LogFAQs > #964943004

VGMC Retrospective:

I'm going to preface this with saying I definitely feel like I'm out of step with VGMC's current direction. I was on the losing side of most of the rules change arguments and other various decisions. I honestly had intended for VGMC15 to be my last VGMC but came back because I was just too giddy to share more VGM that I really fell in love with over the past year. And honestly through 98% of this nomination phase I regretted that I backtracked on that decision because I was constantly reminded of all the reasons and internal debate I had with myself last year and planned to just fade away after this nomination phase ended. The end rush remains incredibly fun though so I briefly thought of giving it one more try but I still don't know. All of this to say, in a probably overdramatic way, that I honestly wouldn't fault my opinions here being dismissed as just being the "old guy yelling at clouds." Like I didn't want to say anything about all this because I didn't want to make any of this about me but I feel I should add it as a disclaimer before I offer criticism.

Honestly, I feel like a good deal of this is me repeating what I said in last year's post-nom comments. While I admitted I'm on the losing side of the lock system in general, I recommended then that the lock limit should have been raised. My argument then was that if it were to be available it should be set a level expected to be above where the cutoff ends up being. I forget the exact number I was recommending, but I think it was in the 8-9 range. In light of what happened here I feel like 9 seems about right? There's probably a way to math out a good number but I feel like I've had a decent intuition on how VGMC noms end up working. I "joked" about this exact scenario occurring days ago because to me it seemed patently obvious this is where we were heading.

Now, granted, maybe some prefer a method where we end up locking the entire field and if so then I guess this isn't really a problem. Still think I'd tentatively recommend an increase to 7 then to try and keep it from happening early as it did here. Fundamentally my issue with locking - and in particular a low number on it - is that it favors those who have the free time to just listen through over a 1000 songs in about a week. I feel like it divides nominators into two (or more) different classes based on how much of the playlist they can get through. Those who can have a grasp of the entire field while those who can't have to just throw up their hands and either throw support behind songs they already recognize or be left behind because the field locked on them.

This ties into nomination amount. As before, I think 30 is just too much. Ironically, I think we actually dodged a bullet here in that I think there was actually a broad understanding among most of the participants to not actually use all 30 noms for original nominations and then consolidate behind support later. This ended up feeling about equivalent to last year as a result which... was still way too much IMO. The easy reform would be to drop back to 20. But you could also maybe try something like 10-15 "original/new" songs while the overall total remains at 5/30 and essentially require the remainder goes into support or else go unused. Though if so, I think that has to factor into the lock limit because you'll be funneling more total noms into support and so might want to increase the lock limit to compensate.

I also think the nom period got way too condensed in terms of time, which is another reason I'm not a fan of locks - it creates the possibility of a time limit where one doesn't have to exist and where there's already a great deal of time required to listen to everything. We saw complaints over time here and I think noms should basically be a 2 week minimum. I know this could lead to some slower days towards the end but I think that's the tradeoff you get for giving others more time to listen and that should be a goal IMO. I think a freeze like the one we had is a bit of a half measure and not ideal. I actually don't think it prolonged noms that long (for instance, I don't think we lock 24 hours earlier if we took that away) and while instituting a pause can help for listening, I think the timing is definitely tricky and almost something that requires some real-time monitoring if you used in conjunction with locks and that's at odds with presenting a clear schedule for everyone upfront.

IDK, I feel like I'm rambling now but those were some of my first thoughts looking back on all this.