RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - General Thread

[iggymcfrack]

The issue here is the potential pitfalls of this will peak at the vote for #1 when the voter-base and interest will peak. Simply put, if you are only allowing 1-vote, the strategic voting may well just turn into a lebron-jordan flame-war where everyone else gets little focus or dicussion. And in the worst-case scenario where the person whose selected is not the one most people think is greater, there's a decent chance you get something like the kg-kobe incident from way back except times 100 because its the #1 vote.

That is also where non-realgm people's interest peaks, so for posterity, it would probably be neat if all the major candidates got some limelight which allowing 3 votes like they did the last time would garuntee. If anything it might be wise to start with 3-votes and then consider lowering it to 2 or 1 so the entry barrier is lowered at the point where interest subsides. Reducing it from 3 at the point where it's cumbersome to "rank a dozen guys" is probably a better approach to increasing it after-the period where people aren't considering a dozen guys has subsided.

You make an excellent point about the loss of Condorcet accordance will matter the most to folks right at the #1 spot. I've never had a bother about my #1 vote not being one of the top two candidates in the Top 100, but it's going to take away something for others, and I don't like that.

I think folks should chime in here. This makes me think we should consider an optional 2-man ballot for the Inductee vote. (Still not sold on 3 - there's an incremental improvement sure, but the 2 man allows a voter to ensure that they put their #1 at #1, while also allowing them to have a say when their tastes run third party.)

1. Adding any complexity to the voting structure adds time cost to the runner of the project at the very least, and so we must ask why we are demanding this of the runner. It's one thing if the runner himself has a sophisticated voting scheme he wants to try, but some - including myself 17 years after leading my first project on these boards - don't have enthusiasm for it, and it makes them less likely to want to run stuff.

Well, if from what I understand, this is a long-term project which is only done once every three-years, doing things right here is probably more important than doing them quickly.

And maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea to enlist some help with the project-running?

The perfect is the enemy of the good. There is no "right" way to do all this. This is also not about speed. This is about overhead cost.

Re: enlist help with project running. Oh I have in the areas that obvious to do so. trex and beast are still mods on this board and we've been in contact about this. In the event I have to step away for a time, I know they'll step in if they can.

But what you're talking about is outsourcing the count on a thread-by-thread basis, and that's problematic. What you want is the next thread to be started and stickied as soon as the old vote is done, and so that either means an automated process, or one person doing one thing and then the next right after.

If folks want to propose an automated process, I'll listen, but I think it's important to remember that we could just have everyone submit their existing lists, press a button, and then look at the aggregate list. I believe this would be far less valuable to the community though. So while I'm not fundamentally against automating any part of the process, I'll tread carefully there.

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

[ShaqAttac]

Can i vote in this one?

Yup, you're in. Hope you enjoy it!

yay.

[ShaqAttac]

You make an excellent point about the loss of Condorcet accordance will matter the most to folks right at the #1 spot. I've never had a bother about my #1 vote not being one of the top two candidates in the Top 100, but it's going to take away something for others, and I don't like that.

I think folks should chime in here. This makes me think we should consider an optional 2-man ballot for the Inductee vote. (Still not sold on 3 - there's an incremental improvement sure, but the 2 man allows a voter to ensure that they put their #1 at #1, while also allowing them to have a say when their tastes run third party.)

Honestly a big part of my preference for 3 is that big-opening thread with the knowledge there are 4 widely accepted candidates. I think it would be good to allow people to have ballots(and presumably corresponding knowledge/insight for everyone whose tuning in) like

1. Russell
2. Kareem
3. MJ
why not: Lebron

or

1. Kareem
2. Russell
3. Lebron
why not: Jordan


With that in mind, maybe you'd be open to this as a compromise?

For the opening thread, as the de-facto "ceremony" so to speak for the event, have it be 2-ballots with an optional 3rd and then reduce to 1-2 optional after.

You have a volunteer for taking care of the additional overhead coast for all the voting, so I think maximizing discussion and flexibility for the big open isn't bad. It's also a nice show of good-faith to have people putting 2 players at the start: i'm honestly considering the candidates, not just popping in so my guy is #1.

