Europa League? where are you?

[mark wilson27]

Right guys now that the awards are over for this year, and you lot know I am already looking towards next year (sorting story links etc) how would you change the awards if  you could. ie. what awards would you remove or what new awards would you bring in. 

Is their a change to the voting system that you woukd like

please let us know either on here or if you want you can pm any of the mods with suggestions. 

We would like to know your views

[git2thachoppa]

How about only one nomination per author per award? Looks a bit wrong when an award has 5 nominations for the same author and the poor two other nominee sods who put all their effort in one.

[BenArsenal]

1 hour ago, git2thachoppa said:

How about only one nomination per author per award? Looks a bit wrong when an award has 5 nominations for the same author and the poor two other nominee sods who put all their effort in one.

It sounds logical, but the thing is we do have a pretty lopsided contribution rate on this forums. There are the prolific ones like Mark who writes tonnes of stories a year, and there are those who concentrate on just one story. It does feel a bit unfair to make the prolific writer choose one story up for nomination. But that's just IMHO.

[Wisła]

 

I won't comment on the award categories, I'm new -- so I'll leave that in your capable hands.

 

I will offer my observations on the award process itself.

 

A brief scan of the front page, reveals that depending upon the popularity of the story/writer -- a story can generate on average anywhere between 15-50 views per post. So that many people obviously care enough to read the stories. Which leaves us with the question -- "In which case, why don't they take the time to vote?"

 

The answer is likely in the question. "Take the time".

With your current set-up -- it takes time to vote. Now that is fine, if everyone cares about the awards as much as you do -- but with only nine votes cast -- clearly they do not. So therefore, you need to make it simpler and more straightforward, so that it takes up less of people's time to vote.

I'd suggest simply using Invision's built-in Poll software.

 

It has been a few years since I last used the software from the Admin side, so I can't remember what options you have to work with in the ACP, and I don't know how much access you get to that here as Moderators. So, you either need to ask your Admins to set up the Poll Options for this sub-forum, as you require. Or, if you do have sufficient access for this one sub-forum, then obviously just do it yourselves.

Keep it simple. One vote per person per category.

Set the forum poll options to "anonymous voting". It eliminates the possibilty of anyone thinking "What!? He didn't vote for me? Stuff you then! I'll vote for someone else next year." I'm not saying that would even happen here -- but it is all about encouraging as many votes as possible. And more people will vote if their votes are private.

 

Complete the Poll with the names of all the appropriate candidates -- and set the forum poll options to "do not show votes publicly until poll has closed." This ensures that it will be a surprise for everyone once it is over [though Staff will still be able to see all along], and also eliminates "tactical voting".

Forum options to "Only Registered Members can vote".

Open the Poll and set it to run for one month [or as you wish] -- and when it closes, the results become public.

Simple, and most importantly, easy for anyone to do. No having to manually print things out, write things down on forms, send off forms, claim votes, etcetera etcetera...

You just open the thread -- click a few boxes, and job done.

 

This formula won't cure the ills of the forum world, but I'd imagine if it was that easy, a lot more people would take the time to vote. Because it would hardly take any.

 

Just my thoughts. Hope they help in some way.

 

[mark wilson27]

14 hours ago, git2thachoppa said:

How about only one nomination per author per award? Looks a bit wrong when an award has 5 nominations for the same author and the poor two other nominee sods who put all their effort in one.

I can see where you coming from git2thachoppa however as Ben has stated some writers tend to write several stories a year and yes I am one of those. CFuller had at one point three stories running. The problem you get is that if I was too choose one of mine for example that I liked the most, it could be that others dont feel the same. My fantasy stories in the past have been popular by some people but I personally would put my career story so in affect I might of missed out on an award.

If you look in the past awards just because you have lots of nominations doesn't mean you will win. Again using myself as an example, one year I had all but one nominations in the Fantasy Story of the Year and it was copperhorse's story that won.

Maybe we could do it where we have a preliminary round for all categories and windle it down to say two or three stories for each like we do with the Story of the Year

3 hours ago, Wisła said:

 

 

I will offer my observations on the award process itself.

 

A brief scan of the front page, reveals that depending upon the popularity of the story/writer -- a story can generate on average anywhere between 15-50 views per post. So that many people obviously care enough to read the stories. Which leaves us with the question -- "In which case, why don't they take the time to vote?"

 

The answer is likely in the question. "Take the time".

