AnimeSuki Choice Award Winners 2017

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

If you're looking at the post reputation system world of AS as the golden years of discussion here, then that kind of makes me sad.

FWIW, I don't think of it as the "golden years," but I think the change you're talking about was for a completely different reason (i.e. a lot of traffic was being driven to this site because of torrents and the tension between raw and fansubs, as I explained). The rep system was an abusive wasteland and encouraged a massive circle-jerk attitude that fostered groupthink and various forms of "rep-farming". I say this not only as a moderator, but also as someone who "earned" top-tier rep before that (and then, later, saw behind the scenes what people were actually doing).

Originally Posted by felix

The reason it was removed, and what people complain about, was not the messages but the bars (as I recall).

The messages were definitely a problem that a lot of people complained about, though it was fairly easy to deal with. (People used to use rep messages to leave snide "anonymous" comments about people whose opinions they didn't like, hoping to drive them off. Of course, it wasn't anonymous to the staff.) The bars were another problem, and it kept getting worse over time. It meant that certain key individuals had a massive sway over a new user's score. We could have kinda/sorta fixed this by doing a giant reset of sorts, but it was still a mess.

Originally Posted by felix

Like I said, and I really want to hear counter arguments on this, but I feel like both emotional stock is low and points of contention is at an all time low.

I think part of it is because there is no real solution to the anime-only-viewer vs source-reader issue. We always tried pretty hard to keep spoilers out of anime threads, but source knowledge is just pervasive now. So if you want to watch anime and not be spoiled, you basically have to avoid forums entirely now. And people who do already know the source material have less emotional stock in the anime, except to argue about how it deviates from the source material (and typically how this is a horrible thing). There's very low "intrigue" about the anime itself, and I feel like this is partly because it's no longer "rare" at all (we've gotten to the "paradise" of nearly all anime being available instantly to everyone in English, with basically no cost to entry -- although not yet 100% legally in all countries, of course).

And well... to also echo what was said a bit, most of us are "old farts" now, and we've had the same debates a million times by now. I dare say, given a show, its genre, its author, and its production company... I can probably come pretty close to predicting what most of you will say and how the debates would go. So this is kind of like we're all sitting in the retirement home reminiscing about the good old days when everything was new and fresh. Meanwhile, the talk is about what will bring "kids these days" to this site to "make it like the old days again," but that probably looks nothing at all like this forum (and may not be the kind of place a lot of "old farts" actually want to spend our time). Bring back rep isn't going to solve it.


Anyway... as was said, I don't want to keep dragging this thread off-topic either. We can have this discussion elsewhere if everyone wants. It's not like I haven't given thought to this topic a lot, but in a lot of ways this site is a relic of its time. That said, I think it still has appeal to a certain niche. Maybe we could do more to rekindle the relationship within that niche.

[felix]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I think part of it is because there is no real solution to the anime-only-viewer vs source-reader issue. We always tried pretty hard to keep spoilers out of anime threads, but source knowledge is just pervasive now. So if you want to watch anime and not be spoiled, you basically have to avoid forums entirely now. And people who do already know the source material have less emotional stock in the anime, except to argue about how it deviates from the source material (and typically how this is a horrible thing). There's very low "intrigue" about the anime itself, and I feel like this is partly because it's no longer "rare" at all (we've gotten to the "paradise" of nearly all anime being available instantly to everyone in English, with basically no cost to entry -- although not yet 100% legally in all countries, of course).

And well... to also echo what was said a bit, most of us are "old farts" now, and we've had the same debates a million times by now. I dare say, given a show, its genre, its author, and its production company... I can probably come pretty close to predicting what most of you will say and how the debates would go. So this is kind of like we're all sitting in the retirement home reminiscing about the good old days when everything was new and fresh. Meanwhile, the talk is about what will bring "kids these days" to this site to "make it like the old days again," but that probably looks nothing at all like this forum (and may not be the kind of place a lot of "old farts" actually want to spend our time). Bring back rep isn't going to solve it.

All your 4 points really hover around the base premise a lot of other people hover around, which is: [old-fart-voice] it was definitely better back in my day!

However this is not a hard thing to check at all!

So lets check shall we?
Here's a few samplings of one random forum,

Random Episode Thread: https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=41093 ....everyone seen it subbed... https://forums.animesuki.com/showthr...t=41093&page=7
General Discussion: https://forums.animesuki.com/showthr...t=30307&page=5
Speculation & Theories: https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=38346

There's indeed a bit more "sneak peek" discussion just as you say, but it's not like everything is way better with regard to the discussion itself. Early discussion in general thread is the same as it is now in series threads.

