I like 'Squeeze Me' a lot, however, it reminds me so much of Adjustment, so my vote went for Radiohead. Not flashy, but groundbreaking.

As for 'We Are Rockstars': I liked a lot more the other version, the one with the alien.

other version, the one with the alien?

Any video better than Justice's "stress"? dunno. Questionable choices abound, like best edit nod for Alphabeat and Likke Li on a best perf. Other than that solid list. Is Wanderlust considered animated? My vote is cast. Can't win em all.

yeah i find it odd that wanderlust is up for animation. Ya'll know that only the river is animated... i think the amazing thing is that most of it isnt animated. the moss etc is real.

other version, the one with the alien?

Whooops! My mistake, mixed it up with another one.

stuffing sillies - earliest: the pecknold clan for fleet foxes (animation) and the city of seattle for caskets (cinematography); latest: the whole of holland for kraak & smaak (best video), la france entière for omaha bitch (choreography), plus the extended tit-for-tat for unknown/unsigned. not to worry, the voting-irregularities-observation-committee never forgets (and rarely forgives)...

hear hear, progosk!

You think people would be happy just to be nominated.

Maybe there should have been some reminder to please do not put on your website:

"please vote for me. don't mind the other videos, this is just a popularity contest like MTV viewer's choice award."

Thing is -- is it that different from the last couple years?

First, thank you Progosk for putting in the effort and giving us the awards again this year.

Secondly, and I know this has been brought up before but would there be any merit in closing the final vote process to a smaller panel of Antville regulars? Perhaps the nomination could be open and only the final voting process would be closed? (most people won't bother to ballot stuff the nominations anyway and, moreover, since it's a top 5 situation you'd still get the 'right' choices in)

Sure, at first the thought of closing the voting down seems a little against what Antville, blogs, and web 2.0 are all about, however, these awards seem on the cusp of some real world legitimacy and the primary thing holding them back is the egregious ballot stuffing that takes place.

Again, this discussion has probably been bashed about many a time but does the community really believe that these annual awards are better off being completely open to the public?

And does the community believe there is any benefit in doing what can be done to push these awards past internet curiosity and towards real world legitimacy?

K

P.S. - I rambled on a bit here but I really do want to thank Progosk and all the other heavy contributors to Antville. I enjoy checking this place out everyday and I have that core community to thank for it. So - Thank You.

we'll need to change final voting, probably just making it public, so that stuffers stick out (even more than they do now) as the sore thumbs they are. (literally: look at what a little twittering can do...)

oh, and: VOTING'S CLOSED. (now let's see what can be salvaged. also: inadvertently zapped the "narrative" results - sorry. luckily i'd saved the numbers beforehand; they'll be reinstated.)

Or we can do a (public) recount 'til Friday. ?

Are you saying changing final voting for next year, or this year?

the only categories that stick out to me:

Best Animated video - Fleet foxes seems fishy; but Bjork's isn't animated. So - Fleet Foxes it is? It did get a lot of nominations.

Best performance video - It was between No Age and Beyonce until White Denim surged all the sudden. I say give it to No Age.

Best choreography - come on, this is totally Beyonce's win.

Best cinematography - not sure here. Jurado did get a lot of nominations.

Best unknown/unsigned - I told you this category was stupid! Just call it a tie.

Best music video of the year - definitely Wanderlust.

Here's a stupid idea: post a list of the winners, along with reasoning for not going w/ the poll "winner" and if anyone has any issue, they can add a comment.

Just feels like all the real antville heads would have voted in the first 2 days. Doing another round seems tedious.

If antville wants this year's awards to be legitimate, a recount is the only solution, imo.

i intended changes next year. i think it's actually pretty easy to distill ok results from the votes as they came in: i saved a few partials. plus i think any ensuing debate, as cap'n suggests, would pretty much fit the local tradition. if folks are for a revote, by all means, but work (yes, i do have a job/life/etc) will cause me to forfeit any participation. k has a point, but then, to me, the main interest and legitimacy really lies in the nominees. (more on realworld developments from those after the hols.)

perhaps do a poll (here and now) of those who feel a re-vote is necessary vs. those who can live with voting-irregularities-observation-committee-vetted results?

k: could you please do the honours of this poll to see if folks prefer to re-vote? create it now, publish it here in the comments.

