SJ Awards '11 Discussion

[blankd]

Depending on the comic, 200 can be considered underrated.

There are too many variables to make an "Underrated" category worth it.

Also recall that fan count is not a reliable indicator of quality.

[eishiya]

Afroduck: So for a 150-page BL, 1000 is underrated, amirite?

Just kidding. I still think the awards should be set up in a way that should showcase the new/underdog comics. I think the voting process would get them quite a bit of views.

I don't think it's fair to showcase comics just because they're not yet well-known. But again, this is the idealism in me talking - ideally, everyone would read every finalist and vote for what they honestly think is the best, rather than just voting for something that they know or looks best from the first 3 pages ): I guess in a way, it's about how much we trust the voters to be good and read everything. If we could trust them, we wouldn't need a special category for them.

...and, as usual, I'm going to push the "special mention" idea. If we have a category for best underdog, more underrated, whatever, it'll still be the most popular among those that wins, quite likely. It'll get extra hits, sure, but it still sort of goes against the point of the category. I think something like this should be to up the judges rather than popular voting. So, my suggestion is that from among the nominations from the other categories, we should pick a couple that deserve to be showcased even if they didn't win the popular vote. But I can see this getting some ire too, since it doesn't reflect "SJ's" opinion... Baaah.

[Afrohawkman]

Depending on the comic, 200 can be considered underrated.

There are too many variables to make an "Underrated" category worth it.

Also recall that fan count is not a reliable indicator of quality.

What variables are you talking about? When a user nominates a person, it's entirely their opinion whether or not that's underrated. When we choose the final 5, I'm pretty sure if a comic has a certain amount of fans, we could write it off right there as not underrated. Yes, it is opinion, but you're making it sound like it's so hard to figure out what's "underrated" and what's not. That can easily be figured out.

Also, I never even implied fan count was a reliable indicator of quality. If I did, I meant to imply it was a relatively reliable indicator of popularity.

@eishiya: lolwut no, 200 pages and 1000 for BL would be underrated.

[Gibson Twist]

What about something that recognizes the comic (or comics) that gets the most nominations, or is nominated in the most categories, but then doesn't actually win anything? That would sort of solve the popular voting issue while at the same time having at least a small amount of objectivity to the award, and avoiding any kind of conflict within the awards panel.

[darkenergy]

What about something that recognizes the comic (or comics) that gets the most nominations, or is nominated in the most categories, but then doesn't actually win anything? That would sort of solve the popular voting issue while at the same time having at least a small amount of objectivity to the award, and avoiding any kind of conflict within the awards panel.

I think that could end up showcasing a comic that's popular/entrenched enough to get nominated that much...but it could work!

What about one or two 'judge's picks'? Considering the extra work the judges have to put in, and the fact that 1-2 is nothing compared to the total number of categories....

Joke category wise, how about 'most eyebleeds'? I've seen at least one pretty good one here that had the most painful background ever.

[blankd]

What variables are you talking about? When a user nominates a person, it's entirely their opinion whether or not that's underrated. When we choose the final 5, I'm pretty sure if a comic has a certain amount of fans, we could write it off right there as not underrated. Yes, it is opinion, but you're making it sound like it's so hard to figure out what's "underrated" and what's not. That can easily be figured out.

Also, I never even implied fan count was a reliable indicator of quality. If I did, I meant to imply it was a relatively reliable indicator of popularity.

@eishiya: lolwut no, 200 pages and 1000 for BL would be underrated.

The definition of underrated is "[high, good, etc.] quality that is not recognized [by enough individuals]". Popularity is still not an indicator of quality.

And since the theoretical nomination is based purely on an individual's subjective [overall] rating of a work it becomes messy.

People are also free to nominate things that "have a lot of fans, but not enough" and your suggestion that a "winner" is chosen simply based on who has the LEAST amount of fans is a faulty way to figure out who is the most "underrated", especially when it comes to the public vote side. In the case of "Underrated" comics it is entirely subjective of WHY they are underrated, is it that the art is underrated or the writing or maybe just the content/subject matter?

Other factors include page to fan ratio, off-site traffic and genre-bias. And even at the end of all of it, there is bound to be complaints about the eventual "Underrated" winner as well as AGAIN dealing with the fuzzy loophole for a subsequent year ("Underrated" is a general award, but if they had excellent writing, they can win "Underrated" one year and then "Best [Genre]" the next year).

@Gibson Twist
Read eishiya's comment about "Special Mentions".

@darkenergy
"Cannot be UNSEEN!" Award perhaps?

[darkenergy]

@darkenergy
"Cannot be UNSEEN!" Award perhaps?

ha...I would be too afraid to vote for that! I was just thinking in terms of horrid color choices, ridiculous fonts. (also, I think the BL category actually covers that for me. ) ...but, yeah, I would go for that, hahaha.

[Afrohawkman]

What variables are you talking about? When a user nominates a person, it's entirely their opinion whether or not that's underrated. When we choose the final 5, I'm pretty sure if a comic has a certain amount of fans, we could write it off right there as not underrated. Yes, it is opinion, but you're making it sound like it's so hard to figure out what's "underrated" and what's not. That can easily be figured out.

Also, I never even implied fan count was a reliable indicator of quality. If I did, I meant to imply it was a relatively reliable indicator of popularity.

@eishiya: lolwut no, 200 pages and 1000 for BL would be underrated.

The definition of underrated is "[high, good, etc.] quality that is not recognized [by enough individuals]". Popularity is still not an indicator of quality.

And since the theoretical nomination is based purely on an individual's subjective [overall] rating of a work it becomes messy.