Pairing that with the #1 thread also establshing the new "immortal five", I think it would make for a very exciting discussion that showcases the great insight and community of the pc board when the "world"(or at least a small percentage of it) might be watching.

But what you're talking about is outsourcing the count on a thread-by-thread basis, and that's problematic. What you want is the next thread to be started and stickied as soon as the old vote is done
.

[/quote][/quote][/quote]
I'm not an expert in forum-running or anything, but would having cool-down time between threads be bad?[/quote]
dis sounds cool but iddk who to nominaate

i was plannin to vote russ 1 mikan 2 n bron 3 but if its only 1 vote ill prob just havee to vote bron 1 which would be laame

[ShaqAttac]

The issue here is the potential pitfalls of this will peak at the vote for #1 when the voter-base and interest will peak. Simply put, if you are only allowing 1-vote, the strategic voting may well just turn into a lebron-jordan flame-war where everyone else gets little focus or dicussion. And in the worst-case scenario where the person whose selected is not the one most people think is greater, there's a decent chance you get something like the kg-kobe incident from way back except times 100 because its the #1 vote.

That is also where non-realgm people's interest peaks, so for posterity, it would probably be neat if all the major candidates got some limelight which allowing 3 votes like they did the last time would garuntee. If anything it might be wise to start with 3-votes and then consider lowering it to 2 or 1 so the entry barrier is lowered at the point where interest subsides. Reducing it from 3 at the point where it's cumbersome to "rank a dozen guys" is probably a better approach to increasing it after-the period where people aren't considering a dozen guys has subsided.

You make an excellent point about the loss of Condorcet accordance will matter the most to folks right at the #1 spot. I've never had a bother about my #1 vote not being one of the top two candidates in the Top 100, but it's going to take away something for others, and I don't like that.

I think folks should chime in here. This makes me think we should consider an optional 2-man ballot for the Inductee vote. (Still not sold on 3 - there's an incremental improvement sure, but the 2 man allows a voter to ensure that they put their #1 at #1, while also allowing them to have a say when their tastes run third party.)

Well, if from what I understand, this is a long-term project which is only done once every three-years, doing things right here is probably more important than doing them quickly.

And maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea to enlist some help with the project-running?

The perfect is the enemy of the good. There is no "right" way to do all this. This is also not about speed. This is about overhead cost.

Re: enlist help with project running. Oh I have in the areas that obvious to do so. trex and beast are still mods on this board and we've been in contact about this. In the event I have to step away for a time, I know they'll step in if they can.

But what you're talking about is outsourcing the count on a thread-by-thread basis, and that's problematic. What you want is the next thread to be started and stickied as soon as the old vote is done, and so that either means an automated process, or one person doing one thing and then the next right after.

If folks want to propose an automated process, I'll listen, but I think it's important to remember that we could just have everyone submit their existing lists, press a button, and then look at the aggregate list. I believe this would be far less valuable to the community though. So while I'm not fundamentally against automating any part of the process, I'll tread carefully there.

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

idtt u bein lazy is a goood reason to give every1 else less votin options

id likee to vote for 3 ppl. since when more argss worse than havin less args. if u dont wanna read then dont read

but i wanna make args for plyers like mikaan too. not just bron. doc act said some cool stuff bout him so

u prob just gon vote cp3 anyway

[OhayoKD]

You make an excellent point about the loss of Condorcet accordance will matter the most to folks right at the #1 spot. I've never had a bother about my #1 vote not being one of the top two candidates in the Top 100, but it's going to take away something for others, and I don't like that.

I think folks should chime in here. This makes me think we should consider an optional 2-man ballot for the Inductee vote. (Still not sold on 3 - there's an incremental improvement sure, but the 2 man allows a voter to ensure that they put their #1 at #1, while also allowing them to have a say when their tastes run third party.)



The perfect is the enemy of the good. There is no "right" way to do all this. This is also not about speed. This is about overhead cost.