This is kind of silly. How would a revote turn out any different?

And what is really wrong with "ballot-stuffing" anyway? Are we supposed to believe that everyone on this site, a lot of whom are either involved in- or want to be involved- in the video industry, are going to be voting for their honest top choices? And who says they have to vote that way anyway? What's the criteria they should be using?

Budget:

progosk, 18. December 2008, 00:40 we'll need to change final voting, probably just making it public, so that stuffers stick out (even more than they do now) as the sore thumbs they are. (literally: look at what a little twittering can do...)

But Kev, how would we be able to tell the "legitimate" votes from the ballot stuffers? Honest question here.

Hey Progosk,

I'd be happy to put up the new poll... but unfortunately I don't know how to do polls on Antville. :(

K

P.S. - I just saw Kevathens post and wanted to comment - I don't mind the idea of public voting but then I write under a pseudonym because I'm a director and like having a place where I can be honest (in part because of the anonymity) and discuss videos on a fairly intellectual-critical level; plus have the odd 'that's awesome' or 'that sux' moment. Which, leads me to my point, it may be unideal/compromising for people who post under their actual names to vote publicly...

kal,

I'm prepared to do it, as well.

videos.antville.org

It's because this community isn't big enough... if we were dealing with tens of thousands of votes, we - generally - wouldn't have these problems (the stuffed ballots would be swallowed by the volume). However it IS big enough that it attracts the attention of those who are nominated, and is noticed by many who simply choose to watch.

With that in mind, I am not averse to the idea of some kind of selection by committee, but that is such a tricky and political road...

OTHERWISE:

One interesting solution would be if we could track the referring URL for each vote. But that would require some software modifications, and could be cheated.

We should also be limiting votes by IP address rather than by user name.

We want this to have some cachet (AND a sense of legitimacy), right?

my last gasp of today:

• i think a different finalist voting system should be worked out (but an easy one, and simply public votes, like the noms, seems the easiest/clearest)
• i think this year's edition has pretty much run its course, but i'm prepared to be proven wrong by k's poll
• i think we should in any case keep the closing ceremony on the 19th, so whatever yall decide, do fit it to that.

must. go. sleep.

fam: Personally that's why I personally prefer option 2a, above. Sure, people can create bum e-mail addresses, but perhaps we can weedle out even some of that.

I see your point kev, but still, how would this weed out ballot stuffing?

Would you just automatically throw out votes from 'ballotstuffer123' or 'keithschofieldlover08'? How would you tell the difference between a legitimate antviller who just doesn't post much and someone who made their way over here for the first time because they're the 1st AD's mom?

Also, what is wrong with someone who's posting here for the first time to vote? They obviously love music videos (or a specific music video) enough to take the time to vote. Antville's all about web 2.0, so why close off the process and make it just for the obsessives on here? Seems like that could go against the underlying spirit of the site...

Right: Option 2a, again, imo.

Kev: If you guys want to do this manually, I see no reason why it wouldn't work. Again, it's not like we're talking about thousands of numbers to crunch.

But for next year, there should be a system up that takes care of most of this for you...

This has been brought up before, but regarding the crap that has been posted on the site recently, I think a system to VOTE DOWN the poor quality posts would be in order. With a caveat: Two or three moderators to ensure people aren't voting down videos that they simply don't like. There is a key distinction...

That way it is community moderated, AND maintains a sense of impartiality towards the videos that are true to the site's concept.

fam: Ah you're thinking of a slashdot- or metafilter-style system. That's a whollle different ball of wax.

That I am. I'd be happy to loan some time to developing it.

We could even implement a tiered system that promotes videos with solid screen captures and high quality links...

