2013 Anime Beta Sketch Awards Discussion

[benten]

OK, per Sensei's suggestion, I'm starting a thread to discuss holding the 2013 Sketch Contest. As I mentioned earlier in Sensei's open house thread, I am offering to run the contest this time. Also, as I indicated previously, if I do it, it will be done via a manual method, which will definitely be more inconvenient for the participants, using a Rubberslug gallery and email voting. Also, I do have some detailed thoughts to put forth before people buy into my running the event this time. I will post those thoughts in one or more posts later this evening.

[benten]

OK, I'll start out with a little irrelevant info, so that folks can get a sense of where I'm coming from.

I just retired earlier this year. I have a hard sciences background and have nil artistic talent. Consequently, anything I do by myself will be plain.

I don't have wide-ranging cel collecting interests, although I have been at it a while. I picked up my first cel in 1998. And, I would mention that, if you collect cels from one of the series I focus on and need help with getting a screen capture of your cel (provided, of course, that you or I have some idea of where it's from), I would be more than happy to make a screen capture for you. I, for one, like knowing where my cels made their mark in anime history.

Enough for the background. I'll get down to brass tacks in the next post.

[benten]

To run this contest, I really need only two people - myself and someone who has the artistic talent and willingness to do the awards. Since I can be pretty flexible with my time right now, if I have underestimated the effort required, I can just put more of my time into it. In addition to the minimum two, I would hope to have someone who has participated in running past contests (and I note here that Sensei has already raised his hand) available to answer a question or two when the unanticipated or the "should have been anticipated" occurs and some guidance is needed. Further, it would be helpful if one to three people might be willing to do a "gallery review" once the entries are in (more on this idea later).

Now, before getting to the details, I'm going to mention that I'm going to mark a statement or two as [inflexible], meaning that those specific items are deal-breakers. I'm not open to negotiation on those points. If I do it, I'm going to do those items mentioned.

So, as already said, the web site would be run similarly to the 2011 Anime Beta Awards (http://celaward2011.rubberslug.com/gallery/home.asp), using Rubberslug to display the entries.

Entries would be submitted by email to an email address that I will get set up for just the contest, as has been done before.
I would expect each entry to be submitted in a separate email. Entries would not have to be submitted all together. They could be spread out anytime from the start to the end of the entry period. As far as I would be concerned, folks could withdraw and replace previously submitted entries up until the end of the entry period. I would like to give participants maximum flexibility to compensate for some of the inconvenience. I hope this idea will allow some folks to participate that might not otherwise, since they can immediately go ahead and submit what they have ready. Then, if they forget or just can't seem to come up with something just right, they will at least have some entries. I also hope this might get a more even flow of submissions throughout the entry period, but we'll just have to see how this would work out.

[Inflexible] It would be my intention throughout the entry period of posting the number of entries in each category every day or as close to every day as possible. Everybody will have all of the info and can judge for themselves what they might want to do with the info. Since I will support people withdrawing entries and submitting alternates in their place, I don't see how when you submit will make a lot of difference in gaining advantage or not from the openness of the information flow.

[Inflexible] I am completely intolerant of open criticism of any participants in the contest while the contest is running. I would expect anything that might happen out of the ordinary to be brought to the attention of the folks running the contest privately and for it to be dealt with privately. After the contest, I can't control things (really can't control during the contest, either) but I'm going to state that I'm not going to make any of those private issues public. If what happens indicates a need for some future action to be considered as far as running the next contest, I'll suggest something without specific reference to whatever happened privately. Frankly, I'm pretty easy going about things, and, if I run it, you're going to find out that I just can't get really outraged about something that is just an event intended to be fun.

Once the entry period ends, the website would be populated, and I would hope that a small group of volunteers (mentioned at the start of this post) would look the entries over in, maybe, a a 24-48 hours period of time. Problems spotted during that review would be addressed with the entrants before the site would go public. This small group might also serve as a sort of artistic review board for any tough call / interpretation that might be needed about the status of some entry. Again, I'm pretty easy going about things, so my judgement about similarity of sequence mates or the like might be a little suspect, so I could see it being helpful to get opinions from some of the more artistically enlightened.

