The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (Results and General Commentary)

[nogall]

But before that, how about The Meta Stick Awards: Your favourite Stick Awards?

Do this, sir, and you'll show up on my tumblr

I'm reminded of one of my friends, who wanted to take a personality test in which she would indicate what her favorite personality test was, and the personality test would use this information about her favorite personality test to tell her something about her personality.

A dramatic new horizon of navel gazing.

Can I use this in the aforementioned tumblr?

[Jasdoif]

*throws popcorn at Jasdoif*

Ooh, popcorn.

One thing I would like to do is run a final Stick Awards when the comic is actually over. My only concern is whether or not the forum community would stick around for the time it would take to run it. Even at a 'faster pace' clip it'd take months. Thankfully that is something I can mull over for a decent amount of time.

So if you did a final thread after IV, that'd be V....And I think The Stick Awards V: The Final Tally has a lot of elegance, certainly more than The Stick Awards V: The Voters Strike Back.

[137beth]

Wow. I'm not surprised that Land of the Rising won the semifinal, but I didn't expect to sweep a majority and such a strong lead.
Now it looks like the Best of the Hundred is going to be a face off between the entrance of Soon's ghost and his exit. Beginning vs End: Who will win?

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Wow. I'm not surprised that Land of the Rising won the semifinal, but I didn't expect to sweep a majority and such a strong lead.
Now it looks like the Best of the Hundred is going to be a face off between the entrance of Soon's ghost and his exit. Beginning vs End: Who will win?

Personally, if it cones down to those two (and it's looking like it will, with 406 and two others providing the wild card entries), I would probably go for 464.

[Angelalex242]

464 BARELY edged it out. Thankfully. It'll have a better showing in the 1000 tournament then 449 would have. Though 464 may suffer from the Miko vote being split between 464 and 200. Though I should hope 464 has enough of an edge to win the best of the hundred semifinals.

We actually could run the first semifinal of best of the thousand now, as the first 5 strips are decided.

[Porthos]

With (technically a little over) half the strip reviewed, here are the first five Best of the Thousand entrants:

90 - Consequences of a Failed Skill Check
200 - The Confrontation
298 - The Future is Forged in the Fires of Today
367 - Innocent Man
464 - Not for Everyone

That's a pretty damn good set right there, with 298 probably being the weakest link of all of them (the 201-300 tournament was a interesting in how it all went down). Nice balance of comedy, drama, and adventure.

It should be a very interesting semi-final there. Some of the strips involved have some very strong backers there. In fact, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see 90 pull a surprise placement. Not necessarily a win, maybe, but I would not be surprised at all to see it place as a wild card.

The second place strips for each are also great in their own right:
50 - The Semi-Secret Origin of Elan & Nale
179 - Liar, Liar
270 - Dueling Egos
344 - A Walk in the Park & 379 - Perform IS on the Aristocrat's Skill List (tie)
406 - A Moment of Truth & 449 - Land of the Rising... (tie)

That these strips are also some of the all time classics just goes to show how brutal these tournaments can be. So brutal in fact, that some of the all time classics for some people didn't even place into the various BotHs.

It will be very interesting to see which strips of the next 500 eventually place. I suspect I know a few of them. Then again, this tournament has already has it share of surprises.

====

Finally, for comparison, the first five BotH for the Original Stick Awards:

58 First Aid
200 The Confrontation
202 Scanning...
387 The Cliffport Redemption
464 Not For Everyone

Three of the winners there (58, 202, 287) didn't even place into this BotH. But the two that did get into this BotH won as well. Not sure that really says much, but it might say something at least.

===================

You typed this in as I was making my review post, so let me edit this in.

464 BARELY edged it out. Thankfully. It'll have a better showing in the 1000 tournament then 449 would have. Though 464 may suffer from the Miko vote being split between 464 and 200. Though I should hope 464 has enough of an edge to win the best of the hundred semifinals.

It'll be an interesting fight, that's for sure. But 464 and 200 have slightly different dynamics. Similar, I think to the 464/406 fight.

We actually could run the first semifinal of best of the thousand now, as the first 5 strips are decided.