With your current set-up -- it takes time to vote. Now that is fine, if everyone cares about the awards as much as you do -- but with only nine votes cast -- clearly they do not. So therefore, you need to make it simpler and more straightforward, so that it takes up less of people's time to vote.

I'd suggest simply using Invision's built-in Poll software.

 

It has been a few years since I last used the software from the Admin side, so I can't remember what options you have to work with in the ACP, and I don't know how much access you get to that here as Moderators. So, you either need to ask your Admins to set up the Poll Options for this sub-forum, as you require. Or, if you do have sufficient access for this one sub-forum, then obviously just do it yourselves.

Keep it simple. One vote per person per category.

Set the forum poll options to "anonymous voting". It eliminates the possibilty of anyone thinking "What!? He didn't vote for me? Stuff you then! I'll vote for someone else next year." I'm not saying that would even happen here -- but it is all about encouraging as many votes as possible. And more people will vote if their votes are private.

 

Complete the Poll with the names of all the appropriate candidates -- and set the forum poll options to "do not show votes publicly until poll has closed." This ensures that it will be a surprise for everyone once it is over [though Staff will still be able to see all along], and also eliminates "tactical voting".

Forum options to "Only Registered Members can vote".

Open the Poll and set it to run for one month [or as you wish] -- and when it closes, the results become public.

Simple, and most importantly, easy for anyone to do. No having to manually print things out, write things down on forms, send off forms, claim votes, etcetera etcetera...

You just open the thread -- click a few boxes, and job done.

 

This formula won't cure the ills of the forum world, but I'd imagine if it was that easy, a lot more people would take the time to vote. Because it would hardly take any.

 

Just my thoughts. Hope they help in some way.

 

The poll is one way but in affect isn't the voting via email the same as doing it via poll. We could do it where you only get one vote for each category apart from the Hall of Fame which will always be a maximum of three votes

Guys this is good too see people are getting interested in this please feel free come up with more ideas etc

[git2thachoppa]

7 hours ago, mark wilson27 said:

The problem you get is that if I was too choose one of mine for example that I liked the most, it could be that others dont feel the same.

I figured whoever's deciding the nominees will pick, or the 9 people who cared enough to vote would probably care enough to vote for the author's best one to put it forward.

If it really gets to a stage where there's only one or maybe two people providing for a category, that should be a big warning sign about the state of the awards or even the forum itself.

Or hey, ditch the awards and give everyone equal love, not everything has to be a competition where one person feels great and the rest feel kinda bummed. I'm sure (hope) no one made any of these stories for 'awards'.

[BenArsenal]

1 hour ago, git2thachoppa said:

I figured whoever's deciding the nominees will pick, or the 9 people who cared enough to vote would probably care enough to vote for the author's best one to put it forward.

If it really gets to a stage where there's only one or maybe two people providing for a category, that should be a big warning sign about the state of the awards or even the forum itself.

Or hey, ditch the awards and give everyone equal love, not everything has to be a competition where one person feels great and the rest feel kinda bummed. I'm sure (hope) no one made any of these stories for 'awards'.

It's not meant to be a competition, but I think the spirit of the awards is to reward the community here for the work they put into their stories, which can be quite substantial. It's just a nice thing to do I feel. A way to say, "Hey, we appreciate your contribution here around these parts."

BTW, happy birthday Mark. Hope you had a great post-awards birthday hangover. 

[mark wilson27]

cheers Ben, going to have a few tonight as I'm not at work.

[mark wilson27]

5 hours ago, git2thachoppa said:

I figured whoever's deciding the nominees will pick, or the 9 people who cared enough to vote would probably care enough to vote for the author's best one to put it forward.

If it really gets to a stage where there's only one or maybe two people providing for a category, that should be a big warning sign about the state of the awards or even the forum itself.

Or hey, ditch the awards and give everyone equal love, not everything has to be a competition where one person feels great and the rest feel kinda bummed. I'm sure (hope) no one made any of these stories for 'awards'.

As we've said before this part of the forum is no longer as active as say FMCU, but the general view from what i can gather is that people still want the awards but would like it revamped which is the whole point of this discussion. If you haven't already noticed in this part of the forum you get alot of help and compliments from other writers and the awards are a once yearly way of letting people know which your favourite story etc is during the past year.

In truth I don't get too "bummed" if I lose because for me I know I am far from the best writer on here and I know the likes of tenthreeleader, CFuller, EvilDave, neilhoskins77 and many more will always win over mine. I write on here as it is a release from the pressures of real life. 

