RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - General Thread

[AEnigma]

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.

The “break” we are talking about is referring to the gap of a couple of hours between a “vote counter” releasing the results and an official moderator posting/stickying a new thread.

[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.

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?

Where do people get this idea that they should only contribute to the discussion of players that they’re voting for? If I’ve been voting for Chris Paul for several threads, but it’s obvious that the thread decision is going to be between Jokic and Oscar, I’m going to be much more active bringing up points for Jokić than I will in a situation where Jokić has been #2 on my ballot for a while and I’ve been copy/pasting the same 2 paragraphs for 2 weeks that I wrote when he first entered my top 3.

[iggymcfrack]

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.

The “break” we are talking about is referring to the gap of a couple of hours between a “vote counter” releasing the results and an official moderator posting/stickying a new thread.

Oh, OK, that's more reasonable, but I still don't like it. If people are checking the thread to see the results of the vote and have thoughts they want to get out, I think the sooner they write those down, the better instead of waiting and then possibly forgetting to make their point or vote at all later on. Letting people post whenever they have time will maximize engagement.

[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.

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.

Yeah, I definitely see the beauty of a 1-man ballot...but I think that if it's a choice between an optional 2-man ballot or a separate run-off thread whenever there's no majority, I'd rather the 2-man ballot.

Here's the thing I'm thinking:

If a lack-of-majority becomes the norm - and it may - then we're looking at regular 2-thread process for every spot on the list, or, 200 threads. 100 is a lot, but making a choice that takes us to double that? That feels unnecessarily cluttering of the board to me.

[iggymcfrack]

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.

Yeah, I definitely see the beauty of a 1-man ballot...but I think that if it's a choice between an optional 2-man ballot or a separate run-off thread whenever there's no majority, I'd rather the 2-man ballot.

Here's the thing I'm thinking:

If a lack-of-majority becomes the norm - and it may - then we're looking at regular 2-thread process for every spot on the list, or, 200 threads. 100 is a lot, but making a choice that takes us to double that? That feels unnecessarily cluttering of the board to me.

Yeah, but I'm specifically NOT suggesting that. Having a run-off when the vote is 15-8-6-3 is pointless. We don't need that. I was just saying we could have a threshold where if the top 2 candidates are within 1 or 2 votes, then and only then do a run-off. That would make run-offs still feel rare and exciting and shouldn't add much volume to the project. You could literally even say only within 1 vote. So 14-12-8-3, player A wins with 14 votes. 13-12-7-4, that's within one vote, do a run-off.

[OhayoKD]

my notifications have exploded pretty quickly

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.

[/quote].
Well, "tone" doesn't really change according to the number of votes. What does change is you're more likely to get more players covered and here's where I'd like to really crystalize what I'm talking about. The thread linking the 2020 top 100 got hundreds of thousands of views on reddit. Folks like Ben-taylor and andre snell were sharing and commenting. The vast majority of that attention was diverted to that #1 thread. Most of these people are not aware of things like Russell's individual defensive impact, the value of paint-protection defensively, the suppression of srs for eras, how the triangle specifically functioned and diverted defensive attention and how it catalyzed the Bulls, how stuff like RAPM, WOWY, actually work, ect.

I think one of the objectives for this should be to have, for posterity, to have as much insight and knowledge as possible, and if nothing else, for the 4 consensus pillars of the sport, I think incentivising a greater diversity of discussion with more votes, or at least the option for more votes, is a good idea.


With the nomineee debate, you also get an opppurtunity to establish a bunch of stuff for folks like Hakeem and Duncan. Maybe even Mikan's status as the first superstar ect.

Who knows how many times on this board or on the general one these sorts of lists and threads are referenced and cited. When we had 3-votes those extra votes incentivized discussion about all four of the pantheon candidates leading to posts like the Blackmill one. When we used less ballots only 1 or 2 players really got attention. I do not think that is "hypothetical".

