SCFZ Annual Top 100 - discussion

[flip]

i'm getting ready to start up our annual top 100 poll - i'll probably open up the voting in a week or so. rather than try again this year to find some mechanism to give less-seen films a better chance in the poll, i thought i'd make one proposal for this year, and if people don't like it, we'll just run things as in the past. my suggestion is this:

• exclude from this year's poll any film that made our top 100 last year

my reasoning - if we keep the same rules, i think we'll get similar results. i can link to last year's poll results when i write up the letterboxd description, so everyone will know that list contains many of our favourite films. but this way, we'll get a brand new list, that sort of builds on last year's list. and the results might be at least a bit more interesting if the final results include a brand new slate of films.

curious to hear if people like or dislike that idea -- whatever the majority of scfz prefers is what we'll go with.

[flip]

i'll vote yes to the proposal

and of course if anyone has another suggestion that would be simple (for me tallying and for people voting) and that might be a popular-enough change to the poll rules, feel free to post it here, and we can see if another idea has support -- i don't mean to make it so i'm the only person entitled to suggest rule changes.

[MrCarmady]

Not a vote either way as this will be my first SCFZ annual poll so a novelty to me regardless of the rules, but just as a comment on the proposal - it punishes people for having tastes that align well with the rest of the board, and I wouldn't be surprised if you'd see a simple substitution effect - e.g. I can't vote for L'avventura this year so let's just vote for La Notte instead (which I would've done anyway but you know what I mean). And if you're most interested in tracking how the tastes and the composition of this board change year-to-year then you could just run the poll as usual and highlight new entrants into the top 100.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

i really like this idea! i vote yes

[therouxxx]

• exclude from this year's poll any film that made our top 100 last year

Does this mean aggregated 100 or individual 100?

[flip]

Does this mean aggregated 100 or individual 100?

the aggregated top 100, so only the 100 films that ended up making it onto the letterboxd list would be exempt from voting, it would be fine to vote for films you voted for last year if they didn't make the eventual top 100

[Silga]

I agree with Flip’s suggestion. Count my YES vote!

[Umbugbene]

I'll vote no... it sounds like a "Next-best 100" poll. We've run the top 100 regularly for a while, so it's nice to compare results. I revised my own list substantially over the past year.

[Curtis, baby]

I vote no. Interested in some rules/limitations this year just not that one. I agree with Carmady's point

[Holymanm]

no - for the amount of work it will take to make up my top 100... i want it to actually be my real top 100 list that i can hold up anywhere, and not a mutant hybrid list applicable exclusively to the 2020 scfz poll. would do a normal top 100, or an only obscure flicks list, or other crazy things, but generally not a fan of the 10% crazy lists

[ofrene]

That suggestion feels like "alternative 100" more than "top 100"

[brian d]

when we did the japan poll a few years back, did it feel dismissive of the films that ended up on the alternative top-100? because that might be an option, to do a straight-up poll but release two lists, one with the top 100 as voted and the other the ones that weren't on last year's list. that might help some lesser-known films rise up a bit higher if they're not on the straight-up top 100.

[wba]

when we did the japan poll a few years back, did it feel dismissive of the films that ended up on the alternative top-100? because that might be an option, to do a straight-up poll but release two lists, one with the top 100 as voted and the other the ones that weren't on last year's list. that might help some lesser-known films rise up a bit higher if they're not on the straight-up top 100.

I'm all for this suggestion (to compile two lists out of the results).

And I'm completely against any rules or changes that are not going to let people simply post their top 50 or top 100 favorite films for this poll.

I think it's fine to do dozens of different polls, and if one of those polls is "your top 100 films without any that made last year's SCFZ Top 100 list" I'm absolutely fine with that.

But I think this poll specifically is - and should remain - as it is: as plain and simple as possible.

For me the main interest lies in seeing how the list develops and evolves over the years.
And seeing the actual Top 100 of us users displayed.

Therefore I also, and once again! (and again and again...) suggest (I know this idea hasn't been popular in the past and hasn't found approval in any of the past polls, but I'll try it again every year):
we should limit (IN THIS POLL ONLY!) the participants who are "allowed" to take part (meaning those whose lists will actually "make it" to the final big list). Either by going by posts on SCFZ (no one with less than 100 posts) or some other criteria we can all determine together

This doesn't mean new members or people just "visiting" our site shouldn't post their lists, but that those lists will not be counted in the final tally.

