The TV IV:IVy Awards/Future IVy Awards/Archive1

Category Suggestions

I don't know if it would cheapen the awards or be necessarily appropriate, but maybe there could be a few lighter categories that are just for fun. The only one I can think of right now is "Best Episode Title", but I think of some more and my idea doesn't get rejected outright by dissenting opinions, I'll post them here. --Boco_T 18:04, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

It would have been very difficult and unwieldy, I think, to have too many other categories this year. However, depending on how big a success this turns out to be (and it's proven to be a huge success so far—on only the fourth day of nominations proposing, we've received 169 proposals for 76 TV titles from 21 voters!), I certainly think we can look at adding new categories. However, to get too many categories would be a major problem and really difficult to police. That said, the chosen editors and administrators will be voting on "Special Awards," which could be literally anything - including the "Worst of the Year" sorta stuff - and is intended to be lighter in tone than the main categories. While that voting is not open to all users (it simply would have been too big of a mess to try to coordinate any kind of voting for stuff like that), if you have a fun idea for something about this year in television that should be noted—the good, the bad, the odd—feel free to post it on the main IVies discussion page or on one of the categories' discussion pages or even the SA Forums, wherever you think is appropriate. If your idea is either used or inspires an editor/admin to propose a really fun Special Award that ends up getting used, I'll see to it you get some kind of "Special Thanks to" or "Inspired by" credit when the Special Awards are announced. JCaesar 21:42, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

I also thought of a category or two else earlier but I have forgotten them. Maybe Best Theme Music? Also, because there's a bit of opacity regarding lead actor vs. supporting actor, I think it would definitely be prudent to add "Best Cast", although I guess if you go that far you almost move towards best series. Still, I can see people voting for something like Lost for that where they aren't completely satisfied with the writing but it's so hard to pick the best actor. --Boco_T 21:32, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

How about "Best Cancellation?" I could see this year's discussion being something like, "Why did they let Joey suffer this long?" --CygnusTM^talk 07:40, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

This is looking to be a pretty popular choice for a new category. I think it's been proposed at least three times. Then again, with Joey ending its run in the 2006-07 eligibility period, it looks like that might be a category where there would be little stiff competition next year, unless they put ER or something like that out of its misery in the 2007 upfronts. JCaesar 14:22, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

One possible problem here is that it could cause unnecessary conflict or animosity as most people don't like it when people mock shows they like. --MateoP 17:48, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

True. In fairness, though, people don't like it when people laud shows they hate, so you can't please everybody. JCaesar 18:03, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

I can't see any scenario where a user's feelings get hurt because someone likes a show they don't. I can however see a scenario where harsh negative categories turn into unnecessary bickering. --MateoP 01:43, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

We have to get rid of the silly method of deciding the genre of a show based on length. It is fine for last-case scenario when you have nothing else to work with. But we should also use a bit of common sense. A 30 minute show can be just as dramatic as a 60 minute show, there is no magic buffer that makes a show less funny when it runs over 30 minutes. The best example of this is Monk, which has been nominated 20 times for comedy and 0 for drama. Lead actor Tony Shalhoub has won 2 Emmys, 2 SAGs, and 1 Golden Globe for comedy. 0 for drama. Yet, our silly time method places this as a drama. This is fine for last case scenario when a show is really both, but we should use more common sense and make these rules less hard-and-fast.

This is fine for last case scenario when a show is really both. That's exactly how we apply this rule. The "definitions" at the top of every single page for every single Comedy or Drama awards category clearly state: "In the case of shows which are categorized as both Comedy and Drama (and only in those cases), the show will be categorized on the basis of runtime: Less than 40 minutes should be considered a Comedy, 40 minutes or more should be considered a Drama." (Emphasis added.) Obviously, if a series is a comedy and only a comedy and has no elements of drama in it whatsoever, it would be eligible for "Best Comedy" whether its runtime is 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, 120 minutes or 15 minutes. (Although the only example I can think of for a non-30 minute show in TV history that would therefore be eligible in this category would be Mystery Science Theater 3000.) If a series is a drama and only a drama, it, too, is eligible as a Drama regardless of runtime. As for the "common sense" of where Monk should be categorized, that was not decided by the Emmys, the Golden Globes or the SAG Awards on the basis of "common sense." That was determined by where the marketing department of USA Networks decided to submit the category. Those marketing departments do not submit to us, and even if they did, I don't see that it's a problem that our definitions and guidelines are not determined by them. JCaesar 18:02, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

• I'm also going to throw my hat in for "Best Theme Music/Song" if only because opening themes are so often overlooked (it seems like many shows don't even bother). --Lampbane 23:39, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

I really like this idea, and I liked it when Boco_T first suggested it. Since so many of our searches are for music listings on some TV shows (e.g. My Name Is Earl), it might also behoove us to add a "Best Soundtrack" category next year, also. But I can say without a doubt that the "Best Theme Song" award will definitely be given serious consideration. JCaesar 05:31, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

I like the idea of special categories, "Best Theme Song" among them. It's a good thing Point Pleasant isn't eligible or else it would have been hard for me to give it to any other show. There were very few positives about that show, but the theme song was definitely one of them. As is, however, this particular category would be difficult because the majority of theme songs suck. --Wizardryo\^talk 02:19, 16 June 2006 (EDT)

If it was for this past year I'd vote for Justice League Unlimited for sure, and I also really like Galactica's.--Boco_T 21:09, 16 June 2006 (EDT)

Comedy/Drama

We definitely need to add an extra category section next year for Comedy/Drama. This year the fence-sitting shows got completely screwed when forced to be in one category or the other. These are shows like Monk, Boston Legal, Weeds, Desperate Housewives, etc. Of those types of shows, in the drama category only 3 of the 35 nominations came from shows that were categorized as both drama and comedy. In the comedy category only 1 out of 35 nominations came from shows that were categorized as both drama and comedy. Next year we should add Comedy/Drama for these types of shows to fall in. There are already quite a few, and next year there will be more with the shows like Psych and Eureka and others. Of course, I predicted this would be a problem. --MateoP 17:13, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

I don't think anything got screwed. Lots of programs didn't get nominated. Trying to create a separate category for these just means we'll have fights over what fits into the category ("Okay, this show is kind of funny, so it is comedy/drama then?" -- "No, it's still a drama!" -- "But there's humor!" -- "Every show has humor!"). I don't the lack of nominations has anything to do with genre though, I just think that certain shows aren't as popular on this site. None of the pages for those shows have been worked on. Once they become more popular, they might get more nominations. I'm not complaining about the lack of anime nominations in the animated category even though many anime programs are good, because I know that anime just isn't popular on this site and is unlikely to be voted for. In a year or two, things might change. -- Lampbane 17:32, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Of course a lot of shows don't get nominated. I'm not complaining about any show not getting nominated. The problem is that a whole subgenre did not get nominated. 4 out of 70. That's a little less than 6%. That's an entire subgenre almost unrepresented. If you think it's purely coincidental and people just don't like the combination of comedy and drama, that's your perogative, but to me that's pretty absurd and the reason must be that they tended to vote for shows that fit closest to the genre. --MateoP 17:49, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

And it can't possibly be that people thought the other shows were better? Or that they actually were better??? -- Lampbane 18:22, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

No one's talking about shows besides you. I'm talking about a supergenre. All of the shows in this supergenre were disfavored from the shows in the straight genres? It's possible, but a hell of a coincidence. I think my theory is more likely. By the way, anime and animation should have seperate categories as neither will ever get a fair shake in the current method. --MateoP 19:31, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Um, you are talking about shows. You use the word several times to refer to programs that did not get nominated, supposedly because they are a mixture of comedy and drama. I am suggesting that maybe you're just seeing some kind of flaw where none exists. The shows you have put forth as examples of this so-called flaw are all shows that are not popular on the TVIV. Give me an example of programs that are comedy/drama that are well-liked among the users on this site, especially with the users who bothered to nominate programs and vote for them. The flaw in the system is not that we don't have a comedy/drama subgenre, the flaw is that the pool of voters is still very, very small. And that's not something we can remedy overnight. -- Lampbane 19:45, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

There is not any one reason why a person votes or doesn't vote for a particular show. However the facts inevitably suggest that the categorization system is stacked against cross-genre shows. Particularly against comedy/drama shows.

However, instead of merely speculating I decided to look up facts. Looking at this page of suggested nominees and looking through just the first few categories of both of those genres and consistently in each and every one the number of comedy/dramas was in the 10-15% range. The Best Guest in Drama category had almost 20% of the candidates from comedy/dramas. As previously stated, the number of final nominees from comedy/drama came in at just under 6%. The coincidence "people just don't like those particular shows" excuse isn't looking so good. --MateoP 20:54, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Excuse me, the excuse isn't looking so good? I am perfectly capable of looking at the pages myself, and what I see is that all the shows in that genre were nominated by a small group of people... the same group of people, in some cases. By you, in some cases. You linked the Best Guest Actor in a Drama category, and say that only 20% were from the crossgenre. But there were only 10 nominees! And the 20% you speak of... the 2 people you speak of, are from the same show. I would think that worked against them more than some imagined bias about genre. Michael J. Fox at least got nominated. This year's awards is not a large enough sample to start talking about percentages. -- Lampbane 21:11, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

You're right, MateoP, 20% of the Best Guest Actor or Actress in a Drama Series nominees were from shows you identify (and, again, still disagreeing with your definition of the term) as Comedy/Drama. One in five official nominees - precisely 20% - is from that Comedy/Drama. Where's the problem? Each category (save two) had five nominees. Ten to fifteen percent of five is 0.5 to 0.75 - or to describe it as integers, between zero and one. That is precisely how many shows fit your definition of "Comedy/Dramas" which got nominated in each category. What's the statistical problem? JCaesar 21:21, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

