Correction, there is plently wrong with it - once <some>, in fact <any>, of the nominees start to lobby, or have others lobbying for them, it turns the Caissars into politics, which is very off-putting for many of us. Oh, btw, you may want to catch up with <Once>'s forum as well, there was some very good posting there too.

<If not, then not--the Caissars are his to run.>

As an example, <chesstoplay> started the Rinus award and then turned it over to <zansin> who turned it over to me. Do I own it? No. What would happen if I started making awards to my friends? I don't know other than people would complain bitterly to the admins who would likely stop following my cttee's recs on who should get them.

Maybe not, but there's a definite attitude shift in that direction, and I don't have to like that.

<WannaBe2006: It is now time to VOTE for 2006 Caissar!

I'm pleased, and very honored for the privilege to do this, in place/absence of <nikolaas>, who I hope will return to do this next year. >

<WannaBe2008, on jfq's habit of talking about "MannBee Awards": Also, please change the name of the award to Caissar, it was originally started by <nikolaas> and that's the name it's known for/by.

I'm just the guy who tabulate the votes. Thanks.>

<Now> is 2010-11, and we have an entirely new category where nobody but <WannaBe> even gets to vote.

<WannaBe2010: I am pleased, and honoured, to present to you, the 2010 Caissar Award for Life Time Achievement Award.

This category, is strictly decided, solely by me, (it's good to be the Roi, no?!)>

And in the Great 2010 Best Handle Confusion, with a) me getting five votes, b) <jfq> getting five votes, one of which (<talisman>'s) was somewhat ambiguous and another of which (yours) came from a person who had previously voted another candidate without any indication of if this was a split vote or a totally changed vote and c) <Once> getting four votes (including yours, which almost certainly shouldn't be included) it's all "sorted out" with this:

<WannaBe2010: So, according the 'official' vote counter, e.g., i.e., for example, moi. The final count was 4 votes each.

1. If the Filipino voting block had not done what happened, would people voiced or grumbled about anything?

2. If the Filipino voting block had not done what happened, and the voter turn out was still low, would people voiced or grumbled about anything?

3. Are people correlating (sp?) a low voter turn out to the action of the Filipino voting block? Or is it a 'bad' timing to hold the Caissar Award at the turn of the year? When people are still not back in school/work? Don't people have internet connections in their homes and on their phones anymore?

I moved it back a few weeks, because the usual announcement (in the Cafe) was being drown out by the Holiday Hunt.

I did notice a few of the past regulars did not vote, <acirce> voted once, withdrew his vote, and never voted again, I think <malthrope> is ill, but I do not know why some of the more respected/prominent members did not vote. (You know who you are are! =) Did the initial flood of block-voting turned them off? I do not know.

And it's hard, I can see someone not wanting to post something (my forum, any forum.) and have everyone in the public reading it, and maybe even possibly have it taken out of context as 'racial' because it is critical of the votes being cast by one nationality.

<OCF> recommended that beside posting the announcement in the Cafe, also do it on the World Game Page, which I did once, but I am not sure if that does any good, since analysis and vote lobbying also make my posting scroll off the 25 posts per page.

He mentioned also posting on POTD page, but I wasn't too sure if he meant Player of the Day, or Pun of the Day, maybe I should have asked him for clarification.

<Annie K.> Once upon a time, the voting process was followed, it was one category per day, and the announcement was made in the Cafe, I know you remember =) you are mere a few month 'older' than I on this site.

I really don't recall any 'lobbying' in the first few years of the voting process, people followed procedures, nominated who they felt were worthy, and we voted on the nominees.

And how am I going to control this 'lobbying', I can't go around deleting posts that isn't on my forum, I don't even detele any posts on my forum, (only maybe twice, after <JoeWms> made some boo-boo and got embarassed, and asked me to remove them.)

Otherwise, everything is left as is, (for future historians, as I like to say.)

