Awards should go to site-wide contribution, not contribution to niche language groups.

Whilst the admins are tolerant of various language use at the site, as they should be, the lingua franca remains English, making it necessary for award winners to make at least a substantial portion of their contribution in the English language.

I think <hms123> offers some ideas for constitutional change that would totally eliminate any repeat of that farcical "Best Analyst" award last year.

I summarized my suggestions back in January, discussion starting approximately here: Annie K. chessforum (for the curious), but I don't mind going over some main points again.

Mostly agree with <hms>'s suggestions, except that I still think you may want to give some more thought to the possibility of cutting the process down to a single stage, voting. Personally, I've always found having to name all my nominees <twice> - first to nominate and again to vote - pretty tedious. There's also a tendency to think that once you've named your candidate, you're done with the "job", and I'm fairly sure many people come around to nominate, only to forget to return to vote.

Of course this would cut the whole Caissar "ceremony" by half, but it still may be worth considering - and/or at least a nomination should count as a vote for those who never return to vote, because they most likely are among those who forgot, but the intent was clearly there.

Main points I want to suggest:

1. No self-nomination or self-voting, no campaigning, no lobbying, anywhere at cg - for oneself or another - starting now. Anybody breaking this rule should be disqualified, ineligible for the title, no matter how many votes they get.

2. More advertising - announce every list of nomination/voting categories, not just at the Kibitzer's Cafe (which is so crowded nobody goes there anymore...), but also on the Game of the Day page, the Puzzle of the Day page, and possibly even the GM vs The World page. Also, ask Daniel to mention the Caissars in the seasonal newsletter again, if the timing fits, and maybe even to send out a special bulletin if not.

In 1963, Allan Sherman had a (one-hit wonder?) song "Hello Mother, Hello Father". (He sang about Lenard Skinner!)

Lyrics: http://www.digihitch.com/road-cultu...

Now, this is 1963, <^#!>, Okay, take my fingers off the shift key <63>!!!

The band, named Lynyrd Skynyrd, (Quadruple Scrabble word, and tripple letter on the 'K'! Yeah, Baby!) formed in 1964! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynyrd...

Boy, this is major 'research breakthrough', much bigger than that humane gnome NAD stuff they do at Haaaaaaarvard. =)

I don't see where the assumption we're recognising site-wide contributions comes from. Take <Domdaniel> for example, very deserved winner of Best Written Post who knows how many times now, mostly for stuff in his own forum! Sure, he kibitzes elsewhere, but that's where the really good posts tend to be. The only other recent winner in that category is <GoSo>, who posted solely on one page, the So page. That's just one category.

As far as I'm concerned, the gold standard is how many people you've managed to convince to vote for you :) It's easier to get votes if you have a site-wide audience - if that's not enough of an advantage, perhaps you weren't really all that great.

<Annie: 1. No self-nomination or self-voting, no campaigning, no lobbying, anywhere at cg - for oneself or another - starting now. Anybody breaking this rule should be disqualified, ineligible for the title, no matter how many votes they get.>

I agree about self-voting. Self-nomination is despicable but I don't think it's a huge problem. If you have no supporters but yourself, you aren't going to have much impact. If you nominate yourself and somehow end up winning... well, then you were a most deserving candidate, vanity nomination or not.

Let's suppose someone nominates somebody's sock (<GoSo> for example). Is <GoSo> then a separate account for the purposes of the vote, or a part of <Plato> Group? Does whatever <Plato> has done that year count in <GoSo>'s favour as well? If <Plato> is separately nominated, will there be two vote tallies, one for <Plato> and one for <GoSo>, or just one vote tally for the <Plato> Group?

Just to introduce an extra twist, let's assume the category for which <Plato> and <GoSo> have both been nominated is Best Username. Let's assume they get three votes each and <WannaBe> (say) gets five votes. Is <WannaBe> the winner as the most popular <single> username or is it <Plato>/<GoSo> for his superior Achievements in the Field of Username Selection? After all, he was the <member> who got most votes.

Anyway, even if they could, they don't. At the end of the day (to give an example) the analysis of a strong Tagalog poster can easily be both intended for and read by more members than much on this site that is in English. I think "Best Analyst" should go to the most valuable analyst as things actually stand, not to the most valuable analyst in some hypothetical dreamworld. :o)

I almost made a comment myself on <Dom's> accessibility.

True enough, but the real point is to cut out all practices that leave people with a sense of fair play and dignity with a sour taste in their mouths about the Caissars. If somebody can't bring themselves to be so cheap as to nominate themselves, and because of this they don't even get into the voting, while someone "less deserving" but more shameless does, then the second has a <chance>, while the first doesn't, and this is already an unfair advantage. So regardless of eventual outcome, that's still one of the sources of ill-feeling that need to end.

