02-14-2022, 04:29 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2022, 01:39 PM by Michiganonymous. Edited 1 time in total.)
Tier 1 -- Let's Fix Improve the Awards System
First of all, special acknowledgement and thanks goes to @Arkz, whose original idea was the inspiration for this post. Arkz generously gave me permission to write this up as an Ultimus Week task, and also served as a sounding board for some of these ideas. Arkz, your help is greatly appreciated!
The ISFL and DSFL Awards are something I look forward to every season. I’ve served on the DSFL nominations committee in the past, this year I’m representing Sarasota on the ISFL nominations committee, and I’m very honored to be a member of the Simulation Football Writer’s Guild, the body responsible for selecting the All-Pro teams. I love giving myself a headache staring at the Index, I love rewarding hard work and high performance, I even love the agonizing challenge of deciding who must be the odd one out whenever there’s more deserving candidates than there are spots on a shortlist.
I think that in general the Awards nomination and selection process is fairly good. I can say from experience that the nominating process is something the appointed committee takes very seriously and that we strive to be as objective as possible. I believe that even being nominated for an award is in itself an honor, and I know it certainly warms my heart to see users getting genuinely excited and happy when their players receive nominations. I also think that the voting process is generally fair; the fact that votes are made public certainly helps with that. Yes, you see homer votes and popularity contests from time to time, but that’s not unique to the ISFL; every awards process in every sports league is subject to some of it. You can’t eliminate the human element. I believe that in general, the wisdom of the crowd ensures the best candidate usually wins.
It’s that phrase, the wisdom of the crowd, that I want to address. I think a significant flaw in the awards process is that there simply needs to be a larger pool of voters, particularly in the DSFL, where each award is decided by just 8 total voters. With 14 voters the ISFL isn’t much better. When you have more votes and more input, there’s more space for consensus to emerge, for the cream to rise to the top, so to speak. It’s also a bit unfair, I believe, that the players have no input regarding their peers and who they believe should receive awards, no avenue to acknowledge a deserving teammate or worthy opponent. And finally, I would like to see the Awards Committee do more than just create the shortlist of nominees; the Committee should have at least some input as to who wins the Awards as well.
So how do we address this? I don’t believe that moving to a direct community vote is the answer. I want the awards to be decided by careful, informed voters who take objectivity seriously. Frankly, not everyone wants to have that level of engagement with the league, and no shade to that! Everyone should be free to get as involved as they want or don’t want. However, lower interest and reduced engagement can become a problem in a direct community vote. We all like voting for things; it’s fun! So what ends up happening is that users who aren’t stat nerds, who don’t have the time or interest to go over the stats in meticulous detail, just end up voting for “Nominee who was on my team,” “Only nominee that I’ve heard of,” or “Random clicking.” I’m not faulting anyone for this, to be very clear; it’s just human nature. So how can we avoid creating a popularity/name recognition contest (since we've got enough of that already) while still giving the entire community a say?
That’s a long-winded intro, so let me get right into the meat of this proposal. I don’t think we should take the vote away from the GMs; however, I believe that both the award nominations committee and the player community as a whole should have some input. I firmly believe that this proposed process or something very similar to it would be a healthy and helpful adjustment to the current Awards system.
This proposal divides the Awards into two categories: Positional Awards and General Awards. The Positional Awards are self-explanatory. “General Awards” refers to the following:
In addition to the current GM vote, I believe that the nomination committee should also have a say regarding the winners of the positional awards. I propose the following:
As above, this proposal requires moving away from a ranked-choice, instant-runoff system and having each voter submit a single vote for the winner.
First of all, special acknowledgement and thanks goes to @Arkz, whose original idea was the inspiration for this post. Arkz generously gave me permission to write this up as an Ultimus Week task, and also served as a sounding board for some of these ideas. Arkz, your help is greatly appreciated!
The ISFL and DSFL Awards are something I look forward to every season. I’ve served on the DSFL nominations committee in the past, this year I’m representing Sarasota on the ISFL nominations committee, and I’m very honored to be a member of the Simulation Football Writer’s Guild, the body responsible for selecting the All-Pro teams. I love giving myself a headache staring at the Index, I love rewarding hard work and high performance, I even love the agonizing challenge of deciding who must be the odd one out whenever there’s more deserving candidates than there are spots on a shortlist.
I think that in general the Awards nomination and selection process is fairly good. I can say from experience that the nominating process is something the appointed committee takes very seriously and that we strive to be as objective as possible. I believe that even being nominated for an award is in itself an honor, and I know it certainly warms my heart to see users getting genuinely excited and happy when their players receive nominations. I also think that the voting process is generally fair; the fact that votes are made public certainly helps with that. Yes, you see homer votes and popularity contests from time to time, but that’s not unique to the ISFL; every awards process in every sports league is subject to some of it. You can’t eliminate the human element. I believe that in general, the wisdom of the crowd ensures the best candidate usually wins.