Re: enlist help with project running. Oh I have in the areas that obvious to do so. trex and beast are still mods on this board and we've been in contact about this. In the event I have to step away for a time, I know they'll step in if they can.

But what you're talking about is outsourcing the count on a thread-by-thread basis, and that's problematic. What you want is the next thread to be started and stickied as soon as the old vote is done, and so that either means an automated process, or one person doing one thing and then the next right after.

If folks want to propose an automated process, I'll listen, but I think it's important to remember that we could just have everyone submit their existing lists, press a button, and then look at the aggregate list. I believe this would be far less valuable to the community though. So while I'm not fundamentally against automating any part of the process, I'll tread carefully there.

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

idtt u bein lazy is a goood reason to give every1 else less votin options

id likee to vote for 3 ppl. since when more argss worse than havin less args. if u dont wanna read then dont read

but i wanna make args for plyers like mikaan too. not just bron. doc act said some cool stuff bout him so

u prob just gon vote cp3 anyway

CP3 barb was uncalled for(and could you please learn how to format already lol), but yeah. I don't see how it's more "collaborative" to force people to write less so it's easier for you to read.

Also, it's one thing if there's a practical cost(which aeningma is volunteering to deal with), but "stifling dicussion" is not how I would describe what happened with the last two projects:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1578299
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=85704453#p85704453
That sort of post which I just linked(shout out to blackmill) becomes a lot less likely and frequent if people are --forced-- to only vote for 2 or 1 candidates

[Ambrose]

I'm pretty low on CP3 so don't flip out if the arguments don't sway me to make him my choice or on my list (however we do this) for a while

[iggymcfrack]

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

idtt u bein lazy is a goood reason to give every1 else less votin options

id likee to vote for 3 ppl. since when more argss worse than havin less args. if u dont wanna read then dont read

but i wanna make args for plyers like mikaan too. not just bron. doc act said some cool stuff bout him so

u prob just gon vote cp3 anyway

CP3 barb was uncalled for(and could you please learn how to format already lol), but yeah. I don't see how it's more "collaborative" to force people to write less so it's easier for you to read.

Let's say there's a 3 man ballot and your choices for the first vote are:

1. LeBron
2. Jordan
3. Kareem

LeBron wins the vote and your preferred choice is removed for the next round. At this point, most of the thread discussion will be focused on who goes #2, Jordan or Kareem. Meanwhile, you've already made up your mind on Jordan vs. Kareem in the last round when you selected Jordan #2. Once you've already voted, you're very unlikely to change your order. Meanwhile, you're deciding between a bunch of different players for who will go #4 overall. You're mostly making this decision by yourself as the thread debates the 2 players for a spot where people have mostly already decided. That's what I mean about it being less collaborative. Ideally, when you're choosing someone for the next position on your list, you should be doing so as the thread debates that spot and everyone can put together arguments for their favorite candidates. That's going to lead to people being much more open-minded and easy to influence than if they research a spot on their own and then argue in favor of it several votes later on after they've made up their mind.

[Doctor MJ]

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

Yeah I'm with you here. I find that when my writing focus is placed somewhere other than the #1 on my list - because the #1 write-up was done a while ago - I don't tend to spend time really chewing on other people's points about the #1. Yes, they're unlikely to sway me on my #1, but if they're making good points about their #1, I'll tend to miss those and thus maybe miss the thing that would sway me to move them, say, from #3 to #2.

I'd like to be able to focus on my decision point.

[OhayoKD]

idtt u bein lazy is a goood reason to give every1 else less votin options

id likee to vote for 3 ppl. since when more argss worse than havin less args. if u dont wanna read then dont read

but i wanna make args for plyers like mikaan too. not just bron. doc act said some cool stuff bout him so

u prob just gon vote cp3 anyway

CP3 barb was uncalled for(and could you please learn how to format already lol), but yeah. I don't see how it's more "collaborative" to force people to write less so it's easier for you to read.