As for the state of this side of the forums, yes numbers are down so how do we get more people interested in our side...Well I'm not sure, thats something to discuss aswell. We are an open group which isn't led by the three mods that are here, it is led by you lot that come here. We will always listen to ideas

[CFuller]

Pretty much what Mark said. We’re all here because we enjoy playing/writing about FM. As far as most, if not all of us are concerned, our stories are labours of love.

As someone who is currently unable to work (for reasons that I have touched upon elsewhere), I find writing FM stories as a somewhat productive and stimulating way to keep the wolves of boredom and mental illness from my door. I do it because, about 10-15 years ago, I read the magnificent stuff that BobBev, PM7, flipsix and others were writing up, and I thought, “Hey. That looks cool. Maybe I’ll give that a go.”

Awards are nice, but they’re not the main motivation for us amateur writers.

[tenthreeleader]

Off-topic:

You can stick your f***ing Sam's Army up your a**e.

RAGING.

Carry on.

[tenthreeleader]

Rant over (at least until tomorrow morning).

I've thought of this group as a team for some years now. I'm gratified to see people taking time to think about these issues. Keep it coming, please.

 

[git2thachoppa]

A huge thing would be to tag people in the awards categories. I never knew the awards even existed last year when I was nominated for one, and this year didn't know I was nominated for one until later on when I looked.

Better than a bunch of PMs, which will get ignored by a lot of people as spam. Also PM everyone with the entire award list and voting form, not just for the one award.

[mark wilson27]

To be fair this year people were tagged in to let them know they were nominated and in truth all those  bar a couple which haven’t visited the site in awhile responded to the pm and voted or said they weren’t voting. The voting thread is also pinned to the top of the forum so once you get into FMS its right in front of your eyes. I didnt tag you or pm you for the final round due to you stating that you didn’t want to vote

[CFuller]

4 hours ago, tenthreeleader said:

Off-topic:

You can stick your f***ing Sam's Army up your a**e.

RAGING.

Carry on.

Blimey. And I thought Argentina not qualifying would be the shock news I woke up to.

[mark wilson27]

I was wondering what sir was on about. I thought trump had declared war on someone but then saw the sports news

[git2thachoppa]

2 hours ago, mark wilson27 said:

To be fair this year people were tagged in to let them know they were nominated and in truth all those  bar a couple which haven’t visited the site in awhile responded to the pm and voted or said they weren’t voting. The voting thread is also pinned to the top of the forum so once you get into FMS its right in front of your eyes. I didnt tag you or pm you for the final round due to you stating that you didn’t want to vote

I'm talking about all the awards in general not just that one award where people have to vote to win.

Stickied threads are subconsciously skipped over by a heck of a lot of people. It's true; I did a poll once.

[tenthreeleader]

Been sitting all day waiting for US Soccer to tweet Arena's firing and Sunil Gulati's resignation.

Still waiting.

 

[mark wilson27]

So looking at the responses so far regarding the awards, the suggestions seems to be:-

(1) - One vote per category instead of the two we do at the moment (Apart from the Hall of Fame which will keep the current format)

(2) - Lose some of the categories or replace with some different ones

(3) - Potentially do a preliminary vote for the awards with a larger amount of nominees (ie. English Story of the Year)

Any other suggestions let me know.

If we lose some categories which ones would you like to see go and what if any new categories would you like too see

[mark wilson27]

So guys the current categories are: 

Most Missed FMS'er of the Year
Newcomer of the Year
Funniest Writer of Year 
Fantasy Story of Year
Best Story Idea of the Year
Short Story of the Year
Best Story Character
Best International Management Story of the Year
Rest of the World Story of the Year
English Story of the Year

Out of these which would you want to keep and which do you think has run its course.

And of course if you lot can think of any new ones feel free too let me know

[CFuller]

I’ve said before that Most Missed FMSer of the Year should go:

On 04/10/2017 at 19:55, CFuller said:

As much as it pains me to say it, I think an award for the Most Missed FMSer is unnecessary when so many great writers - PM7, flipsix, BobBev, Amaroq, Donners, et al - have been absent for so long and (in all likelihood) aren’t coming back. It’s probably unfair to vote on which one we miss the most. Surely the Hall of Fame is the best way to honour the great FMSers of yesteryear.

Fantasy Story of the Year is another category I feel should be retired. If there are only going to be a handful of fantasy stories per year, then there’s probably not much point in that award.

[mark wilson27]

CFuller would you add any other categories?