We could, but I don't want to. When we as a forum get to the Best of the Thousand, I would prefer to more or less have the same 'voting pool' for the BotT tournament. Partially for voting integrity, but also because part of the whole reason I am running the Stick Awards as it is is to get a 'sense of the forum as a snapshot in time'.

I've been fascinated to look at the differences between this Stick Awards and the original. And as the forum community evolves, I also want to see what it will be like in the future. Both as forumites come and go, but also to see how the views of strips are changed with the fullness of time.

For instance, will 409 be viewed differently given various discussion recently? Or by the time Stick Awards III comes about in the distant future will the forum be able to judge it dispassionately without current 'controversies' in mind? How well will certain strips age, and can some wax and wane with the fullness of time (and forum membership).

An interesting question and one of the main reasons I'm doing all of this.

[Porthos]

:::::::::: ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE STICK AWARDS II :::::::::::

Hello all.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank each and everyone of you who has spent time helping keep the Stick Awards II going all this time. It might not be a perfect gauge of what the readership thinks of the strips that are in the archives, but I think it helps give something of a clue about where at least a portion of the readers stand.

So, thank you.

And I'd also like to thank the mods for giving me permission to bump this thread past the necro limit.

Now, on to business.

While the underlying reasons for this can't be discussed, it should be of no surprise to those of you who are proficient with math that we are quickly catching up with the actual comic. Far faster than my original plans would have indicated when I first launched the second Stick Awards. Whatever else happened, I was fairly certain that comic #1000 would be posted and in the rearview mirror when the Awards got to that point. Hence setting up a Best of the Thousand for a very long time.

This is very unlikely to happen for reasons we can't and I won't discuss.

It does raise a problem, however. Namely what to do about The Stick Awards II as we start to catch up with the comic?

I had a few options to consider here.

The first option was for the Stick Awards II to go on hiatus for a few months after Strip #900. This would allow the comic to leap back ahead and give us more than enough breathing room to get to Strip #1000. Once the hiatus was over, the Stick Awards II would continue on to comic #1000 at which point it would then stop, with the overall winner eventually crowned.

The second option was perhaps a bit more radical. Instead of going to the end of the comic or waiting for comic #1000 to recede into the distance, having the Stick Awards II stop at comic #946, which is the end of Blood Runs in the Family.

There were pros and cons to both of these options. There is precedence for the Stick Awards going on hiatus. The original did a couple of times without any great harm. On the other hand, these Awards have had a great deal of head of steam going. Pausing mid-Awards for any real length of time (outside of holiday concerns) could mess with the rhythm.

As for stopping at Comic #946, it does make a thematic sense of a sort. If the Awards are going to stop at any point before #1000, that'd be the logical one, I'd say. However stopping at Comic #946 does make this whole exercise a little like the few "Best Book"/"Best Chapter" polls that have been run recently. Similar enough that perhaps we wouldn't want to copy what they did.

Which leads us to the third option, and the one I am going to go with unless the community here strongly feels we shouldn't.

That is, we just say "hang it all" and run the Stick Awards II to whatever comic is the last one up at the moment. Once we hit the final comic, we run the Best of the (Almost) Hundred as normal and then hold a Best of the Comic tournament crowning whatever strip happens to win.

The downside to this option is that one of the points about the Stick Awards is to be able to look back at comics with the fullness of time. Not just to see how future comics changed the perception of past ones (say the original black dragon arc), but to see if things that at the time were WOWOMGeleventy-eleven weren't really "all that" after time went on.

On the other hand, the upside for having the Awards to run right up to whatever comic is the latest posted is that it will give "snapshot in time" of what the community thinks of very recent strips. That can be just as valuable as what we think after things have settled a bit as it gives a great compare-and-contrast. Besides, it's going to happen sooner or later. Perhaps the whole "looking back" thing, while an interesting component, isn't the be-all and end-all of the Stick Awards.

And it was that "compare and contrast" opportunity that ultimately swayed me in to deciding to run up to the final comic. This is a perhaps unique opportunity to see what the current community thinks of strips as they are very fresh in the memory. There will be plenty of times in the future for us to look at Comics #947-#??? with the fullness of time. Less so for this immediate arc that has just completed.

