2011 Watcher of the Year Dilemma

[[Syl]]

After arguing with Menolly about this all day, I decided to see what you guys want to do.

Here's the thing: the Watcher of the Year category ended in a 3-way tie, with me, Aliantha, and Fist each receiving the same number of votes (and the other entrants receiving the same number of votes as well). Now, normally breaking ties is the one vote I cast. And I'll be honest, if the choice came between winning or magnanimously bestowing the award on someone else, I'd probably go with the latter (though I do want the damn award so I can stop worrying about it. Should've taken it the first year I ran the damn thing, but no, I have to go and say I'm ineligible and all that... pfshaw).

As anyone who knows my moderating style knows, I'm pretty strict when it comes to the rules. However, Cambo's votes would've decided the category in another Watcher's favor. But me, I'm not about to bend the rules to my own disadvantage, so I thought the best choice would just be to leave it a tie. And not to completely throw away Cambo's votes, I decided to give him my tie-breaking authority in three other categories (and more for runners up).

This bothers my co-mod. Something about devaluing the Watcher of the Year award. So I thought I'd put it up to the Watch. What do you want to do?

Options:
A) Leave it how it is
B) Have a run-off (re-vote) between Fist, Aliantha, and me.
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"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner

[Shaun das Schaf]

B for me.

[aliantha]

Are you kidding? If we have a runoff, I might lose!

I vote "leave it as-is". We can have 3 fabulous Watchers this year, surely. We're voting for 2 years, after all....
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EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

https://www.hearth-myth.com/

[Savor Dam]

Menolly truly can be like a rottwiler with a steakbone when she is set about an opinion. For someone usually so adverse to conflict, avoiding it at almost any cost, her persistance when she has made up her mind about something is quite mighty.

Personally, I have no problem with multiple awards in this category, especially since a year was missed. All three co-WOTY recipients are quite deserving. Unless one or more feel they would rather receive it in their own right in a subsequent year, why not let each sport the 2011 WOTY tag? This will open up the possibilities for subsequent years and allow more candidates a shot, since we will not have two deserving "almost won" candidates who will be in the "it's their turn" seat.

That's for folks like McCain and Romney. Who among us could possibly imagine Syl, Ali or Fist aspiring to that kind of sequential entitlement system?

Award them all WOTY and be done with it!
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Love prevails.
~ Tracie Mckinney-Hammon

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
~ Rainier Maria Rilke

[Fist and Faith]

What's Cambo got to do with it?
_________________
We are not required to save the world. We are required to stand up as truly as we can for what we love. -SRD

All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon

[Menolly]

Since [Syl] was up front about what he did regarding Cambo's vote, I will say that is one aspect that bothers me. I like that the sheriff is willing to bend the rules, and allow Cambo's vote to determine tie-breakers, even though he did not confirm on time, instead of taking on the tie-breakers himself.

However, if this is going to be applied, I feel it should be applied for all tie-breakers. I also feel, since the resultant "runner-up" category, naming the 2010 WotY would be in a tie, that [Syl] would then be able to determine the 2010 WotY.

If he chooses to not count Cambo's vote, then [Syl] should stand by the rules and declare the winner of the 2011 WotY, and the two runners up would be co-2010 WotY.

Be that as it may, what I feel diminishes the award the most is the fact that the way things stand, all the nominees this year would be named WotY. The three first place voters as 2011, and the two runners up as 2010. This feels wrong to me. As a WotY, I would like the award to not go to every nominee.

So, between these two choices, I go with run-off, please.
That is, if I am eligible to vote on this issue.
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[Vraith]

I would say: it is 2 years. SO: count Cambo's vote as the tie-breaker for one of the years. That leaves you and the other "semi-winner" as a two-way race for the other year. Revote head to head on that race by PM to Menolly [who gets tie-break decision if necessary]
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Spoiler:

Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.

the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.

[sgt.null]

run-off

a tie is like kissing your sister.
_________________
life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

[Fist and Faith]

Reminds me of National Lampoon's Vacation. "Do you French kiss? Daddy says I'm the best!"
_________________
We are not required to save the world. We are required to stand up as truly as we can for what we love. -SRD

All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon

[Menolly]

Please remember to vote *officially* in the poll at the top of the thread.
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[[Syl]]

The only two options are the ones I listed above. It's an either/or, not this/that/and the other thing.

And to be clear, I didn't bend the rules. I just let Cambo's vote influence my tie-breaking. There's no rule saying what I have to use as the basis of my decision to break ties (and if there was, I'd have an opinion about where those rules could go). Similarly, if I'd wanted to be an absolute tyrant about it, I would've been perfectly within my rights to throw out Cambo's vote and give the award to myself. Or, just as a 'what if,' if I'd voted and Cambo's vote counted, it'd still be tied, just between me and one other person (the result of which would not be changed if my co-mod had not voted).

Also, this poll is for informational purposes only. I will still make the final call according to my own judgment.
_________________
"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

'Tankers of the Watch unite. Sometimes there's no substitute for good ol' fashioned autocracy. Proceed Mr. Niedermeyer.


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"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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[[Syl]]

Since this has also been posted in Announcements , allow me to expand on that last sentence.

This poll shouldn't be considered some kind of second vote (possibly leading to a third). It's to help gauge opinion, the actual comments used to support a vote being more important. If I'd thought about it, I wouldn't have included the poll at all to avoid confusion on that count.

Basically, unless it's pretty clear that public opinion is against the way I did the results, it'll probably stand. Or, in true Think Tank fashion, if someone can convincingly lay a case against the current results, it may just persuade me.

But at least I know how I'll run this thing next time (assuming I'm not completely debarred and they find someone else).
_________________
"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner

[High Lord Tolkien]

I never voted. Want me to break the 3-way tie?
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https://thoolah.blogspot.com/

[Defeated by a gizmo from Batman's utility belt]
Joker: I swear by all that's funny never to be taken in by that unconstitutional device again!

[[Syl]]

That all really depends on how you vote.

Nah, you know what they say. Don't vote, lose your right to complain. Right, Av?

If there is a run-off election, though, it will be open to everyone to vote. So I suppose if you really wanted to vote but didn't, option B would be your best bet. Of course, that's one of the reasons I'm more about the reasoning for a decision rather than a simple vote (and as things now, the possibility of another damn tie).
_________________
"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner

[Fist and Faith]

How'd you get to be king? I didn't vote for you!
_________________
We are not required to save the world. We are required to stand up as truly as we can for what we love. -SRD

All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon

[Menolly]

[aliantha]

I'd offer to step back from WotY, but I suspect it would just make things worse....
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EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

https://www.hearth-myth.com/

[Cambo]

[aliantha]