Awards, our little statuette there needs a nickname. I suggest that LaFeminista, with a sharp-eyed assist from asterkitty, has provided us with one. I suggest that the statuette be known as:
Great Orange Stan!
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What went wrong.
• The hierarchy of DKos writers was grossly underestimated.
Front pagers beat the rest of us every time we had to go up against them with one exception; when the FPer split the vote over 2 of her diaries, or the FPer would likely have won there too.)
Wherever we had a household name running against a relative unknown, we saw what happens. For future voting, there should be a clear distinction in all cases. There are those who write on the front page, and then there are the rest of us, the little people.
• The series idea came to me 6 weeks too late.
I can't control my dreams. (Can you?) But golly it would have been better to have begun discussion in December or at least Jan 1st instead of early Feb. People have shockingly short-term memories. Asking them to recall things from over a month ago much less 13 months ago was a challenge. Next year's nominations should begin in 2010 sometime, and voting should begin as close to Jan 1st as possible.
• Some categories need tweaking.
Where one nominee gains over 50% of the vote or wins by a similar landslide, we may have a problem. In the comments below, I will list a few of such problems as I see them, and debate about potential fixes can be done in each sub-thread.
Hopefully we can reach a consensus about changes in advance of future nominations and voting. This year it was a major problem that people wanted to keep re-opening the ideas about categories well after the many diaries that had been posted to discuss such issues.
• Some categories had too many nominees.
PDNC and I are not in agreement here, so I offer my opinion on this as a discussion topic only. It seems to where where there were over a dozen nominees, the ones at low end of the totem pole (when results were tallied) might have been sad about their performance.
Why do I suspect this? Looking at Diarist of the Year, 80% of the top ten (vote-getters) made an appearance with a tip, rec, or comment in the results diary. Contrast that with only a third of the bottom 16 nominees.
This trend seems consistent for most winners/non-winners in other categories. Coincidence? Maybe.
Having mentioned the fact that thick skin might be required didn't seem to spare all the possible hurt feelings. Taking steps to avoid such scenarios will be challenging, but might be necessary.
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What do you think went right or wrong?
Initially we tried to limit the total # of categories due to Dkos 1 diary/day, one poll/diary policy. Pluto suggesting another polling option opened things up to where we had 25 categories total (already one more than the [other] Oscars). So, we can add a few more next year, if needed. Or not.
• Too many categories?
If so, which ones should be combined?
• Too few categories?
If so, which ones should be broken into two?
• Not enough time for voting?
I agree. Next year I suggest keeping polls open for at least a month.
• Nomination diaries weren't visible enough?
Again, I agree. Why didn't you guys get more of these diaries on the rec list!?!
;-)
• You and/or your nominees didn't get enough votes?
Tell me about it. Only two of my nominees won, and I got blow'd out everywhere I was a nominee.
This is your big chance to influence the process for next time if/when it happens.
By the way, one way to get me to stop writing "if/when", is to volunteer in the comments to serve your little corner of the blogosphere by supporting future kOscars efforts.
Just sayin'....