What's more is it's kinda funny. When I first started typing up this post a couple of days ago, I was heavily leaning against the idea of running up to the latest comic. But as I typed up the pros and cons above, I actually succeeded in changing my own mind the situation. Go figure.

Anyway, I am announcing this now so people know where we're going over the next 180+ comics or so. But also so people can chime in on this if they have any comments. And, as said, if enough people decide they'd rather do something different (either taking a hiatus or stopping at #946) please feel free to say so.

[Porthos]

BTW, I know that was a lengthy post. Apologies. But I wanted to get my full reasoning out there. And, as people might know, I can get kinda wordy when I am examining things.

As I said, if anyone has any thoughts on this, please chime in.

[Gift Jeraff]

Damn, forgot to vote for the Best of the Hundred. Wouldn't have made a difference, it seems.

I say stop at the last set of 100 (e.g. stop at 900 if 981 was the latest comic) and bring it back every 100 strips.

Have you considered doing it in batches of 5 after reaching a certain point?

[Porthos]

Damn, forgot to vote for the Best of the Hundred. Wouldn't have made a difference, it seems.

I say stop at the last set of 100 (e.g. stop at 900 if 981 was the latest comic) and bring it back every 100 strips.

Have you considered doing it in batches of 5 after reaching a certain point?

Not for this set of Awards, though whatever happens in Stick Awards III: The Search for More Votes is an open question. I've got a few ideas I am mulling over and I want to see how I can best implement them. One of the things I really want to try to incorporate after seeing comments throughout the Awards is multiple (weighted??) votes. Say, this is my fav strip, this is my second fav strip.

How best to do that, and if it would make sense with batches of five, I haven't quite figured out yet.

As for the point about keeping the Awards II going on in perpetuity, I do think I want to wrap up the Stick Awards II soon(-ish). It's been going on for almost exactly two years now. With the ever changing membership of the community, it's getting close to the point were we should be looking at the early comics again.

...

After a decent sized break once the Awards II is over.

[D.One]

I believe the "run until the last posted" (3rd option) is the best way.

As of now, it would lead us to another 18 rounds of "Best of the 10", 4 rounds for "Best of 801-900", and maybe 3 or 4 for the "Best of 901-981", besides the rounds for "Best of the 981".

[ChristianSt]

I would just end at #1000/current strip, whatever happens first. I don't see a reason to either artificially discard strips before #1000 (as would be the case with ending on #946) or to pause the stick awards unless there is a hard reason for it.

If we should catch up the current strip before #1000, I would just end the voting process there. The more interesting question is how to do the voting process in that case. E.g. we finish voting on #981-#990 while #99x is the last strip. I see two options without discarding any current strip:

• Voting on #991-#99x and proceed as usual after that.
• Instantly doing an BotH with "wildcarding" #991-#99x (so voting on (9+x)/2 instead of 5 entries for the BotH-semis). In that case we need to figure out which entries goes to which semi. Without much thinking I would split them evenly among both semis.

I think which of those methods is better strongly depends on how large x is. If we have only a few amount of additional strips, I think it would be better to wildcard them (doing a voting on #991-#993 doesn't sound that great) while with a higher amount of additional strips floods the semis. But we will see whatever makes more sense when we hit the current strip (or maybe even regularly end on #1000; whatever happens first).

[littlebum2002]

"hang it all"

The Stick Awards are going to have to be re-done at the end of the comic anyway. Might as well do the best we can with this round.

[Bird]

It's so close to 1,000! I say take the hiatus. I understand the point about "messing with the rhythm," but something like voting on the Stick Awards is easy to pick up midstream. You'd lose a few voters and gain a few voters, but that happens anyway over the course of the awards because they run so long.

& of course, thanks Porthos for running these.

[Jasdoif]

Which leads us to the third option, and the one I am going to go with unless the community here strongly feels we shouldn't.