You'll have to talk to Tobi about that.

budget: Sorry, I didn't really cover what you said. I'm not sure I can weed out potential relatives and friends. I was hoping the limited time allotted would help eliminate that.

I'm a-feared option 2a doesn't cover undercover e-mails, etc. And I'm not sure how to publish redacted e-mails..

Potential Democratic solution:

Step 1: Announce Antville Awards

Step 2: Nominate Antville Awards Senators (The magic number of Senators could be 9 like the Supreme Court Justices or 12, or 50, or whatever).

Step 3: Nominate the videos in all categories exactly the way we do now.

Step 4: The Senators vote on the winners out of the nominations.

This is similar to any representative democracy system and it completely prevents ballot stuffing and other funny business. Plus the entire antville community votes on the Senators and they are decided upon before the videos are even nominated (in order to prevent Senate stuffing - i.e., choosing Senators who have a preference for certain types of work because the stuffers know those videos are in the running).

This system is fair, it's how we run all of our democratic nations, and it rewards the members of the antville community that have positively contributed over the last year.

Any thoughts?

K

^^^ I like this

Addendum to proposed solution (if Senate system is approved by community):

Perhaps the most efficient, effective, and reasonable way to move forward for the 2008 Awards would be as follows -

1. We let the current votes stand as is.

2. We allow the antville community to vote on Senators over the next two days and then the Senators vote for their choices on the 19th.

3. The antville community announces the winners from both the raw votes and the representative votes (Senatorial) and this year (2008) is treated as a transition year to the Senatorial system.

4. For the 2009 Awards season we move completely and solely to the Senatorial system.

Any takers on this?

K

kalstark,

For some reason having antville Senators seems like a very non-antville thing to do.

Not to diminish your input at all. We're almost there.

I think let it go as is, not just this year, but every year. The selection process is already far more narrow than most media outlets thanks to the nominations process (for instance, this is one of the few sites where the end of the year MV list isn't covered in Katy Perry). What makes this site different is that everyone and anyone can post, comment, bitch, moan, praise, etc. Why should it be any different when it comes to voting? I'm afraid that appointing "senators" would result in some really safe and boring choices. Antville isn't a democracy, it's well-oiled anarchy where anyone can do whatever they want (hi simontelo and Parmezan), and that's kind of the beauty of the thing. Nominating elite members to tell us this year's best videos goes against this site's true spirit in some serious ways.

The real solution here? I'd say that we need to stop worrying about the "legitimacy" of these awards or what they mean in the grand scheme of things. Let it be fun and loose and wild. The few lame directors or production companies who want to ballot stuff can go right ahead- no one will ever take this award more seriously then they do anyway.

I'd like to move that we change the site's tagline to "music videos: they're supposed to be fun" in order to keep people from losing their minds over stupid, meaningless stuff.

Sigh... you might be right.

@Kevathens: Thanks for reading over my suggestion and considering it - I totally get your concern. I guess I just like the idea that these awards can come to mean something more and as long as we leave the system as open to corruption as it is now they never will.

True, the idea of Senators sounds elitist on the surface but I do believe in the theory of representative democracy and this would be a direct application of that theory. I think we avoid true elitism because the Senators aren't nominated because they have more money, a better upbringing, or the right look about them. They'll be nominated because the whole of the community values their judgment, input, and what they have given back to Antville over the previous year. It's democracy at its best.

@Budget: I have to admit that I'm not an anarchist. :) :) I'm a big fan of organization, cooperative effort, focus, direction, and community (it may even be a Director's prerequisite) ;)

I also believe that these awards can actually be legitimate. I know quite a few exec. producers that check this site (in fact one of them - who has more than a few MTV awards through directors she reps - is the individual who turned me on to this little corner of the internet). And letting ballot stuffing just happen doesn't only de-legitimize the awards for the outside world; the whole reason we're having this lengthy discussion amongst ourselves is because it also de-legitimizes the awards for us.