Of course the nominations are by the same people, these are the same people who are voting. And as for the sample size argument, I've yet again went down and did actual evidence collecting. I counted the total number of nomination proposals in every category for Drama and Comedy. I then counted which of these nominations are from comedy/drama shows. In drama, 16 of 96 proposals are comedy/drama, which is 17%. In comedy, 6 of 42 are comedy/drama, which is 14%. In total, 22 proposals out of 138 are from comedy/drama. Which is 16%. And yes, that's a statistically significant difference from the 4/70 (6%) of actual nominations. That's a 10% difference, which is definitely outside the boundaries of what would happen by coincidence (explanation of stastical significance). And now that I've taken 20 minutes to collect this data, let's see how long you take before knocking it down casually. --MateoP 00:16, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

You aren't even reading my responses properly. I said all the shows in that genre were nominated by a small group of people... the same group of people, in some cases. By you, in some cases. . I meant the Comedy/Drama shows. They were nominated by a small selection of the overall users who nominated shows (I counted something like 6 users who nominated Comedy/Drama). A minority. Which was then outvoted by the majority. Because that's how voting works. And when the overall number of active users on the site is still relatively small, it's definitely going to skew toward whatever drew them here in the first place. Which is, uh, Lost. When the pages for the Comedy/Drama series start to get fleshed out (how's that episode guide for Monk coming along, hmm?) then we'll start to get a more balanced voter base and other shows will have a better chance. -- Lampbane 00:35, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

Of course I'm reading your responses. That's why it takes me longer than 19 minutes to reply, because I'm reading it, and then going and collecting facts. If all your saying is that dramedy shows are less popular here than straight comedy or straight drama, then your saying something that I already proved from the numbers above. But likewise, Drama is far more popular than comedy, getting more than double the voting proposals. If there was a single category, comedy would get almost no nominations too. But apparently I'm the only person who has a solution to this problem. If you have something, speak it. --MateoP 18:13, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I am not saying dramedy is less popular, I'm saying those particular shows are less popular. That doesn't indicate a problem with the categories, it indicates a small user base with small tastes. You're the only one who thinks that there's a problem with the categories. -- Lampbane 19:36, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

All the nominations for Huff and all but one of the nominations for Weeds came from me and neither fared that well in the voting because I'm just one vote among many. Even given that a couple of those nominations came really close to getting final nominations so maybe if you'd voted more could have made it through. In fact a huge chunk of these drama/comedy nominations came from me (7/16 for drama and 3/6 for comedy), so your comparisons of percentage of initial nominaitons to final nominations are very skewed especially when you look and see most of the remaining nominations were by people who didn't vote. Those shows just weren't popular among the people voting while some other shows that could also be considered drama/comedies got quite a few final nominations (namely House and Scrubs). Michael J. Fox won the nomination in the very crowded guest star category. There was no bias against shows with elements of both comedy and drama the people voting just had certain shows they liked and others they either didn't like or hadn't seen. The-jam 11:28, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

MateoP, I understand you are disappointed that Monk and Weeds did not get more nominations. I, myself, am very disappointed that Brett Butler and Robert Knepper were left off the final list (among others). I voted for them. They did not win. That is how voting works.

Weeds was eligible in a category where it competed against shows of all genres - Best New Series. Without going into specifics, I worked very hard to ensure it would be given the fairest shake it could have been in that category. I even made a move some might have considered unfair to give it extra consideration it would not have received under the first statement of the rules of voting. (I was, in fact, rather thrilled to see nobody seemed to mind, or if they did, they did not mind enough to complain.) It still did not win.

Of the four shows you mentioned, Desperate Housewives did not receive any proposed nominations. Ergo, it did not win any nominations. Boston Legal and Weeds were ultimately nominated for one award each. Weeds and Monk are on cable. Cable shows, in general, fared worse than their network counterparts (the 800-lb. gorilla that was Battlestar Galactica excluded. Extras is cable in the US, but not in the UK, from whence some of our voters hail.) The Sopranos, The Shield, Rescue Me, Big Love, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Rome, The 4400 - all critically acclaimed, all shows which received far fewer nominations (zero to one) than such network shows as Lost, Veronica Mars, Scrubs and Arrested Development. Does the fault lie in their categorization (which should be relatively easy in most of those cases, possibly excluding Rescue Me and Big Love), or does it lie in the fact that only a certain percentage of American viewers have access to those shows, or does it lie in the fact that they simply aren't as popular with the users and top editors of the TV IV as other shows?

I repeat the-jam's question: I have laughed out loud at moments in Veronica Mars or House, M.D.. I have choked up at moments in Scrubs. These shows all got multiple nominations. Why do they not fit your definition of "Comedy/Drama"? Where do you draw the line?

Finally, MateoP, you were left a note on your User Talk page regarding how to register to vote. You did not register an e-mail address with this site, nor post one on your User page. If you had, I would've e-mailed you the information. I did everything I could to make you aware of what you needed to do to register. You either did not give me enough ways to contact you, or you chose not to register. I cannot say how close some of those candidates came to being nominated, but I [i]can[/i] say that votes in many of the categories were very, very close, and one voter more or less could certainly have made a huge difference. I gave you as much opportunity as I could to be one of those voters, beyond that, I could do nothing more. JCaesar 21:04, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I don't care about any specific shows. I care about an entire super/subgenre getting snubbed. I've already proven it's not a coincidence and will not rehash this. This is a problem. It's not even a tviv specific problem. Michael Ausiello has said that there is some talk about the Emmys getting a Dramedy category because of this problem. Of course the reverse is true too, if there was not individual comedy and drama categories, and they were all put together, then based on nomination proposals the comedies would get very little also. The question is what categories to make and which not to make. I think the Emmys and many people are seeing that with television genres being melted, you need to make more categories. As for what fits the definition, I was going exactly by your (very bad) rule regarding which [[Category:]] they were under when I did the statistics to find that dramedies were snubbed. As for me not voting, I already said a month and a half ago that I didn't want to participate in the elitist method. But that can be fixed for next year. --MateoP 22:03, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

As for me not voting, I already said a month and a half ago that I didn't want to participate in the elitist method. But that can be fixed for next year. I'm getting sick and tired of reading this crap. The voter selection criteria was changed (in deference to you) to something completely non-subjective and contribution-based. You even pointed out that it included at least one less-than-desirable contributor. If you still contend that these criteria were "elitist" then I give up. You will never be pleased with anything done here. --CygnusTM^talk 09:02, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

I never asked for the rules to be changed. This page is called Future IVy Awards, is it not? Future doesn't mean current. It means future. There is a degree of subjectivity, because someone subjectively decided how many posts required to participate. But that's not the problem. It is elitist because only high contributors are allowed, in this case based on number of edits. I've said many times that, at bare minimum, you could have a single sign-up page where any registered user could volunteer to participate. That would strip any degree of elitism from the process. But alas, that's not the subject of this discussion so I feel that delving further would derail this current discussion. --MateoP 16:55, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

Again, I'm confused. The rule regarding the use of TV IV categorizations was "very bad," but if we ignore that this very criterion was used, then suddenly, the number of Comedy/Dramas becomes higher, and thus there is no need to fix a system that is not broken? Thus, your argument regarding the exclusion of Comedy/Drama was "very bad," but if we do not use that method to decide what is Comedy, what is Drama and what is Comedy/Drama, then the situation you're railing against was never a problem in the first place?

Would it make you happier if we considered renaming the categories "Best Show (Hour-Long Format)" and "Best Show (Half-Hour Format)" to match the awards categories previously used by teevee.org? I'm not necessarily suggesting we make this change, but would that make you happier? JCaesar 23:25, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

Yes, that would be much better. Still not ideal but much better. But, unless you then eliminated te animation, reality, etc. categories (because they too are formatted as either hour or half hour) then you're really not changing anything. Changing names doesn't prevent systematic bias. --MateoP 01:04, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

So are you then telling me that if Comedy/Dramas were in a category with every other type of show, regardless of genre or length, and still failed to receive many nominations, that would entirely disprove your whole concept of "systemic bias."

Like, say, if Weeds had competed against all shows of all genres everywhere which had debuted in 2006, and it still failed to receive a nomination with the genre categorization removed, that would seem to indicate your entire argument is specious? Because... that's what happened. And... it is. JCaesar 04:57, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

MateoP, you haven't proven anything except maybe to yourself. How do you not understand that the Comedy/Drama nominations all came from a small subset of people, who were then outvoted by a larger group of people? I don't see how putting these "slighted" shows over in another category would fix anything, if they're not being watched. A lot of people simply didn't vote for the shows they didn't watch. Not all of the voters on the boards voted in every category, and I could easily foresee lots of people looking at a Comedy/Drama category, saying to themselves, "I don't watch any of those programs" and then not bothering to vote in that category at all. That's not improving things one bit. And don't tell me it won't happen, because it already did in several categories. -- Lampbane 23:33, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

Lampbane, were you able to see how individual voters had voted in each category? (I'm not saying your conclusion is wrong, because it's 100% correct. In fact, some voters had clearly only seen one show this whole year which qualified as a "Comedy" by any definition, or only one or two which qualified as "Dramas." I'm just confused, because I'd thought only Wizardryo, error, CygnusTM, myself and waffle iron - who's M.I.A. - were able to see the precise voting breakdowns per user. If not, never mind.) JCaesar 23:41, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I don't need to see the individual votes to figure that out, as there is a little bit of text at the bottom of the polls that tells you how many users voted. 18 people voted for Best Animated Series, while only 7 voted for Best Made-for-TV Movie Miniseries or Special. And so on. I understand the mentality, and I respect the fact that people had integrity (even if that's not true in every case). Hopefully next year some system will be worked out to make sure the voters vote in all categories. Or not. ((shrug)) -- Lampbane 23:50, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

OK, whew. I'd hoped that was how you knew. No, I think most voters tried to be fair. I said "some voters may only have seen one comedy," that may very well be unfair. They may very easily have seen all seven, and only liked the one. Unfortunately, I think nothing short of Congressional legislation can force people to watch all shows, or vote in all categories, and frankly, if they legitimately have not seen any (or preferably all) of the candidates, it might be best if they don't. But, hey, how you going to force that? JCaesar 04:57, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