If we compare forums, we can see what I alluded to earlier,

free for all: https://forums.animesuki.com/forumdi...=42&order=desc, https://forums.animesuki.com/forumdi...er=desc&page=3 (lots and lots of niche threads)
tailored structure: https://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=116, https://forums.animesuki.com/forumdi...=95&order=desc (very few threads)

To this day I still feel like its much better if people can just make the damn threads, no question asked, no matter the extra trouble involved. Everything being prescribed feels very stiff to work with. It used to be that creating threads required a certain poster in and of itself, but well not much of that remains.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

That said, I think it still has appeal to a certain niche. Maybe we could do more to rekindle the relationship within that niche.

Building on what I just said above, the main issue seems to be, (be it true or false) the general feeling is the site scaled down, so now some things just don't feel right.

It doesn't really matter if for all intents and purposes we get enough people for the way things work to still be valid, or if there's nothing particularly wrong with how they work. It's just the fact they haven't changed at all in so many years I think has many ol' timers (myself included) a bit tired of just seeing it. It's like you're playing your favorite game. Even if it's your favorite favorite of all time, at some point you'll get a bit numb of it. Maybe it takes years but the time will come.

Another angle this can be viewed as, is...

People and discussions grew up. Some things died along the way. Some interesting things became cliche. But the forum didn't grow, or didn't grow enough in the way it did things over the years that we've reached a point where the status quo just seems wrong when looking at it. It's probably easier to illustrate what I mean by suggesting a few things (you kind of asked for it anyway). Please note I'm only creating some contrast, don't take them too seriously.

Use human-ized series splitting instead of counting

So instead of "Episode 1 thread", "Episode 2 thread", etc. Do it more like this: "SeriesName - Opening Episode 'The girl that fell from the sky'" (episode title) "SeriesName - First 3 Episodes Verdict", "SeriesName - Mid-Season"

Group loosly by semi-logical-concepts instead of series forums or series thread

So instead of Current Series filled with series threads. You have a completely rule-less free form split into "buckets" decided on per season by staff or the community. Each bucket will have a inuitive theme to it. So you may for example have an "Isekai (KGM, LD, ZN)" Forum that season (the abbrevitation being there correspond to series that go there). Similarly you might have a "Sci-fi" bucket, a "Romance" bucket, or a "Remake/Continuation" bucket etc etc.

For all intents and purposes you can have the sillies of things as these buckets. In part it's for fun.

Each forum would then have a bunch sticky threads. Some series may get one or two threads some may get more, but each gets at least one of course. Outside the sticky threads every other "normal" thread is completely wild west style whatever-the-community creates.

So this means if you have a touchy series on the source materia side, it's simple, you just have two stickies one for the source readers and another for first time watchers. If people get an A/B option it's much easier to stick to one or the other or be more considerate at least. But if spoilers and comparisons are just a minor thing or rare they can easily live in the "wild waste" side and not waste a sticky thread.

Similarly you can just have any interesting discussion you want in the non-stickyies. Forum default display limits can be adjusted to show as many non-sticky threads as deemed appropriate (since people like scrolling more over paging these days)

I said earlier that these buckets would be randomly themed. The idea is to encourage interesting discussion. Since you group things semi-logically you can get interesting cross-series comparisons and discussion threads.

For example,
The question of who's best girl in series X is pretty stale in 2018 really. BUT,
what if I asked you who's best girl out of [insert group of series from this season here]. Suddenly gets a bit more dicey.
Who do you really like more? Who actually deserves the title? Do you have anything to argue your case with?

Allow for an opt-in system that displays what you're actually watching that season

No explanation needed. Cross promotion is a good thing. That guy is in all these threads I am, what else does he like I don't follow?

Easy way to post small pictures hosted directly on the forum

Using image hosts pretty much means even the smallest of things, like all the avatars created over the years are just lost forever even though they're cool and only existed here. There are ways using albums but they're just really hard.

Improve the damn post box :P

We're not in 2003 anymore.

Get rid of rule "2.4 Do not make image heavy posts"

I measure hard disc space in the terabytes and measure internet speed in the tens of megabytes. This rule is redundant and stiffens things up too much. It also has odd implications. Such as, you can't post in-context joke image, or such in threads, etc.

"2.9 Always Remain Constructive" can go too, since it's too prescriptive.