Voting on representatives to choose amongst nominated videos doesn't seem to me to be elitist or anti-antville. It feels like a web community saying that it cares enough about something to get it right.

Finally, there absolutely won't be an elite class created by this system. The Senators would only be Senators for about 3 days and there would be no guarantee that they'd ever be Senators again. In fact, I'd argue that the Senators votes should be public so they are, in this small way, accountable to the community.

K

P.S. - if we want the nominees to always know their role is one of service we could also change the name - since this is the 'ville they could be the 'Village Idiots' :)

Kev, Did this feeling of blackness come from the inclusion of the urban award? Sorry, I had to say it.

Not to get all Dr. Phil, but here's what a whole year of antville has taught me about this site: if you expect more from this site than what it's meant to offer, you will always end up supremely disappointed and frustrated. Antville offers a place for people to post cool video links, and that's it. Anything that people try to add to that, or expectations that people have for it, will always end in disappointment. It's not meant to be a clearinghouse for indie videos, or a serious music video industry discussion board, or a place for budding tastemakers to influence the mainstream. Other sites might be able to do that, or sites that could potentially be created, but this site just isn't meant to be that.

Kalstark, I'm not trying to completely throw out your idea, i just think it isn't meant for this site. Maybe the solution is a new site?

[^ deleted a comment about feeling a 'sense of blackness' - that same sense of importance, in a way, that real-time award shows have. From the Critics' Choice to the Oscars, etc.. Crazy to have that vibe enter this room like that.]

Anyway, fam should say something. He's the blackest person here, based on his website..

@Budget: 'this site just isn't meant to be that.'

But why not? And why can't it be? And why can't we try? We are the community and this place can be whatever we're willing to make it.

Man, I sound like I belong in a Beatles song... :)

K

Kev, my heritage shall remain a mystery, but my soul is, indeed, a great pit of blackness. Goth like Robert Smith. (I should point out my other site is green like Kermit.)

Kev, i think alot of the limitations of this site stem from its web 2.0ishness. It's the same way that mtv could be arbitrators of cool when they handed it down like manna from heaven, but lost their tastemaker status the second they started asking kids to tell them what to play.

If someone really wants to take up the mantel of music video's final word, it needs to be as a site that acts as a gatekeeper and a tastemaker (like shotsringout but better), and not a community effort. Look at the pitchfork model- tell people what's cool, gain their trust, become influential, etc.

(several deleted comments later)

Anyway, kal and budget, you guys soo need to duke it out or something.

I love Kal and his passion, i just don't think that changing the philosophy of the site is a solution.

Antville can't be killed. I ain't even gonna touch the MTV thing.

It also sucks to read white writing on a black background. Sucks hard.

But, back to the primary topic.

What we do here can be important. It can be something valuable to others and indeed to the industry. I'm one person but I'm in the industry and it's valuable to me.

Also, I see lots of other directors post here. I bet most of them voted too, so then it's probably valuable to them as well. But, if we want something more than a three day wank out of this, we first have to make it important to ourselves.

Ballot stuffing and all the other shenanigans don't serve anyone but the one responsible's ego. We can get rid of it with a mini-representative democracy. So, why shouldn't we try it?

Let's look at it this way - let's try the 'Village Idiot/Senator' thing this year and we can post the winners of that process alongside the raw vote winners. We can try before we buy and get a sense of how well the whole thing goes over.

After all, only 15 posts up we were talking about scrapping the whole thing and starting afresh because of the perceived corruption.

K

P.S. - @Budget: I understand your concern about changing the philosophy of Antville but I really believe that a representative democratic style solution actually enhances the spirit and philosophy of Antville. For example - right now the awards process seems corrupted because people completely outside of the Antville community are 'trolling' it to affect the outcomes. A representative solution precludes that and still allows anyone and everyone to participate and contribute. It's the theoretical basis of democracy that is used around the world.