It’s that phrase, the wisdom of the crowd, that I want to address. I think a significant flaw in the awards process is that there simply needs to be a larger pool of voters, particularly in the DSFL, where each award is decided by just 8 total voters. With 14 voters the ISFL isn’t much better. When you have more votes and more input, there’s more space for consensus to emerge, for the cream to rise to the top, so to speak. It’s also a bit unfair, I believe, that the players have no input regarding their peers and who they believe should receive awards, no avenue to acknowledge a deserving teammate or worthy opponent. And finally, I would like to see the Awards Committee do more than just create the shortlist of nominees; the Committee should have at least some input as to who wins the Awards as well.
So how do we address this? I don’t believe that moving to a direct community vote is the answer. I want the awards to be decided by careful, informed voters who take objectivity seriously. Frankly, not everyone wants to have that level of engagement with the league, and no shade to that! Everyone should be free to get as involved as they want or don’t want. However, lower interest and reduced engagement can become a problem in a direct community vote. We all like voting for things; it’s fun! So what ends up happening is that users who aren’t stat nerds, who don’t have the time or interest to go over the stats in meticulous detail, just end up voting for “Nominee who was on my team,” “Only nominee that I’ve heard of,” or “Random clicking.” I’m not faulting anyone for this, to be very clear; it’s just human nature. So how can we avoid creating a popularity/name recognition contest (since we've got enough of that already) while still giving the entire community a say?
That’s a long-winded intro, so let me get right into the meat of this proposal. I don’t think we should take the vote away from the GMs; however, I believe that both the award nominations committee and the player community as a whole should have some input. I firmly believe that this proposed process or something very similar to it would be a healthy and helpful adjustment to the current Awards system.
This proposal divides the Awards into two categories: Positional Awards and General Awards. The Positional Awards are self-explanatory. “General Awards” refers to the following:
- Most Valuable Player
- Most Outstanding Player
- Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year
- Off./Def. Rookies of the Year
- Off./Def. Breakout Players of the Year
- Off./Def. Performances of the Year
- Most Dedicated Member
In addition to the current GM vote, I believe that the nomination committee should also have a say regarding the winners of the positional awards. I propose the following:
- Rather than submitting a ranked-choice ballot to an instant-runoff vote, each GM will vote for a single winner of each award.
- In addition to the list of nominees, the Awards Committee will also decide on a consensus “Committee's Choice” for the winner of each award.
- The Committee’s Choice will be used to break any ties in the GM vote. To avoid introducing bias, the GMs will only be informed of the Committee’s Choice when it is needed to break a tie.
As above, this proposal requires moving away from a ranked-choice, instant-runoff system and having each voter submit a single vote for the winner.
- In addition to the GM vote and the Committee’s Choice, a General Awards poll will go live to the player community during Ultimus Week at the same time that the list of nominees is announced. The community poll will remain open for a minimum of 48 hours (longer if possible) so that the player community has plenty of time to vote.
- All relevant statistics should be listed in the poll itself to make it as simple as possible for voters to make an informed choice without taking a lot of time scrolling through the Index. (For example, in the case of the “Breakout Player” awards, stats from both the current and previous seasons should be provided.)
- The player vote will be segregated by conference, for a total of two additional votes in each League. The nominee receiving the most votes from each Conference shall be considered the Players’ Choice from that Conference.
- The ISFL General Awards will have a total of 17 votes: 14 GM votes, 2 Conference Players’ Choices, and the Committee’s Choice (if needed to break a tie, as described in the Positional Awards Process). The DSFL General Awards will have a total of 11 votes: 8 GMs, 2 Conferences, and the Committee’s Choice (if needed).
- Players will vote in the Awards poll corresponding to the league in which their player participated for the season just concluded. ISFL send-downs will vote in the DSFL Awards Player Poll along with DSFL rookies who have not yet been drafted. (The purpose of this rule is to increase player participation in the DSFL Awards vote, given the limited number of active undrafted rookies available to vote in any given season.)
- To incentivize participation, voting in the Player's Choice poll will be a point task worth 1 TPE, which users may claim instantly by linking to their confirmation word in the poll thread. GMs and members of the Awards Committee are not eligible to vote in the Player's Choice poll. They will be listed by name in the poll thread and may link directly to it to claim 1 TPE also.
- In the hopefully very rare event of a tie in the Players’ Choice poll, the winner of the Players’ Choice will be decided by coin flip. This author simply cannot think of a fairer way to resolve the problem. It’s incredibly unsatisfying, but given the limited timeframes involved, I don’t believe a runoff vote would be possible in such a situation.
- After the Award winners are announced, all voting information shall be made public. This means:
- Each GM’s vote for every Award
- Complete vote totals by Conference for the Players’ Choice polls
- The Committee’s Choice for each award (even if not used to break a tie)
![[Image: michigan.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/michigan.gif)
