Wow... I'm working away from home for a few weeks, I come back, and it's the end of the year already! What happened to Autumn?

For what it's worth, I thought the points system in the albums list last year worked very well. I can see why people might want to increase the gap between points awarded to higher placed albums compared to those in the nether regions, but I agree with besttasteetc that this penalises albums that might appear say, 15th in many lists in comparison to one album that only one or two people like, but as their no.1.

I think the songs list needs an overhaul, as seems to be the general feeling. The nominations list seems like a good idea, but maybe we could also limit the final list to one song per artist, which might benefit artists like The Decemberists last year, and I'd imagine Peter John & Bjorn this year (for those of you that didn't vote for them last year ) by getting a consensus on just one track.

Or am I just over-complicating matters?

PS: That Guy! - You will be physically forced to post both, or you will be frog-marched to the Pit of Death, where you will meet a grizzly doom. Or you can just do one or the other...

quote:

Originally posted by Borachon:
I'd imagine Peter John & Bjorn this year (for those of you that didn't vote for them last year )

Well excuse me for living in the U.S.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
Well excuse me for living in the U.S.

Nope.

quote:

Originally posted by Besttasteinmusicever:

I know I only have 200 posts but I would be willing to keep track in November and post the 50 finalists on Dec. 1st.

As long as you're willing to put in the time and you can tally the results reliably, I don't think it matters how long you've been here. I don't have the time or inclination to do it again. Like RL said, it's a pain in the ass and will eat up a lot of your time, so if you're willing to do it, be our guest.

I'm not sure 50 is enough songs. People have pretty diverse tastes. I'd go with my suggestion of taking a minimum # of votes to get a song nominated. Last year, we had about 90 songs that got 4 votes or more. There were about 130 that got 3 or more votes. One of those might be a good pool to work from. We ended up getting a little over 60 lists last year. I don't know if we can expect more or less this year.

I don't believe this has been addressed yet, but you need to limit the length of each member's "nomination list". Are we going with 10? If a few people starting throwing out 50-song lists...

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
I don't believe this has been addressed yet, but you need to limit the length of each member's "nomination list". Are we going with 10? If a few people starting throwing out 50-song lists...

Last year, we did 30-song lists, which worked out pretty well. Maybe 30 for the nomination process, then 10-20 for your final post-nomination vote. But, yes, you need to limit the lists.

I don't really like the nomination idea, but that is more because I'm undoubtedly going to end up having to vote the same indie stuff that is almost universally popular here. :/ And I don't really want to vote between "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" and "23". I like different stuff dammit!

What advantage is it to you in not having the "nomination" process? I realize that you believe you can't hope for your specific songs to win, but this brings up a point. There should always be a place for write-in candidates, and I'm serious. I realize this causes more headaches for the vote counter, but I can't think of any non-fascistic election which doesn't allow write-in votes.

Therefore, even if you nominate yours (and everybody else will see them), and none of them make the "final list", you can still "write in" your votes. You probably still won't get any into the final list, but you never know, and putting up your nominations early gives you a headstart at "campaining"! Ha!

P.S. When the final ballot comes out, I'm only voting for songs I like. I'm not voting to fill up "my allotted choices".

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:
In case anyone wasn't around last year, this is how we distributed the points.

1 - 27
2 - 24
3 - 20
4 - 18
5 - 16
6 - 14
7 - 13
8 - 12
9 - 10
10 - 8
11 - 8
12 - 7
13 - 6
14 - 5
15 - 5
16 - 3
17 - 3
18 - 2
19 - 1
20 - 1

RL did an impromptu poll a few weeks before we started as to how people would distribute 200 points among 20 albums and averaged the results.

While last year's numbers seem okay, I don't really like the idea of two albums getting the same number, even if they are right next to each other near the bottom. If we did this sort of system, I would do something like this:

1 - 28
2 - 24
3 - 21
4 - 19
5 - 17
6 - 15
7 - 14
8 - 13
9 - 12
10 - 11
11 - 10
12 - 9
13 - 8
14 - 7
15 - 6
16 - 5
17 - 4
18 - 3
19 - 2
20 - 1

In response to Besttasteinmusicever's concerns about the number of #20 ratings required to catch up to a #1, I think that there should be an enormous difference between the two. The kind of album that will win this poll shouldn't be getting a whole lot of #20s.

That pointing system works out pretty well. I do feel that the album-scoring system was succesful last year. It's just the song-scoring system that needs tweaking.

If anyone else is interested I would be willing to do the write-ups for this year's albums again. I thought it was a pretty good idea last year so that some of members could flash their writing chops and talk about their top albums. It started out well, yet at the end I only had about nine other people contribute. I would like to start this up around November and have it finished around the same time as the album and song voting ends. That way we could release the results simultaneously--or close to it. Either way, if nobody cares or doesn't want to do it, let me know so I will just drop it, as opposed to constantly bringing it up like last year.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
That pointing system works out pretty well. I do feel that the album-scoring system was succesful last year. It's just the song-scoring system that needs tweaking.