I already debunked this a million times. No kidding that the straight dramas are more popular than drama/comedy. They are more popular than straight comedy too. I will say this until you confront it. If you were to place comedy and drama in the same category, the same thing would happen, the dramas would dominate Are you suggesting that comedy and drama not have seperate categories? No. Then, why, are you suggesting that Comedy/Drama not have a seperate category? Give me one specific reason. If your reason is "this genre isn't popular enough" then you must either think that Best Competition, Best Made-for-TV, and probably Best Animated don't deserve a seperate category, or otherwise you are being hypocritical. Pick your fork. --MateoP 01:04, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

So... comedies separated from dramas, and comedy/dramas don't get a "fair enough shake." (Again, I categorically disagree - many very funny dramas and very dramatic comedies were nominated, but whatever.) Comedies added to dramas, comedy/dramas and comedies don't get a fair shake. (This statement made disregarding the fact that 70% of the nominees in the two non-genre-specific categories Best New Series and Worst Cancellation are Comedies or Comedy/Dramas.) Do you see how everybody's responding to you as if you're asking for categories to be reshaped again and again until the shows you like win? Because, that's really what you're doing. JCaesar 04:57, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

No, I'm not; I've stated repeatedly that I don't care what shows are nominated. You are now outright calling me a liar. Either apologize for that, or never respond to my posts again, because I will surely not respond to yours unless you do. --MateoP 16:48, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

Well you're either a liar or your delusional. You are seeing a bias against a set of shows that clearly doesn't exist. It has been pointed out repeatedly how there was no bias against comedy/dramas or any pro drama bias in combined cagetories, but you have refused to acknowledge this. When I look over the list of nominees I don't see a bias against any shows what I see is a bias for four shows in particular: Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Veronica Mars and Arrested Development. This makes sense considering those are some of the most active pages on this site edited by large numbers of people. There happens to not be a comedy/drama in that bunch so maybe because those four shows dominated so hard it kept other shows from being recognized. In fact half the drama nominations went to those three dramas and over a quarter of the comedy nominations went to AD alone. I happen to not like AD but I'm not screaming about a built in bias because so many other people did like it. The Competition/Documentary category is actually a very good example of how there weren't genre based biases built in, the five shows are about as different as five qualifing shows could be. It's a combination of three Emmy categories so there was a chance one of the categories might dominate but it worked out just fine.The-jam 18:06, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

When I look over the list of nominees I don't see a bias against any shows what I see is a bias for four shows in particular.

This is another fallacy in MateoP's argument which is very important and worth noting. Using his statistical analysis of a small sample (which is, in itself, a fallacy), one could find a "bias" against any number of types of shows or actors: procedural dramas, all-ages shows, female-dominated shows, African American-dominated shows, multi-cam sitcoms, etc., etc. As I said, even cable shows fared relatively poorly (again, Battlestar Galactica excluded.) Basically, any show which does not describe one of a handful of shows (Arrested Development, Battlestar Galactica, Lost and Extras - six or more nominations each - plus maybe Veronica Mars, My Name Is Earl and The Office - which all got five nominations each), would seem to have a "bias" against it by MateoP's statistics. Hell, if you look at a single category - Best Individual Episode of a Drama - it almost seems like, in pure "statistical bias" terms, we need to separate the categories into "Best Individual Episode of a Series That Is Called 'Battlestar Galactica'" and everything else. Is there any reason to assume there should be a bias against these shows, or that dozens of new categories need to be created to accommodate this "bias"? JCaesar 20:56, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

MateoP, I'm not going to apologize for calling you a liar, because I never called you a liar. I think your logic doesn't add up, and I therefore think you are finding bias where none exists. I don't think you're lying. I think you're making presumptions based on your own bias.

That said, you're the one who used statistics, and you know what Mark Twain said about them. I pointed out that, stating your own statistics, Comedy/Dramas (as you define them) were not underrepresented in the official nominees. You said 20% of the Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series proposed nominees were from a Comedy/Drama. I pointed out that 20% of the Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series final nominees were from a Comedy/Drama (again, as you narrowly define it). Where is the bias? You have not addressed this. You said, on average, 10-15% of the proposed nominations in any given category were from Comedy/Dramas. I pointed out that in any given category, that would mean zero to one candidates would have become nominees, which is precisely the case. Where is the bias? You have not addressed this.

You claim to have a problem with the definition of what constitutes a "Comedy/Drama" and what does not. Yet you concede that if the definition of "Comedy/Drama" which you are using is not the definition used, there is no bias. Where is the bias? You have not addressed this.

You claim to have found fault with the voter selection process. CygnusTM pointed out that the rules were rewritten specifically with your concerns in mind, and that the selection was not arbitrary. Would you have been more satisfied if the Top 50 editors were used, or the Top 100? Would you have been the person to track down e-mails for all those people and contact them regarding sign-up? Would you have been the person keeping track of who had voted and who had not to remind them they still have 48 hours/24 hours/12 hours to cast their votes? No. Yet this method was used, and somebody did that work. How is this a bias? You have not addressed this.

Finally, you are the person who has complained consistently that the admins of this site are "anti-wiki" and "anti-democratic" because they do not appeal to majority decisions. In this entire discussion, you have had four people - including two non-admins - tell you that your position is wrong, and that no bias exists where you see it. You have yet to have a single supporter in your decision - not one. By democratic rule, 80% of the people in this discussion do not agree with your position. Eighty percent of the people contributing to this discussion have given you facts and evidence as to why you are wrong, and you have ignored them. How are you not being anti-wiki right now? How are you not being anti-democratic? Where is the bias? You have not addressed this. JCaesar 20:18, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

Me: I don't care about any specific shows.

Me: I'm not complaining about any show not getting nominated.

Me: No one's talking about shows besides you.

You: Do you see how everybody's responding to you as if you're asking for categories to be reshaped again and again until the shows you like win? Because, that's really what you're doing.

I am greatly offended when someone accuses me of trying to stack the deck to my favor, especially when I have repeatedly said that I am trying to do no such thing. I will have no part in further conversations when people throw out insulting things like that. I will not respond to the other stuff you have written. Admit mistake and apologize. I'm not asking you get on your knees and kiss my feet, just acknowledge the mistake and lets move on. Otherwise say that you're not going to and I'll just ignore your input here further. I will not participate in insults to anyone. --MateoP 21:53, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

Now it seems like you are using this imagined insult as an excuse not to have to respond to any of the very valid points made against your arguments and not all are by the person who supposedly insulted you. Plus all he did was point out how your arguments were being perceived by others and frankly they do come off in the way he stated. You seem completely unable to admit that maybe you were even a little wrong and when people make points that are valid you make up excuses to ignore them. Following through the whole argument it seems as soon as your "facts" get debunked you don't acknowledge this you just either switch to arguing something new or start accusing people of insulting you.The-jam 23:26, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

No, I don't deal with people who want to make insults, period. I will handle supposed arguments, but will not deal with people who throw out insults, even if they also make arguments. What, specific, arguments are you referring to? and I'll address them here. --MateoP 15:15, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

MateoP, I have not called you a liar. I will not apologize for calling you something I have not called you. I have responded to all your points, and I and others have pointed out that your proposed changes would seem to serve no purpose but to favor shows you like which were not nominated. You have ignored this valid argument. If you have no further reasoning, you have no reasoning beyond the desire to favor shows you prefer. Pay attention to my arguments or don't, but if you treat all the people who take on the task of implementing changes this way - if you treat all wiki users this way (as you are) - you will find your changes are never implemented and are never supported by anyone. JCaesar 03:22, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

You have said that I am trying to change the rules to favor shows I prefer. That is untrue, 100%. You have no clue what shows I prefer, you think because I used a few shows as examples of Comedy/Drama, then I must want these to win. For the 1,000th time, I don't care what shows win. I don't care what shows win. I don't care what shows win. Period. I will have nothing to do with people who pretend to know the intentions or desires of perfect strangers, so realize that this will be the last response I ever dedicate to you on this wiki, unless you ever want to come around and drop a note on my talk page. --MateoP 15:15, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

So... you don't favor the shows whose nominations you supported on the proposed nominations pages? That's odd. If you didn't actually favor those shows, why did you contribute to the conversation at all? Also your own Awards nominations are sort of a dead giveaway. JCaesar 18:32, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

You have no clue what shows I prefer. Actually, the more I think about it, the more insulted I am that you think I'm too stupid to know which shows you prefer when you specifically list them. Have I mentioned that you did in fact, list them? Because you did. Did you think I was retarded? Or illiterate? You must have, because you claim I cannot have any clue what you prefer, despite the fact that you made a page to list them. I am insulted that you would think I am that stupid. I demand an apology. JCaesar 22:04, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

Accomodating Animation

As per the discussion on The TV IV talk:IVy Awards/2006/Best Guest Actor or Actress in a Comedy Series, listing the following proposed categories:

• Best Male Voiceover, Main Cast (includes animation and narration)
• Best Female Voiceover, Main Cast (same)

• Best Male Voiceover, Guest Star
• Best Female Voiceover, Guest Star

The second is only because it gives people like Patrick Stewart (American Dad) and Samuel L. Jackson (The Boondocks) a chance to be recognized for their efforts.

Also, I feel that:

1. Animation should be eligible for "Best Comedy" and "Best Drama"
2. "Best Animated Series" should be split into "Best Animated Comedy" and "Best Animated Drama"

The first has been discussed before (in that the "Best Animation" category really shuttles animated programs off in a corner, and not as equals to live-action programs). The second is mostly because a general category is unfair to dramatic series like Justice League Unlimited or uh, most anime.

Mind you, I'm looking at examples like the Oscars (Best Animated Feature) and the Hugo's splitting of the "Best Dramatic Presentation" award (long-form and short-form). -- Lampbane 17:24, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Again, in general, this is a highly workable situation. The reason the categories are drawn the way they are—in other words, with no overlap in each definition—was not to eliminate competition or exclude different series. Rather, the goal was to open the awards to as many different series (and as many different users) as possible.