I would see a relatively short public viewing period (3-5 days???) for the purpose of the general population looking over the entries and raising any questions they might have. Once appropriate adjustments have been made, such as replacement of an entry judged to have run afoul of one or the other rules, the voting period would begin.

Again, because of the inconvenience of email voting, I would be willing to permit folks to submit their votes in one or more emails, with the understanding that, in the case of conflicts between their various emails, the last submitted emails will be taken as gospel. I myself often find that I can make up my mind relatively quickly on some categories, but linger overly long on many others. This way folks can vote on what they are sure of and not worry that their indecision will leave them in the situation of not voting at all as they procrastinate to the end of the voting period. I have another statement related to voting but it will wait until I review the rules.

Once the voting period ends, I would count up the votes and announce the winners as quickly as possible. The awards would come later when the person making them gets them done. I like personalized trophies with your name on them and think it's worth the wait to give the person willing to do the awards the time to do them right.

Review of the rules --- I'm going to do it in the next post. Please stay tuned.

[benten]

By the rules, I'm referring to the rules of the 2013 Anime Beta Awards held in January. You can view them at:
http://celawards2013.zero-space.net/ind ... tion=rules.

Overall, they are a pretty nice set of rules and seem to have worked out well in the past. That said, here are my comments on them:

Eligibility Rules:
[Inflexible] Rule 4 is out. It will be hard enough to vote using email. I'm not going to spend any energy on checking to see that entrants voted in every category or voted at all. Not voting is its own penalty.

Submission Rules:
1) This is a suggestion to be discussed in the forums, but I would like to throw it out. In the standard categories, why not just allow 6 entries, period, not six categories. Some folks have galleries with a more limited range of cel types, maybe they have mostly mecha and nothing much else. They could make all of their entries in the one category if they so chose. I believe Sensei was trying to mix it up a bit the last time with suggestions for new categories. I think this might produce some interesting results.

3) The limits would be on the largest dimension, not on just width. Frankly, I'm not too worried about this one. If submissions are off (just a hair too large or the like), I will just fix them without bothering the submitter. Only, in the case of animated would I send them back to be fixed by the submitter. And, in that case, only because there is something of an art to getting a good animation. And, I leave artistic efforts to those more capable than I.

4) I suggest a clarification:
The sentence "Artwork which was previously entered into the Anime-Beta Awards but did not win any awards within the last five years is eligible for re-entry in any category. " would be added as the first sentence. The current first sentence would be changed to read: "Artwork which was previously entered into the Anime-Beta Awards and won an award within the last five years is eligible for re-entry, provided that the winning piece has changed owners." The underlined words represent a change. The award winners for the early years are no longer available for viewing. There needs to be some limit as to how far back to go. I not wedded to five as the magic number, but I think it's time to put something explicit in. I remember 5 years as being discussed previously and was surprised to not find it in the rules.
[Inflexible] The sentence "If you do not e-mail the coordinator, your entry will be disqualified." will be changed to "If you do not e-mail the coordinator, your entry may be disqualified." By this point, I trust you are picking up on my attitude about these things. Sometimes, people just make errors. There needs to be some flexibility on this in cases where error has been made but things are fixed without harm.

5) I suggest changing "previous winners" to "previous winners within the last five years". The reasoning is the same as that given in 4) above.

7) "Categories with fewer than three entries 24 hours before the beginning of voting will be eliminated." will be changed to "Categories with fewer than three entries after the end of the entry period will be eliminated." My intention is to be a little fuzzy here. If there is a private viewing period, there might be some entries eliminated / added that might change the category total. My intention would be to wait to see if a category would have to eliminated until the end of that period. the publication of the daily totals should alert folks to the possibility that a category is on the bubble.