Let's say there's a 3 man ballot and your choices for the first vote are:

1. LeBron
2. Jordan
3. Kareem

LeBron wins the vote and your preferred choice is removed for the next round. At this point, most of the thread discussion will be focused on who goes #2, Jordan or Kareem. Meanwhile, you've already made up your mind on Jordan vs. Kareem in the last round when you selected Jordan #2.

But the value of discussion is not tied to "whether you might change your mind". With a one or two-man ballot there is simply going to be less discussion. Maybe someone would have changed their mind but never sees what could have changed their mind. And maybe even if you don't change your mind, the information and arguments offered begain a shift in someone reading who isn't involved. As is, it's possible someone does change their order. If a poster wants to give 3-votes, and you only allow them 2, all you've actually achieved is closing off possibilities for knowledge, insight, and persuasion. The discussion in the thread from the 2020 thread presented great argumentation for everyone. Why would we "stifle" that because you might not be moved.

Meanwhile, you're deciding between a bunch of different players for who will go #4 overall.

Reducing the number of ballots and thus the number of players who get focus on prevents potentially interesting angles for players who could be considered for #4. Forcibly narrowing the convo down to the players you want it to focus on before it's actually time to focus on them is not collaborating. The #4 thread should be what is used to finalize #4 picks. If you are using #3 to finalize #4, that should not affect other people's voting for #3.

You're mostly making this decision by yourself as the thread debates the 2 players for a spot where people have mostly already decided. That's what I mean about it being less collaborative. Ideally, when you're choosing someone for the next position on your list, you should be doing so as the thread debates that spot and everyone can put together arguments for their favorite candidates. That's going to lead to people being much more open-minded and easy to influence than if they research a spot on their own and then argue in favor of it several votes later on after they've made up their mind.

Then delay your own decision-making for the appropriate thread? You are not being forced to make a decision earlier. If you want to start a discussion about specific players, then start it, why should we limit what other people vote for(and thus are incentivized to discuss) so the discussion is streamlined to where you want it to go?

[iggymcfrack]

Now granted, early on in the balloting, people are going to be pretty set in their ways anyway. I don't think a lot of people are going to have their minds changed on the Jordan/Kareem debate under any circumstances, but let's say we're further down ballot. Let's say someone has Thurmond as the #1 on his ballot for a long time, 10 votes or so. On the second ballot, their #2 gets taken and they select a new #3. Then the next ballot, that player is taken and they select a new #3 again. Deep into a project like this, people are not always going to take the most care going in-depth into who their third choice is. They might just do a BB-ref search to narrow it down to a few guys and then quickly make a decision among them. So they haphazardly select Kevin McHale as a new 3rd choice. Then, players that wouldn't make their top 4 are taken over and over again for the next 7 ballots. By the time the thread actually starts debating between Kevin McHale and let's say Paul Arizin, this person has already been voting McHale 7 ballots in a row. Maybe they never really considered Arizin at the beginning because they were only looking at players from 1960 on. If they saw this debate with a fresh eye, they might decide that they actually like Arizin's resume better, but it's going to be very difficult to overcome the inertia of having voted for McHale for 3 weeks already before even giving Arizin proper consideration.

[iggymcfrack]

CP3 barb was uncalled for(and could you please learn how to format already lol), but yeah. I don't see how it's more "collaborative" to force people to write less so it's easier for you to read.

Let's say there's a 3 man ballot and your choices for the first vote are:

1. LeBron
2. Jordan
3. Kareem

LeBron wins the vote and your preferred choice is removed for the next round. At this point, most of the thread discussion will be focused on who goes #2, Jordan or Kareem. Meanwhile, you've already made up your mind on Jordan vs. Kareem in the last round when you selected Jordan #2.

But the value of discussion is not tied to "whether you might change your mind". With a one or two-man ballot there is simply going to be less discussion. Maybe someone would have changed their mind but never sees what could have changed their mind. And maybe even if you don't change your mind, the information and arguments offered begain a shift in someone reading who isn't involved. As is, it's possible someone does change their order. If a poster wants to give 3-votes, and you only allow them 2, all you've actually achieved is closing off possibilities for knowledge, insight, and persuasion. The discussion in the thread from the 2020 thread presented great argumentation for everyone. Why would we "stifle" that because you might not be moved.