You can replace both of them with something less stiff, such as "0.0 Don't break common sense". No giant wall of text explanation either, it is what it says it is.

Similarly for "2.1 Do not post nonsense" the sentence: Posts such as "I agree", "OK" and "Me too" are all considered nonsense. should probably be removed. For one this appears in many other places these days and it's anything but "nonsense." If 10 people post then suddenly it has plenty of value. Similarly, there really easy no simple venue to post agreement and there's nothing wrong with posting that. Like the above it would be better to be removed and just fall under the "don't break common sense" clause. Also there's no reason for the post limit not to be just 2 characters. (It's not like we can't bypass it anyway!)

Content cycles

Content creates content. For example. People create threads. People post in threads. People that post in threads eventually end up creating other threads. This is a nice little cycle. Sometimes it can be good to have these or think about them.

It's not too hard to think of them either. Even if the details can be hard sometimes to sort though. For example, this generally a discussion site, so building on that strength we can have some of the "results" from the discussion (participation, polls, etc) flow into content for said series on a sister site. So you may see for example: here's series X, and here's the curve of people participating, and on top of it is the general approval rating per episode, and here's random images people posted related to the series in random order.

So in other words specifics of transient discussion evolving to more permanent content. Said permanent content, if executed well encourages people to pay attention and contribute their part, and so the cycle goes forward.

Do polls as reactions (instead of ratings)

Ideally they should change constantly. But to give just one example: "Tears were shed", "Still good", "A bit subpar", "Not happy", etc. Depending on other circumstances it may or many not be necessary to change it up or keep it consistent. For example sometimes, if there's a real gutpunch episode just 2-3 options is better then ten options.

[Tempester]

I'm in favor of taking all this meta forum discussion that is unrelated to the actual ASuki Choice Awards to the Forum & Site Feedback subforum.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

And well... to also echo what was said a bit, most of us are "old farts" now, and we've had the same debates a million times by now. I dare say, given a show, its genre, its author, and its production company... I can probably come pretty close to predicting what most of you will say and how the debates would go. So this is kind of like we're all sitting in the retirement home reminiscing about the good old days when everything was new and fresh. Meanwhile, the talk is about what will bring "kids these days" to this site to "make it like the old days again," but that probably looks nothing at all like this forum (and may not be the kind of place a lot of "old farts" actually want to spend our time). Bring back rep isn't going to solve it.

I certainly feel there is an element to this but I'd like to point out that I don't think this is new phenomenon to the forum either. I've seen plenty of members come and go: A lot of the people that I saw discussing the 2009 Winners back then are long gone and have been for a while. But where as before the inflow of newer members always seemed to match the outflow, this doesn't seem to be happening anymore. So it's not so much the outflow that's the problem but the inflow. Now maybe even if this were fixed then it wouldn't solve our problems and we'd still be as jaded as ever but at least we wouldn't have to worry about the forum going tits up.

Also, I don't think the rep needs to be brought back but it would be nice to have sort of "power level" that makes people want to post (e.g. bars based on post count). Yes it's shallow as hell but it works. And some of those idiots that are attracted to that sort of thing then go on and do semi constructive things like leading forum Choice Awards. I guess this is where we reach an impasse here because I'm sure you can point out a multitude of cons to suggestions like these and I'd still say it's ultimately worth it whilst you'd disagree. That's fine by me though, because all I really wanted to do is make my case. Whatever decision you guys make, I just want it to be an informed one. I'm not interested in following Reckoners footsteps and curse everyone here with my last dying breaths like some bitter, defeated fallen hero.

Also, I really wanted to talk about an issue more relevant to the Choice Awards but I ended up getting side tracked with this, so without further ado.

---

Suggestion: How feasible would it be to follow in the ANN approach and insist on using the official English names for anime titles wherever possible?

For me the whole point of these awards are to showcase and recommend the anime you like but I often find it's easier to recommend a show using their English/translated name. I feel like generally, it just makes the anime more approachable and easier to consider. After all, we are mostly an English speaking audience and English titles will resonate to our minds more easily than a Japanese one. What with recent trends emerging in getting anime to be less self destructively niche and little bit more mainstream (e.g Netflix factor), I feel like we could match that and insist on using English names for our eligibility list.

So for example, we had a category that looked like this:

-{C3}-[Best Movie]

Spoiler for -{C3}-[Best Movie]:

Kimi no Na wa.

---

Kizumonogatari

---

Koe no Katachi

---

Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni

And instead could've looked like this.