Finally, some thoughts on schedule, I would think that there should be some time for the usual discussions. Then, we could start.
Here is a straw man schedule:
12:01 AM 24 August (Saturday) - 11:59 PM (Sunday) 15 September (Eastern Daylight Time) Entry Period
17-18 September Private Viewing
21-23 September Public Viewing
26 September - 07 October

And, finally, finally -- some comments about categories.

OP/ED/Eyecatch: Just fine with category. I have an issue with banning these from all other categories. This leads to too many potential problems. There are many series, Ranma 1/2 for example, where all of the OP/ED are not available to the English audience. It is too easy for someone to run afoul of this ban out of ignorance. And, yes, in this instance, ignorance is an excuse. I know that Hankens have similar rules. But, generally speaking, Hankens cost more and people are very much less likely to have a Hanken and not know it is such. And, yes again, I have purchased OP cels and not known that they were OP cels. Even the vendor didn't know, so I don't regard this as an academic issue. My thought is that we want to reduce the likelihood of inadvertent rules violations, where the rule doesn't provide much benefit.

There needs to be some minor discussion of categories with respect to the cel vs paper, but I'm pretty talked out for now. So, I'll save the discussions for the forum or whatever.

[cutiebunny]

Perhaps it's just the way I'm reading this, but I don't like the idea of "inflexibility". It's great that you have ideas as to how you'd like to conduct the awards and I agree with many of your ideas. However the awards and the rules are something that should be decided as a community, and not as one member who has decided to take on the role of running the awards this time around.

That being said, I have two issues of contention -

1) OP/ED/Eyecatch - The purpose of this category (when introduced last year during the combined awards) was to cater to those items that can't fit in any of the other established categories. Perhaps it's me, but it seems like "double dipping" if you design a category specifically catering to one specific form of art, but then allow those items to be added to other categories. Why not allow hankens to be allowed in all categories? Or Fan Art? Or shikishi? I would much rather see OP/ED/Eyecatches allowed in all categories rather than give them their own specific category. I had a very difficult time judging that category last time around because there was no judging criteria. I picked whatever was prettiest. Maybe create a topic in this area and open it up to voting for a week or so to allow other members to weigh in on this issue?

I understand that you want to protect those who may not realize that items are an OP/ED/Eyecatch/Hanken, etc., but realistically, how many owners don't know the identify of the bulk of their artwork? Unless it's a run of the mill background or an item from an obscure anime, I'd think that most items would be known by their owners, especially as stores like Mandarake regularly list items as 'hanken', 'OP', etc. And, had I been someone who submitted artwork from an unknown series and someone was able to properly identify that as an OP/ED/Eyecatch from a specific series, having that knowledge and being able to properly credit it would mean more to me than any award graphic I could have won.

2)Previously Awarded Items Resubmitted by the Same Owner - The idea behind this rule is to prevent previous owners from re-submitting winning items from 2008 and earlier so as to not have a contest full of winning items. While I think the majority of owners of artwork that has previously won will not attempt to resubmit the same artwork again, it's always a possibility. I've heard the argument that previously awarded items should be allowed in because there is not enough artwork out there, but I really disagree with that statement. There's plenty of artwork out there, especially sketches, as everything is CG. I find it hard to believe that there aren't any breathtaking sketches out there anymore. I see plenty every week on YJ.

The penalities for submitting something like a sequence mate to a previous winning item has simply been that the entrant be allowed to submit a different item. At least to my knowledge, no one has ever been banned for this. As a rule of thumb, it's usually advised to all entrants to prepare one or two 'spare' entries in the event that a category be eliminated or another participant submits a sequence mate into the contest.

I'm confused as to how "not voting is its own penalty". How so? While I would hope that everyone would be fair and vote in all standard categories and those optional categories to which they submitted artwork, I don't see how hard it is to expect people to vote in all applicable categories. If all those who vote submitted artwork, wouldn't they want others to submit a vote for all applicable categories and not just the ones that feature their items? Once again, I think that most people will vote for items in all standard categories, so this may be a non-issue.