There were more pages, there were more posts, there were more points, there were more arguments and there was more knowledge. Is it really "beauty" to force a narrower conversation to make decision-making more effecient?

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.

Perhaps though iirc stuff like Ben's top 40 benefited from anticipation and the such. No idea if that's 1:1. No good reason to test that now. But a few hours should not make a difference in that regard.

[AEnigma]

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?

Where do people get this idea that they should only contribute to the discussion of players that they’re voting for?

Nowhere, it is just a behavioural reality. People always can discuss outside of their ballot, but that opportunity is often not taken to the same extent. It is also a behavioural reality that many voters will also provide reasoning for their nominations, which they will then repeat until the nomination is successful, even though they will likely repeat or quote much of that reasoning when the time comes for them to vote for that player. However, whether or not people are inclined to contribute in threads where their ballot is irrelevant is not an argument for keeping a ballot as small as possible.

If I’ve been voting for Chris Paul for several threads, but it’s obvious that the thread decision is going to be between Jokic and Oscar, I’m going to be much more active bringing up points for Jokić than I will in a situation where Jokić has been #2 on my ballot for a while and I’ve been copy/pasting the same 2 paragraphs for 2 weeks that I wrote when he first entered my top 3.

With the current set-up, if the thread decision is between Jokic and Oscar, and you feel strongly about Jokic, then you absolutely should not be voting for Chris Paul.

Now, what about everyone who would not be considering either or does not feel strongly about either? What do they have left to contribute?

The dynamic this establishes is that all votes are shaped by consensus. Jokic being your #3 is irrelevant until a potential plurality of other voters have him at one. Rather than a collective comparison it becomes a constant isolated comparison between consensus pairs. Yeah, that keeps us all “in the moment”, so to speak, but does that really improve overall discourse and future educational merit? If later readers ever have a question between Jokic and Oscar specifically, great, they have a full thread. What about anything outside of that?

[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.

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.

So first, to be clear, partially based on your own arguments, I'm leaning toward a 2-man induction ballot. There's things I don't like about it, but I think the points raised have swung me.

Re: What more are you contributing when you keep voting for your #1 over and over again?

This type of concern is super-important to what we're talking about.

Adding a 2nd spot on the ballot helps in the case where you're significantly divergent from the group on one guy.
Adding a 3rd spot on the ballot helps in the case where you're significantly divergent from the group on two guys.
etc, etc.

In the end we either have to set a limit, or we have to let people list out indefinitely for instant runoffs. I've said I'm not doing instant runoffs or the like, so it's just a question of limit.

I think there's a lot to like about how having as small of a ballot as possible, and 1 is the smallest number.
But the thing that's nice about 2 is that you know what that 2nd spot is for. It's 1 of the 2 guys you think will be the leading vote getter. And if you're not particularly concerned about it, you don't have to worry about it.

Finally I'll point back to the Nomination process. Having a Nominee List means that in the Induction vote, it's going to be a thing if you're voting for a guy more times than there are men on the ballot. Not saying it won't happen, but it will be noticed by people, and eventually the guy you're voting for will get in unless you're talking about guys at the very end of the 100.

Your Nomination vote on the other hand could well end up naming the same guy 40 times if your views diverge enough from the group, but that won't mean your Induction input will be stuck still too.

Re: "like I want no one to vote 3rd party". Not at all. Listen, I'll just say: I'm literally planning to vote for a guy at #1 who I think has no chance at being in the top 2 in vote getting, and I had no worries about that. With the plan put forth for a 2-man ballot, now I'll pick 1 of the 2 guys I expect to be top contenders in the #2 spot on my ballot and I'll get to have more say on the outcome, and that's nice, but I'd have been just fine if that was decided without me.

I think it's less important that Player A is getting Spot X than it is that the gospel of Player A as an all-timer gets heard.

