Keen Awards 2023: Nominations

[K1n9_Duk3]

Here's a suggestion for next year's Keen Awards: I think the nominations thread should run year-long instead of only at the end of the year. That way people can nominate stuff as soon as it comes out and not have to try and remember every cool thing that released in a year.

Yes, please.

[Quillax]

Here's a suggestion for next year's Keen Awards: I think the nominations thread should run year-long instead of only at the end of the year. That way people can nominate stuff as soon as it comes out and not have to try and remember every cool thing that released in a year.

I remember Roobar suggesting that back in 2020, I wonder how well that would work. I think it would be worth a shot for Keen Awards 2024, maybe the nominations thread for that could start soon after the current polls are done. You bring up a really good point; it's been a few days since the polls opened, and a lot of them already have at least 5 or 6 votes. Meanwhile, the nominations period lasted for a week and a half, and only 4 people made nominations, the bulk of which are done by me (sorry Mobiethian, but I didn't count you because your nominations were redundant). Had we kept the one-nomination-per-category-per-person rule, then we'd have very few polls!

My main concern would be if the amount of nominees for a given category would end up exceeding the limit for options in a poll, but that's probably unlikely to happen. The limit is 20, and we don't ever seem to get that much Keen stuff per category. (Now watch and see 2024 get an explosion of Keen content from a parade of Keen fans. )

[Roobar]

How about every time someone makes something or found something, post it here and add #keenawards2024 hashtag? (could be shortened to #24 or something). I've tested it and it works. That way, when the time comes for 2024 nominations, just search this hashtag and add what's nominated.

[Benvolio]

I like that idea. It would be a nice little boost of praise for a modder/artist/creator to see this in a response on their release thread.

I guess the only thing is, which award is the nomination for? Or does that get decided at the time of the awards? Do we just put it in brackets after the hashtag? For the awards administrator to read when collating nominations.

[Syllypryde]

The issue with having nominations open only a week to a week in a half is that the overwhelming majority of the community (at least the active community) may not be able to post their nominations in that time, meaning all nominations are given by 3-5 people only. As much as we would all love to spend significant hours by day on this forum, interacting with the other members like a country club, our personal lives can sometimes get in the way and as a result may not have time to come here for a week or even a month, etc. I had mentioned before to the community about seriously medical problems I had to take care of and caused me to be away from this forum for awhile. Other people it might be college, a new job, an additional to the family, or the death of a loved family member that might tear us away from this forum. Like I said, I don't think a week or so is long enough to propose nominations.

I like the all year around idea as well.

[namida]

I definitely think a bit longer than a week is a good idea. Dunno if it has to be the whole year. Perhaps a month or so?

[Pandakeen]

I'm not so sure about the hashtag idea, it sounds a bit contrived. I think a year long thread is the best solution.

[Mobiethian]

Hopefully the Keen Awards threads can be extended. I totally agree with you all about it and that it should be longer. There needs to be more time to get almost everybody's votes in at least.

[Soul Monster]

I'm seeing a lot of people brainstorming ideas on how to better improve the nomination and voting process for the Keen Awards. I have to agree with a lot of the ideas and concerns people have in that, with such a short time limit on things, it's hard to get everyone's votes and nominations in, as it's common for people to become inactive for a while. I personally had a few nomination ideas, but due to my schedule lately I haven't had much time to focus on that sort of thing, but at the very least I'm glad most of the nominations I would've made were made by other users. It seems like the Keen Awards were just kind of done on the fly this year, and may not have even happened had Quillax not stepped up to spearhead it (By the way, thanks Quillax for hosting the Keen Awards this year).

Perhaps we could make a list of different ideas on how to improve the Keen Awards, so maybe we could make a list of some of these and put it to a vote on what we feel would work best?

[Dave216]

The nomination for "Keenest Person of the Year" should still be at the end of the year because I feel it's a culmination of a person's activity and helpfulness rather than a one-time thing award.

Also, how would the "Most Promising Project" work if it was instantly nominated by someone and if that person released it before the next KeenDay? I assume it would just be removed from the list. But wouldn't that sort of force modders to not release their creations throughout the whole year, even if the mod or fangame is complete before KeenDay? Maybe I am overthinking this too much.

[Soul Monster]

Also, how would the "Most Promising Project" work if it was instantly nominated by someone and if that person released it before the next KeenDay? I assume it would just be removed from the list. But wouldn't that sort of force modders to not release their creations throughout the whole year, even if the mod or fangame is complete before KeenDay? Maybe I am overthinking this too much.

That actually happened a couple years ago. Once it was released, which was during nominations, that mod was removed from the category. I understand your concern with modders deliberately postponing releases in hopes of getting nominations/awards, and I don't think there would really be any way to stop that, but the users on here seem pretty honest, so I wouldn't worry about it.

[Quillax]

About the whole timespan of the nominations thing, it was kind of a tough decision for me. On one hand, I thought that a week-and-a-half is much too short, while on the other hand, I wanted this year's Keen Awards to wrap up around Keen Day like some of the previous years. It got started pretty late, and no one said "No" to the deadline, so I reluctantly rolled with it. I tried to nominate as much award-worthy stuff as I could to make up for the low activity. I guess it doesn't help that the nominations were done in late February and early March, which seem to be historically the less active periods on PCKF (because people are focusing on getting ready for Keen Day).

So far, these ideas have been proposed for Keen Awards 2024:

• Start the nominations in January 1, 2025 and do it like usual.
• Nominate stuff via a hastag (e.g. #keenawards2024), and then collect them in a nominations thread that starts on January 1, 2025.
• Start the nominations soon after Keen Awards 2023 wraps up, letting it run nearly year-round.

I'm thinking that nominations should end around mid-February; this would give people at least a month-and-a-half for nomination, and a month for voting. The Keen Awards forum would remain a subforum in Other Keen Stuff for the rest of 2024, and then rise back up to the index page in January 1, 2025.

A poll sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe it could be done in some sort of "Advice and suggestions" thread? Like, I've wondered if Online Community Service Recognition and Keenest Person of the Year should be changed at all; their titles are kind of ambiguous, and I really struggled to figure out who should be nominated and for what reasons. Or is it just me? Are people voting for Nisaba in the former just because of her work on KeenWiki's FTP server and main page, plus the fact that she became a global moderator on PCKF, or is there more to it? I want to note, however, that I really like the category titles as is, and would hate to see them changed (maybe the clarifications in parentheses could use some modifications).

To those who said that they had stuff to nominate but didn't get around to it, what if we brought back the Ancient Works category? It was introduced in Keen Awards 2003 as a way to acknowledge Keen stuff that never got a chance to be nominated, then it got retired in the next year for some reason. It was intended for works that are at least 3 years old, but we could change it so that it's for any work that's at least one year old and didn't get nominated. I'm not sure if there should be a limit on how far back it should go, though, otherwise it might get too broad. Like, for Keen Awards 2024, should Ancient Works only allow stuff made in 2023? I'd like to know what people think about this.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the results for Keen Awards 2023! Some of those polls are getting pretty competitive!