Your straw man schedule is pretty demanding considering that the community hasn't voiced their thoughts on the matter yet. You may want to give people a good three weeks to voice their opinions, especially with some of the proposed changes.

My thoughts on the matter are simple - While it's important for the awards to continue to evolve as the industry and its animation process changes, the rules have been largely ironed out over the past couple of years to the point that they should stay largely untouched. They are based on experience, as well as the opinions of Anime Beta members both past and present. While there will never be 100% agreement on all categories and rules, I am content with the rules used during the previous year's competition.

[sensei]

A couple of brief comments.

In the 2011 Cel Contest, there were at least three volunteers who counted votes and checked their results (I was one), while the organizer (iceman57) stayed focused on keeping the whole affair on track. In the 2012 Cel Contest, I had eight helpers (including webmistress zerospace and the site/awards designers). While that format automatically counted votes, it still shows that the affair really can't be a solo or nearly-solo affair. So rather than make changes in procedures and rules assuming that the old system is unworkable, I think it would be prudent to get a team of volunteers together.

Counting the votes in the e-mail configuration is time-consuming but so is devising and debugging language for a dedicated website. (zerospace was heroic on this front last year) It's not an obstacle if you have a team of counters who are checking results against each other and ensuring accuracy.

There are a number of short discussions about proposed rule changes that I started in the Cel Context forum that deserve to be checked, as they apply to the Sketch Contest as well. That includes the "five year" issue. I think we left it that artwork should be eligible if five years have passed and if the person submitting is not the previous award-winner. And that should also go for close sequence-mates of previous winners.

Sketches and cels were at one time part of the same contest (e.g., 2007). From what I can summon up, the first awards for sketches only was 2009. The second was 2010, and the third and most recent was 2011. So I'm not sure there is a huge stall of previous winners out there ready to be resubmitted. The five year rule may simply be non-essential.

In my experience, the worst that's happened when a cel or sketch was submitted to an inappropriate category is that the submitter was asked to remove it and given the chance to submit something else, either to that category or to any other. Still, I personally think that there should be an "all-in all-done" deadline for challenging entries, and that if (say) a sketch submitted to "Female" is afterwards identified as an OP or a sequence-mate of a 2009 winner, then it should normally be be accepted as a valid entry. (The organizers should, as they always have, make the final decision after internal discussion, as we did in the 2012 Cel contest.)

But matters like these should be hammered out in a "dither" thread, and once we have a volunteer team and consensus on the rules, then set dates and prepare to go.

[JWR]

The one problem I can see crop up with just one person doing everything is that it could lead to unforseen questions.

These contests pretty much fell apart a bit after a few misteps that I prefer not to rehash here (a search of previous contest threads will bring those to light if one wishes)

The more people involved especially with the vote counting leads to better transparentcy and more confidence in results. Even if I wanted to try to do it myself I would not just so I could protect myself from any questions after the fact.

I would be willing to help if you need it and would welcome it.

[animeobsessed]

I agree with the comments made by cutiebunny, sensei and JWR especially in regards to one person doing most everything (there needs to be a group for transparency if nothing else) and OP/Ed/Eyecatch comments. After trying to submit and vote on that category, I consider it hard to really figure out the best way to find a suitable entry and vote on which is best. I would rather have them in each category than have a category of its own. Hankens seems to work as a separate category better than OP/ED did.

Also, if a sketch has won and it's still with the same owner, why would you want to resubmit it? It has an award already. If the sketch did not win, but was entered, there shouldn't be any reason not to resubmit it again. It hasn't won anything. I'm not sure why this should change.

Also, I am willing to help on this committee this year.

[benten]

Based upon the comments, I withdraw my offer to run the sketch contest, so that you can restart your efforts to form a committee, etc. with a clean slate.

[JWR]

Based upon the comments, I withdraw my offer to run the sketch contest, so that you can restart your efforts to form a committee, etc. with a clean slate.

Sorry to see you took the comments made in a negative light.