Re: spent energy by nomination process. I would see it instead as an opportunity continued discourse. It's true that most debates don't end up flipping the assessment of the debaters, but for the gallery it can allow for a greater deepness where there is depth to be plumbed.

[AEnigma]

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.

The “break” we are talking about is referring to the gap of a couple of hours between a “vote counter” releasing the results and an official moderator posting/stickying a new thread.

Oh, OK, that's more reasonable, but I still don't like it. If people are checking the thread to see the results of the vote and have thoughts they want to get out, I think the sooner they write those down, the better instead of waiting and then possibly forgetting to make their point or vote at all later on. Letting people post whenever they have time will maximize engagement.

I mean the reality is that the hypothetical vote counter would just DM Doc with the results, but that seems like tortured reasoning all the same. Maybe that plays more to the ADHD generation, I do not know, but immediate public reaction (you can just write down your thoughts in a draft/note/document if you actually have that problem…) does not strike me as a necessity.

[iggymcfrack]

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.

So first, to be clear, partially based on your own arguments, I'm leaning toward a 2-man induction ballot. There's things I don't like about it, but I think the points raised have swung me.

Re: What more are you contributing when you keep voting for your #1 over and over again?

This type of concern is super-important to what we're talking about.

Adding a 2nd spot on the ballot helps in the case where you're significantly divergent from the group on one guy.
Adding a 3rd spot on the ballot helps in the case where you're significantly divergent from the group on two guys.
etc, etc.

In the end we either have to set a limit, or we have to let people list out indefinitely for instant runoffs. I've said I'm not doing instant runoffs or the like, so it's just a question of limit.

I think there's a lot to like about how having as small of a ballot as possible, and 1 is the smallest number.
But the thing that's nice about 2 is that you know what that 2nd spot is for. It's 1 of the 2 guys you think will be the leading vote getter. And if you're not particularly concerned about it, you don't have to worry about it.

Finally I'll point back to the Nomination process. Having a Nominee List means that in the Induction vote, it's going to be a thing if you're voting for a guy more times than there are men on the ballot. Not saying it won't happen, but it will be noticed by people, and eventually the guy you're voting for will get in unless you're talking about guys at the very end of the 100.

Your Nomination vote on the other hand could well end up naming the same guy 40 times if your views diverge enough from the group, but that won't mean your Induction input will be stuck still too.

Re: "like I want no one to vote 3rd party". Not at all. Listen, I'll just say: I'm literally planning to vote for a guy at #1 who I think has no chance at being in the top 2 in vote getting, and I had no worries about that. With the plan put forth for a 2-man ballot, now I'll pick 1 of the 2 guys I expect to be top contenders in the #2 spot on my ballot and I'll get to have more say on the outcome, and that's nice, but I'd have been just fine if that was decided without me.

I think it's less important that Player A is getting Spot X than it is that the gospel of Player A as an all-timer gets heard.

Re: spent energy by nomination process. I would see it instead as an opportunity continued discourse. It's true that most debates don't end up flipping the assessment of the debaters, but for the gallery it can allow for a greater deepness where there is depth to be plumbed.

Actually, I kinda like this. Then instead of having a static ballot that never changes, you can have your first choice and your strategic backup choice. It doesn't have to be "this is my first guy and this is my second guy". It can be "this is my first guy and this is my first choice among the candidates likely to win". You could even change your second choice during the discussion if it becomes clear that your original choice wasn't going to be one of the top 2 vote getters. So you could kinda look at it as a one man ballot where you select your potential runoff choice in advance. I like that better than just copy pasting the same thing for multiple candidates each vote.

[iggymcfrack]

The “break” we are talking about is referring to the gap of a couple of hours between a “vote counter” releasing the results and an official moderator posting/stickying a new thread.

Oh, OK, that's more reasonable, but I still don't like it. If people are checking the thread to see the results of the vote and have thoughts they want to get out, I think the sooner they write those down, the better instead of waiting and then possibly forgetting to make their point or vote at all later on. Letting people post whenever they have time will maximize engagement.