Meanwhile, you're deciding between a bunch of different players for who will go #4 overall.

Reducing the number of ballots and thus the number of players who get focus on prevents potentially interesting angles for players who could be considered for #4. Forcibly narrowing the convo down to the players you want it to focus on before it's actually time to focus on them is not collaborating. The #4 thread should be what is used to finalize #4 picks. If you are using #3 to finalize #4, that should not affect other people's voting for #3.

You're mostly making this decision by yourself as the thread debates the 2 players for a spot where people have mostly already decided. That's what I mean about it being less collaborative. Ideally, when you're choosing someone for the next position on your list, you should be doing so as the thread debates that spot and everyone can put together arguments for their favorite candidates. That's going to lead to people being much more open-minded and easy to influence than if they research a spot on their own and then argue in favor of it several votes later on after they've made up their mind.

Then delay your own decision-making for the appropriate thread? You are not being forced to make a decision earlier. If you want to start a discussion about specific players, then start it, why should we limit what other people vote for(and thus are incentivized to discuss) so the discussion is streamlined to where you want it to go?

A one man ballot doesn't mean that you should only be discussing one person. Ideally, you'd be looking at the pros and cons of all the different candidates. If the debate is between Shaq, Hakeem, Duncan, and Garnett, a well-considered voter should be able to point out the positive and negative case for each player. I can be locked into voting for Duncan and still comment on how Shaq has really underrated longevity and how the impact stats would actually favor KG over Timmy at the same time. The idea that you can only discuss players after you've already locked them into a ranking is extremely reductive. You should be discussing every player that's a serious candidate for #4 in the thread for who goes #4. If that's not enough debate for you, there's the whole nomination discussion as well.

You're hypothesizing that having people write out a case for each of 3 spots is going to lead to livelier discussions and it's possible that it even will at the beginning, but by the time you get to #50 or something, what happens in practicality is that people just copy and paste what they wrote before when they first discussed the spot while maybe making a quick new blurb for a #3 guy if their top choice is selected. It's not going to be a back-and-forth discussion. It's going to be people feel like they're going over old ground that they've already covered every vote and engagement will be reduced. I think the further we get into this project, the more negative effect we would see from people making their choices at a different time than the vote to determine that rank is held.

[Doctor MJ]

Honestly a big part of my preference for 3 is that big-opening thread with the knowledge there are 4 widely accepted candidates. I think it would be good to allow people to have ballots(and presumably corresponding knowledge/insight for everyone whose tuning in) like

1. Russell
2. Kareem
3. MJ
why not: Lebron

or

1. Kareem
2. Russell
3. Lebron
why not: Jordan


With that in mind, maybe you'd be open to this as a compromise?

For the opening thread, as the de-facto "ceremony" so to speak for the event, have it be 2-ballots with an optional 3rd and then reduce to 1-2 optional after.

You have a volunteer for taking care of the additional overhead coast for all the voting, so I think maximizing discussion and flexibility for the big open isn't bad. It's also a nice show of good-faith to have people putting 2 players at the start: i'm honestly considering the candidates, not just popping in so my guy is #1.

Pairing that with the #1 thread also establshing the new "immortal five", I think it would make for a very exciting discussion that showcases the great insight and community of the pc board when the "world"(or at least a small percentage of it) might be watching.

To be honest, I want to see posters more focused on why guys are great rather than why they are not-that-great, so this doesn't appeal to me as someone looking to moderate project tone, though I do understand the logical appeal to it.

But what you're talking about is outsourcing the count on a thread-by-thread basis, and that's problematic. What you want is the next thread to be started and stickied as soon as the old vote is done
.

I'm not an expert in forum-running or anything, but would having cool-down time between threads be bad?

That's my belief yes, but I'll acknowledge that I haven't done A/B testing.

Here's the thing: An extended project is a habit you're asking people to get into, and so I don't want fallow days where there is no live vote to apply your attention to.

This is not to say we couldn't schedule in a break at some point if people could use one - 50 spots in would be a reasonable place - but I think regular gaps just encourage people's attention to wander elsewhere.