But I also don't want it to be this one solution or no solution. If anyone else feels strongly about a third way (or fourth, fifth, or sixth way) then I'm into checking it out and bashing it out. ;)

Why would you want to compete with a corporation who's sole contribution to recent pop culture has been a glut of cheap, "directed reality" TV?

Kal: White text on back backgrounds sucks from a functional perspective. Unless you want to create something that vibrates and is hard to read. Like green on green.

I'm siding with budget on this one.

Gah, couldn't for the life of me figure out the 'polls create' function and I'm man enough to know when I've been bested. However, I haven't truly given up. Here's the poll:

it'll take me a day just to read and digest all the above workings-out. be back in 12 hours or so. (sorry to be so busy just now...)

kal:

hot damn, that is a lot of discussion. What's up with the 'deleted comment' thing? What was going on there?

anyway, don't have as much energy/passion/history, etc. with/ for this site as some of you guys do...But, although new to Antville this year, (or was it late last year?) it is one of the very few sites I check out daily and as many times during that day as I can...and I was excited (well, as excited as I could be without being a psycho) to be able to take part in the Best Of '08 by casting my nominations and final vote.

So, yeah, not much I can say without sounding like an ass...

But, I do know this...ballot stuffing fucking sucks, but doesn't have to be inevitable. And, I do know this as well...if I was a ballot stuffer, I'd probably be a lazy one. I think most are, and whatever the solution is, it may just need to simply have that in mind.

If one of my videos was nominated (which none were), and I wanted to send text messages to friends in efforts to stuff ballots (which I wouldn't do...not on this site anyway), I know, without a doubt, that more than half of those jerks would be way too lazy to vote if there were any obstacles in their way.

I just mean that if they even had to do email-confirmation and agree to a newsletter or any other annoying back-n-forth stuff (like, say, how posting an ad on Craigslist can be), that they would very quickly lose patience and move on to something more shiny a few feet away...all while telling me, the next time they saw me, that they indeed voted for my video.

Just saying, whatever is agreed upon (aside from sticking to Budget's anarchy - which sounds fun in idea), it's gotta be damn annoying and time-wasting for the average Joe T. Roll to get his vote in.

or, in short:

ballot stuffing = lazy voting.

solution = simple but annoying voting system

Would you like to participate in a revote?

NO

I say. 08 Awards are closed. Announce the winners whoever they are. They are the direct result of how antville works. If you want to change the Award system, first change antville. As for one, rather than classic style moderation, I'd like a "view system", where some privileged users (or every user if that's more antvill-ish) can add posts to his personal view of the site. While normal users can subscribe to one, more or all of these views (like you do with RSS feeds into your RSS reader), or stay tuned on the general view to get the whole thing. That is more or less like Vimeo Staff Pickups.

P.S. I'm not saying to pick the best of antville rather than moderate the site. (That would be an option too, but I don't like it.) The similarity with Vimeo Likes are only on a technical point of view.

really good to see folks pitching in.

as regards this year's edition, i guess i need to take the responsibility for the voting mechanism, and the trappings it (predictably) came with - and i'm prepared to do so, with suitably argumented/edited winners to be announced (as planned) tomorrow. so my vote on the re-vote is no.

kudos to kal for an empassioned plea for democracy - sometimes old-fashioned solutions really are the best. but i don't think it's workable here - it implies a kind of involvement and closure that i believe would extinguish a lot of the spontaneous vital drive this place continues to demonstrate. there's a very delicate equilibrium that antville's needs to (and has miraculously managed to) keep, in order to remain relevant - and i take that to mean relevant not necessarily to the mv industry, but rather to its motley, ever-changing assembly of users first and foremost.

on the other hand, i do think there are net-age tweaks that are implementable to helma/antville that might be beneficial to the place. sorry fam: digg-style voting up or down will never happen, if only for technical limitations; but some system of marking posts as personal faves, in such a way that those can somehow be followed by others, is something i've seen working subtly yet efficiently on metafilter - a site that has deep structural/contextual similarities to the 'ville. fleshing that out to dek's suggested explicitly re-curated/-selected channel? could be real nice - not sure how (and by whom) that would be doable.

however both/either of these modifications wouldn't really solve the awards stuffing business - whereas public acclamation, with invalidation of evident day-flies, would. not saying it's the only way - but it sure seems like the simplest.

for today, let's see whether there's momentum for a re-vote. (i kinda hope not, if only to be able to think this stuff through without work/x-mas sapping my already sapped brain.) tomorrow's another day.