I mean the reality is that the hypothetical vote counter would just DM Doc with the results, but that seems like tortured reasoning all the same. Maybe that plays more to the ADHD generation, I do not know, but immediate public reaction (you can just write down your thoughts in a draft/note/document if you actually have that problem…) does not strike me as a necessity.

Let me ask you this: what possible purpose does it serve to prohibit people from discussing players during a certain window? If people wanna make a post, let them. It just seems needlessly controlling to tell people "you're not allowed to post now because this is the arbitrary window where it's prohibited".

[Doctor MJ]

my notifications have exploded pretty quickly

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.

Well, "tone" doesn't really change according to the number of votes. What does change is you're more likely to get more players covered and here's where I'd like to really crystalize what I'm talking about. The thread linking the 2020 top 100 got hundreds of thousands of views on reddit. Folks like Ben-taylor and andre snell were sharing and commenting. The vast majority of that attention was diverted to that #1 thread. Most of these people are not aware of things like Russell's individual defensive impact, the value of paint-protection defensively, the suppression of srs for eras, how the triangle specifically functioned and diverted defensive attention and how it catalyzed the Bulls, how stuff like RAPM, WOWY, actually work, ect.

I think one of the objectives for this should be to have, for posterity, to have as much insight and knowledge as possible, and if nothing else, for the 4 consensus pillars of the sport, I think incentivising a greater diversity of discussion with more votes, or at least the option for more votes, is a good idea.


With the nomineee debate, you also get an opppurtunity to establish a bunch of stuff for folks like Hakeem and Duncan. Maybe even Mikan's status as the first superstar ect.

Who knows how many times on this board or on the general one these sorts of lists and threads are referenced and cited. When we had 3-votes those extra votes incentivized discussion about all four of the pantheon candidates leading to posts like the Blackmill one. When we used less ballots only 1 or 2 players really got attention. I do not think that is "hypothetical".

There were more pages, there were more posts, there were more points, there were more arguments and there was more knowledge. Is it really "beauty" to force a narrower conversation to make decision-making more effecient?

So, you're losing me here. Why do you think I'm trying to reduce the amount posts?

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.

Perhaps though iirc stuff like Ben's top 40 benefited from anticipation and the such. No idea if that's 1:1. No good reason to test that now. But a few hours should not make a difference in that regard.

Ah, but Ben was releasing a piece at some rate for the consumption of others. He had no choice but to choose a rate, even that rate was infinite - all at the same time - and so he looked to hit a sweet spot to regularly draw consumers.

Here, while we have the idea of an audience on our mind, community participation is king.

(And agree that I'm not particular concerned if something weird happens there's an hours-gap between live thread.)

[AEnigma]

Oh, OK, that's more reasonable, but I still don't like it. If people are checking the thread to see the results of the vote and have thoughts they want to get out, I think the sooner they write those down, the better instead of waiting and then possibly forgetting to make their point or vote at all later on. Letting people post whenever they have time will maximize engagement.

I mean the reality is that the hypothetical vote counter would just DM Doc with the results, but that seems like tortured reasoning all the same. Maybe that plays more to the ADHD generation, I do not know, but immediate public reaction (you can just write down your thoughts in a draft/note/document if you actually have that problem…) does not strike me as a necessity.

Let me ask you this: what possible purpose does it serve to prohibit people from discussing players during a certain window? If people wanna make a post, let them. It just seems needlessly controlling to tell people "you're not allowed to post now because this is the arbitrary window where it's prohibited".

Literally no one said that. These threads do not lock after the vote is released.

[OhayoKD]

my notifications have exploded pretty quickly

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.