I know this sounds discriminating, but I honestly think that such an endeavour is only interesting if it reflects the taste of "regular users", and not someone who might drop in, be active for a month or two and then disappear, or people who register just to vote for this poll.

[MrCarmady]

I know this sounds discriminating, but I honestly think that such an endeavour is only interesting if it reflects the taste of "regular users", and not someone who might drop in, be active for a month or two and then disappear, or people who register just to vote for this poll.

Has this been a big problem in the past?

[wba]

In my opinion: yes

[wba]

to give an example:

If I look up the 2019 thread and the ballots posted there, we had 6(!) ballots by users with 10 posts or less on SCFZ (until now, 1 year later, that is...).
And that poll was a comparatively "quiet" one with not many participants, and there were worse years before.

If we do the math and have some 20 to 30 ballots (and that might be optimistic, though I haven't counted the number of participants of all the last years) 5 ballots from people who aren't actually regular users here skews the results in a way that I personally find unacceptable.

Even if we had 100 participants in such a poll (and we never have nor will), 10 users who just dropped in to post a ballot, so to speak, are 10 too much.

An example: if we would say that users with at least 40 posts on this board can take part, that would currently still mean (let me look it up at the members section...) 44 possible participants.

[wba]

I mean, as open as I am to any new members here (I'd wish hundreds would join. Honestly!!!), I just don't see the sense in a contribution of for example (I just picked out one SCFZ member randomly now) Mr Mxyzptlk - active from Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:26 pm till Fri Jul 26, 2019 5:38 am on SCFZ with currently 10 posts on this forum - to our annual SCFZ Top 100 poll (as conducted in 2019). And I specifically meana contribution that counts for the final tallying. It's great to see someone posting in the thread (or anywhere) even if it is only 1 post in 5 years, and I always find individual lists interesting. Just in this case (our annual favorite films polls) it doesn't make sense to me.

Call me xenophobic or a misanthropist or something, but that's how I see it.
(of course Mr Mxyzptlk can send me a PM or call me an asshole for picking him/her out or counter my post here on this thread anytime (s)he wishes).

EDIT: I just looked up his/her posts and as I was also extremely active on an old film forum called "The Life Cinematic" I would have loved for this member to become (permanently) active here and such, but unfortunately it seems like that didn't happen.

[wba]

maybe some random number of posts is an unfitting criteria, and if someone writes in his posting of a list something like "hi guys, I've been mainly a lurker for 2 (3, 4, 5,... any number of) years, I love this site, love reading all of you, but am not interested in posting much", then I'd be the first who'd say "yes, great, welcome, and count this list in the final tally!" - but I hope you (and everybody else) gets my gist and I won't have to burn on the virtual stake for my comments here.

[greennui]

I say: pure favourites poll + an alternative top 100 compiled from the same results, that'll kill two birds with one stone.

Then we can have an obscurity poll at some later point that'll highlight our underseen favourites.

[greennui]

I kinda agree with wba, there should be a certain number of posts needed to 'qualify' for the list, a rather low number though seeing as this isn't the busiest forum, maybe have at least 10-15 posts between each annual scfz top poll, that could encourage people to post more as well.

[flip]

when we did the japan poll a few years back, did it feel dismissive of the films that ended up on the alternative top-100?

background for anyone who wasn't here back then - we ran a series of country and region polls, covering the whole world. those are my favourite polls we've ever run. half of the japan top 100 turned out to be films by four directors only - naruse, ozu, kurosawa and mizoguchi. so at the time, i compiled an official top 100, including those films, and an alternate one, excluding their films. the alternate list has proven to be twice as popular on letterboxd than the original. those polls are here:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... scfz-poll/
https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... wa-naruse/

[Zulawski]

I say: pure favourites poll + an alternative top 100 compiled from the same results, that'll kill two birds with one stone.

Then we can have an obscurity poll at some later point that'll highlight our underseen favourites.

I agree on this as well. Favorites should be favorites.