Now, yes, it has become a bit of a 'farce', if I don't count the 'write-in' votes, I will probably get critized, (why so-and-so got so many votes and didn't win?) if I count the 'write-in' votes, then why bother nominating anyone?

At times, it does feel like a very thank-less 'job/work', I try to be punctual with my timing, I felt the easiest way was to utilize the change stamp change by cutting off at 11:59 PM, so any votes registered the next day would officially be discarded. And I also try to post time warnings to people.

When the vote count was disputed, I know it would be a problem, I counted the votes 5 times that night before posting the results, even when the vote count differences are two votes, I recount the top 2 vote-getters 3 times, each time using a new piece of paper, by the end, all the numbers on the papers better be matching. Then I know I counted it right.

There was 2 'dispute' votes, where I can't determine whether it was a vote, or a comment/question.

As someone who is proctoring (is that the right word to use?) the process, I <HAVE TO> be firm, I could have just disregarded the write-in and take the heat, hate posts, and what nots, on the second thought, maybe I should have.

The line, that I used <It's good to be the Roi, no?!> is a spoof/paraphrase of the Mel Brooks line, "It's good to be the King", from History of the World Part I, where his character (The Roi) is actually a baffoon, keep on asking the piss-boy with the bucket to come around... (my own self-depricating sense of humour, again.) It is not to be taken seriously, nor does it imply that I think the Award is 'mine'...

Now, the new category, the LTAA, yes, only I get to decide, here are the reasons...

1. As one of the older member on this site, and having seen a lot of posts and made a lot of posts, I think I have a good feel on who have contributed, and who have not, also longevity (sp?) of the worthy member.

2. As a premium member, I use the 'search' capability and go through the posts made by the candidate members that I have listed. And by looking at the earliest posts, middle posts, and latest posts, I can kinda see the contribution made by them, and decide which one is deserving of this award.

3. This award, is two years old, and I added it last year because all the other major awards have a LTAA, plus, in one of the ad-line from "The Worlds' Most Interest Man" commercial is the fact that he has won the life time achievement award <TWICE>!! Always makes me chuckle when I see that commercial.

I apologize if you interpret my posts the way you did, we never did 'communicate' very much, maybe you don't know me and my strangeness when I compose my post. Such as, why does an American like <WannaBe> keeps on using British spelling of humour?!

(purely as an add-on) since I figured with a 4+ hour between post, someone have responded. I recognize, that there is a problem, (if you read my previous 'thought' process, on how to stop this 'farce' you know I spent some 'considerable' time on it... It dealt with who/what/how can vote...) however, I do not have a solution, the current process and its results fall into the current 'legal' system of Caissar process. (okay, that is really poorly written and very convoluted... please forgive me. But I think you know what I mean.)

Thus far, I have asked for the crux of the issue and proposal(s) to resolve them, (see my previous post, this forum, I think...) I am willing to listen to anything, anything that wil bring some kind of order and sanity to this. No one follows my instruction (lack of publicity/direction/poor U.S. education system?)

Why do I post twice, sometimes thrice a day to ask people for nominations, and then end up with write-in votes?!?! I am willing to listen to any and all options, any help, before I lock myself in a straight-jacket in a rubber room!!

So, here is <MY> proposal,

1. How to handle the Block Vote, if, this is really an issue.

2. Lobbying, how can we stop/curb this, because one can always use unicode and post something the majority of English speaking member can't read/understand.

I/one can always post something in some language and 'claim' it is an analysis/analyst.

3. Establish forums, (or is it formi?! English plurals confuses the crap out of me...) to address each issue, such that we don't cross post and mix our discussion.

E.g. use mine for the lack of votes, and use <Annie K.> for voting procedure, or the lack of, or the issue of write-in votes and establish a 'written in stone' hard line for future Caissar voting.

Use <???> forum for how to publicize the event, use <???> to host a forum on how to determine future Life Time Achieve Award, because I really like this idea/concept, and it also award/recognizes the member who have been here, through all the B.S. and not quit/leave, but still contribute.