People are also free to nominate things that "have a lot of fans, but not enough" and your suggestion that a "winner" is chosen simply based on who has the LEAST amount of fans is a faulty way to figure out who is the most "underrated", especially when it comes to the public vote side. In the case of "Underrated" comics it is entirely subjective of WHY they are underrated, is it that the art is underrated or the writing or maybe just the content/subject matter?

Other factors include page to fan ratio, off-site traffic and genre-bias. And even at the end of all of it, there is bound to be complaints about the eventual "Underrated" winner as well as AGAIN dealing with the fuzzy loophole for a subsequent year ("Underrated" is a general award, but if they had excellent writing, they can win "Underrated" one year and then "Best [Genre]" the next year).

I feel like you're either misunderstanding me at this point or are just completely opposed to the idea in general.

First off, again, I never indicated popularity was an indicator of quality. In fact, I'm saying in this case, it's definitely not, that's why these comics should be put out there. They're high quality comics but they're not being given the recognition they deserve. What's considered high quality then? That's up to us, the judges. It's not that hard to look at something and determine its quality. If we wanted to define it, which I find to be kind of useless because quality is a relatively universal idea, then it'd be something like, "A comic that excels in its writing, art, characters, etc." It doesn't even have to meet all those qualities, but if we saw a comic like that, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be hard to spot.

People are free to nominate things that "have a lot of fans, but not enough", but we're not idiots. We're not choosing the ones with a good fancount already, and we're definitely not going to choose the one with the least fans. We would choose ones that we saw had the most potential but at the same time didn't have that many fans. It'd be almost like putting a bunch of people with fan counts improportionate to their fan counts (based on our judging) in a bowl and picking out the best of the best for the final nomination process.

Page-to-fan ratio can be considered an indicator of this, definitely, but it's still more opinionated to analyze. Off-site traffic is irrelevant on this site. Genre-bias...? I'm pretty sure that exists but I hardly see it being that big of a deal or it actually being seen in the voting process. How would one even test for something like that? Even if one comic won over the other, we can't assume it's "genre-bias". We're always going to get complaints as well. Can't do anything about that.

The entire process of picking a multitude of judges was designed to prevent problems like these. Yes, underrated is an ambiguous category, which is why we have judges to make it more clear.

[tezzle]

Sorry to derail this huge thing going on, but since this is an art-related content site and all I was thinking that we could forgo the traditional same-old statue every year thing most awards do and switch things up! Anyone got any ideas for a new award? Last year we had THE COVETED GOLDEN BUTLER:


Whatever the new design will be, it has to be fairly universal and timeless and can't be some in-joke that's only been around for the near present. So no ponies or anything. Also make sure it's FUN!...and obviously related to SJ in some way...

...and not too complicated or busy looking...And make sure it's gold-plated. How can you have a non-golden award for something? I mean really.

[eishiya]

I think we should have the Golden Butler every year, but change it up a little. A different pose, a different style of rendering on the gold, etc.
Or the SJ flame, but maybe that, being simpler, should be for special mentions or joke awards.

[blankd]

We're not choosing the ones with a good fancount already, and we're definitely not going to choose the one with the least fans. We would choose ones that we saw had the most potential but at the same time didn't have that many fans.

I understand that it IS the job of the judges to judge, but "Underrated" has no definite determiners aside from "it has pages but not enough fans" and that can be for a number of a number of reasons separate from actual recognition of quality. Simply put, "Underrated" (and "Overrated") is something an author cannot purposefully strive to achieve and put into a comic, so why place it among traits that can be? (A good horror can frighten and terrify, good art is proof as is seen, etc.)

You also have not addressed what would happen to comics that win "Underrated" one year and then proceed to qualify for one (or more) specific categories the next- the whole point of barring past winners from immediately being eligible for for their respective award is to broaden horizons and recognize quality as well as prevent comics from "double-dipping" for exposure for consecutive years.

Lastly/Ultimately: People who READ and feel strongly for their underrated comics of choice would be nominating them for the AWARDS (right now) in their respective categories, they don't need an "Underrated" category to do this, they already have the opportunity to do so RIGHT NOW. An "Underrated" category is superfluous in a nomination-based system.

S/N: Genre bias is when someone uses "oversaturation of a genre" to sluff off a comic having a "low fan count". ie: Many would feel that a BL comic with 50 pages, 100 fans is "perfectly fine" (assuming it had decent writing). But an action comic with 50 pages, 100 fans could fall into the "Underrated" category (assuming it had decent fights). Another example is that the subject focus is simply not preferred by the majority. Horror doesn't appeal to many, especially if that horror is extremely graphic, should it be considered "underrated" because not many people can stomach it?

[darkenergy]

I think we should have the Golden Butler every year, but change it up a little. A different pose, a different style of rendering on the gold, etc.
Or the SJ flame, but maybe that, being simpler, should be for special mentions or joke awards.

Yesvote.

In terms of the Golden Butler, I don't know how many of you here have read Wodehouse...but it would be awesome if each pose slipped in a reference to one of Jeeves' adventures...did I go a little too nerdy? :O (Oh, and for the joke version he could be wearing Wooster's horrible paisley tie or something, unless it is just the SJ flame.)

[Gibson Twist]

did I go a little too nerdy?

A bit, yeh. I mean, not a bad idea, just maybe a hair too arcane.

[blankd]

Oh whoops, missed that post about the Golden Jeeves.

Make a SmackJeeves Golden Butler Design Contest? (There are enough months to run one...)

[darkenergy]

did I go a little too nerdy?

A bit, yeh. I mean, not a bad idea, just maybe a hair too arcane.

But...Wodehouse is totally famous D: (Also, those books are so easy to read. I mean, he definitely recycles the same plot...but it's still entertaining in small doses.)

/nerd

Anyway, some kind of play on it would be awesome and educational...the best kind of awesome!