[ShaqAttac]

Let's say there's a 3 man ballot and your choices for the first vote are:

1. LeBron
2. Jordan
3. Kareem

LeBron wins the vote and your preferred choice is removed for the next round. At this point, most of the thread discussion will be focused on who goes #2, Jordan or Kareem. Meanwhile, you've already made up your mind on Jordan vs. Kareem in the last round when you selected Jordan #2.

But the value of discussion is not tied to "whether you might change your mind". With a one or two-man ballot there is simply going to be less discussion. Maybe someone would have changed their mind but never sees what could have changed their mind. And maybe even if you don't change your mind, the information and arguments offered begain a shift in someone reading who isn't involved. As is, it's possible someone does change their order. If a poster wants to give 3-votes, and you only allow them 2, all you've actually achieved is closing off possibilities for knowledge, insight, and persuasion. The discussion in the thread from the 2020 thread presented great argumentation for everyone. Why would we "stifle" that because you might not be moved.

Meanwhile, you're deciding between a bunch of different players for who will go #4 overall.

Reducing the number of ballots and thus the number of players who get focus on prevents potentially interesting angles for players who could be considered for #4. Forcibly narrowing the convo down to the players you want it to focus on before it's actually time to focus on them is not collaborating. The #4 thread should be what is used to finalize #4 picks. If you are using #3 to finalize #4, that should not affect other people's voting for #3.

You're mostly making this decision by yourself as the thread debates the 2 players for a spot where people have mostly already decided. That's what I mean about it being less collaborative. Ideally, when you're choosing someone for the next position on your list, you should be doing so as the thread debates that spot and everyone can put together arguments for their favorite candidates. That's going to lead to people being much more open-minded and easy to influence than if they research a spot on their own and then argue in favor of it several votes later on after they've made up their mind.

Then delay your own decision-making for the appropriate thread? You are not being forced to make a decision earlier. If you want to start a discussion about specific players, then start it, why should we limit what other people vote for(and thus are incentivized to discuss) so the discussion is streamlined to where you want it to go?

A one man ballot doesn't mean that you should only be discussing one person. Ideally, you'd be looking at the pros and cons of all the different candidates. If the debate is between Shaq, Hakeem, Duncan, and Garnett, a well-considered voter should be able to point out the positive and negative case for each player. I can be locked into voting for Duncan and still comment on how Shaq has really underrated longevity and how the impact stats would actually favor KG over Timmy at the same time. The idea that you can only discuss players after you've already locked them into a ranking is extremely reductive. You should be discussing every player that's a serious candidate for #4 in the thread for who goes #4. If that's not enough debate for you, there's the whole nomination discussion as well.

You're hypothesizing that having people write out a case for each of 3 spots is going to lead to livelier discussions and it's possible that it even will at the beginning, but by the time you get to #50 or something, what happens in practicality is that people just copy and paste what they wrote before when they first discussed the spot while maybe making a quick new blurb for a #3 guy if their top choice is selected. It's not going to be a back-and-forth discussion. It's going to be people feel like they're going over old ground that they've already covered every vote and engagement will be reduced. I think the further we get into this project, the more negative effect we would see from people making their choices at a different time than the vote to determine that rank is held.

well kd's prop was to haave 3 votes at the start n then scale dooown.

but i aint really gon feel like discussing ppl i cant vote for jjusst a bunch. idg why we cant just vote and u can make ur decisions how u want to make ur decisions. 1-man baloot is all-time horrible idea tbh.

most ppl r here for the start anyway. ruinin the 1st threads for thread 50 seems dum

[eminence]

.02 on ballot method

-I think basically any method will work fine
-I slightly prefer a 2 or 3 ranked transferable vote system
-I don't think amount/quality of discussion will be seriously changed by any reasonable voting system

[iggymcfrack]

But what you're talking about is outsourcing the count on a thread-by-thread basis, and that's problematic. What you want is the next thread to be started and stickied as soon as the old vote is done
.

