Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2014 6:44:28 GMT -8
The Sithies 2015
Well before you start all losing your minds, this idea is currently under consideration by the Whills, and is still pending their final decision and may ultimately get shut down, however I want to put this out there more so because compared to the organization of last year, things are running a little behind, so to speak. What I want to do with this is not only put out the word that I am currently looking for potential judges and hosts if the Sithies get the green light, and let everyone know that you should start gathering together names of nominee's, but I also want to share my vision of what the Sithies will be like in 2015.
Now I know in recent years the mere mention of the Sithies has invoked feelings of rage, upset, disgruntledness, and generally a lot of negativity regarding the subject, and considering I've only really attended the event for the past two years (generally not taking much notice of the event before then), I can honestly say I can understand where many of you are coming from. The event became something that was so formal, that you really started to believe that winning an award was the most important thing to being on JvS and that if you didnt win it meant you weren't a good writer. But this was not always how the Sithies were, hell during last years event several people discussed with me just how laid back the event used to be compared to the more formal ball style event that we have come to know in recent years, and with it all the rage and hurt feelings.
But this year, I want to do something different with the Sithies, well I say different, what I mean is different to what it has become, and take things a step back to what they once were. For me, the Sithies can be more than just about whether or not you get a fancy 'winners' trophy image to put on your profile, or you are merely a nominee. Instead, the Sithies is a chance for us all to descend upon a handful of threads on some planet for a weekend to interact with each other with knowledge that our character's would never know, and the ability to literally break the laws of physics and the time space continuum, or just generally defile someone curdled up in the fetal position while they sob themselves to sleep.
For me, the Player's Choice Awards, certain acceptance speeches, and some of the stuff I did in the closing ceremony, they were just some of the tension relieving things that we needed to take the weight off of what the Sithies were becoming. Obviously the Sithies would not be complete without the whole judging of posts and handing out of awards, but that will not be the entire focus of what the Sithies will be about, and I want to make something very clear now: the Sithies award system is not, nor will it ever be, perfect, and it should never be taken as a ranking of where you stand on the site as a whole, but rather where you stand based upon the judges decisions when compared to your fellow nominees. The Sithies are unfairly biased because we cannot just include everyone on JvS, since that is close to a thousand members, and if we took three posts for each category that a character may fit into we could easily end up with close to 12,000 posts for our judges to have to read through, and usually we only have like 7-10 judges, and they aren't getting paid to do this. We rely purely on people who frequent the OOC boards and interact with JvS on an OOC level, and thus we are bound to miss those hidden diamonds in the ruff that maintain purely IC interactions. There is also the fact that the Judges are also writer's on JvS and not a 'professional' board of people who have fancy doctorates or credentials earned from years of professional writing study, their votes are based purely upon what they view as good writing for the category in which they are voting, and they can only work with what they are supplied with, meaning that their votes do not represent any official standard of JvS and thus not something that is worth getting hurt feelings over.
For me, whether or not you 'win' an award is not important, the fact that you got nominated is something that you should celebrate, since it means that someone thinks your writing is pretty awesome and deserves some public notice. I know I've rambled on a bit at this stage, but I want to make it absolutely clear just what the Sithies in 2015 will entail and dispell anyone's preconcieved idea's that we are going to be holding a black tie event that is the be-all-end-all of JvS writer rankings. No, this is going to be more akin to a giant get together for a weekend in Feburary of debauchery and stupidity, in which we will celebrate the writing on JvS, and present awards to the nominee's and announce who, out of the nominees, was considered the 'best' writer of the supplied posts. I want this to be something fun, enjoyable, and exciting, and an event that we have as few people as possible walking away from, upset because they didn't 'win' it.
so if you are interested in helping see this happen, or think this would be good, please post your support. If you want to be a potential Judge or Host, PM me or post here and let me know what you would like to do, so that if this does get greenlit, I can contact you right away. As I've said multiple times, since I want to reinforce this idea, I want to make this something as many of us as possible can enjoy and walk away from with a smile on our face because of the craziness that went down, and not earn the reputation that it has in recent years of being rigged or too formal and uptight. In saying that, there will obviously be certain codes of conduct to adhere to, but for the most part I want to make it an anything goes event.
Thank you for your time,
Dr. Wilhelm Van Buuren
P.S: I tried to make this as easy on the eyes to read as possible considering the amount of text to read.