Well, "tone" doesn't really change according to the number of votes. What does change is you're more likely to get more players covered and here's where I'd like to really crystalize what I'm talking about. The thread linking the 2020 top 100 got hundreds of thousands of views on reddit. Folks like Ben-taylor and andre snell were sharing and commenting. The vast majority of that attention was diverted to that #1 thread. Most of these people are not aware of things like Russell's individual defensive impact, the value of paint-protection defensively, the suppression of srs for eras, how the triangle specifically functioned and diverted defensive attention and how it catalyzed the Bulls, how stuff like RAPM, WOWY, actually work, ect.

I think one of the objectives for this should be to have, for posterity, to have as much insight and knowledge as possible, and if nothing else, for the 4 consensus pillars of the sport, I think incentivising a greater diversity of discussion with more votes, or at least the option for more votes, is a good idea.


With the nomineee debate, you also get an opppurtunity to establish a bunch of stuff for folks like Hakeem and Duncan. Maybe even Mikan's status as the first superstar ect.

Who knows how many times on this board or on the general one these sorts of lists and threads are referenced and cited. When we had 3-votes those extra votes incentivized discussion about all four of the pantheon candidates leading to posts like the Blackmill one. When we used less ballots only 1 or 2 players really got attention. I do not think that is "hypothetical".

There were more pages, there were more posts, there were more points, there were more arguments and there was more knowledge. Is it really "beauty" to force a narrower conversation to make decision-making more effecient?

So, you're losing me here. Why do you think I'm trying to reduce the amount posts?

You may not be trying to, but I think it is an inevitable outcome of reducing the number of votes. I think anenigma outlined why well, but what is possible is not the same as what is going to happen in practice. Human psychology is human psychology. A poster quite literally just said they'd be less interested in making points for Mikan if they had to choose between voting for him or russell or lebron.

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.

Perhaps though iirc stuff like Ben's top 40 benefited from anticipation and the such. No idea if that's 1:1. No good reason to test that now. But a few hours should not make a difference in that regard.[/quote]

Ah, but Ben was releasing a piece at some rate for the consumption of others. He had no choice but to choose a rate, even that rate was infinite - all at the same time - and so he looked to hit a sweet spot to regularly draw consumers.

Here, while we have the idea of an audience on our mind, community participation is king.

(And agree that I'm not particular concerned if something weird happens there's an hours-gap between live thread.)[/quote][/quote]
Well, I think by any objective measure, community participation was higher with 3-votes, especially for the #1 thread. If we were proposing 4 or 5 votes I'd agree, but we already have prood of concept, no?

. And if a few hours aren't really an issue, then anenigma should be up to the task. It really comes down to if you want more and more diverse discussion or less and more artificially focused discussion. I tend to think artifical barriers are undesirable, but at the end of the day, I can only point out the trade-offs.

[Doctor MJ]

I mean the reality is that the hypothetical vote counter would just DM Doc with the results, but that seems like tortured reasoning all the same. Maybe that plays more to the ADHD generation, I do not know, but immediate public reaction (you can just write down your thoughts in a draft/note/document if you actually have that problem…) does not strike me as a necessity.

Let me ask you this: what possible purpose does it serve to prohibit people from discussing players during a certain window? If people wanna make a post, let them. It just seems needlessly controlling to tell people "you're not allowed to post now because this is the arbitrary window where it's prohibited".

Literally no one said that. These threads do not lock after the vote is released.

This is true. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear.

I like the idea of having a live voting thread at all times unless we're on a specific break.

But not having a live voting thread doesn't mean the discussion can't continue, it just means that we'd be expecting them to keep talking about the last vote instead of talking about the next one. We wouldn't be policing this of course, but if we expect they'd want to talk about the next one too, opening up the next thread would make sense, right?

[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

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.

Poor punctuation or not, I don't think Shaq's off here. "Lazy" is characteristically blunt, but you are advocating to lessem other poster's voting-flexibility on the basis that it would make your decision-making process easier.

[OhayoKD]

So, you're losing me here. Why do you think I'm trying to reduce the amount posts?