-{C3}-[Best Movie]

Spoiler for -{C3}-[Best Movie]:

Your Name

---

Kizumonogatari

---

A Silent Voice

---

In This Corner Of The World

Maybe it seems trivial to guys like us who've watched enough anime to be familiar with the Japanese language but this forum always seems to have a lot of lurkers who are new to anime and I'd like the thought of it actually piquing their interests as well.

Of course this is a completely pointless suggestion if felix's script can't recognise anything other than the main MAL title so I need your input here, felix. MAL does list their English titles in the Alternative Title section but I don't if that's good/reliable enough.

I feel like this suggestion could also apply to the forum itself but that's a topic for another day.

[Archon_Wing]

Suggestion: How feasible would it be to follow in the ANN approach and insist on using the official English names for anime titles wherever possible?

I think it's a good idea. MAL has taken the opposite approach and it just pisses me off because it's sometimes hard to even recognize stuff.

https://myanimelist.net/anime/323/Mousou_Dairinin
https://myanimelist.net/anime/1689/B...u_5_Centimeter
https://myanimelist.net/anime/2418/S...r__Mukou_Hadan
https://myanimelist.net/character/21...uningen_17-gou

[felix]

Originally Posted by Haak

Of course this is a completely pointless suggestion if felix's script can't recognise anything other than the main MAL title so I need your input here, felix. MAL does list their English titles in the Alternative Title section but I don't if that's good/reliable enough.

We'll probably use AniDB for the next one. Already changed some stuff for it to be so. AniDB has "verfied for language" thingy, but truth be told if it's just series names it's like child's play to compile them by hand if I have to. Personally don't have a preference for either; though english does feel forced sometimes. [edit] Funny enough anilist, which is the one I use for backloging hell, is just the romaji too. You guys sure people want it the other way?

I'm still waiting on your decision on character categories btw.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by felix

I'm still waiting on your decision on character categories btw.

If it's about removing them then yeah we'll be cutting them. I've not heard a lot of thoughts on having a Best Cast category but I'll just go ahead and presume it'll be fine to add that in. Good characters need celebrating in some fashion.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by felix

I have a sneaking suspecion that while not entirely, but at least in part, a large problem is that, stuff is just not as interesting to talk about.

That's some of it, at least in a sense.

In my experience, there's certain types of shows that tend to thrive here on Anime Suki, more than your average show. Because there are certain shows that tend to bring a lot of different sections of the anime fandom together, so you get a large audience, and some of those same shows also have enough meaty plot to really sink your teeth into.

So, to give a specific example - Big flashy plot-heavy mecha shows with large casts and bits/pieces of political philosophy can be absolutely great for spurring discussion here on Anime Suki. But the last show we had like that, which I can think of, was Macross Delta. Before that, another show like that was Valvrave the Liberator.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying these are good shows (I liked them, but I can see why some viewers wouldn't like them), but good show or not, they were very good at generating discussion.

I think we have a decent number of good anime shows right now, but maybe not a lot that can generate meaty discussion.

[Solace]

Just speaking as a fan, the types of shows I enjoy just aren't being made as much as they used to be, or in some cases at all. It makes it hard to discuss anything because, well, what do I discuss? I've found a few shows each year that keep my attention, but man....the industry has changed. The viewer has changed. I've changed? Maybe. Probably. I could list gripes but I'd just come off like an old man yelling at clouds. It might be worth discussing in a new topic, perhaps.

[Cloudedmind]

I'm a bit late to the party, but in regards to using the English language title when possible, I'm completely for that. It would make browsing through the titles when nominating them easier as I've mostly been staring at the English titles CR uses.

And just adding my two cents on an earlier part of the discussion. While I can understand not wanting to bring back the rep system, a simple like system like most social media sites and many discussion sites have could be nice. Someone says something you agree with, or even just found interesting? You can like the post, or perhaps use some other positive only emoticons to express your appreciation. There's no down voting, or being able to leave snide anonymous comments. Just some mostly harmless back patting.

[Haak]

Hi guys.

Posting this here just in case anyone here might have some thoughts but I'm afraid to say that the 2018 Choice Awards won't be going ahead, at least not under its current format.

Basically the automated script felix uses to manage the votes got lost thanks to Microsoft Windows being Microsoft Windows, and he and I were both in agreement that the effort it would take to have one ready just wouldn't be worth it given the activity levels in the forum now (and likely for good)

I may try to create a heavily downgraded Awards but whether or not I'll even have time to count the votes if it goes ahead is also a pretty big if considering that all votes would be hand tallied in this situation. If I do go ahead with a downgraded version, the following changes will likely happen:

• Only one voting stage (as opposed to the standard two stage format)
• Only one vote allowed per category.
• Significantly less categories - some will be merged and some will just go.