The TV IV Wiki is, first and foremost, an informational resource. However, to include the most information, we need the help of thousands of people, which creates a community as a secondary but critical part of the process. On the other hand, because the community is united around nothing more than its interest in a subject as vast and wide-ranging as television, it is not a unified community. To take animation as an example, the majority of our contributors mostly update the prime time episodics. Then another large group updates our adult animated series. That second group is a minority, but a sizable one. Hoever, there is little overlap between the two groups. In other words, most of the contributors who have helped out on the most popular prime time episodics have few if any contributions to animated series pages. Conversely, those contributors with the most Adult Swim/anime/other animated contributions have little to no changes to Lost or 24 in their edit history.

So I broke out animated series to ensure that helpful, prolific minority of our contributors would be represented in the Awards. On the other hand, as a minority with a narrower focus, there was an increased risk of animation voters unifying their votes, and thus, the Comedy and Drama awards could be swept by animated series, which is an unfair representation of TV IV users. (I'm thinking of stuff like the New American Library's readers polls in the late 90s of the "100 Best Novels of the 20th Century" and "100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century." A very small but very vocal group of Scientologists, and another very small but very vocal group of Libertarians, essentially co-opted the voting in those polls. As a result, it is now recorded for posterity that, at the end of the 20th century, a majority of the reading public thought 7 of the 10 best novels of the 20th century and I think 5 of the 10 best nonfiction books of the 20th century were written by either L. Ron Hubbard or Ayn Rand, which, of course, is nowhere near an accurate representation.)

The other goal of building walls between the categories was to ensure a large variety of shows across the TV IV spectrum would be represented by the Awards. The primary goals of the awards were to give us something fun to do over the long, hot summer and to bring in new traffic. However, there are other, secondary goals, and one of those was to turn our readers on to new shows. If the awards all go to a handful of series, that reduces the possibility of that potential outcome. By making shows eligible in one category (or, rather, one subset of categories) and no others, we guarantee there has to be a variety of shows nominated, and thus increase the odds of that outcome.

That said, in retrospect, I think our current system already has plenty of safeguards in place to ensure ballot stuffing does not become an issue, so it may not be necessary to protect the awards from a minority. On the other hand, some animated series have widespread appeal, so it may not be necessary to protect all animated series from being lost in the shuffle.

Therefore, I think it would be fair to open up the Comedy and Drama categories to animated series, while also maintaining the animated series category to accommodate that large subset of our users. There seem to be enough users who watch five or more animated series a week to split out actors in those shows, and possibly (we'll see how many votes each series gets, and how many proposed nominations the category gets, but I'm not ruling this out) enough to break out "Animated Comedy" and "Animated Drama." I still want to work to keep some safeguards in place to maintain a wide variety of nominees, so it might not be advisable to implement all suggestions for expanding the animation categories. But the more involved we can make our animation editors (while still accomplishing the other goals), the more in favor of it I am. JCaesar 19:13, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

In addition there should be a general "best show" category which doesn't care about genres. Some shows that cross genres, but are forced to be stuck in one or the other, will have a tough time in those categories. One example of this is Weeds, which is categorized as comedy because of the ridiculous length-test. It probably won't win (and maybe not even nominated) in comedy (and wouldn't in drama either). Having a general category would give genre defying shows a better chance. --MateoP 20:12, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

This proposal is already under consideration. However, the "Best New Series" and "Worst Cancellation" categories already apply to all series regardless of length or genre, and Weeds is eligible as a New Series this year (and was already proposed as such on June 3). As far as whether or not the length-test is "ridiculous," if (as it seems) you would prefer we use the Golden Globes/Emmys methods of categorizing shows, Weeds was nominated for Comedy Golden Globes, and according to TV Guide, has been submitted to the Emmys as a Comedy, also. JCaesar 20:57, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Anti-IVy Awards

This might too time consuming for those in charge, but once this is over, it might be fun to do the opposite of IVy's...like how The Oscars have Razzies. I'm sure people would be just as into voting for stuff they hate as stuff they like. --PrincessKate 19:53, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

I was considering that to myself earlier in the day and I concluded that it would be fun but it also, at least to me, would be unsatisfying. Nobody watches enough truly bad shows for long enough to pick which one's the worst, and it seems like it would just end in people voting for shows they'd never seen any of because they've heard it's bad. There won't be people around to nominate Beyond the Break for worst series because nobody is dumb enough to watch it in the first place.

Voting Process

No more administrators picking the nominees. It's elitist and stupid. Besides, they all have similar background and similar interest. See the featured show section for proof. --MateoP 16:44, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

To clarify, administrators and a group of top editors will be choosing the nominees and winners. Right now, it would not be appropriate to identify or give hints as to who those editors are, but I'll say that the number of "top editors" will likely be roughly equal to (if not greater than) the number of administrators.

However, not to be defensive, but just for the record, the basic skeleton for the procedures of this year's process was proposed in the SA Forums in February of 2006. As the person who proposed the concept, I also proposed (and, in fact, advocated) the "admins and top editors only" idea. Indeed, my initial proposal was that those editors and administrators would be the only people involved at any stage of the process, and it was an administrator who proposed (and a second administrator later approved) the idea of opening at least one phase up to all users, which is what was eventually implemented. I was not an administrator at the time, had no reason to believe I ever would be an administrator, and would not be made an administrator until three and a half months later. Although the overwhelming majority of people reading and responding to that thread were also not administrators, not a single one of them posted an objection. (In fact, the only objection to anything I'd proposed came from a non-admin who objected to the entire idea of the awards because, quote, "I don't think there are enough people involved in the wiki to make the voting process useful. There are 2,229 users, but how many of those have more then 50 contributions? How many have more then 10 contributions?" Also for the record and in that editor's defense, he or she has since contributed greatly to both the TV IV and the IVy Awards nomination process, as have many of the roughly 900 new members who have joined since.)

All that said, we will be taking the success of this year's proposals and nominations process, as well as comments on this page, into account when considering the procedures for next year, and we all greatly appreciate the vital input of every single person in both our Website and these Awards, be they administrators, prolific editors, occasional editors or our newest users—including those who may have registered specifically to propose a candidate to this year's IVy Awards. I'm not kidding when I say we couldn't do this without you guys. JCaesar 18:07, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

Who selects who is a "top editor". It either must be the admins or whoever has the top edit count. I'm guessing the former, which just solidifies the admins iron grip on the process (as they've done with featured show voting). As you said, most admins come from the SA forums (i don't). There's an internal bias already. The nominees should be selected 1 of 2 ways. The first, and simplest, would be a simple vote. Each user selects 5 they support for the nomination. The top 5 vote getters are then nominated forward. The other way would be to have a page where any user (min of 50 edits, perhaps, to prevent deck stacking) can sign up to be on the nominating panel, and from there however many people you want on the panel could be selected by a random process. The current way is both elitist and heavily biased. --MateoP 21:24, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

For someone who complains so much about the tyrannical admin community here's "obvious elitism" (even when there is none) so often, you sure are quick to propose a measure of actual elitism. What greater instance of elitism is there other than actively disregarding people based on their status in the Wiki? It seems less like you really care about what goes on here and more like you just enjoy being annoying. After all, you yourself haven't made an edit that wasn't just complaining about how the admins are so incredibly unfair in 6 months. --IndieRockLance 22:50, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

FYI, I slowed down my posted exactly because of unfair admin bias here. I found that my frequent posting (far more than almost anyone else) did nothing to help influence a more open community. It is still SA owned and operated. But that is irrelevant. If you did not want criticisms of the IVy Award process you should not have made a page for suggestions.

The "ownership" of this site (which is technically me) is completely independent of Something Awful. I doubt Lowtax (the owner of Something Awful) even knows who I am. --CygnusTM^talk 12:29, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

I'm not sure what you are saying about my proposal being more elitist... In my proposal every member who edits a reasonable amount would be open for the nomination committee (I think the final votes should be open to all users). I'm not sure how this is elitist in any way. It excludes no one aside from people with very few edits which your method already does as well.

I'm going to leave the personal attacks out of this and I would hope that you would too. --MateoP 22:57, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

Who selects who is a "top editor".

Without indulging unfair accusations made against other people, I believe this is a fair question to ask. Therefore, the primary factors considered in choosing who does or does not qualify as a "top editor":

1.) Number of edits.

2.) Variety of edits (e.g.: Has the editor contributed at least a few contributions of use to a number of pages, or has he or she merely re-edited one page or a small handful of pages hundreds of times?)

3.) Stain-free record (e.g.: Some editors have a history of factually inaccurate edits, spam edits or otherwise problematic contributions; they are, for obvious reason, less likely to be invited to vote than helpful contributors).

Personal bias is absolutely not a factor. There are contributors with whom I have engaged in heated arguments on the SA Forums and elsewhere, but as problem-free editors on this site, I have backed their names as top editors. Similarly, there are TV shows for which I have publicly voiced my personal disliking, and yet I am encouraging users to propose their consideration in multiple categories. Let it be known that many administrators have been still more open to all points of view than even I have been. It is the quantity and quality of contributions to this site, and no other site and no other factor, which is the primary determining factor in who ultimately chooses nominees and winners. JCaesar 22:00, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

As I suspected. Preference given to 1) People they know (and therefore people who post on forums they also post too are far more likely to be on the committee). Any way you stack it, these awards are heavily biased and the only way to avoid this is to take the elitism and cronyism out of the process complete. If you want an award that represents the public opinion, it should be opened up. --MateoP 22:09, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

I honestly can't see how you can take that away from JCaesar's comment there. One mention of the SA forums and you automatically assume we're picking voters from there? That's ridiculous. I would love the discussion that goes on in the SA forums regarding this wiki to happen here, but a wiki is a terrible place to have an ongoing debate/discussion. This site was created by a group of users from the SA forums, so we will always have ties there.