[flip]

Has this been a big problem in the past?

there was one year when it was an especially big problem, the year bure and i compiled the results together. a few well-intentioned people, hoping to attract some new members, advertised the poll on letterboxd. but then it turned out we had several hit-and-run ballots from people who didn't end up participating here. that year in particular our eventual top 100 list was largely indistinguishable from any canon top 100 list.

so i know where wba is coming from. at the same time, if someone has discovered scfz, perhaps by reading the ballots in the top 100 thread, and feels at home here, i don't want to discourage their participation if they might become a new member. and we have some lurkers who don't post often, but who share scfz's interests enough to read the forum, and i think they should feel welcome to participate in polls too.

so last year, i used an imprecisely defined rule. i was planning to exclude any ballots from first-time or very irregular posters if those ballots seemed 'out of place' here. that's the ill-defined part, but i was going to include any ballots that suggested the voter had engaged with films other than box office hits and the canonized, in any way, so with pre-codes, or experimental film, or brazilian cinema, or hallmark films. but if a ballot was full of films similar to jumanji, the incredibles 2, and kindergarten cop (three films i saw recently!) or lawrence of arabia, fight club and citizen kane, i was planning to omit those ballots from the tally, if they came from first-time posters. last year, using those criteria, i didn't opt to exclude any ballots, and in fact the ballots from first-time or rare posters were, to me, some of the most unusual and interesting that were posted, so i was happy they factored into the tally.

i was planning to apply the same rule this year. i prefer not to use a post count as a metric, for a few reasons, some mentioned above.

[MrCarmady]

I mean, as open as I am to any new members here (I'd wish hundreds would join. Honestly!!!), I just don't see the sense in a contribution of for example (I just picked out one SCFZ member randomly now) Mr Mxyzptlk - active from Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:26 pm till Fri Jul 26, 2019 5:38 am on SCFZ with currently 10 posts on this forum - to our annual SCFZ Top 100 poll (as conducted in 2019). And I specifically meana contribution that counts for the final tallying. It's great to see someone posting in the thread (or anywhere) even if it is only 1 post in 5 years, and I always find individual lists interesting. Just in this case (our annual favorite films polls) it doesn't make sense to me.

Call me xenophobic or a misanthropist or something, but that's how I see it.
(of course Mr Mxyzptlk can send me a PM or call me an asshole for picking him/her out or counter my post here on this thread anytime (s)he wishes).

EDIT: I just looked up his/her posts and as I was also extremely active on an old film forum called "The Life Cinematic" I would have loved for this member to become (permanently) active here and such, but unfortunately it seems like that didn't happen.

Poor Stu! I didn't realise you were from TLC as well, that's great. I think it's fair enough to have some sort of barrier to participation to encourage activity on the forum outside of the lists threads. I'm still leaning towards voting no on flip's proposal, I'll let Mitch Hedberg explain why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dHcvpnjcwI
"come on man, the people on the 14th floor, you know what floor you're really on"

[flip]

ha, i was living in an air bnb on the 13th floor of a building while i was waiting to move into my current place, and it was labelled the 14th floor. that hedberg joke came to mind every time i took the elevator.

[flip]

unless there's an overwhelming show of support for my proposal in the next few hours, i think i'll just withdraw it, since it doesn't seem like it's popular enough to be worth discussing further. were i to make a second list from the same ballots, excluding films from last year's top 100, that would essentially amount to making a top 200, so i'm not sure there's much point (to making a second list, that is -- maybe there's some point to extending the list to 200). part of the idea was to encourage people to post different ballots than they normally would, and creating a secondary list doesn't accomplish that.

if anyone else has suggestions for good ways to modify poll rules, last chance to propose them before i start up the voting thread!

[greennui]

A top 100 seems a little short to me, top 200/250 maybe?

[john ryan]

I kinda agree with wba, there should be a certain number of posts needed to 'qualify' for the list, a rather low number though seeing as this isn't the busiest forum, maybe have at least 10-15 posts between each annual scfz top poll, that could encourage people to post more as well.

Just another mention that a base post number could be tricky. I've been here and active since The Auteurs, but I am on the quiet side. MrCarmady, who joined in February, has already has already lapped my posts total.


Flip, I like your proposed tweak while understanding why some users are worried about the title and description. I also recognize and appreciate that you initiate the list every year and put in work to get it tabulated. If a new format is more inspiring to you than repeating the old one, you do you.

[MrCarmady]

I kinda agree with wba, there should be a certain number of posts needed to 'qualify' for the list, a rather low number though seeing as this isn't the busiest forum, maybe have at least 10-15 posts between each annual scfz top poll, that could encourage people to post more as well.

Just another mention that a base post number could be tricky. I've been here and active since The Auteurs, but I am on the quiet side. MrCarmady, who joined in February, has already has already lapped my posts total.

I talk a lot in real life as well

[thoxans]

yes re: flip's proposal