Hi folks and happy new year !!

In February, I'll open the new decade poll dedicated to the 90's.

Many of us have expressed the need to twist the rules a little bit, by increasing the number of qualifyers for the last stage to 150 instead of 100, in this other thread


So please come up with your suggestions and we'll make a final decision at the end of the month

Does it have to concern albums and songs ? Just albums ?

Do we have to just take the first 15 albums of each year ? Do we have to establish quotas (foreign, unacclaimed, top 3 voters) ?

Should we qualify let's say 12 albums each month and in the end of the year qualify the remaining 30 by playoffs to help the "good" years against the "weak" years

Everything is possible, we just have to set things up.

So welcome to the big brainstorming

Sorry I seriously fucked up with html in my post and now I can't edit it anymore

I would prefer to keep on doing both albums and songs polls (I take albums more “seriously” but always enjoy compiling a songs list too).


There have been disagreement in other threads about which years are “good” and which are “weak”. It’s too subjective, and to keep things fair I think the same amount of albums from each year should advance to the finals.

I’m not too sure about the playoffs scenario (as Nassim pointed out in the other thread, it would frustrate people if some of their favourites got kicked out, and there’s a big chance that non-indie/rock music would get replaced by more indie/rock, which kinda defeats the purpose).


I like the idea of advancing the top 12 + 1 non-Anglophone album/song + 2 others.

For the 2 “others” I’m not a big fan of the advancing the 2 albums/songs that got most points based on the highest 3 votes, because this might lead to strategic voting. I prefer Henrik’s idea of advancing the top 2 albums/songs that aren’t in the top X on AM or have less than Y ratings on RYM (maybe not in the top 40 for that year on AM and with less than 500 votes on RYM?)

I don't like just having an AM rank cutoff, because that might just lead to well known mainstream albums beating out obscure gems. (And that's just as likely to lead to strategic voting)

I'd strongly prefer something that gives albums that very few people have listened to but all love precedence over albums that a whole lot of people think is pretty good.

How about this: For those last two spots, the curve gets steeper, and very high votes have a much stronger weight over lower votes. Say, for those last two spots, instead of 50-40-35-30-25... we do 100-80-60-40-25-(Normal)

Sorry I wasn't very clear. What I meant is do you think there should be 150 songs or just 100 in the final round ?



Here again I didn't explain myself enough. What I have in mind is :

1) Each month rom february to november, we select 10
albums as usual, plus one foreign album and 2 other albums (either the BillAdama or Dan way).
Then, in late november, we take the 20 remaining best albums ON A GLOBAL SCALE, all years taken together (i.e taking in account their points/nb of voters to avoid the turnout differences between monts). that could be a good solution to avoid the year to year bias

3) We'll have to define what is "foreign". Non US or UK ? Non anglophone ? Both of the above (like in the AM World Cup) ? ANd what if there's already a foreign album in the first 10 ?

I think you misunderstood the AM cutoff, which should make obscure albums beat out mainstream ones. Anyway, I' d be happy to use the steeper scale, but in that case I think we should use it for the whole poll.

How about including 15 albums using the steeper scale, including at least two non-UK/US albums, of which at least one is not in English?

I'm in agreement with this, for the record.

I have an idea for a different beast altogether for the decade polls. I'm not sure if it will work (particularly the timing), but I thought I'd throw it out there.

What if we treated the year stage of these polls the way we are doing the 2011 songs poll? What I suggest is this: a nomination process for a month and then a voting process based on those nominations the following month. This should address the same concerns that people have about these polls reflecting only the most heard albums/songs at the exclusion of rarer gems. The months would hence overlap to look something like this:

February: 1990 nomination
March: 1990 voting, 1991 nomination
April: 1991 voting, 1992 nomination

etc.

Any takers?

I really like this idea, it's means we basically get two months to decide what albums we're going to vote for. I don't know exactly about the mechanics of it, but it might mean a lot of work in the last days on the months (29th, 30th, 31st) when you have to both come up with a 1st stage list for whatever year and also the 2nd stage ranked list for the year before. But I think it does address the concerns about rarer gems/most heard. I really like it!

sorry guys but that last idea is too complicated and too much work for me and everybody
Let's keep it simple. I'm in with the Henrik way

I liked the idea of the top 3 voters (might help Brad and me pull Fillmore Jive to the final round ^^ ), I hope the steeper scale can have more or less the same effect.

Ok, I think we have our solution

Each month, we'll qulify 15 albums using the steeper scale, including at least two non-UK/US albums, of which at least one is not in English?

Now we have to set the scale

BillAdama suggested the following one

1. 100
2. 80
3. 60
4. 40
5. 30
6. 20
7. 18
8. 16
9. 14
10. 12
11. 10
12. 9
13. 8
14.7

etc...
20.1

If I have no serious objection/other scale I'll implement that rule on wednesday for the new decade poll

So is it 15 or 20?

Also, maybe I did not understand the voting system, but isn't this way a little too restrictive in terms of the albums which will compete each other for the final rankings?

Spaz I have no time to explain, but please go the "Best albums of the 2000s poll" thread and you'll get the rules. Add the updating I did here and you'll get the picture

Thanks a lot!

I like any system that raises the odds of an album getting in even though fewer people have given it a chance and listened to it. I would prefer the '2 reserved slots for best with only points from the highest X votes' thing, but the steeper scale is a step in the right direction.

i actually agree with this. not crazy about the cultural diversity quota idea.

Well I like the cultural quotas. Let's say it will be the Nicolas touch in this poll. Unless there is a strong opposition to it, of course
You still have 2 days to make yourself heard

I know we don't need more alternatives, but short after I came up with the top 20 scoring for the previous 90s poll I wondered why I allowed points for more albums than what went to the finals - I don't think it makes much sense to give points to albums that I don't think belong in the final.

Therefore, maybe we should only give points to the top 15. That also means less work for the person who counts the scores. The simple change of the scores would be

1. 100
2. 80
3. 60
4. 40
5. 30
6. 20
7. 18
8. 16
9. 14
10. 12
11. 10
12. 8
13. 6
14. 4
15. 2

However, since all these points can be divided by 2, this looks pretty sweet:

1. 50
2. 40
3. 30
4. 20
5. 15
6. 10
7. 9
8. 8
9. 7
10. 6
11. 5
12. 4
13. 3
14. 2
15. 1

This is a quite steep scale. More or less it's only the top 5 that matters which would lead to interesting results!

I like that (not only because it is less work for me )
So Spaz' comment was accurate (we've spent so much time rating 20 albums that we'd forgotten about that)
the 2nd scale is good