Unfortunately, given current MediaWiki technology, there is no way to conduct a fair public vote. Witness the logo voting fiasco. Maybe adequate technology will exist in the future, but for now, this is what we have come up with. I guess a better name would be "Editor's Choice Awards" to reflect who is voting. --CygnusTM^talk 12:29, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

That wouldn't reflect who is voting as the vast majority of editors would be excluded. I gave a suggestion up the page a bit on how it can be done without excluding most people. The logo incident happened, I believe, when anon voting was still on. If not you can even place a 50 edit requirement which would eliminate cheating. Your method already excludes everyone with a lower than 50 edit count and most with more than that. --MateoP 17:39, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

One other thing: Guess who was proposed as a voter in the admin forum and subsequently supported by me. MateoP --CygnusTM^talk 12:29, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

I think you have mistaken the criticisms of this method for me wanting to be a voter. Coopting me makes the system none less elitist. I'm interesting in being a voter when all editors are voters. That would be just. --MateoP 17:39, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

I think you are incorrectly assuming that wiki technology exists to form a democracy on the internet of all places. A democracy, again, on the internet, is nigh impossible to maintain, and, yes, you can look at the logo voting for a perfect example. We opened that up to everyone who had a registered account (it was not simply anonymous voting like you assumed), and there was rampant generation of duplicate accounts from several IPs, the long conclusive evidence of which can be found on your userpage back when you assumed that that was administrator elitism in action. While the IVy Awards are clearly not meant to be the most serious and solemn of events, we also don't want it to seem like a free-for-all. Allowing anyone who wants to vote the ability to do so prevents a sense of legitimate resolution because we are all too aware of peer bloc voting. Please stop assuming that there is some deep-rooted oligarchial meritocracy based on elitism because there isn't. We all have much better things to do with our lives than to plan out a dictatorship over an internet wiki. I value your edits to this website, particularly with helping me, IndieRockLance, and a few others flesh out the Buffyverse pages, so I really do hope that you realize that none of the administrators on this wiki are out to get anyone in a burst of tyrannical rule. I do thank you for sparking some discussion on the TV IV because the lack of discussion on the backend of the wiki is something I've been whining about for a while. --Wizardryo\^talk 02:37, 16 June 2006 (EDT)

Globalization

We need to work to make this award system more international. There are many good shows that are excluded just because a U.S. outlet hasn't picked it up. I don't think U.S. marketability should be a requirement for saying a show is quality. However, there are not enough non-U.S. based shows to make, for example, a IVy Europe Awards or IVy Latin America Awards. So we need to find a way to integrate these shows. Any suggestions?

This was a concern raised when these awards were first proposed. The initial proposed rules would have based eligibility not on initial US premiere, but on initial worldwide premiere. The reason the "US premiere" rule was added—and, by the way, this problem was initially addressed by a non-American voter—was because, while there are many international users on this site, they are currently firmly enough in the minority that there was no way to make the process fair to those international series unless they have aired in the country which is home to the majority of voters. In other words, say a series debuted in the UK this last year, and it was brilliant and worthy of many, many nominations. The UK users propose it, but because the majority of voters have not been able to see the series, the nomination gets lost in a sea of votes for series which have debuted in the US. The following year, the series is aired in the US, and American voters now want to give it awards, but the series is no longer eligible, because its premiere dates are the year before. Thus, the US premiere date rule is intended to level the playing field in favor of non-American series. As for the longterm solution, I think there is a good chance that circumstances will change enough to allow a broader international scope for the awards. Over the last four months, the ranks of users have increased by about 50%, and many of those new users are from other countries. If that trend continues, I think it's fair to assume we could someday soon add either international categories to the IVy Awards or have separate international IVy Awards. JCaesar 17:48, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

• The best way would be to simply have a page set up next year with the awards listed. From there users can add awards as they see fit. So, using Korea as an example, a Korean user could add a "Best Lead Actress in a Drama, Korea" category. From there, if no one votes in it or adds nominees, no big deal. The net harm is nil. --MateoP 11:28, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

From there, if no one votes in it or adds nominees, no big deal. The net harm is nil. Spoken like somebody who has no intention of putting in the work (to say nothing of the 12 hours I put in to create 20 categories pages—it's true! Look up the edit history. Twenty categories=12 hours, and most of that was copying 'n' pasting. I'm not counting the hours it took me to create the original text documents/posts from which I copied 'n' pasted) to regulate, verify candidate eligibility and voter eligibility, on every single one of the pages which are created by every single user with an idea. JCaesar 18:31, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

No, I'll "run" all international categories. I'll check for show eligibility (all shows debuting in the calendar year), and voter eligibility (only rule is 1 vote per user per category). I volunteer. You have to do nothing. If they don't work out for some reason, too few votes, then no big deal. The net harm is nil. --MateoP 20:08, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

I know you're paranoid about being dismissed, so just to throw out a workable, specific idea for Awards globalization, how about this? If these current Awards prove to be enough of a success to make it worth our continued efforts, and if we continue to see enough international users and international series being added to the database to make it worth our while, and if there are enough editors contributing to those international series pages to make it worth our while, and if enough of them (more than one or two) seem interested in voting in such awards...

Then around the end of the year, to coincide with most international television awards (as the current IVies coincide with the Emmys, but then again, US television is the only television in the world I'm aware of which sets its seasons on a June-May schedule), we set up a separate, International IVies. The categories would be roughly similar (perhaps incorporating some changes to reflect the different nature of international television and to add new categories which have been requested or perhaps dump old categories which may have received very little attention), the procedure would be roughly similar, albeit incorporating new technology to be as expansive as possible. The main difference would be the elimination of the US airdate restriction. We would then evaluate the success of those awards—as we will most certainly be doing with these awards—and whether or not it was worth our trouble to continue and expand them in the future. Sound fair? JCaesar 19:09, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

I'll agree on this if I am the one who decides how many international users is enough, how many international shows added to the database is enough, and how many willing to vote is enough. After you say no, you'll understand my complaint about the entire award show process. --MateoP 20:08, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

So IndieRockLance was right: You do want to be made an admin? Is that what you're saying? JCaesar 21:55, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

How is you deciding any different than someone else deciding? Why are you the only one that gets to decide what is enough? How are you any better of a judge?The-jam 00:02, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

I'm not, that's the point. Nor are you. No one should have the power to decide anything. It's up to everyone. Collectively. --MateoP 16:45, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Then why did you say this "I'll agree on this if I am the one who decides how many international users is enough, how many international shows added to the database is enough, and how many willing to vote is enough."? It just seems like you see yourself as the one and only judge on what is and isn't proper conduct when most of these things are all viewpoints and opinions. No one else is complaining about this. If there really was a demand for half the things you're complaining about wouldn't you think that someone else would speak up about it? If people were really that upset by the way the voting is being done wouldn't at least one other person have complained? There seems to be a fairly large consensus against you and you are the only one arguing what you are and the opinion of one user does not dictate how the site as a whole should run.The-jam 17:17, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

I said that to make a point. Let me be perfectly clear: I was making a point, I don't actually want to have sole authority to make any decisions. I don't want anyone to have that authority. And no, the fact that other people don't bring up complaints doesn't mean they agree the current way things are done. It means they don't care enough to say anything. So there is no consensus. From these talk pages there is the opinion of democracy with me, and of elitism with JCaesar. No one else has picked a stance. CygnusTM seems to lean towards democracy on the awards (he just, incorrectly, doesn't think it's possible) but hasn't made his position clear. --MateoP 19:16, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

The thing is, I'm relatively willing to call his bluff. (Not necessarily making him an admin, which isn't my call, anyway, but giving him carte blanche to set up, set the perameters on and do 100% of the grunt work. The way I see it, there are three outcomes: 1.) He's bluffing. He has no intention of putting in the work. So he gets the green light and totally slacks off, and no harm has come of it. 2.) He's not bluffing, he tries to do it, and he finds out his fantasy world of how easy it is to coordinate massive projects with no guarantee of further involvement from others (unless you go out and solicit their participation and make it as easy and as fun for them as possible) is a fantasy; in which case, not much gets done, but at least he'll shut the hell up and get off other people's backs. (Maybe.) 3.) He does the work. He sets everything up. He weathers the criticism. He gets people to get involved. And the site has a cool new feature, and I'll be the first to congratulate him. Kind of a win-win-win, really. JCaesar 02:31, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

There is no work. This isn't the presidential election. I'm not going to do any campaigning. The page is "set up" meaning I make a link, fill it in with information on how it works. From there people add nominatios and such if they want. If not, no big deal. The total loss is the 2 minutes it took me to write the paragraph explaining the rules. There is no work involved. So you're right on one thing; it is a win-win-win. That's what I've been saying all along! --MateoP 16:45, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

See, now I don't know if I'm going to get a sick pleasure out of letting you go off on this idea and finding out how much work is involved in "no work," or if I should be worried, because you've just said basically that you only intend to put in the minimal amount of effort, which suggests to me that if there is a huge reaction (or if what is necessary to be done to ensure people are aware of the page and encouraged to come to it is done), you're going to go traipsing off into the sunset and leave someone else to clean up your mess. JCaesar 16:59, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Well instead of dancing around it, how about saying exactly what type of work you think this is going to be. I told you exactly what i said it would be. Consisting of making 1 page where people can add stuff. And maybe one small paragraph on the main page (i'll write it). From there, people are free to participate if they want. What other work do you think there is? Please be direct and specific. --MateoP 19:16, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

I actually started to type up the entire "done list," "daily maintenance" list and "to-do list" for each phase of this process, but then I realized how long it would take me to give you a specific breakdown of how much work goes into each phase, and I don't really see the need to open it up to more charges that I'm the Josef Stalin of the Internet because I didn't stop doing work at step 133 to ensure that a vote was done as to whether I'm doing this right. More to the point, I didn't want to give anyone the impression that I'm complaining about how much work I put into this. I chose to put the work in (nobody put a gun to my head and forced me), and I continue to do so because it's fun and rewarding. Suffice to say, there is a lot more beyond setting up one page (which must, by the way, be as specific and clear as possible, unless you want to spend the rest of the next month revising what you set up, or moving things/answering e-mails and PMs because you're being swamped with questions because you didn't make yourself clear enough). It's also necessary to check and double-check the entries for eligibility and formatting (which sometimes requires research, as I don't always know the answer off the top of my head), to double-check every voter's contributions history to make sure they are not excluded from other phases of voting if they are eligible, and to maintain a text file of nominations, which I double-check each week, to ensure that I don't mess up and accidentally forget to include a candidate on the voting list for official nominees. (It's also a safeguard against vandalism/vote retractions. If a candidate I've typed into my text file suddenly disappears from the pages, I know something's wrong. Remember, the number of candidates I'm keeping track of is now approaching 200.)