[teggacat]

Based upon the comments, I withdraw my offer to run the sketch contest, so that you can restart your efforts to form a committee, etc. with a clean slate.

sorry everyone, but to be honest, cant say that I blame benten, I wouldnt touch this with a ten foot pole......

[cutiebunny]

Based upon the comments, I withdraw my offer to run the sketch contest, so that you can restart your efforts to form a committee, etc. with a clean slate.

I don't think that any of us are trying to say that you should not lead the project. What we're saying is that the project is something that is "for the community, by the community", and therefore no one member should have all the say and all the responsibility.

As the organizer, your task would be to oversee the project. For the most part, the awards and the previously established rules are already pretty cohesive and they almost run themselves. How I would go about it is like this -

1) Create a topic asking if there are any issues with the previous set of rules from the Sketch Awards in 2011, but modify that with the newly established 2012 categories (ie. the OP/ED/Eyecatch category). Let the topic stand about a week and address any serious issues. Depending on the issue, it may be necessary to allow members a week or so to weigh in. This is usually done whenever a significant change to a rule or category is requested, such as in the case where members were allowed to submit 6 entries in standarad categories last year, up from the previous total of 5.

2) Create a website, on Rubberslug or elsewhere, to host the awards. Create an e-mail account specifically designed for the awards (ie. SketchAwards2013@gmail.com). Make a post on the forum asking for volunteers for vote counting, award graphic creation, submission uploads, etc. All pertinent staff get access to the website and/or e-mail accounts. This would be up to your discretion. For example, you could have a couple of people who are in charge of voting create their own e-mail account for voting, and then these people would be the only ones to receive access to this account.

3) Set up a timeline. I'd recommend allowing 2 weeks for submission, 2 days to address any submsision issues, 3 days for public viewing and 2 weeks for voting. Winners are usually shown a day or two after the end of voting, and graphics aren't usually ready for a week-month afteward. You can tinker around with the time periods to suit your taste, but I would take into account what previous organizers have done and use a close approximation.

[sensei]

I'd add that it takes a bit of managerial talent. Having in the past run various committees on the university front, I learned how important it was to work toward (and then from) an consensus. Then people work with you, and your job becomes much less demanding. I found heading up the cel contest this year to be largely unproblematic. I had a fine bunch of volunteers working with me, very few feathers got flustered, everything worked, more or less.

Task accomplished, matter settled
The people all say, "We did it naturally"

I'd volunteer to lead it again, but having done the cel contest AND the open house this year, I don't want to seem to be creating a dynasty (or starting a "Oh, Just Let Sensei Do It He's Good At It!" tradition). So whoever does agree to be wing leader, I will happily help where my labor is needed and serve as an "institutional memory" person.

[JWR]

I have setup a gallery on RS as well as registered a Gmail acount I can "turn over the keys" IE log in info to those more talented than me to make it look "pretty" once a team is created to start and run this years contest.

With my work schedule don't think I would be able to spend much time on the uploading of the images and such once the contest begins so others will need to help out there as well at voting time but I will help as much as I can.

[iceman57]

Based upon the comments, I withdraw my offer to run the sketch contest, so that you can restart your efforts to form a committee, etc. with a clean slate.

Basically, from my good old Europe, what I see is that the yearly contest is, as each time, a yummy bunch of shit. Drowning in monthly rules discussions.
I'm rude, yeah I know. But maybe it's not being rude, it's simply focusing on a target: arranging a contest in time.

"community" and "group" and "transparency" and other social friendship networking arguments/terms?! That's just an ego contest and nothing else, confronting his/her collectibles to others vision of the art, lobby pals that'll vote for your "anonymous" gems and even vote for your own. Contest is not to win money but when each year I read and re-read the rules, it looks like Beta Awards turned to a Federal Lottery.

Congrats to Benten to have lasted 2 days on the Anime Battlefield with his knife and his will.
Honored to have seen my 2011 teamwork quoted as rough source of inspiration. If you do require graphic skills for anything, I'm your man anytime.