I'm not an expert in forum-running or anything, but would having cool-down time between threads be bad?

That's my belief yes, but I'll acknowledge that I haven't done A/B testing.

Here's the thing: An extended project is a habit you're asking people to get into, and so I don't want fallow days where there is no live vote to apply your attention to.

This is not to say we couldn't schedule in a break at some point if people could use one - 50 spots in would be a reasonable place - but I think regular gaps just encourage people's attention to wander elsewhere.

I have to agree with this. A break would be death for the project. Usually when I do one of these, what happens is I participate every thread until something really distracts me for a few days where I miss a vote or two and get out of the habit and then once I miss a vote or two, it's very hard to get back in. It just falls out of my mind. Without the habit of focusing on this every day, I think a huge portion of the voting base will leave and never return. If you were going to do a break at 50, you'd almost have to make it last until the next offseason for 51-100 to get fresh engagement again, especially if the season's going. Honestly, that's the only way I can think of a break working is if you just took a break when the new season starts and then finished it the following offseason. That would kind of take away from the vote as being a moment in time though and it would be opinions for different years in the top and bottom of the list. I wouldn't actually support that idea. I think non-stop is best.

[Doctor MJ]

You make an excellent point about the loss of Condorcet accordance will matter the most to folks right at the #1 spot. I've never had a bother about my #1 vote not being one of the top two candidates in the Top 100, but it's going to take away something for others, and I don't like that.

I think folks should chime in here. This makes me think we should consider an optional 2-man ballot for the Inductee vote. (Still not sold on 3 - there's an incremental improvement sure, but the 2 man allows a voter to ensure that they put their #1 at #1, while also allowing them to have a say when their tastes run third party.)



The perfect is the enemy of the good. There is no "right" way to do all this. This is also not about speed. This is about overhead cost.

Re: enlist help with project running. Oh I have in the areas that obvious to do so. trex and beast are still mods on this board and we've been in contact about this. In the event I have to step away for a time, I know they'll step in if they can.

But what you're talking about is outsourcing the count on a thread-by-thread basis, and that's problematic. What you want is the next thread to be started and stickied as soon as the old vote is done, and so that either means an automated process, or one person doing one thing and then the next right after.

If folks want to propose an automated process, I'll listen, but I think it's important to remember that we could just have everyone submit their existing lists, press a button, and then look at the aggregate list. I believe this would be far less valuable to the community though. So while I'm not fundamentally against automating any part of the process, I'll tread carefully there.

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

idtt u bein lazy is a goood reason to give every1 else less votin options

id likee to vote for 3 ppl. since when more argss worse than havin less args. if u dont wanna read then dont read

but i wanna make args for plyers like mikaan too. not just bron. doc act said some cool stuff bout him so

u prob just gon vote cp3 anyway

So big thing here for me Shaq, do you see the tone problem with "u bein lazy" here? I'm going to need you to cut that out.

For the record, there's nothing in iggy's concerns that strike me as lazy. I think them quite reasonable.

[iggymcfrack]

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

Yeah I'm with you here. I find that when my writing focus is placed somewhere other than the #1 on my list - because the #1 write-up was done a while ago - I don't tend to spend time really chewing on other people's points about the #1. Yes, they're unlikely to sway me on my #1, but if they're making good points about their #1, I'll tend to miss those and thus maybe miss the thing that would sway me to move them, say, from #3 to #2.

I'd like to be able to focus on my decision point.

I'm glad that you're committed to the idea of the one man ballot. As a slight compromise to the people who wanted to be able to vote for more spots, how do you feel about some sort of run-off threshold? I'm not saying we should do a run-off every vote that doesn't have a majority, but maybe even a run-off if it's within 1 or 2 votes? That way no one's ever "wasting their vote" by not voting for one of the top 2 candidates since if it's close enough for their vote to matter, they'll have another chance anyway. This could have an additional positive impact in reducing strategic voting and getting people to select a wider range of candidates.

