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Re: AM's EOY polls

While I think the songs poll last year gave a great result and I too liked the discovery aspect of it, the main issue I have with it looking back is that the voting was set up so people had to be strategic.

I think if we do the two-round format again this year, it should be in a way where the first round is people posting their actual, full lists. Then whoever runs the list would apply a point system to rank the songs, but the order after the first round would be kept secret and a certain amount of nominees (say, 50) would be presented unordered to second round voters. Then the second round would work similarly to how it did last year, where people allocate a certain number of points across the nominees and vote via email.

This way, we would get to see everyone's true favorites while still giving people to discover new favorites among the nominees. I hope this proposal didn't come off as too confusing; it's actually way simpler than last year's format but would produce just as good of a result, I think.

Re: AM's EOY polls

Any other thoughts? Anyone want to volunteer to host one of these?

Re: AM's EOY polls

i f nobody volunteers, I can do the album poll, but not before january.
why not set a deadlinat january 15 ?

Re: AM's EOY polls

+that new idea: let's vote for our favourite EOY critics' list as wel... ummm, too.

Re: AM's EOY polls

I like Jackson's idea of keeping the results of the nomination round hidden, and just showing all nominated albums as equal.

Re: AM's EOY polls

Yes, but who's gonna manage it ?
I'll do the 90s poll starting in february, so I'd appreciate if someone volunteered for the EOY
I said I'd do the albums it if nobody volunteers but in that case I won't have time for a complicated 2 round affair, it'll be the classic pazz jop format
And I'd really appreciate if someone else could do the job

Re: AM's EOY polls

nj
+that new idea: let's vote for our favourite EOY critics' list as wel... ummm, too.


I'm all for this idea.

Anyone want to host either poll? Don't think I'd be able to this year.

Re: AM's EOY polls

I would be happy to host one of the polls (even the 2-stage songs poll... and I don't think the albums poll needs 2 stages - a simple 1-stage submission by email (to keep it secret) should suffice, as long as there's a recommendations thread to give exposure to lesser-known albums and as long as individual lists get posted following the overall results). It's a bit late here in Glasgow and I will do another post about this tomorrow, because I have questions about: timeframes, which formula to use (if any), the number of songs to go through to the final round (if I'm hosting the songs poll), etc. I just wanted to put my hand up. Comments / suggestions are very welcome, of course.

Re: AM's EOY polls

Dan M
I would be happy to host one of the polls (even the 2-stage songs poll... and I don't think the albums poll needs 2 stages - a simple 1-stage submission by email (to keep it secret) should suffice, as long as there's a recommendations thread to give exposure to lesser-known albums and as long as individual lists get posted following the overall results). It's a bit late here in Glasgow and I will do another post about this tomorrow, because I have questions about: timeframes, which formula to use (if any), the number of songs to go through to the final round (if I'm hosting the songs poll), etc. I just wanted to put my hand up. Comments / suggestions are very welcome, of course.


Thanks Dan. Though I agree with several others here who I know prefer posting lists in the voting thread to keeping them secret. IMO the individual lists are more important than the final list, and people will look at them for new albums more than they would a recommendations thread.

If it's a two-stage poll, I think the first stage should be public and the second stage should be secret. Somewhere around 50-100 songs making the second round would be a good guideline.

What does everyone else think about 1 stage for albums, and 2 stages for songs? I kind of like that idea.

Re: AM's EOY polls

I totally agree that individual lists are more interesting than the overall results, so I guess a public albums poll would be better in that case. It could lead to strategic voting though, because if it’s going to be a Pazz&Jop-style poll again of allocating points to 10 albums, then people might start giving albums less or more points than they had initially planned as they see the lists and point-allocations of other AMers coming in. Would it not be better to use a formula to assign points? (Or is this paranoia about strategic voting a bit OTT and silly?)

I would like to host the songs poll (I’m not sure I could do both). People seem to like the idea of a 2-stage songs poll where the first stage is public and the second stage secret. As for the number of songs going through to the second stage: 50 seems a bit low (it won’t give enough underrated gems a chance to get through) but 100 seems a bit much. Maybe 75? I would appreciate some suggestions about how to decide/calculate which songs should go through to the second round. Simply putting the songs with the most amount of votes through doesn’t seem fair (the underrated argument again). Do I use a simple scale of allocating points to people’s top 20 songs, for example:

#1 = 20 points
#2 = 19
#3 = 18
...
#18 = 3
#19 = 2
#20 = 1

But some people might feel that there should be a bigger gap of points between, say, their #1 and #3, so maybe the points system currently used for the decade polls is better?:

#1 = 50 points
#2 = 40
#3 = 35
#4 = 30
#5 = 25
#6 = 20
#7 = 18
#8 = 16
#9 = 14
#10 = 12
#11 = 10
#12 = 9
#13 = 8
#14 = 7
#15 = 6
#16 = 5
#17 = 4
#18 = 3
#19 = 2
#20 = 1

Or should I use a LN formula like the one Henrik uses in the EOY critics spreadsheets (or some other fancy formula)?