It will also soon be necessary to contact the contributors to ensure that they know how to sign up for voting. I had a method to save myself as much work as possible on this, but in the end, I still ended up checking the contributions histories of over 400 users to see if they were eligible for consideration in voting for the official nominees and winners. (Note that, under my system, I needed only check their contributions, and if those checked out, their talk pages to make sure they didn't have lots of angry messages about vandalism or ignoring formatting rules. I did not need to check their logs to also ensure they were not multiple registrations, because multiple registrations wouldn't be able to slip past the net at a later stage, anyway.) Once that is done and those editors are contacted, I will have to check and double-check the final vote counts in each category, but that will take no time at all, as the system in place is secure and simple enough that a quick glance will confirm the results. (Compare that to checking the logs and manually editing out potential ballot stuffing or vandalism.)

Finally, the bulk of time I've spent on these awards has not been the administration of the awards themselves. It has been various measures designed either to inform users on this site about the existence of the awards or to bring in new users to participate and hopefully stick around. To that end, I have typed up various notices in other Websites (including, but not limited to, the SA Forums) to promote the awards, set up various lists to encourage fans of shows which are currently unrepresented or under-represented, to find out specifically what is being currently overlooked and which shows still have yet to get nominations. The idea here is that if I leave the awards alone, someone might come to the site, see his or her favorite show of 24 is nominated, and move on. But if I have a list of shows which are not nominated, and he sees his second favorite show, The Shield, has not been nominated, maybe he'll say to himself, "Whoa, that can't be right. I'm going to go nominate it!" For all your bitching about posting to other Websites, the truth is, the overwhelming majority of nominations not proposed by me or another administrator were proposed within 24 hours of my posting about the awards, or posting new ideas for nominations which could be proposed, to another site. A far smaller number seem to have been inspired by the site announcement and Main Page article.

The administration (which you also have no concept of) is a big chunk of the awards, but more than anything else, the most important task is promotion. It's great to have awards, but if in the end, you only get you and one or two of your buddies and a couple of admins get involved, for all your protests and complaints and jumping on the admins' nuts for excluding people, that is not inclusive; that is not democratic; that does not encourage participation from others! People do not participate in awards they're not aware of in the first place. New users do not sign up to a Website unless they are told (in places where they are) that said Website has a cool new feature they should check out, and in which their assistance is appreciated.

But, no, you're absolutely right. Just set up a page by your own rules in ten minutes without approval from anybody (and, by the way, your characterization of the creation process for these awards as that may just be the most assholey accusation you've made on this entire page), and just sit back and watch the magic happen. Never mind who else has to manually check the logs to clean up after your mess, or conversely, make sure enough people are aware of and involved in the process to make those hours spent checking the logs worth their while. In a democratic process, you'd just snap your fingers, and we admins would come in and regulate whatever little idea you or anybody else had yesterday, chop chop! Hey, you want it, we obey. That's how it works, right? JCaesar 21:20, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Because the majority of the long discussion which has occurred here is not appropriate for this page and distracting from the spirit of this page (and further has made it 71 kb long), I have moved it to the discussion page for this page. JCaesar 22:33, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Opening up the voting

As per the above discussion, currently the voting for the IVy Awards is reserved to a rather small portion of the user base. So, in order to fix this problem we first need to identify its symptoms. So here is a list of some of the things preventing an opened system. Feel free to add others as well as possible solutions to these problems that can be worked on.

1. Some users might register multiple accounts in order to vote multiple times.
   1. We could limit voting to users with a set number of edits in their record. An example of this is to allow only votes for users with 50 or more edits, but more research would have to be done to find what the best number would be. --MateoP 23:12, 9 June 2006 (EDT)
   2. In addition to #1 (or, if possible, instead of #1) we could limit voting to users who had registered prior to a certain cut off point. For example, if the cutoff point for shows to be eligible for the awards is June 1st, then the cutoff point for users to vote is users registered prior to June 1st of the same year. --MateoP 23:12, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

• Is there Wiki-compatible technology that anyone is aware of which would make this plausible and automatic, or would some poor schmoe (cough) have to go through potentially thousands of votes in each of the more than 20 categories we will have next year and manually remove all ineligible votes? Is there some way this method could be used to encourage new users to sign up in the summer time when traffic would otherwise be much lighter, which is, after all, the whole purpose of these awards? JCaesar 00:38, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

• Not that I'm aware of. That's why #2 is a better option; because it is more easily self regulated. It's a lot easier to check when an editor made their first edit than how many edits they've made. No one person would have to check every vote. All users would check votes as they see fit. The Featured Article vote was always less than 10 votes per suggestion, so it would easily be managable even if it does grow more. But instead of removing a vote it should instead be striked out or colored so that way others could peer review. --MateoP 01:03, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Wait. I'm confused. So your solution is to implement this restrictive system without any kind of reasonably fool-proof system in place to ensure that it is secure by its own restrictions? That, basically, we'd be operating on the honor system unless someone happens to catch that someone else is cheating the system. And further, that the entire process would be open to both vote rigging and vote cancellation by means of open "peer review"? I suppose that would be somewhat easy to police if, say, only two or three dozen or so voters participate, but if it's much more than that (say, 312 - a mere 10% of our current registered users), it certainly sounds to me like one hell of a mess.

Of course, if only two or three dozen voters participate, it wouldn't be so hard. On the other hand, we already have implemented a system in which two or three dozen voters can participate and will be participating in the official nominees and winners voting, and that system is secure and as fool-proof as anything on the Internet can possibly be in regards to vote tampering and cancellation. But I kinda get the impression your whole argument is that the currently implemented system allows too few voters, so if the only way your solution would be plausible is if the number of voters were about the same, I don't really understand what the problem is. Are you suggesting we implement a more complicated, less secure system to accommodate almost nobody?

Your reference to the small number of votes for the "Featured Show" also has me at a bit of a loss. Again, if so few people participated in those, are you suggesting we implement a brand new system to incorporate the votes of people who don't actually want to vote in the first place? Forgive my bafflement, I'm just confused as to what the goal would be of your proposal, and what "problem" it is meant to address. Is the problem that an extremely small handful of people are being excluded from one phase of the process, and we therefore need to reinvent the entire process from scratch to include that almost statistically inexistent minority? Or is the problem that we are excluding a large number of people from a process most of them don't seem to be terribly interested in participating in to begin with? Or is the problem that we are excluding a large number of people from a process they would mostly be interested in participating in? If your answer is that last one, again I must ask if there is a process which would be both equitable and relatively fool-proof to police the restrictions you have suggested, short of appointing one or two people (who would not be paid, incidentally) to manually research and regulate all of the hundreds or thousands of votes. JCaesar 01:41, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

1. 1. We could have a voter "signup" before the process begins whereby any user who wants to be a voter in the nomination and winner rounds of the awards states their desire. This would solve the problem of potential cheaters completely. All users could still participate in the suggestion phase.

• One possible problem of this is that it still excludes many users who simply don't learn about the vote until late. --MateoP 01:52, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

1. There needs to be a solution in case of ties. This applies to both preliminary "nomination" votes and final winner votes.
   1. We could possibly move the nomination period up a couple of weeks to allow a time for "sudden death" voting when ties take place. --MateoP 23:12, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

• Although there are still a few details to work out regarding the specifics, run-off (or "sudden death") voting has already been implemented in the event of a tie for this year's Awards. If the run-off vote yields no clear winner, the result would then be officially considered a tie. JCaesar 00:38, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Suggestions

A brief summary of suggestions thus far proposed which seem likely to be implemented next year:

• Increase the number of voters in the official nominees and winners voting stages. This depends upon the number of new users who sign up and become prolific, but I'm hoping to at least double our voting pool next year, if not triple it.
• Add new categories. So far, Best Theme Song, Best Soundtrack (Previously Recorded Music) and Best Original Music Cues look to be strong candidates for new categories. Best Episode Title may be worth considering, as would Best Cancellation. Best Cast strikes me personally as redundant (feel free to disagree if you so choose). Best Series or Best Comedy/Drama also strike me as redundant, and given the results of the "Best New Series" and "Worst Cancellation" categories, I see nothing to convince me 100% these new potential categories would be beneficial.
• Allow animated series to be considered in the Comedy and Drama categories. We would still retain the Best Animated Series category. Breaking that category out into Best Animated Drama and Best Animated Comedy is not necessary, I think, and would only cause more tension and drama as we've seen this year with the Comedy/Drama categorizations. In so doing, we may take a look at how popular/unfairly squelched animation actors are in those categories and further decide whether or not to give them their own categories for 2008.
• Add international awards. I think we can do this, but I think our user list is still too small at the present. Maybe we'll see how the 2007 voting goes, and expand in this way for the end of next year.
• Add anti-IVies (IVy Razzies). Again workable at some future time, but perhaps not until we see how things turn out next year. JCaesar 21:35, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

We'll have to be very careful about animated series. I can easily see a BSG-esque situation popping up where a lot of the voters will form significant voting blocs for animated series, notably anime. Mainstream series will see more casual editing, but I suspect that animated series will see very specific, dedicated groups of people who will be prolific and prominent enough to be on the voting committee. Which is fine and is a beneficial thing to have diverse opinions, but it might turn into a similar situation where X show gets nominated for everything it was proposed for. Also, with the new categories, perhaps we could separate into notable, serious categories, and some more whimsical, less-serious ones? I always thought it was very odd that we had a listing of very serious, normal categories, and then "Worst Cancellation" out of nowhere. And, what exactly is wrong with the international nominations? Doctor Who and Extras both got multiple nominations this year. --Wizardryo\^talk 21:11, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, the "voting bloc" issue was precisely why I separated out animation in the first place, but, upon review, I'm not 100% sure the evidence is there to suggest anyone would vote in a bloc. I mean, we can try it and see. If the animation voting bloc turns out to be a problem, we can rethink it for 2008, y'know? Mostly, I realize that animation actors/guest actors/indidvidual episodes are excluded under this system, and the choices are either to make them eligible in the Drama and Comedy categories or set up six more categories to accomodate them. When possible, I'd prefer to keep the number of categories limited.