[iggymcfrack]

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

idtt u bein lazy is a goood reason to give every1 else less votin options

id likee to vote for 3 ppl. since when more argss worse than havin less args. if u dont wanna read then dont read

but i wanna make args for plyers like mikaan too. not just bron. doc act said some cool stuff bout him so

u prob just gon vote cp3 anyway

So big thing here for me Shaq, do you see the tone problem with "u bein lazy" here? I'm going to need you to cut that out.

For the record, there's nothing in iggy's concerns that strike me as lazy. I think them quite reasonable.

It's probably just my poor punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure that ShaqAttac finds lazy. A most reasonable complaint.

[AEnigma]

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

Yeah I'm with you here. I find that when my writing focus is placed somewhere other than the #1 on my list - because the #1 write-up was done a while ago - I don't tend to spend time really chewing on other people's points about the #1. Yes, they're unlikely to sway me on my #1, but if they're making good points about their #1, I'll tend to miss those and thus maybe miss the thing that would sway me to move them, say, from #3 to #2.

I'd like to be able to focus on my decision point.

And what happens if, with a one-person ballot, your #1 is not voted in? And then continues not being voted in? What more are you contributing?

To me it almost seems like what you specifically want is for no one to “vote third party” as it were and to instead stick to assessing the two plurality candidates at each spot. I do not see that as especially enjoyable, encouraging, or likely to make people consider a move “from #3 to #2” — because there are no #3s or #2s, just a mostly binary choice between players who may well be your own #6 and #7. And I will also reiterate that deliberately manufacturing polarity seems guaranteed to stoke “negativity” when the default frame of every round would be “which of these two players is better than the other”.

Past all that, people are definitely going to be stuck nominating the same name for multiple rounds at a time. And that is fine so long as they are not simultaneously stuck between either doing the same for their real ballot or passively choosing between pairs until their real #1 becomes viable, but the smaller you make the inputs, the more likely that stasis becomes. When it was three votes, you could see some people repeating the same three names round after round, but it was rarer than if they only had one name on their list.

As it is now, people will miss most of their strong “decision points”. I will not have the same energy deciding between Shaq and Wilt for #6… or Shaq and Magic at #7… or Magic and Bird at #8… as I would for Hakeem at #6, and by the time we get to Hakeem or Bird at #9, that Hakeem at #6 energy is going to have faded a lot, because I would have made that decision two weeks ago. Most of the time, the focus will not be on our #1. It might be on our #3 or #4 while our #1 languishes. In a sense that makes the project more accessible, but I am not sure the votes themselves will be more insightful.

[ShaqAttac]

I would favor the one man ballot. The thing about the 3 man ballot is that the spot you should actually be voting for and theoretically focusing on is something you made a decision on long ago when you were filling out the bottom of your ballot. I think it actually stifles discussion since there’s too broad of a focus, especially if people are writing out reasons for each spot on the ballot. It also has more of a barrier to entry in that there’s more work for the voter to do each round so it discourages casual engagement among those who could just come into each thread, read the arguments for each candidate, and then come to a conclusion. I think it makes for a less collaborative project that way.

If it’s really important for people to not “waste their vote”, I’d prefer just doing a 2-man runoff between the top candidates if the vote is close and there’s no majority. We wouldn’t have to do it every vote. You could even say only in cases where the difference of votes is 2 or less or something. Ultimately I think the original plan is fine too, but I’d push back strongly against 3 man ballots.

idtt u bein lazy is a goood reason to give every1 else less votin options

id likee to vote for 3 ppl. since when more argss worse than havin less args. if u dont wanna read then dont read

but i wanna make args for plyers like mikaan too. not just bron. doc act said some cool stuff bout him so

u prob just gon vote cp3 anyway

So big thing here for me Shaq, do you see the tone problem with "u bein lazy" here? I'm going to need you to cut that out.

For the record, there's nothing in iggy's concerns that strike me as lazy. I think them quite reasonable.

ur basically sayin that ppl shouldnt have the optioon to vote for 3 ppl because them making points bout 3 ppl instead of 1 or 2 would be distractin for your decisons. how isnt that bein lazy?

if the convos from the stuff where therre were 3 votes was gud why make it 1 or 2?