That is, we just say "hang it all" and run the Stick Awards II to whatever comic is the last one up at the moment. Once we hit the final comic, we run the Best of the (Almost) Hundred as normal and then hold a Best of the Comic tournament crowning whatever strip happens to win.

The downside to this option is that one of the points about the Stick Awards is to be able to look back at comics with the fullness of time. Not just to see how future comics changed the perception of past ones (say the original black dragon arc), but to see if things that at the time were WOWOMGeleventy-eleven weren't really "all that" after time went on.

On the other hand, the upside for having the Awards to run right up to whatever comic is the latest posted is that it will give "snapshot in time" of what the community thinks of very recent strips. That can be just as valuable as what we think after things have settled a bit as it gives a great compare-and-contrast. Besides, it's going to happen sooner or later. Perhaps the whole "looking back" thing, while an interesting component, isn't the be-all and end-all of the Stick Awards.

Of the options you've presented, this seems the best choice.

However.

Suppose, if/when you've held votes on all the complete sets of 10 up to #1000, assuming we haven't hit 1000 at that point.... You start on semi-finals for Best of the Thousand, doing head-to-head matches between the Hundred-ers until 990/1000 are published? Like....

90 - Consequences of a Failed Skill Check	vs	200 - The Confrontation
298 - The Future is Forged in the Fires of Today	vs	367 - Innocent Man
464 - Not for Everyone	vs	550 - +1 BFF
639 - If They Pull a Knife...	vs	763 - Plotting Something
?!? (best of 801-900)	vs	!?! (best of 901-1000)

Do those head-to-head matches one at a time until 990 (if necessary) and 1000 are published to do the normal Stick Award votes on them, and then best of the Hundred them etc. And when it's all done, hold the Best of the Thousand over the five victors in those pairs. Interspersing like that will keep voting momentum, and mitigate/eliminate hiatus-ness in getting to 1000; and also maintain consistency in having the Best of the Hundreds actually be the best of the hundred, which ending before 1000 would fail to do.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Oh, wow, I hadn't realized we had gotten this close. I really would prefer that we try our best to get to #1000, but I think if we can't then ending at whatever strip we are on works.

Also, since we are talking about the end of this, thanks very much for running this Porthos! I've gotten used to looking forward to 4:00 every week!

[137beth]

Had you not made this announcement now, when we got near to catching up I was going to suggest something akin to your third proposal.

So, yea, I'm cool with that. Subsequently, you can start a Stick Awards III, with an actual Best of the Thousand tournament (or possibly a best of the 1024 tournament?)

[Mike Havran]

Would it be unfair to set voting periods from one week to "until new strip comes out"? That way we would reach 1000 strips in time. I remember that Favourite Character Tournament was done this way.

[Porthos]

Would it be unfair to set voting periods from one week to "until new strip comes out"? That way we would reach 1000 strips in time. I remember that Favourite Character Tournament was done this way.

This is something we can't discuss at any great length, obviously, but the main problem is the irregular nature of the update cycle. I'd want at least five days per voting cycle, and I can't guarantee that under this idea.

Seven days or when comic updates, which ever comes second, maybe I could live with. But there are other considerations, which, sadly, I can't discuss at all.

It's an interesting idea though, and one I'll think about a bit, logistically-wise.

[Porthos]

Well, looks like the consensus is to go to the last comic, whatever that may be if we don't get to 1000. And, who knows, we might get lucky! So onto Best of the Comic/Thousand, whichever comes first.

===

I also want to mention that I am intrigued by Jasdoif's suggestion of a bracketing tournament. It's something I hadn't even considered, frankly. Gonna chew on it, and might even do it even if it won't help with the scheduling. So thanks for the suggestion!

[Douglas]

*casts Thread Resurrection*

The Mod Radiant: Permission granted to revive this thread.

[Porthos]

First of all, I'd like to thank Douglas for graciously bumping up this thread past the necro limit.

And with that......

THE STICK AWARDS II: SECOND EDITION HAS NOW CONCLUDED!

Winning the whole thing was 830 - Tidying Up, and not by a small margin!

Coming in a respectable second place was 464 - Not for Everyone.