As far as the BSG bloc, I haven't taken this critical or intense a look at the precise voting breakdowns, but as I recall from a glance, BSG's sweeping of its nominations appears not to have been the fault of a "voting bloc," per se, but rather the result of various people really liking that show. I mean, the only real test case would be the "Best Individual Episode of a Drama Series" category, where people could've voted a straight BSG ticket and thus had it dominate that category as it did. I'm sure there were one or two people who did just that, but as I recall, the majority of people who voted for one or two BSG episodes didn't vote a straight ticket. It was just that enough of the voters from all areas voted for one or two episodes to put those three over the top. Again, I haven't taken that close a look yet, though. If the voting bloc turns out to be an issue, I think there are simple measures which can be considered to avoid that.

I think the main issue this year was with the relatively small number of voters, and again, I'd like to double or triple them for next year. I'm not disappointed with the voting turn-out this year - frankly, it was a little better than I'd anticipated. But hopefully, our user base will expand enough that we can get a larger, wider demographic for next year, which would eliminate the voting bloc problem entirely. Even this year, with as few voters as we had, voting blocs did exist, but their impact was minimal. For instance, I did specifically note that a couple people voted for Scrubs in every Comedy category and only Scrubs in every Comedy category, but as you can see, that did not guarantee Scrubs would sweep the Comedy nominations. (Much as I personally really wanted to see "My Way Home" nominated.)

I'd love to hear some more suggestions for more whimsical categories, but if we're going to create new categories, we should keep in mind that the categories should encompass many different shows on the air. In other words, Best Simian Actor might not work, because how many lower primates are on TV, really? But Best Cancellation or Best Episode Title, as I said, sounds fine to me.

As for international votes, I didn't mean that international shows should be excluded. I meant it might be a bit too early to add a separate, international IVies which eliminate (or alter) the "must have aired in the US" requirements - e.g., a British IVies to coincide with the BAFTA Awards, for shows which aired in the UK this year, a Canadian IVies, etc. The reason I think it may be early to set up new international awards is because, again, the ultimate voting pool for even the American awards was so small, and of those voters, only I think four or five were from countries with national health care plans. So at this time, I don't see the need for a separate British IVies in which only three people would be able to participate, y'know? Of course, British, Canadian, Australian, etc. TV shows aired in the US would certainly be eligible for the 2007 IVies, as they were for the 2006 IVies, and you're right. Both Doctor Who (which has had a solid US fan base for decades now) and Extras (which, like Rome, aired on HBO) did quite well this year. JCaesar 21:54, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

Currently only shows which run in the U.S. are eligible. --MateoP 21:46, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

I don't see how this (animation) is any different from any of the other programs on this site. Unless you're planning to rewrite the rules so that shows like BSG cannot dominate the categories anymore, I don't see any reason to keeps the rules as such to keep a certain genre/medium out just so it can't win categories that it might plausibly have a shot at. After all, it might seem like you're writing the rules just to make sure shows you like win.  ;) -- Lampbane 21:58, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

I don't see how this (animation) is any different from any of the other programs on this site.

And I agree in principle. In practice, I also understand Wizardryo's point. Basically, when I wrote the definitions for the awards, I took into account that some users only edit the pages for animated series, and I did not want those voters to dominate any given category. (It should also be noted that, under the initial consideration, greater weight would have been given to potential voters who had edited the pages of at least two or more different shows, period - regardless of what the shows were, whether they were ones I liked or not - to further eliminate the voting bloc issue.) Then the rules were changed to appease "certain users" (*cough*), and voting blocs suddenly became a danger.

In retrospect, however, again (at least at a glance), this seems not to have been an issue. And as long as they do exist as a potential problem, I'd rather give every series or type of series equal potential to have a voting bloc. I mean, whether we guarantee all or none, the net result should be the same, right?

After all, it might seem like you're writing the rules just to make sure shows you like win.  ;)

How do you know what I prefer? Huh? Just because I said, "I'll champion this nomination" on the proposed nomination pages doesn't mean I supported that nomination. For you to know how I would've voted, I'd've had to have posted a list, like some people did. But I didn't do that, now, did I? JCaesar 22:16, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

Hey you, grow a sense of humor. :p I used a smiley and quoted something from the insanely-long argument that you just had where I was on your side. Don't assume that everything is an attack, it's not flattering. -- Lampbane 22:22, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

I can't stay mad at you, Lampbane. Let's hug it out, you little bitch. JCaesar 22:28, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

I am now required to respond with a reference of my own, I see.

No touching!!!

But anyway, it's all cool. -- Lampbane 22:41, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

On a more serious note, re: voting blocs:

I took a second look at the vote breakdowns. Basically, when it comes to BSG, only three people voted a "straight ticket" for Battlestar Galactica in the Best Individual Episode of a Drama Series category. (Only one other show got a straight-ticket vote from anyone in that category - Veronica Mars, from one voter, and if you take a look at who that voter is, I think we can both agree he wasn't intentionally tampering with the votes.) With as small of numbers as we have, yes, three voters could be considered a "voting bloc," except, upon deeper examination, only one of those three voters also voted for BSG in all three of the other categories for which its nomination was proposed (Best Drama Series; Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series and Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series.) In other words, only one person cast six out of six possible votes for BSG in all categories. (And, unlike some of the voters who cast straight Scrubs tickets in the Comedy categories, the BSG straight-ticketer did vote for multiple other series over the course of all seven Drama categories.) Five other voters cast five out of six possible BSG votes over all seven Drama categories, but the mere fact that they did not cast six out of six (and the fact that two of them are admins) suggests to me this is less a case of an intentional voting bloc and more a case of one really popular show with - if not everybody - enough people to push it over the top. JCaesar 08:11, 13 July 2006 (EDT)

Further Suggestions

• An idea to consider to reach some form of compromise: have a separate set of less-serious awards that is open to all of the public. Best Drama Series and Best Actor can be voted on by the limited panel based on worthwhile edits and contributions, but awards like Best Opening Credits Seqence and Worst Villain can be public voting using the simple Wikipedia system of voting by editing the page with your vote. Under this proposal, Worst Cancellation can be moved over to the "fan" awards.

I'd definitely like to open up to more light-hearted categories. We can work out the specifics by consensus/vote. However, one thing is that the "Worst Cancellation" may be getting mis-read as a "lighter" category, which it wasn't intended to be. It's intended to be the twin of "Best New Series." Maybe if it were re-named "Best Cancelled or Ended Series"? JCaesar 19:10, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Personally, for me, I just don't see "Worst Cancellation" being considered a serious category, whether or not there is a name-change. To be fair, I'm actually going to go ahead and make the same argument for "Best New Series," as well. I can't necessarily give such a valid reason for it, it just "feels" more different from the different categories. Apologies if that doens't sound right at all. --Wizardryo\^talk 19:45, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

it just "feels" more different from the different categories. Ah, now you're getting all Stephen Colbert on me. ;)

No, seriously, I can see that argument. Basically, there were two reasons why I proposed the "Best New Series" and "Worst Cancellation" categories in the first place. I wanted to address (before he even raised it) MateoP's problem with shows not quite fitting one category or the other. I also wanted to give special recognition to series which might not quite get enough votes to win any one category, but certainly brought in new readers, such as The Colbert Report. The Television Critics awards have categories for "Best Program" and also "Best New Series." The problem with "Best Program" (and this is a problem with the Emmys, not a problem with the Television Critics, but is too early to tell with the IVies) is that the same shows tend to win year after year. By catching them either when they first arrive or as they head out the door, we can eliminate that problem and leave room for a wider variety of shows. JCaesar 21:28, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

• Also, make the reality categories more specific, much like the Emmys. There's no reason for The Amazing Race to be in the same category as Bullshit! and NOVA. Best Competitive Reality Program (Survivor, TAR, Big Brother, Project Runway) and Best Candid/Documentary Reality Program (30 Days, Penn and Teller, NOVA) are good choices for the split. The latter may get iffy depending on the quality and distinctness of the shows and may need to get split again. The only real problem I can see arising from this is that the former category will get the same exact shows nominated every year: TAR, Survivor, Project Runway, American Idol, The Apprentice, Big Brother. The competitive reality fad is fast dying out, as is indicated by the rise and fall of Fear Factor, and what's left really is the cream of the crop.

--Wizardryo\^talk 12:25, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

The reality category was broad specifically because I wasn't 100% sure it would get enough proposed nominations to justify its inclusion otherwise. And, in retrospect, it didn't. You mention the "Big Five," but if you go back and look, only two of those were even proposed as nominations (TAR and American Idol). I'm all for breaking out whatever is getting enough votes to justify its own category (the most obvious choice here being "Best Guest Actor or Actress in a Comedy" or "Drama Series," which I'm going to say now will, it is almost 100% certain in my mind, be four categories in 2007, not two as it was this year) but as you yourself said, at best, only five shows seem likely to get nominated at all, which is hardly a huge call for a category. If higher-quality reality shows start getting produced (which is possible) or a larger contingent of reality fans join the site, then maybe we can take a second look. As it is, broad as the category is, it still didn't even get as many proposed nominations as the much more narrowly defined "Best Animated Series."