<As for campaigning and lobbying, it sounds like you're just trying to catch <TD> on a technicality :)>

I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over that. :p
But it's not "just" that - see above paragraph. :)

<Yes, campaigning and lobbying have been a problem, but where is one going to draw the line? Besides, your suggestion gives way too much room for abuse. What if people start lobbying for <despised> candidates, just to get them disqualified?>

I've thought of that myself, but didn't want to get bogged down with details in a preliminary summary. :) This is where common sense comes in - and the point that is ultimately most important: when we advise <WannaBe> to set his rules and stick by them, it needs to be understood that the idea is not that he should then be slave to these "unbendable" rules - the actual idea is that he has the mandate to be <authoritative>. This also means using common sense, and making decisions based on his own best understanding and judgement. We were not born yesterday, we are a long-standing community, and most of us know what's going on around us. If somebody wants to try and "reverse engineer" the disqualification rules, it will be recognized.>

The people likely to try and game the system aren't one day old, either. But let's suppose we do recognise them - a hypothetical case, say, of my example above, where it's you campaigning for <TD> and he wins Funniest Kibitzer by one vote. We catch you - you aren't particularly likely to lobby for him honestly, after all. Then what? <TD> has won; <TD> hasn't broken any rules; none of <TD>'s friends have broken any rules; the guy behind <TD> has been screwed out of a potential Caissar. I don't see how having recognised you helps solve the resulting dilemma... :o)

<Annie: True enough, but the real point is to cut out all practices that leave people with a sense of fair play and dignity with a sour taste in their mouths about the Caissars.>

Simple case, by common sense, and not by disqualification rule - <if> there are also legitimate votes involved. You discount my vote (if I in fact voted, and not just lobbied...), and any other votes that are clearly the result of nothing else but my lobbying, and deal with what's left. ;)

<In my experience, the sour taste people often have in their mouths after the Caissars comes mostly from grapes. :o)>

Thereby introducing a heap of subjectivity and plenty of room for errors into the process. The losing candidate - whichever it would be - would not like <WannaBe> very much afterwards, and neither would his supporters. Someone always takes this sort of thing way too seriously. And <WannaBe> himself probably wouldn't like doing it very much - of course, on that count it would be better if he himself weighed in. :o)

<Annie: <In my experience, the sour taste people often have in their mouths after the Caissars comes mostly from grapes. :o)>

I don't think so.>

Well, I do. I haven't seen very many <Iskubadayb> supporters complain about the dangers of bloc voting; quite a few of <Eyal>'s supporters, on the other hand, magically converted into bloc-haters in one night when he happened to lose. :o)

Campaigning/lobbying for someone else should result in discounting of <all> the campaigner's votes (in all categories) - this alone should make the issue rather unlikely to come up at all - and any votes <clearly> resulting from nothing else but the campaign.

<Well, I do. I haven't seen very many <Iskubadayb> supporters complain about the dangers of bloc voting; quite a few of <Eyal>'s supporters, on the other hand, magically converted into bloc-haters in one night when he happened to lose. :o)>

It is possible to take cynicism a little too far, <Switch>. The only time anybody at all might have taken objection to bloc voting, "just happened to be" after the best analyst vote, since that's the one and only occasion such a thing occurred.

<Troll of the Year>, <Wrangler of the Year>, <Fundamentalist of the Year>

and, finally,

<Sockpuppet of the Year>

It's also possible to underestimate the natural competitiveness of chess players... especially for you, since you're less competitive than most. :o) Most chess players hate losing - in anything - with all their heart, making them ideal targets for sour grape salesmen. I should know, I'm one of them. :o)

<The only time anybody at all might have taken objection to bloc voting, "just happened to be" after the best analyst vote, since that's the one and only occasion such a thing occurred.>

Right, that was the only time ever there was a voting bloc. The fact that this post...

<jessicafischerqueen: Please vote <hms123> for most constructive kibbutzer!!

He promises a chicken in every pot.>

...was spammed in more than a dozen of her friends' forums and the fact that <hms123> subsequently won in a total landslide weren't connected in any way whatsoever. :o) If that wasn't a voting bloc, neither was BW; they just all spontaneously happened to vote for the same guy. :o)

There are people at the site who do make an effort to be constructive. There are good analysts who share their knowledge freely with others. There are those whose posts are worth reading just for how well they are written.

It may be that the pendulum went to far in the frivolous direction and is now swinging back in the direction of taking the Caissars site-wide in a way that is both different and more serious than was previously the case.