Just three votes behind it was 763 - Plotting Something

Finally reminding us all that it is an honor just to get this far is 367 - Innocent Man

And that's it, after two and a half years, the Stick Awards II are now OVAR!

It's been a fun ride, and it couldn't have been done without each and everyone of you who took the time to vote, even if only once.

=====

So what of the future? Well, I am happy to officially announce that the Stick Awards will return..... After a bit of a hiatus. I've always planned on "resting" the Stick Awards for at least a couple of months, and I am more to happy have found out that there will be something to replace the Stick Awards in that meantime.

Y'all will just have to wait for that Playgrounder to announce it, however. I wouldn't want to steal their thunder.

Before I close out this post, I do want to leave a few hints for what to expect in The Stick Awards III: The Search for More Votes:

• Vote for up to three strips each week!
• More than one strip advances each round!!
• "Super" Wild Cards!!!
• More exclamation points than one can shake a stick at!!!!

...

Oh yeah. No more cute little commentary about the strips that won/advanced the previous week. Got sick and tired of trying to come up with those. I'll leave the creativity to the experts.

I'll probably make a couple of more posts in this thread. Perhaps looking at how the Stick Awards II differed from its predecessor. Take a look at any voting patterns that might have arisen. And, of course, responding to questions and comments that are brought up here.

That's enough from me for now. Time to open up the floor to any and all comments from the Playgrounders that participated and followed this thread.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Wow. Mega-huge thanks to Porthos for running this thing. It's difficult for me to get my head around the fact that since January of 2014 I've been voting in every single one of these. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do without this particular contest. However, those hints provided (and that beautiful, beautiful title ) have got me very excited!

[Bird]

Thanks for all the work you put into this, Porthos. It's been fun.

I'll probably make a couple of more posts in this thread. Perhaps looking at how the Stick Awards II differed from its predecessor. Take a look at any voting patterns that might have arisen.

Cool! I love that kind of stuff.

[137beth]

Wow, more than two years of voting and it's finally done. I can barely believe your tournament finished before mine.

[thatSeniorGuy]

As I said in the final vote:

So after 2 years and 5 months, we're finally here, at the end of all things the final countdown the final round. I just want to say a huge thanks to Porthos for arranging this, and for sticking (pun not intended) around to see it to the end.

I also look forward to the next instalment! See you then!

[LadyEowyn]

Thanks so much for organizing and running this, Porthos! It's been a ton of fun, and surely a ton of effort (and real long-term committment) for you.

Maybe for the next iteration, you could rank the strips based on how they performed in this tournament (number of votes, ranking within their group-of-ten, or a mix of both factors), so that stronger strips are competing against weaker ones, the way sports playoffs work? I really enjoyed this tournament, but one of the factors affecting the voting was that sometimes a group of 10 would include multiple very strong strips, and sometimes a group of 10 would contain all middling-to-weak ones. Setting things up tournament-style would help enable a wider range of the most popular strips to compete in later rounds.

[Porthos]

I really enjoyed this tournament, but one of the factors affecting the voting was that sometimes a group of 10 would include multiple very strong strips, and sometimes a group of 10 would contain all middling-to-weak ones. Setting things up tournament-style would help enable a wider range of the most popular strips to compete in later rounds.

Maybe in Stick Awards IV. One of the reasons I am having multiple strips advance and have Super Wild Cards (y'all have to wait for the exact details) is exactly because of some strips not advancing that "should have". Say, 999 and 1000.

It's also why I'm going to let people vote up to three strips (no guesses as to how they'll be weighted ) in each round.

I'm kinda interested to see if it'll make any real difference when all is said and done.

[unbeliever536]

What about doing things arc-by-arc? I think it might be interesting to figure out, say, which "round" of each book/the whole comic thus far people like best. The problem with that is very short rounds, like the brief asides to Team Evil in Book 2. That might solve the problem of "there are too many good strips here", and would also fit this heavily arc'd and plot'd comic a little better than strip-by-strip voting. Of course, that may be out of scope of this particular series of threads.

[Killer Angel]

Thanks for all the fish effort!

What about doing things arc-by-arc? .

Nice idea. That, or by books.