You may not be trying to, but I think it is an inevitable outcome of reducing the number of votes. I think anenigma outlined why well, but what is possible is not the same as what is going to happen in practice. Human psychology is human psychology. A poster quite literally just said they'd be less interested in making points for Mikan if they had to choose between voting for him or russell or lebron.

Perhaps though iirc stuff like Ben's top 40 benefited from anticipation and the such. No idea if that's 1:1. No good reason to test that now. But a few hours should not make a difference in that regard.

Ah, but Ben was releasing a piece at some rate for the consumption of others. He had no choice but to choose a rate, even that rate was infinite - all at the same time - and so he looked to hit a sweet spot to regularly draw consumers.

Here, while we have the idea of an audience on our mind, community participation is king.

(And agree that I'm not particular concerned if something weird happens there's an hours-gap between live thread.)

Well, I think by any objective measure, community participation was higher with 3-votes, especially for the #1 thread. If we were proposing 4 or 5 votes I'd agree, but we already have prood of concept, no?

. And if a few hours aren't really an issue, then anenigma should be up to the task. It really comes down to if you want more and more diverse discussion or less and more artificially focused discussion. I tend to think artifical barriers are undesirable, but at the end of the day, I can only point out the trade-offs.

Not to be annoying but also worth considering. With 2-votes it's still plausible you end u p with a "person people dont think is greater than other candidate is voted as greater". With 3-votes it's virtually impossible.

Let'd say there's a situation where Lebron wins the vote but more posters actually thought Jordan was greater. There is precendent suggesting(impact thread, kg vs kobe) that a bunch of posters might rush over from GB and start ruining everyone's fun

[Doctor MJ]

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.

Poor punctuation or not, I don't think Shaq's off here. "Lazy" is characteristically blunt, but you are advocating to lessem other poster's voting-flexibility on the basis that it would make your decision-making process easier.

Okay guys, Imma say we move on.

[Doctor MJ]

You may not be trying to, but I think it is an inevitable outcome of reducing the number of votes. I think anenigma outlined why well, but what is possible is not the same as what is going to happen in practice. Human psychology is human psychology. A poster quite literally just said they'd be less interested in making points for Mikan if they had to choose between voting for him or russell or lebron.


Ah, but Ben was releasing a piece at some rate for the consumption of others. He had no choice but to choose a rate, even that rate was infinite - all at the same time - and so he looked to hit a sweet spot to regularly draw consumers.

Here, while we have the idea of an audience on our mind, community participation is king.

(And agree that I'm not particular concerned if something weird happens there's an hours-gap between live thread.)

Well, I think by any objective measure, community participation was higher with 3-votes, especially for the #1 thread. If we were proposing 4 or 5 votes I'd agree, but we already have prood of concept, no?

. And if a few hours aren't really an issue, then anenigma should be up to the task. It really comes down to if you want more and more diverse discussion or less and more artificially focused discussion. I tend to think artifical barriers are undesirable, but at the end of the day, I can only point out the trade-offs.

Not to be annoying but also worth considering. With 2-votes it's still plausible you end u p with a "person people dont think is greater than other candidate is voted as greater". With 3-votes it's virtually impossible.

Let'd say there's a situation where Lebron wins the vote but more posters actually thought Jordan was greater. There is precendent suggesting(impact thread, kg vs kobe) that a bunch of posters might rush over from GB and start ruining everyone's fun

3 has an advantage over 2, and 4 has an advantage over 3. At this time I'm not convinced that 3 really gives the definitive bang for our buck, but I will continue to reflect going forward if it seems to emerge as a problem.

[eminence]

Let'd say there's a situation where Lebron wins the vote but more posters actually thought Jordan was greater. There is precendent suggesting(impact thread, kg vs kobe) that a bunch of posters might rush over from GB and start ruining everyone's fun

Other than locking the voter roll (questionable) I don't see a way to prevent this, out voter base simply isn't large enough to prevent outside intervention at that level.