My opinion about the voting system and F.Brawl system in general:
While the current voting system is lightyears ahead of the respective voting system used at Brawl#1 and Brawl#2, there are still some things needed to be considered:
{1} The current voting system can't prevent voting bias, because of the following:
a] : No individual is truly objective; he/she must try as hard as possible to discard any bias and vote objectively.
b] : Winning ambition unfortunately overhelms the pure joy of participation. This leads to voting bias and manipulation of the voting system, no matter the type of that voting system.
c] : Allowing to vote for your own team in case you really believe your team has the best submission(s) is invalid because of statements "a" and "b". In the end, every member votes for his/her team no matter what.
d]: Because of the statement "c", every team does not start a voting proccess on the same level. A team with inactive members and/or members that willingly vote only for foreign teams or not voting at all have automatically a disadvantage towards teams with fully active members that always vote for their team first and for other teams second.
e]: Forcing teams to vote for another team in addition to their own team doesn't solve statement "a" and "b". Quite the contrary, it encourages biased, unsophisticated votes towards random foreign submissions just in order to allow themselves to vote for their team's submissions.
f]: Anyone can 'troll' the voting system by voting randomly.
g]: If someone likes more than 2 submissions of each category, he/she can still vote only for 2 of them.
h]: If someone likes both submission 'Alpha' and submission 'Beta', but he/she likes 'Beta' more than 'Alpha', he/she can't express that difference, often leading this person to vote only for 'Beta' while this is not his/her true voting desire.
{2} We need better clarification of roles; this is something generally not stated, but I find in a very intresting and intriguing discussion that ought to be discussed. More accurately:
a]: Artist role needs a much greater definition. What kind of Artist is needed? A painter? A musician? A singer? An actor? A writer (yes, there is a contradiction with another Brawl role here)? A photographer? etc.
b]: Writer role needs an improved definition of its identity, otherwise it may be confused with Artist (see statement "a"), Off-Topicker or Forum Expert, because all of these roles usually deal with either small or massive amounts of plain text.
c]: Off-topicker needs better definition. The off-topic section includes sections like "Poetry", "Literal Arts", "Visual Arts", "Music" and other categories which fall directly into the field of other roles, like the Artist, the Writer and (maybe) the Forum Expert.
d]: Forum Expert need a better definition too. While this role is more like a jack-of-all-trades and less like a master-of-a-single-trade, it would be better if there was a more detailed portofolio of this role as well as its relation with other roles. The limits, skills and responsibilities of this role is even more vague than the ones of the other 5 roles.
e]: Boss needs a better definition. The criteria, skills, responsibilities and tasks a Boss may have to face are not well-explained.
{3} Rewards and the importance of winning/losing:
As stated at "{1}", declaring the Forum Brawl's winning team according to how many votes that team gathered may not be the best system around...
*****Now that the problems were stated, here are my suggestions:
{1} Replace the current voting system with a similar one, but with the following changes:
a]: No possibility to vote for your team for Brawlers.
The sacrifice of "not being able to vote your team if it deserves it" is worthy if we consider the great amount of bias removed from the votes in general. Though it is impossible to judge yourself without any bias, your opinion towards others is far more objective that your opinion towards yourself.
b]: 5 votes for each Brawler and community member in general, each vote with a different value.
The 1st vote would worth 5 points, the 2nd 4 points, the 3rd 3 points, the 4th 2 points and the 5th 1 point. Each voter will be FORCED to divide his/her five votes towards the submissions of each category or not to vote at all. While the "force" applied may sound a bit harsh, it would actually make the voters to actually think before voting because they would have to judge every single submission of a category and divide their points accordingly. Of course, personal bias and strategical voting wouldn't be completely eliminated, but the extra complexity will help. Furthermore, a more analytical voting scale greatly improves objectiveness.
c]: No secret voting in secret sections anymore.
If there's going to be voting bias & strategical voting, let it be public; at least every community member interested in the event would figure this out. Moreover, some people may feel shame due to their publicity and restrain themselves from publicly manipulating the voting system.
{2} Role clarification:
a]: Make sure all the Artists know what kind of artistic skills are needed. As far as I know, drawing skills of any short as well as photography and video recording are the minium skills of an artist. If more kinds of art is needed at a certain Brawl (e.g. music composition) it should be stated clearly.
b]: Make sure a Writer task doesn't include a theme that fits thematically more to another role (especially off-topicker) except if it is a combo task of these 2 roles. Furthermore, force Writer to use plain text of a fixed size, color etc. in order to make it easier to compare the pure writing talent of each individual (of course, this rule can have its exceptions if a unique & interesting task comes in mind).
c]: Make sure an Off-Topicker's task don't include a topic best suited for a Writer (poetry, literary arts etc.) or Artist (music, visual arts etc.) and ask them to provide links/source to support their thesis (e.g. related Wikipedia articles) in order to give a more off-topicker feeling to their tasks and less a writer one.
d]: A Forum Expert probably needs its "Expert" part removed from its name, since a Writer can be an "Expert Writer" etc. Personally, I would prefer an original name highlightning both the forum proficiency and versatility of this role, something like "Jack-of-Forum-Trades" or something like that.
e]: Make sure a Forum Expert task don't invade Off-Topicker's area, make sure a more sophisticated writing format is demanded (to seperate FE from Writers) and more tasks related with Wiki/Tools/Tutorials are included. Demand from them some basic formatting knowledge and maybe even a basic programming knowledge of a simple widespread internetic language (e.g. javascript).
{3} Award Icons & Other Suggestions:
a]: Since many people lose interest after the 1st three rounds of Brawl (usually after realising the difference between their team and the leading one can't be closed), rewarding teams other than the 1st with award icons according to their possition could really help. What about a golden, silver and bronze award icon for 1st, 1nd and 3rd place respectively? Or even a special award icon for every single participant no matter his/her team's position. That could really help attracting more brawlers and brawling teams too! (of course, the standard "Draw FBrawl#X award icon!" task should include drawing every single version of the icon)
b]: Eliminating the voting completely; just posting our submissions each round and discussing about them in public. Of course, since there will be no voting, there would be no 'winner' (though anyone participating at FBrawl is a winner imo) and some people may lose interest because of this. Still, that would be the FBrawl of my dreams...
c]: Make a standard, special last round Bonus Task related with "How can we further improve FBrawl?", much like the one at FBrawl#1. That would greatly keep suggestions & feedback coming and will add an extra motivating reason for creative thinking. Since I believe there's always room for improvement, I think this B.Task will never become old.
That's all... for now...
