[THIS IS MY OPINION] /begin rant
I was hopeful. Surely the fourth time around, people would actually investigate the facts instead of voting blindly.
Boy was I wrong.
I thought that maybe, just maybe, people would take a few moments of their lives and actually think about the votes they placed. I've pretty much lost entire hope concerning this event. As stated by others, it hasn't necessarily become a popularity contest, but it was one ever since it's genesis. Even the concept of an event whereby people vote for their favourite of something is destined to become a popularity contest. And the results prove just that.
Here are some of the results I'd like to touch upon:
"Best VIP"
Ladies and gentlemen, how do you think Huahwi is deserving of a prize after not uploading a single video, and not logging on to MCSG for a single second? I assumed that after his departure, eventually people would forget about him like they would most people, and I was wrong yet again. You have to think about who is actually deserving of the prize, do you think someone who hasn't done anything in months deserves to win? The same thing applies for "Best PVPer"
"Best Graphics Designer"
How many times has Fin won this category? In every single McGamer awards, he's managed to claim the golden position for doing...absolutely nothing. He hasn't done anything for several months, and you have to consider the fact that this list is for people that actually contributed something to the community (and no, something he did years ago doesn't count, well it shouldn't). And if you voted for him just because he made two logos for MCSG, I think it's time you reflect upon the definition of deserving.
"Best Gamemode"
This one isn't necessarily a popularity crisis as it is just plain obvious. It's McGamer's main gamemode, has been since it originally began, and will be until the server closes. It's just dumb to make a category for something that will win every single time. It also doesn't make sense when half of the gamemodes aren't even implemented yet (on the McGamer side).
The rest of the results also suggest that it's mainly a popularity vote. For most of the categories, you'll find that as you go down the #1 spot to the #3 spot, the people get less and less popular.
And I know that it wasn't YOU that made this a popularity contest, it was destined to anyway, and there isn't much we can do to make it less of one.
I know this post was full of negativity, so I'd like to suggest some improvements for the next McGamer awards:
- More Guidelines: People cannot vote for people that are inactive, resigned, or just generally don't fit into that category at all (as you mentioned).
- Since it takes minimal time to actually select who you think is the best for each category, a text box could be implemented and you would have to write a short statement to advocate who you chose. This would make people reflect a bit upon who they chose, and if they can't find a single reason why they chose the person, then they'll know they chose the wrong person xD
- [WIP] Somehow make the voters more knowledgeable of the candidates (ex. Moderators, Senior Moderators, VIP's, etc.) There are just so many of them that people can't manage to know every single one of them.
So yeah..that's it. I'm personally not a big fan of this, but my opinion doesn't matter anyway
/end rant