I hate to even say this, but my inclination is to say 'no' to a revote. In my opinion it's kinda in prog's and/or the audience's hands. And at this point I don't think anyone cares to, er, vote on the revote.

Great discussion and I'm good with the overall direction we seem to be taking - no re-vote and keep antville functionally the same. If anything I like the idea about making the voting a bit more difficult in order to dissuade ballot stuffers. I still like the idea of a rep democracy style system but maybe I'll save that until next year :)

Well on my way to transfer. Wish me luck the film doesn't all come out black! ;)

K

I like the idea of making the voting more difficult too - a la option 2a (e-mail votes to select folks + third party). And agree, in general, that antville's site style should mold itself to metafilter, somehow. Metafilter's style is democracy-amidst-chaos, so I think it would benefit antville.

Also:

Antville can do a revote this year if it uses the same polling system.

I would personally be hard-pressed to use option 2a this year, unless someone can suggest a viable third party.

Hmm, me thinks much of this could be avoided by two tweeks next time around. A) suspend new antville sign-ups a couple days before the vote B) Make the vote blind, so that the results aren't immediately avaiable. I think this would help alleviate the "horse race" effect that's been happening in some of the catagories.
Alternatively, you could just take the voting out altogether and make the nominations list, the list of winners without a hierarchy; that's how our Toronto Internation Film Fest works. :)

Not like this thread needs more comments but I think Jesse's idea would be elegantly simple for next year: suspend new sign-ups for the week of voting and take out the view results link until the end.

I dig the idea of a favorites system so long as video posting is still open to everyone. If we get something like that going it could be a fun year. Also I feel partially responsible for encouraging the urban category this year. I was hoping it would bring in some fresh faces nomination-wise but I think it mainly just earned a lot of awkward discussion and then a Spike Jonze win. Anyways it was worth a shot but lets scrap it next year.

I'd suggest clarifying the time of closure. I missed it again, thinking it went through thursday.

Which were the areas of controversy? I'm confused by Kraak&Smaak being nominated, to say nothing of winning. I have nothing against that Fleet Foxes video but it is the least proficient and ambitious in it's category by far.

scrap the 'urban' category? why?

One final argument (for argument's sake):

Thesis Representative Democracies are more effective at making decisions that reflect and benefit the community than wholesale vote counting.

Loose Arguments a. Wholesale vote counting often results in 'choose what I know' voting - e.g., ballot stuffers vote only for their friends videos but are unlikely to even have seen any other videos and so their choices are uninformed.

b. Educated decision-making is superior to uneducated decision-making. Thus, having dedicated individuals who are willing to spend time, contribute actively, and consider all the issues/benefits/pitfalls of a choice will typically make superior choices to casual decision-makers (this is, in large part, why we actually have representative democracies). e.g., imagine a world where everyone had a chance to vote on all legislation put forth in government (after all, this is the supposed ideal democracy). Well, it's very likely that we would, as a populace, soon vote away taxes, health care benefits, public goods/works, education benefits/goods (I know, the Libertarians & Anarchists out there are jumping up and down gleefully at the thought but I can't imagine this world would be a better place...).

c. The majority is typically short-sighted and votes solely based on self-interest and not community-interest. e.g., (I'm going to talk America cause it's what I know) The American majority would have voted to extend slavery for years after slavery was actually abolished. The American majority would have voted to deny interracial marriages for years after it was officially allowed. The California majority has chosen to deny marriage to gay couples.