And when we get to the second stage, would people be happy to use the same voting method as we did last year?:

Jackson

In order to try to get as much possible participation, I'll allow three ways of ordering your list:

1. You can submit a list with 250 points to assign to your 20-50 songs, with a maximum of 30 for any one song.
2. You can submit an unordered list of 20-50 songs, and I'll distribute the 250 points evenly among them.
3. You can submit an ordered list of 20-50 songs without points assigned, and I'll distribute the 250 points using a 50-49-48-47... point system scaled down so the total is 250. Basically, this option is for people that want to rank songs but don't want the trouble of assigning points.


As for timeframes, would 3 weeks for each stage be long enough? if I open the first round on 2nd January, the second round on 23rd January and close the whole thing 12th February, would that give people enough time to listen to the songs? Or is it unnecessary to drag it out until February?

Sorry for all the questions. I would just like to get an indication of what you guys would prefer.

Re: AM's EOY polls

Sorry Dan I'm leaving tomorrow morning on vacation so I can't read your long post !

Hope there's someone (as somebody said) to manage the album poll.

We could do either albums from 1 to 15 january and songs from 15 to 31, or have both poll running the whole month through

Re: AM's EOY polls

OK, it’s probably best to try to keep things simple, so this is what I propose for the songs poll...

Stage 1: Anyone who wants to participate in stage 1 posts a list (preferably ranked) of 10-20 songs. Lists of more than 20 songs are welcome, but only the first 20 will count as “nominations” for the second stage. The songs with the most amount of nominations (i.e. the songs that make the most appearances on lists) will progress to stage 2. Somewhere between 50 and 100 songs will progress to stage 2, depending on the amount of nominations. If, for example, there are 67 songs with 3 nominations or more and 134 songs with 2 nominations or more, then only the 67 songs with at least 3 nominations will go through. I will allow participants to change their lists if they discover other songs they want to nominate after posting an initial list.

Stage 2 : This will be a Pazz&Jop-style voting system where anyone who wants to participate should allocate 300 points to 30 songs (with a maximum of 30 points and a minimum of 3 points allocated to each song). Lists should be emailed to me to keep the results a surprise. I thought that having to vote for 30 songs instead of 10 or 20 might help to ensure that people listen to as many of the nominated songs as possible and not just the ones they already know.

I hope this makes sense. Any objections?

Re: AM's EOY polls

Still no volunteers for albums ?

If it's not the case I will manage the album poll.

It will be a 1-round poll;

I'm hesitating between a simple, decade-like poll, and a pazz & jop format

1) The former would allow us to post 20 album lists, and lists would be public

2) the latter will be the classic p&j thing : 10 album lists allocating points and secret ballots

i'm in favor of the first solution (simpler, more open, but secret ballots by email will be allowed too)

If there is no objection I'll chose the first

BTW, in january I'll also open a new thread regarding the voting system for the 90s poll.

Re: AM's EOY polls

Nicolas, as it looks like nobody else will be able to manage the albums poll I won't mind taking it on in addition to the songs poll. It will be a strtaightforward 1-stage poll, so it shouldn't be too much extra work for me - I could use the same layout etc. as for the songs poll. You have already kindly offered to do the 90s polls from February onwards (which will probably take up enough of your free time) so unless you now really want to do this albums poll it seriously won't be a problem for me to manage it. Just let me know.

Re: AM's EOY polls

Dan M
Nicolas, as it looks like nobody else will be able to manage the albums poll I won't mind taking it on in addition to the songs poll. It will be a strtaightforward 1-stage poll, so it shouldn't be too much extra work for me - I could use the same layout etc. as for the songs poll. You have already kindly offered to do the 90s polls from February onwards (which will probably take up enough of your free time) so unless you now really want to do this albums poll it seriously won't be a problem for me to manage it. Just let me know.


Thanks Dan M. I think we should start the album poll pretty soon, which should probably be best in a pretty simple format (public lists, point scale used for the decade polls, etc.).

Re: AM's EOY polls

Thanks Dan. We could start next week when everybody (including yours truly) is back from vacation. I'm in the moutains and having much fun

Re: AM's EOY polls

^ No problem Nic. It's the least I could do after discovering so many great things from your lists, comments and recommendations this year.

I will start both the albums and songs polls on 1st Jan.