If anyone else is interested I would be willing to do the write-ups for this year's albums again. I thought it was a pretty good idea last year so that some of members could flash their writing chops and talk about their top albums. It started out well, yet at the end I only had about nine other people contribute. I would like to start this up around November and have it finished around the same time as the album and song voting ends. That way we could release the results simultaneously--or close to it. Either way, if nobody cares or doesn't want to do it, let me know so I will just drop it, as opposed to constantly bringing it up like last year.

I'm game again.

In response to Besttasteinmusicever's concerns about the number of #20 ratings required to catch up to a #1, I think that there should be an enormous difference between the two. The kind of album that will win this poll shouldn't be getting a whole lot of #20s.


L.R.
I agree with you in theory. The problem is these end of year lists are supposed to represent the users of metacritic, and I think an album that is rated on 20 or 30 lists (even if it is ranked low), is more representative of this site than an album that 2 people have as their favorite (and possible many haven't even heard).

quote:

Originally posted by Besttasteinmusicever:

L.R.
I agree with you in theory. The problem is these end of year lists are supposed to represent the users of metacritic, and I think an album that is rated on 20 or 30 lists (even if it is ranked low), is more representative of this site than an album that 2 people have as their favorite (and possible many haven't even heard).

Well, one of the things we were trying to move away from with the weighted system was the idea that an album that was liked by many but loved by none could win the thing.

We'd have to get RL's input, but I don't think there was a case where an album got an absurd amount of votes, but failed to land in the top 20.

I do know that Joanna Newsom got more #1 votes than anyone else, but only placed second in the poll.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
If anyone else is interested I would be willing to do the write-ups for this year's albums again. I thought it was a pretty good idea [

I know I don't contribute too much but I would love to write a few as well as Dork and you fragile.

I prefer the newer weighting system mentioned above.

It doesn't make sense to give different ranks the same amount of points - it basically undermines the point of putting an order on your list.

As for other points: I don't care about the member requirements...And, I think people should be allowed up to 20 albums, but ultimately a 40 album list should be made.

quote:

Originally posted by BContrat:
I prefer the newer weighting system mentioned above.

It doesn't make sense to give different ranks the same amount of points - it basically undermines the point of putting an order on your list.

My thoughts exactly, BContrat

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:

quote:

Originally posted by Besttasteinmusicever:

L.R.
I agree with you in theory. The problem is these end of year lists are supposed to represent the users of metacritic, and I think an album that is rated on 20 or 30 lists (even if it is ranked low), is more representative of this site than an album that 2 people have as their favorite (and possible many haven't even heard).

Well, one of the things we were trying to move away from with the weighted system was the idea that an album that was liked by many but loved by none could win the thing.

We'd have to get RL's input, but I don't think there was a case where an album got an absurd amount of votes, but failed to land in the top 20.

I do know that Joanna Newsom got more #1 votes than anyone else, but only placed second in the poll.

Nah, for the most part, the albums with more votes (not points) finished higher than albums with fewer votes. Yo La Tengo finished fairly high but didn't have any #1 points, so maybe it had more votes than a couple albums that finished ahead of it, but there weren't many cases like that.

I really think that albums in the top spots should get a lot more credit than lower ranking albums, particularly when there are probably a lot of people voting whose last albums they maybe don't like much; it's just that they didn't hear much more than 20 albums. Not everyone here is a total music geek who must consume everything (though I admit to being a member of that sorry group).

quote:

Originally posted by L. R. William Spencer:

quote:

Originally posted by BContrat:
I prefer the newer weighting system mentioned above.

It doesn't make sense to give different ranks the same amount of points - it basically undermines the point of putting an order on your list.

My thoughts exactly, BContrat

I actually think that when it comes to albums next to each other, say at #19 and #20, giving them the same amount of points may be the best way to go. You wouldn't say that 19 is twice as good as 20 would you? Yet you give it twice as many points. I know that this defect is unavoidable to some extent, but I think we should try to minimize it.

I haven't listened to many albums this year. Is there a set limit of albums you have to meet? such as a minimum?

In response to RavingLunatic, I do actually think that your concern is valid. That problem could be addressed by adding one or two points to the value of all positions, so that, for example, #20 would get 3, #19 4, and so on.

This would make the list of values something like this:

1 - 30
2 - 26
3 - 23
4 - 21
5 - 19
6 - 17
7 - 16
8 - 15
9 - 14
10 - 13
11 - 12
12 - 11
13 - 10
14 - 9
15 - 8
16 - 7
17 - 6
18 - 5
19 - 4
20 - 3

As far as ThatGuy's question, I would be partial to a minimum of 5 or 10 albums.