Your Feedback Addressed Part One

I both love and hate doing these posts because I feel like I am singling out people who have made comments, but we provide the form for people to comment anonymously where we can get honest feedback. We really do want your feedback. I just want to throw that out there. I also want to share that other staff members do look over the replies before they are published where they can add or expand on things (as well as question me on occasion when someone feels I’m not being reasonable).

So, now that’s out of the way, let’s do this.

There is Favoritism Toward Sims 4

We all tried hard not to laugh at this. We can’t duct tape Sims 2 and Sims 3 directors to a chair and play Metallica’s Saint Anger at them until they enter. A few years ago we were accused of favoritism toward The Sims 2.  We showcase what we are sent. If you want to see more TS2 and TS3 machinimas tell the directors you watch about the festival and encourage them to enter. Personally, I’m still want to see to both a TS1 machinima and a Sims Medieval machinima but no one has accepted that challenge.

You Guys are Seriously Disorganized

We’ve raised it to an art form. Seriously, every season starts out quite organized and then something happens. Honestly, a lot of it is probably on me because my brain does not and can not function on something run on a militant schedule. I shut down. Organized chaos I can work with. We are actually more organized that we look…most of the time. Things don’t always go how we want them to and we do our best to work with it. 

If anyone can tell me how we are supposed to play for the unexpected, let me know. We have had three staff members duck out for a time because of their mental health problems. We have had someone else spend a deal of time in the hospital. You can’t plan for this stuff.

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Please remember too, that people do this as a hobby and no one gets paid. Unless I am paying someone to do something, I have no right to demand they do something. There is a difference between “Hey, we have these interviews that need done, I need volunteers” and telling someone “Hey, you need to do these and I need three a week.” Yea, not going to happen. There is so much to do for the festival and if one person drops the ball on what they said they were going to do or suddenly can’t do it, someone else has to pick it up or it doesn’t get done.

I’m also going to throw this out there (I’ve had two people take me up on it already), if you think you can do better, join the staff and help out rather than complain about things. 

Most Potential Award – More Information Please

Not sure how to explain this since it’s pretty self explanatory. Most Potential would fall under Technical Merit and it would be given to the director(s) who really need just a bit of encouragement to improve. These are the directors that are almost there. Not everyone makes a masterpiece their first try. Some people need more practice than others. It would be a bit different than Best New Director and would more than likely end up going to someone who wouldn’t otherwise receive any Technical Merit awards. 

Peacemaker explains it this way: It’s kind of like a “one’s to watch list” of people that may not have gotten many awards for tech merit of voting, but show great promise if they keep learning and experimenting with their skills. Kind of like the rising star in sports. it’s designed to give people a bit of an esteem boost to show that people like what they did, and if they work hard and improve they could do amazing things, even become a master.

“Have only a select group who votes which Machinima are eligible to be voted on”

Okay, this is not going to happen. You want to know why? That would be the same as turning people away saying “You aren’t good enough to enter SimsFilmFest.” We aren’t elitist a-holes, and that is how it would come across. SimsFilmFest is open to anyone who wants to submit to it, and all entries are accepted unless they violate the rules.

Any time the public is tasked with picking their favourite anything there is going to be a bit of a popularity contest. You think that doesn’t happen with The People’s Choice Awards? I have said it before, community voting is what brings machinima fans to the festival.

This is also why we have the Technical Merit Awards. They are to help balance out the popular voting because they are picked by staff and those who are Masters. This is even a bit flawed because we still have had people vote for their friends, and it’s obvious when they do, but the voting from the others involved balances things out when this happens. At the end of the day everyone has an opinion, and it’s not always an objective one.

I guess my question to everyone would be this: Which would you prefer, community voting, staff voting, or both giving two or three categories of awards (community choice and staff choice or community choice, staff choice and leave the Tech Merit awards alone)?

I’m game to run this experiment next season and let anarchy ensue, provided I can get rest of the staff behind this. Sometimes total anarchy is called for. (Ferengi Rules of Acquisition 34: “War is good for business.”  And rule 35:”Peace is good for business.”) We can let the community have a vote on everything from their favourites to technical merit awards, and have the staff and Masters do a the same in a separate voting session and we can see how everything turns out. 

Jorgha needs to step down or host the festival when not ill.

Host the festival when I’m not ill. My dude, that is not how chronic illness and disability work. I am always sick. I am always in pain. Every. Single. Day. It’s just a matter of how bad things are. Is it a good day or am I confined to bed for weeks on end? I have a drug cocktail of 8 medications that I have to take on a daily basis. Sometimes more gets added to that short term depending on how sick I am at the time. It sucks having little control over your body, not knowing when you are going to get sick or for how long, and not knowing when you wake up if you are even going to be able to walk that day. I wish I had a crystal ball that predicted these things for me. It would be very helpful. I’m sure you noticed the dog in From the Editor section. That’s Pickles, my service dog. He’s part 3/4 Great Pyrenees, 1/4 Bloodhound and 100% slobber beast. I didn’t put him in the picture just because I wanted my dog there. He and I are a package deal. 

You said this was going to sting. It doesn’t sting, not really. It’s really just more ableism I have to put up with. I’m pretty used to it by now.. It tells me that you have no patience for someone who is disabled/chronically ill, even if they are doing something on a large scale for an entire community when they don’t have to. I’m sorry that I don’t conform to your standards of how a human being is supposed to function and that being disabled is an inconvenience to you and the festival. Maybe SimsFilmFest isn’t the festival for you.

I also have some news for you, if I step down, there will be no SimsFilmFest. It will be the end of the festival because no one else has the time or wants the responsibility of running it on a continuous basis let alone paying for the site hosting.