The other issue there is that the Emmys actually has three categories: Outstanding Reality Program; Outstanding Competition-Reality Program and Outstanding Nonfiction Series. That "Nonfiction Series" incorporates both non-comedic talk shows (like Inside the Actors Studio) and documentary shows like NOVA (although, oddly enough, NOVA has never been nominated in that category, while American Masters—which sometimes rebroadcasts theatrically-released documentaries as episodes—has. I don't get it either.) The problem in breaking things out that way is, while the Emmys have a tighter control on what gets nominated where, we have to find a method of division which we can easily explain and define to all tens of thousands of users. Competition-Reality is pretty obvious. But why is Penn & Teller: Bullshit! in one category (Reality) and, say, Deadliest Catch (or theoretically Mythbusters) in another? P&T themselves have said, on their show, they don't consider their show to be "reality," and don't agree with its being nominated as such, and by the strictest terms, it isn't. So how would we simply and clearly define what's one and what's the other? Where would we put Good Eats? It's a hell of a headache to accommodate what is, so far, a much less popular category.

The same problem arises with "Best Made-for-TV Movie, Miniseries or Special." Personally, I would've loved to have separated out documentary/informational movies and miniseries from dramatic movies, and further to have had Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress categories for the dramatic ones. But, as it was, we barely had enough proposed nominations to put up for a vote, and without the documentary choices, we'd've had exactly two. And in voting, so very few voters cast votes in that category that we still didn't end up with five movies which had received enough votes to justify inclusion. Now, maybe this was a weak season for TV movies. Or maybe it's because (until more recently) the TV IV hasn't focused on listings for TV movies and miniseries. I'm really hoping to see enough nominations next year for things like Broken Trail to justify expanding the number of categories for movies and miniseries, but based on that category's performance this year, to do so now would be a lot of work for almost no interest. JCaesar 19:10, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Honestly, I don't really think a lot of people go out of their way to watch TV movies and miniseries, especially now that they have a much lesser prominence on television than they used to. As for the Reality issue, there's no reason for those shows to not have been nominated. I admit I overlooked that link myself and just assumed that the proper shows would be nominated, so I was a bit surprised that shows like Project Runway and Survivor failed to be nominated when I went to vote and I had to vote for a bunch of shows that seemed out-of-place when placed next to each other in the same category. --Wizardryo\^talk 19:45, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Well, it's possible that a lot of people overlooked a lot of links. And frankly, that's quite frustrating to me, as I kept trying and trying and trying to drum up involvement. (It's also an argument against opening voting up too much.) In fact, literally at the eleventh hour - less than an hour before the official "close-time" of the proposal threads - I got fed up and had to propose eight candidates for nomination—Victor Garber, Jean Smart, Brother's Keeper, The Mistake, The Other 48 Days, Casino Night, His Story III and Baghdad ER—because I simply couldn't imagine them not even being considered. I would have put up at least two or three more (including Zach Braff), but the forums were running slowly, and I had promised myself I would start closing the threads at the previously stated time, come hell or high water. At the time, I figured the problem with those excluded entries was they just weren't popular enough with other people to end up getting votes, and I was just slipping them in for posterity's sake, so imagine my shock (and frankly, annoyance) when over half of them got nominated! And if that was annoying, my response was nothing short of head-pounding frustration when a certain user who had rather prominently been aware of and involved in the nomination proposal process went off and listed his own nominations (on the TV IV Wiki, treating it like his blog), after the official nominees were announced, and included 27 nominees whose candidacy had never been proposed! In other words, over a quarter of his nominees would have been eligible had he bothered to propose their candidacy, but he didn't, and now he's upset enough that they weren't nominated that he's created his own page.

As much fun and as rewarding as this experience of the IVy Awards has been, this issue is the closest I've come to being disheartened over it since Day One. No matter how clear I have made it that people need to get involved for the awards process to work, no matter how I've promoted the project, people simply need more than a little prodding to get involved. Even with the narrow list of voters, I have had to maintain a list of who has and has not voted, and I constantly find myself sending people personal IMs or e-mails (many of which still get ignored) reminding them that their involvement is necessary at such-and-such a phase. During the proposed nominations phase, I even personally IM'ed people on other forums who had said, "Gee, x should really be considered for Category y," to personally implore them to propose its candidacy.

But, as difficult as that process is with the system the way it is now, it expands exponentially as we add more categories, more phases, more involvement from more people. I think and hope and pray and believe, in setting this system up, we can establish a certain legitimacy which will naturally encourage more involvement in succeeding years, but until we're sure that's the case, broadening the base of the awards just creates a lot of work for no guaranteed involvement. JCaesar 21:28, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Your proposed compromise doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that you are excluding people from something that is part of the main namespace. If a person would like to hold a vote on tv shows and invite certain users to participate they can do that on their own User space. Anything that takes place on the main namespace shouldn't be excluding people. It's elitist, by definition. --MateoP 19:38, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

I wouldn't go so far as to call it elitist. You have to remember that the last time we had a major vote, it was on the logo, something that, yes, greatly affects the site. And, if you look on your user talk page, you can see that there were sweeping amounts of fraud. Especially now that the userbase has grown substantially since that vote, there's simply no way to keep up the facade of a "public" vote while at the same time making sure that no fraud happens. Your previous proposal of letting whoever wants to sign up and vote being allowed to sign up and vote also poses a problem because, simply put, there's no easy way to check IPs with the software and hardware we have. CygnusTM spent hours every single day making sure the logo contest remained legitimate and that is not something anyone cares to duplicate in the future. --Wizardryo\^talk 19:54, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Thank you for being the first person to so much as acknowledge that suggestion. Everyone else has simply ignored it and then later pretended like I was still talking about doing it via the wiki.

Nevertheless, if you had a simple sign-up sheet you'd have to check IPs exactly 1 time. The time in which they signed up for the invitation-only forum (the same method currently used. And every forum allows moderators to see IP addresses). That couldn't possibly be more simple. There's really no excuse for excluding everyone but hand picked "worthys" at this point. Unless the premise is that people do want an elitist method of voting. But they have to admit to that and stop pretending like there is a software problem that there isn't. --MateoP 20:01, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

For the last bloody time, Wizardryo is neither the first person to acknowledge that suggestion, nor are you the first to propose it. It was floated as a possibility in the earliest days of the proposal, and it was excluded because of the very difficulties Wizardryo has spelled out for you. Further, the choice of voters was not arbitrary, and even in limiting their number, the work involved in getting them to participate was not simple. I'm really tired of repeating myself, so I'm absolutely not addressing this issue any further. JCaesar 21:28, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

I just set up a board on [www.proboards.com/ Proboards]. It took me 5 minutes. It allows moderators to see IP addresses (i checked). It allows moderators to turn off registration. You could simply make people sign up via a wiki sign-up sheet, then tell people to sign up to the board (the exact same way currently done) and check the IP all of once, banning people with IPs on two names. The technology excuse is debunked. If you want to be elitist, then just say so. The only different between the two methods is that one is elitist and one open. There are no technological differences. --MateoP 22:14, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

I agree on the categories, mostly. Although I don't think that there is grey area on reality. Shows that follow people's lives are reality. Shows where a person talks about topics (Penn & Teller or Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason) are not reality at all. Those have existed decades before the term reality was invented. Those are just news/documentary series. They would be in the same category as 20/20, Primetime, Real Time with Bill Maher, etc. Also, I don't agree that there won't be new competition reality shows. The fad of them dominating primetime lineups might be over, but that doesn't mean they won't still exist and be popular. Project Runway is an example of an extremely popular reality show that has only been around a year and a half. --MateoP 19:38, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Shows where a person talks about topics (Penn & Teller or Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason) are not reality at all. I agree to an extent, but that's not how the Emmys see it (this year, Penn & Teller: Bullshit! and Antiques Roadshow were both nominated as "Outstanding Reality Program," while Deadliest Catch was nominated as "Outstanding Nonfiction Series"). As someone who has objected to categorizations on the basis of how the Emmys categorize programs, surely you of all people you can understand how vague, subjective and counterintuitive those distinctions are. Even if we use the "following people's lives" distinction, very many of the episodes of NOVA and American Masters do just that.

Also, shows which follow people's lives have also existed since decades before the term "reality" was invented to describe them. Cops debuted in 1989, The Real World in 1992. Before even that, travel documentaries go back almost to the dawn of television, and the influential British documentary Seven Up! (and all its sequels, released every seven years) are certainly in that category, and the original debuted in 1964. Most of the first films were documentaries; many of the first documentaries followed people's lives; many documentaries since have done the same; it only makes sense that many of TV's documentaries throughout history would do the same. JCaesar 21:28, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Also, the more I think about it, you still have the question of Mythbusters, where the hosts both discuss the issue and actively participate in an activity, which frankly is frequently a problem with Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, too, where the hosts often set up artificial situations to follow people around and get their reaction.

As for including 20/20, Primetime Live, Real Time with Bill Maher and Penn & Teller: Bullshit! in the same category, again, the Emmys don't do that, either. P&T is "Outstanding Reality Series," Real Time is "Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series," and 20/20 and Primetime Live are excluded from the Emmys competitive categories altogether and are instead nominated for the special "Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Broadcast Journalism Award."

(For the record, in my initial proposal for the IVies, there would have been a Best News Show category, but that idea was nixed. Probably with good reason, considering how few of those shows currently have entries on the Wiki.) JCaesar 21:58, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

NOVA usually submits their stuff to the News & Documentary Emmys so they can get more nominations and awards because they qualify for multiple categories. Although I think they do occasionally submit stuff to the primetime emmy's in the nonfiction category especially for creative and technical awards.The-jam 23:22, 8 August 2006 (EDT)