 

[CFuller]

I can’t think of anything that would demand a new category, to be honest.

[BenArsenal]

TBH I'm not sure about the geographic categories too. Do we have enough stories a year to split into English and Rest of the World, or can we combine them into just one category?

[EvilDave]

I'm be inclined to put a threshold on some of the categories, and I think Best Fantasy Story would be a good example of that. Only two qualifying stories? Sorry, no award. Four or five to choose from? Then go ahead.  Rest of the World and International could, I suppose, go down the same route, although personally as I think they require different writing skills to tell (people are less familiar with the clubs/the game plays very differently), I'd be sorry to see them go.

The one I most often struggle to vote for is Funniest Writer. The number of deliberately funny stories - I'm thinking of things like Employee of the Month, or I Done Bought Myself Olympiakos - is minimal, and so this sometimes feels like a vote for voting's sake. I'd definitely sooner lose this than the regional awards at any rate. 

Most Missed is the final one I wouldn't be too disappointed to lose - as has been said, the HoF is the place for these guys. Although, given the difficulty that we have getting people in each year (and the chronological distance between some of those nominated and forum newcomers in particular, not to mention migration issues with older stories), perhaps it's worth a rethink as to how HoF entry works? I don't have a better idea at the moment, just a thought.

That's my contribution anyway - feel free to do with it as you will!

[mark wilson27]

Cheers guys, . I agree we should put some sort of threshold on some of the stories. That is why this year we didn't bother to have a Fantasy Story of the Year. Like Dave said we could go down the route of, if we don't have more that say four stories in a category then that year we wont have it (If you get what I mean)

Also with Funniest Writer I am inclined to do away with that one until we get any comedy stories. Like I said in the awards I won it two years in a row and in truth none of my stories have any sort of humour apart from the odd funny name that's about it.

As for the Hall of Fame, that's one reason I put a link to each of the stories in the preliminary voting thread and we also have the archive. Maybe next year I should put a link to each persons name so newer members of the forum could have a glance at some of their stories etc...

I don't know how we could change the Hall of Fame and in truth I'm not sure we should. As tenthreeleader once said it's not supposed to be easy to get into which I agree with. However if anyone has suggestions regarding this let us know, it won't do any harm in looking.

 

[mark wilson27]

Also how else can we attract more people here, having done a quick count we currently have only six regular writers here. I know their are more that come and read etc but we need to try and bring in more

[CFuller]

You know, folks... it completely passed me by that Arsenal are playing Red Star Belgrade in the Europa League this evening. I had no idea until just now, when I read that it was 0-0 at half-time. Sounds like I didn’t miss much.

I wouldn’t have forgotten something like that 10 years ago. That’s another sign of how blasé I’ve become with club football nowadays.

[git2thachoppa]

Without knowing a lot about the activity of the board, I'd say this is my list of awards:

Newcomer

Unique Story
Same as 'Best Idea' but factors in quality/enjoyment too rather than just the idea.

Best International
International seems neglected by FM player so nice to give it some exposure.

Most Memorable Event
Something wacky, epic or memorable. So using my story as an example of the variance you could get, you might say:
- Spurs doing the Spursy Treble by falling at the final hurdle of all 3 competitons, going from treble to nothing.
- England's 2014 World Cup campaign under Beardsley where they qualified at the last second with a Luke Moore goal, then eliminated to their final group stage opponents via drawing of lots after an epic 3-3 draw.
- Steve McClaren becoming an England and Newcastle PL-winning legend
- Glenn Hoddle getting every club he's ever been to shock-relegated no matter how big they are.
- Something the player did (I don't have any special examples for myself).

The Darren Fletcher Award
Given to someone whose story isn't legendary nor rubbish, but primarily clearly has a lot of effort put into it for a still quality story.

The Unmitigated Disaster Award
Rewarding those who, rather than winning everything and taking San Marino to European champions with kids, went to a club/country and ruined them (not on purpose, preferably).

You might see I'm thinking of awards that highlight particular parts of a story as much as just the stories themselves, might get good discussion doing that and writers will see what people enjoyed most or didn't mention they had fun reading until now.

 

1 hour ago, CFuller said:

You know, folks... it completely passed me by that Arsenal are playing Red Star Belgrade in the Europa League this evening. I had no idea until just now, when I read that it was 0-0 at half-time. Sounds like I didn’t miss much.

I wouldn’t have forgotten something like that 10 years ago. That’s another sign of how blasé I’ve become with club football nowadays.

