Thoughts on the Snuffies!

[Pennpaul]

To JohnM

Agreed

4P

[Max5s]

First, congratulations to the winners. I'm sure that the films that won had great merit in their respective categories.

Second, I won't be taking this too seriously mostly for the reasons expressed by JohnM and Penn.

I'm familiar with the quality of both JohnM's work and with Olaf's. Both are excellent in their technical composition. I haven't seen any of Pennpaul's videos, but I've seen DebbieD at work and know she gives it her all. I will assume that her work with Penn is as good. I'm glad to see your comments here, and for the most part, I agree with you.

[Chris B]

Proudly sporting our Snuffie on the site!!! http://www.chriscornervideos.com

Thanks Blue! CB

[Bluestone]

Proudly sporting our Snuffie on the site!!! http://www.chriscornervideos.com

Thanks Blue! CB

Me too! Here's one of the posted locations!

http://femmefatalities.com/members/silkvideos/noir.html

Also, Max5s,

I was surprised that none of AD's videos were nominated, especially since we had a Hanging Award in 2011! All it takes to expand participation is for other producers to be nominated. I know for a fact that there are many AD fans here other than me and you.

Blue

[tommygun]

Blue, I was going to write you directly on this, but there's been enough posting by others that I might as well float this idea here:

First, some background. By having nominations, then voting, by members of the community, you're asking the community to remember everything that's been produced over a year and to "come out" with a nomination. This requirement is further complicated by the fact that few people will actually see all the material in any given category.

SO: Here's an idea that would get most of the best material nominated, and also perhaps generate some extra business for the producers' best offerings at the same time. The idea is this:

Every six months, we have THE PRODUCERS enter one of two of their best films IN THEIR JUDGMENT in any category they'd like to compete in. The requirements would be just a short plot synopsis, and two or three still 500 pixel pictures from the film, and then a link to the location where one can view further stills and perhaps a trailer, and ALSO CAN BUY the film if they missed it. Essentially, you'd put up a thread for "BEST SHOOTING VIDEO - 1st Half 2012" Each production would its own separate post with the details above. The thread would close on a certain date and voting would begin. You also could have another thread, "COMMENTS ON BEST SHOOTING VIDEO" if that seemed desireable.

Done this way, each producer's best work will have a clear memory jog for the viewing public, and individuals don't need to post if they don't want to, just vote. More importantly, the best material would have a second chance to get some new paying customers!

[Nightposter]

I read this "stuff" and I got upset enough to post this...
OF COURSE THIS IS BIASED!!!!!!!
These awards have been biased since Whitelord ended his support for the original awards. Remember a couple of years ago the awards were dominated by a husband/ wife team that NOBODY heard of before the awards? turned out that they "hosted" the awards on their server, and there were hundreds of protests of favoritism ...
This kind of thing would never fly at DS, because the owner couldn't keep his fingers out of the ballot box.

4P you come out NOW boasting the virtues of your models and videos...did you do that before?

NOBODY said you had to hire a PR firm to get noticed in these awards.

If you produced a quality product, that the fans here noticed, you probably got nominated.

In the past, people who mentioned these award sites, got votes, those that complained later, lost... and got less votes the next year.

Blue the only way around this is put the awards on an open page where no one needs to register to nominate and vote. you and other producers would have to distance yourselves from the process....
That would probably create a mess for whoever ran it.... ( and I don't want the job)

[JohnM]

I like Tommyguns idea of letting producers nominate their own. The only other thing would be to get the vote out of this members-only, producer owned forum to reduce bias and increase votes. 200-300+ votes of folks that purchased the movies nominated would be needed to seal the deal.

JohnM

[bellystabs]

I also like TG's idea of producers nominating their favorite movies. And I like John's idea of a public poll, but I have a question: Can anonymous IP addresses be limited to just one vote? Or would we simply "vote early and vote often" for our favorites?

[Bluestone]

I also like TG's idea of producers nominating their favorite movies. And I like John's idea of a public poll, but I have a question: Can anonymous IP addresses be limited to just one vote? Or would we simply "vote early and vote often" for our favorites?

These are indeed good ideas, but the public voting is a problem, because I don't think it can control people voting multiple times and basically stuffing the ballot boxes.

A question... If some people won't even go the step of joining a free forum to vote, what makes us think that they will bother to vote in a public vote? It would be a lot of effort to set up such a voting site for no apparent tangible results.

Not a bad idea about producers suggesting what they feel is their best video in a category every quarter and vote on those with the winner from each quarter to be added to the final annual vote, but again how do we know that even our FF producers will participate? Everyone's busy, so will they even bother to submit nominations, if they could? I guess if they don't post on this thread to confirm their interest, we'll have our answer.

I can disqualify myself again next year. That should get rid of any perceived bias, but the Bluestone fans and customs customers may simply say that the result is biased against their favourite producer, so that the result would also not necessarily be indicative of the best videos in the marketplace.

Well, at least we are getting some good ideas being proposed.

If producers are limited to one nomination per category per quarter, which would be voted on by the fans each quarter, and non-producers can also nominate their favourites for this quarterly run-off vote, would this add to the participation level?