Sure, many of my points/arguments will not work for some of you but they represent principles I believe in. It would be easy to suggest that I'm advocating elitism but I don't think that's true - I'm advocating Democracy in the best and most effective way we currently know how to create it - through representatives.

Thanks for reading! :)

And why can't we just vote on a group of Antvillians and see what they'd do with the nominees? ;)

K p.s. - the informal results from my ghetto poll were: 8 - keep the awards as is 3 - work out a new system

The real question: when are the shortsville awards? I've been hankering to vote for that Crystal Castles spot all fall.

this was a fun read.

i like the idea of kalstark's representative democracy (for next year). I think its too late on this year and we can just take the results with a grain of salt. But kalstarks idea would make the awards really mean something. You round up all of the biggest music video nerds on this site and get them to vote on the nominated videos. Then you would have super informed voters, the people who check this site all the time, voting for the best video of the year. Not to mention that some of them, cdub, jesseeweles, claire carre, alexdecampi etc are legit directors themselves giving the awards all the more legitimacy. Sure there will be biases, but thats unavoidable. It would be like the academy awards :)

What we dont need is Joe Sixpack who just watched 3 videos all year voting for the awards.

If you got the 20-30 most active users on antville and got them to all vote, we'd have a legitimate outcome.

Lets do this for next year.

it's simple.

next year, people just put their votes in the comments.

No one will vote stuff; and if they do - it will be super obvious.

In my opinion, anyone who's made a few comments and/or posted some videos in the last few years deserves a vote.

The idea of a "Senate" is so unbelievably dorky. I vote to keep Antville cool!

I second that. A 'senate' will legitimize our awards? How about we just accept the fact that these awards are just as legitimate as any site that lets anyone vote. Fuse's video of the year award got ballot-stuffed like crazy by Britney fans, and MTV's viewer's choice award suffers the same fate every year. If you really want to make a more legit award, start a different site- like I said before, any attempts to turn antville into something it isn't are only going to frustrate and confuse people.

I say keep the awards loose, fun, and open to all. Why should joe sixpack have less of a say than Jack videonerd? If anything, his vote might be more interesting since he isn't always so close to the microscope.

Like Najork, I thought voting would last until the end of today the 18th and was planning to vote this evening. For next year can you please specify an end time as well as date? I agree with Jesse Elwes' suggestions re: new-user freeze and not showing stats during the vote.

Congrats to the winners and everything, but I feel sorry for those who were punished for "ballot-stuffing". In retrospect, I don't know if it was clear from the beginning that inviting friends and fans to vote was off-limits. After all, this is a site that's open to the public- how is anyone to know that only antville regulars are supposed to vote?

none of the stuffed were ever really ahead during the main voting phase, and just stuck out as evident specific initiatives. it's always a testy thing, and the ideal outcome is a bit of a chimera. still, having been nominated as finalists is already quite an accomplishment, and i did take care to mention them in the winners post. all told, i think the outcomes were pretty fair and actually fairly representative of the 'ville's general inclinations - though they hardly coincided with my personal votes, i can comfortably identify with the results. we'll see what we can come up with for next year (if we're all still around, that is) but for now, it's a wry irony that we're showing another metafilterish characteristic: overthinking a plate of beans...

I just think we should be careful not to automatically label the "stuffers" as cheaters. They were probably just doing what most would think is appropriate in an open election. It was no different than a presidential candidate rallying their base. It would be a shame if the most enduring outcome of these awards is egg on the face of a few enthusiastic nominees

oh come on. Anyone following the voting as they were happening can see these results are pretty good.

I think I'm only disappointed MGMT's Time to Pretend was nowhere on the final list, but otherwise most of the stand-out videos were awarded somewhere.

videos.antgate.org

Yep. Good results.

Some press: Waxy, Hippopocampe, Fimoculous, Aesthetic Assembly, Coachella forum, Video Static, Promo News

• VLU, el niño, RoBoilr, AScene, Ynet, Spreeblick.

• (Winners): björked.