I'm expecting the categories to look like this:

TL;DR…

categories

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

I suppose there would also be less features to the Awards. For one thing, I can't set up the Handy Helper so there's no guarantee of its availability. There won't be a TV and OVA list to guide anyone either. There would still be a Movie List though as I plan to keep the same rules in place (including the rule that a Movie only counts from its BD release date as opposed to its premiere date), but my ability to enforce these rules will be significantly reduced so there may be a lot of wasted votes. My prediction is that all of these changes will also lead to significantly less variation in what ends up winning these Awards (something we've tried to manage) but we'll just have to see.

Again none of this is set in stone at the moment and for the time being it may just be easier to assume that there won't be a 2018 Awards. Thank you to everyone here who took part and helped in these Awards for the last ten years no matter how small the contribution was. There's been a lot of input and a lot of support and it's always been a pleasure hosting these Awards for everyone.

[~Yami~]

take your time, haak, felix, and everyone involved

I don't even realize that it is already 10 years

I'm always looking forward to the award to find good anime that I missed out every year

[serenade_beta]

Yeah, thanks a lot to the staff of the awards all these years!

[0cean]

If it's about a script that is planned to be rewritten anyway, you could just go ahead with everything as usual and use the script whenever it's finished - maybe years later. If nobody is planning on rewriting the script, then yeah. I won't complain either way. Those awards take place before I get the chance to watch the blu-rays anyway.

[blakstealth]

Dang, it's a shame to hear that the script got lost.

[Tanuki.]

Yeah, it’s a shame, really. But I guess it can’t be helped. I’m all for reducing the overhead work with things like these.

Have you thought about simple creating a poll with Google Forms?

Or an alternative: Dropdown list with ALL animes of the year for all categories except the character categories.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by 0cean

If nobody is planning on rewriting the script, then yeah.

That's pretty much the situation.

Originally Posted by Tanuki.

Yeah, it’s a shame, really. But I guess it can’t be helped. I’m all for reducing the overhead work with things like these.

Have you thought about simple creating a poll with Google Forms?

Or an alternative: Dropdown list with ALL animes of the year for all categories except the character categories.

I'm assuming both solutions would involve having to get a full list of eligible shows in the first place which isn't something I think I can do. The script was the one doing that except for the Movie list which i did basically "by hand" because of the BD/DVD release rule. I actually already did the Movie list for this year but a TV/OVA list would be impossible to obtain without some kind of script.

Bearing in mind that even if I could extract a list from somewhere there would still probably be a lot of fine tuning required as is the case every year, especially for OVAs where I have to check each and every one just to make sure it isn't some stupid "Extra Episode" from a BD release of a TV series from last year (which is more often the case than not).

I'm also not familiar with Google Forms whatsoever and a cursory look tells me that I'd have to input each and every anime title at least once, whether its a poll or a dropdown list. Even if I could get a full anime list, I definitely won't have time to do that I'm afraid.

I do appreciate the suggestions though, fwiw.

[SeijiSensei]

Here's a start for making a list: https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.p...end=2018-12-31

There are some weird dates (Yuru Camp starts in April but ends in March), but this should be pretty comprehensive. I excluded movies but included series, OVA, TV specials, and web releases.

I could be cajoled into making something like felix's script to generate entries using this list as the basis. But if we're only going to get a few dozen voters, I'm not sure how motivated I am.

UPDATE:
I transferred the data from AniDB to an ODF spreadsheet and cleaned up the dates. It's available at http://www.takinganimeseriously.com/...anidb-data.ods

It should be readable by any spreadsheet software.

I'll drop this into an online DB and will play with it in the days ahead.

I can see some shows are missing like GeGeGe no Kitarou (2018).

[Haak]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I can see some shows are missing like GeGeGe no Kitarou (2018).

If its filtered by end date then that should be right because there's no end date listed for it. Presumably it carries on to next year so it won't be eligible for Awards this year.

I also couldn't help but notice that there's some flat out porn on that list...

[SeijiSensei]

I thought I excluded adult titles. Maybe a few slipped through AniDB's filters?

With respect to your question about episode durations, I didn't see that when I ran a search at AniDB. There are ways to search the ANN database, and maybe the one at MAL, so I'll take a look when I have a chance.