That might just be more to do with Europa League. Now that it completely copies the Champions League, there's no point to it. Especially given the CL group stages are now routine and unexciting, never mind Europa.

Also there's nothing at stake. You'll only show some interest if they reach the final or maybe semis, quarters maybe if by then Arsenal aren't going to qualify via league.

[mark wilson27]

By the few comments we got is it fair to say we get rid of the Most Missed FMS'er of the Year and Funniest Writer of the Year. The latter will come back if we have an influx funny stories turn up on the board

We don't have the Fantasy Story of the Year unless we have say more than four stories.

Your only allowed to vote once in each category apart from the Hall of Fame

If any category has more than four eligible stories then we have a preliminary round for that said category.

Like I've said before we could add some other categories if anyone has anymore ideas like git2thachoppa.

Does everyone agree with these suggestions?

Also anyone got any suggestions of how too attract more users?

 

[CFuller]

That all sounds fine to me, Mark.

[git2thachoppa]

Welp.

[tenthreeleader]

So on the recommendation of my son, I've started playing Witcher. 

May God help me. Between this and FM I may soon have no life.

Anyone else play?

[git2thachoppa]

Check out Taiwan/Chinese Taipei's national stadium.

The world's largest solar-powered stadium.

Looks a bit like the Incheon Stadium.

[BenArsenal]

Neat!

[tenthreeleader]

kind of like a giant question mark, but solar-powered punctuation is kinda cool!

[salkster2102]

Anyone got the new FM and is it worth it?

[CFuller]

Just now, salkster2102 said:

Anyone got the new FM and is it worth it?

Not yet. I’m going to play the demo and give it a fair go. As things stand, though, I’ll probably skip this year and continue with my FM13 and FM17 careers.

[mark wilson27]

1 hour ago, salkster2102 said:

Anyone got the new FM and is it worth it?

Its not too bad, I tend to only use FM Touch due to not having much playing time and so far it runs pretty well.

I had a go on the full game whilst in Beta mode and seemed alittle slow for me even with the game running at commentary only and at full speed. However this might be down to my laptop being from the dark ages

[CFuller]

Bloomin' heck. Holland out, USA out, Chile out, and now Italy have missed the boat for the 2018 World Cup.

Sounds like they need Marco Wilsonio. 

[git2thachoppa]

5 hours ago, CFuller said:

Bloomin' heck. Holland out, USA out, Chile out, and now Italy have missed the boat for the 2018 World Cup.

Sounds like they need Marco Wilsonio. 

And people laughed at my story's World Cup simulations' upsets! It predicted all this kinda! USA and Chile anyway... And I was manager of Chile... but still...

[Panpardus]

We (Australia) play tomorrow night against Honduras, I wouldnt be surprised if we missed out, but hoping we get through.

[BenArsenal]

I think it just goes to show how competitive international football has become now, and how the gap has closed between countries. The likes of Iceland, Wales and Northern Ireland would never have come close to qualifying a decade ago. And now they simply cannot be discounted.

[mark wilson27]

A contender for the worlds longest match hahaha

[CFuller]

1 minute ago, mark wilson27 said:

A contender for the worlds longest match hahaha

That's almost as long as it takes a Gareth Southgate England team to score. 

[git2thachoppa]

7 hours ago, BenArsenal said:

I think it just goes to show how competitive international football has become now, and how the gap has closed between countries. The likes of Iceland, Wales and Northern Ireland would never have come close to qualifying a decade ago. And now they simply cannot be discounted.

Along with the improvement of facilities, infrastructure, other fancy words, perhaps it's the science of tactics these days.

All but one of the playoffs (Asia) for example have a 0-0 leg because they're not just trying to win both games, but improve their chances in the second leg, or take a 1st leg and hold onto it for 90 more minutes. Especially with possession being meaningless today.

[CFuller]

Managing Bristol City in FM18 (or the demo, at least) is fun. It means I can do stuff like this:

This was in a pre-season friendly against Guernsey, which we won 3-2. One of the grey Guernsey players who scored against us was named Shama Deadman, which has to be one of the most hilarious names I've ever come across in FM! 

[Terk]

Howdy.

Just bought FM18 so figured I'd stick my head round the door and say hello. Nice to see the old place still going.

[tenthreeleader]

Greetings. Nice to have you back in the old place, which is still going.

[mark wilson27]

Hello their Terk, how the devil are you.

Congratulations on your Most Missed FMS'er award