(Because I have seen a lot of people who have quit, because they disagreed with so-and-so, thought so-and-so's line of analysis is 'bad', or what ever...)

But, the bottom line is, let us address, if not at least outline what is the problem....

1. Block voting.

2. Procedure of the Caissar.

I'd also propose a think tank to try to figure out what could be improved and how. :)>

Well, the last 3 posts are my 'vent' and my frustration and my gripe... I have proposed forums/formi to adress/discuss each of the issues, so that we don't cross post and interfere with other topic/subjects.

if we restrain block voting then Annual Caissar Award will be limited to a chosen few, we all know that there are factions here in CG. I read somewhere, i guess from <jessica>, that it would be a good idea for CG to conduct the Caissar --- i concur to his idea. With the aid from the Caissar "pioneer" group, an enhanced proceedings can be proposed to CG admin. And the best thing, the program covers the entire CG population. More votes, the merrier!

(me and my big mouth for volunteering, I kept doing it, because I felt, in a way obligated, and it is something that I felt the community welcomed, needed, and wanted to continue...)

block voting is everywhere and accepted by societies around the globe, it worked under Campo's reign in Fide.

<What is your recommendation on a stricter measure on nominations? And how can we guarantee it is not also abused?>

CG may assign a 7-man committee to screen nominees. Maybe we could also limit nominees to just 5. I suggest, anyone from Caissar pioneer could develop a set of guideline, then to be deliberated by the pioneers. Afterwhich, propose the set of guidelines to CG.

I've known you on this site for easily long enough to know quite well that you're a witty and funny guy; as for the posts cited, even a total ChessGames newbie would have to be blind not to see at least some humour of whatever spelling. Certainly I never ignored that aspect.

<1. If the Filipino voting block had not done what happened, would people voiced or grumbled about anything?

2. If the Filipino voting block had not done what happened, and the voter turn out was still low, would people voiced or grumbled about anything?

3. Are people correlating (sp?) a low voter turn out to the action of the Filipino voting block? Or is it a 'bad' timing to hold the Caissar Award at the turn of the year? When people are still not back in school/work? Don't people have internet connections in their homes and on their phones anymore?>

let's get it straight, allow block voting?

The only salient fact about that is that no block exists apart from the Barangay= that is, no block with the potential voting power of the Barangay.

The Barangay could vote in any winner in all of the categories- could have done so this year.

But it didn't. And the rest of the community who are not members of the Barangay appreciate this, make no mistake about it.

Your own award was disputed by nobody. Not one person. That's because you post widely in English as well as tagalog, and you're a more than deserving winner.

You got votes from "across the board" in the CG.com community.

But the same cannot be said of this year's winner of <best anaylst>.

Nobody doubts the word of the Barangay that he's a National Master, or a great analyst who is worthy of the award.

What's at issue is this:

He only analyzes Pilipino players.

He only analyzes in Tagalog.

It's these two facts that made the bloc voting- this year- of the Barangay inappropriate, at least in his case. Simply put, no one outside the Barangay can read tagalog.

Therefore it's not a mystery that he did not get a single vote from anyone outside the Barangay.

That's a big problem if such voting behavior continues in the future- it would likely permanently sour relations between the Barangay and the rest of the site.

Nobody wants that.

Thanks very much for such a detailed addition to the <Maroczy> pronunciation issue.

Pardon me for not putting the accent on there but my keyboard can't do them, so I have to copy and paste the names directly from the web and I'm too lazy to do it right now.

Er.. ok I could have done that in the time I wrote this...

Anyways I have some other Hungarian names and also some Czech names with lots of the accents that I'd like to know how to say- properly.

I've been thinking about your post on that and you know what- I think I will go the whole hog on the pronunciations, I should have done so in the Polish video as per your suggestion.

Because like I was saying all I need to do is have the name onscreen when Richard says it the first time and there's no confusion.

Pardon interruption of the discussion- I'll contact you tomorrow with a heinously overdue email on this and other topics.