Blue

[JohnM]

Actually. I did a 3 day test a few weeks ago.

I put up a nominating process on my Wordpress Blog. They have awesome software available for this that tracks by IP, Cookies, or whatever.

In 3 days I received 30 individuals what filled out nomination ballets.

I then took one of the categories as a test and posted it here. But, I did not advertise it so there are not many votes:
http://pkfstudios.com/pkfblog/?page_id=1402

As you can see, once you vote, you can refresh the page and vote again--but it will display a text that you have already voted.

All this was really easy to do.

A separate wordpress site could be set up on any server. It can have the nomination process, which is basically a write in survey. There is a but of work involved in "grading" the write ins, but once that is done, you then simply take the top 5 or 10 in each category and run a poll for each like the example above.

Keep in mind, I only ran my nominations for 3 days and 30 people submitted votes. 30!!!!

This software also allows the results of the survey to be emailed to multiple people so we can have "checks and balances"

But, eliminating the customer from nominating would make this even easier. We can set up a private page for producers to nominate their own movies. After the process is complete, we just run the polls to pair down the results to either run offs or to a winner.

Simple.

Fair.

But, then again, why are we doing it anyhow? Customer vote with the wallet. I can tell you the best videos for 2011 by sales figures. Much easier. :-)

JohnM

[Jerry]

Actually, you don't even need a fully fledged wordpress install just to run a poll. There are plenty stand-alone poll/survey systems on hotscripts that would work just as well. Heck, they're also easy enough to code from scratch especially if a framework is used which I tend not to use them often.

However, what I'm willing to offer the community is a "custom" polling and voting script based on however nominations are handled whether they are producer, user or whatever nominated. Why am I willing to do this for free? Builds my portfolio of projects, gives me something to work on, and create a system that will be used. Just a thought? Also since the development cycle of the script would be hosted on my server, there would be no producer at the helm. No offense intended Bluestone, but it would address the concerns I've seen.

[Bluestone]

More great ideas! I still think customers should be able to nominate. Otherwise, if only producers get to nominate, it quickly becomes a producer-run promotion as opposed to a people's choice award.

Why are we doing this? Well, just because a video sells a lot of copies doesn't mean it's the best. How are newer, less known producers ever going to be discovered? Penn mentioned a drowning site that I'd never heard about, and I've been in this community for more than a decade.

Jerry, thanks for the offer. Can you send me an email and we can discuss your suggested solution? It sounds like a proposal that FF could support and lend the Snuffie name to.

What does everyone else think of these ideas, and are there other ideas out there?

Blue

[Nyghtfall]

I have four words for the Snuffies, and any other award I see plastered all over any site I visit:

Could. Not. Care. Less.

If the content doesn't appeal to my interests, I'm not buying. Period.

[Bluestone]

I have four words for the Snuffies, and any other award I see plastered all over any site I visit:

Could. Not. Care. Less.

If the content doesn't appeal to my interests, I'm not buying. Period.

Hi Nygtfall,

Spoken as a longtime member of this community who knows exactly what he wants, and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Many community members may feel the same way... or not. At least you have cared enough to express your opinion.

I still see many people joining this forum who have just discovered this community, have not been viewing our material for over a decade, and don't know what's out there. Our community is still expanding, and an award ceremony such as this is one of the activities that brings the community together as opposed to splitting it apart. That is why I got the award started and why I support it. That is why I disqualified myself from Year 1, because it is not about Bluestone, it's about the community. I think this community needs activities that are bigger than one producer or one message board, and that presents another way in which customers can select at least a few videos that others feel are worth plunking down their hard-earned shekels. Just my opinion, of course.

Blue

[JohnM]

I think this community needs activities that are bigger than one producer or one message board, and that presents another way in which customers can select at least a few videos that others feel are worth plunking down their hard-earned shekels. Just my opinion, of course.

It needs to be a forum run buy a community member or members for the community. Any producer-run forum will be bias no matter what you say or how you spin it. Not an opinion. Just common sense fact.

And, even if that is done, 1-2 companies out of 40 or so could end up sweeping much of the awards anyhow--then what happens? My guess is if it does not go the way each producer wants, there will still be hurt feelings. No one wants that. No one wants a sad producer.

The fact is, some producers target a small, niche audience and that support them entirely. If they don't get a nomination or many, it certainly does not mean they don't make good videos at all.

You could always compete companies by perceived status, but even that would be skewed. Psycho-Thrillers put out 190-230 dedicated strangling movies a year, some with the hottet actresses I have seen. They should easily sweep that category and if they don't, it would be a truly odd outcome--statistically.

It brings me back to the question. Why do this anyhow? They way the free market works is pretty good. People buy on average 3 videos from a typical producer when they are new. If they consistently suck, they don't buy from that producer anymore. In general people stick with producers they like, buy what they want--usually based on actress and scenario. Easy peasy.

I think the best helper would be a common review site and while the reviews will always be bias to the individual, it's still helpful. Before I buy something on Amazon, I always read the reviews. In fact, I encourage reviews....good or bad.

JohnM