The 2021 Cacowards Thread Sidebar [Split]

[Peter]

On 12/17/2021 at 7:38 PM, Not Jabba said:

But what has really bothered me in the past few years is the growing numbers of people who come in fists swinging, whether it's on Doomworld or some other platform, expecting, demanding, or pressuring for awards to be given to their own work, as though loudly insisting upon their own greatness is the key to success.

I brought up the lack of acknowledgment on behalf of every musician involved. You are seriously taking it completely the wrong way by implying that I'm only concerned with my own work.

 

@Cammy also made a fantastic post about our efforts being mostly ignored by the Cacowards this year.

[Major Arlene]

10 minutes ago, Peter said:

I brought up the lack of acknowledgment on behalf of every musician involved. You are seriously taking it completely the wrong way by implying that I'm only concerned with my own work.

 

@Cammy also made a fantastic post about our efforts being mostly ignored by the Cacowards this year.

I'll kindly remind you both that we didn't have a music award two years ago. I'll kindly remind you last year we only awarded a singular track instead of two whole albums. I'll also kindly remind you that we do our best to give everyone attention they deserve but it's literally not possible.
Afaik I don't think you speak for every musician either.
I really suggest taking a step back from belaboring this point.
Be the change you want to be in the world and all that and make a forum topic about it. Ask people what their favorite MIDI albums this year were! Literally do anything except continue to whine on this thread. Please stop acting like we have some personal vendetta to nurse by excluding musicians because it really couldn't be further from the truth if you tried.
Also NJ wasn't just talking about you, but if the shoe fits...

[Peter]

24 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

Also NJ wasn't just talking about you, but if the shoe fits...

Of course me bringing up a point puts a target on my back hence the multiple attacks on me as a person.

 

My work being ignored was fine, it was the projects which weren't handled by me motivated me bring it up.

 

These petty insults are extremely unnecessary to someone just disappointed that musicians have historically just been pushed aside amongst other Doom adjacent creations on this site. Hopeful for change in the future, but change doesn't happen if it doesn't get brought up at all.

[magicsofa]

On 12/9/2021 at 9:51 PM, Peter said:

you decided not to mention any of it? Not even a single word?

 

Shout outs to ... the rest of the Doom MIDI musicians who have been working hard these year, contributing to all these MIDI packs. Sorry we all got completely slept on in the Cacowards.

This is your first post in the thread. Basically just spitting on the writers. You can't now claim that you were "just disappointed," as if you started off with a polite request for more music coverage. You started off being a condescending asshole. As both a musician and mapper, I don't want you to speak for me because you're way out of line. I like seeing them write about MIDIs, but the focus is supposed to be on maps. Texture packs, gameplay mods, and soundtracks will never take the place of actual maps. Yes, they are great resources, and yes, people work hard on them, but they just aren't in the same category as a playable PWAD. A soundtrack is not a new doom adventure for you to play, so stop acting like it should be treated like one.

[Major Arlene]

This is the last thing I'll say before I shut down this conversation on this thread and then I'll politely ask @Peter to make your own thread about this as it's becoming a hefty derail.

I looked through the last three months and a few selected pages throughout the year of 2021 mentionations, just to make sure we hadn't missed something even by accident, and music was hardly mentioned at all. The Cacowards' focus has been primarily mapping, if you look back through the history of the awards it was much tinier and by no means this refined. I don't say this to toot our own horns. I say this because the awards are and always have been a work in progress. We have and always will miss things people feel should have gotten awards. People are more than welcome to review and talk about/bring attention to the things that they like that we miss. If you want the community to recognize musicians more you have it in your power to call attention to all the cool MIDI projects that crop up, host your own MIDI review thread, etc. which does get not just the judges but the entire community more interested in the work. When the community gets interested in something they often bring it to our attention. I ask if you find that there's a cool music project that you find this year to put it in the mentionations thread. Acting like we don't care but yet not helping to bring attention to the projects until after awards are written is not helpful in the slightest and will not endear you to this community or the judges.

I'll also mention [and this is entirely my anecdotal personal opinion] that music intended for games is hard to judge just on its own. Game music is made to evoke a certain emotion or pace within a game and therefore becomes part and parcel of a game. How it's used is just as important as how it's produced in these instances and require extra research into its usage, rather than just sitting and listening to it. It requires a certain skill to review that most of us don't have or claim to have. We try to focus on the things we can judge properly, and for the things we can't, we at least do our best to shout them out that they're cool and should be heard or seen (in the case of the multiple MIDI packs, we did do that in the sidebar).

[Varis Alpha]

as someone who's only contributed music to several projects ever since the Plutonia MIDI Pack way back in 2013, i'll echo Tristan's earlier statement. from this year's influx of MIDI packs, which led into a massive snowball effect of more projects being made, more and more attention has been brought over to the music side of the community, leading to the creation of an award specifically for music last year. couple that with all the music packs this year, with the sidebar not only highlighting every single MIDI replacement pack that was made, as well as standalone albums made by this community's musicians, that aren't specifically Doom related in nature, i feel like this has been the final missing link that the Cacowards has created to truly celebrate every aspect of this community's passionate creators.

 

to disregard all of the Cacoward team's works just because X and Y thing didn't win feels really tonedeaf to me. i've noticed that my MIDI music has been passed around and used in a couple of works this and last year, which, combined with everything i said above, makes me feel very happy the way that this community has been growing, as all i ever wanted to do back in 2013 was to make music, and by extent, also make music for Doom. and with the way things are going here, i'm going to keep doing so. and i'd ask people to not get so hung up over what stuff wins the awards of the year, because i feel that the Cacowards team is making their damndest to celebrate every aspect of this community, and, as a musician, my existence in this community has never felt more validated because of it.

[Scuba Steve]

@Peter, I take it you're volunteering to help guest editorialize articles when we need people to write about music?

[Astronomical]

I think Peter is put in the worst position because from the outside it seems like he is arguing from the worst faith possible, he didn’t begin the trend of midi packs but he kickstarted the trend this year and their for it seems like he is just looking for credit. 
 

This reminds me of a similar issue with other award shows, if you were a foreign film director who was upset about how foreign films were never nominated for anything but best foreign film, and everyone attacked you because you would benefit from the increased attention to foreign films at the Oscars. It could be 100% true that a foreign film director is only saying it as an attempt to get his films looked at further. But the argument may not be inaccurate just because of that bias. 
 

When you discredit someone’s ability to have an argument, you aren’t addressing the ideas they have. 
 

To clarify I thought most of the community midi packs were very hit or miss. But if the cacoawards are a celebration of doom, they probably should have not been placed on the sidebar that no one reads. 
 

I know that too because honorable mentions were moved from the sidebar to the main page proper, as well as almost everything else. 

[Doomkid]

26 minutes ago, Astronomical said:

he kickstarted the trend this year and their for it seems like he is just looking for credit. 

I do not care about the whole “who dunnit first” thing at all, so please bare that in mind, but of the “iwad midi pack revival projects” of the past year, I’m certain the first one was .MIDtwid, which I started in October of 2020. Granted, Peter was a way more proactive project lead, and is simply a more effective MIDI maker than me in general.

 

I really don’t like seeing arguments between people from different classic Doom subcommunities though, especially over something like this. I’m used to it, given my history on the MP side of Doom, but I still don’t like it. It would be a pretty funny turn of events if everyone kissed and made up and Peter ended up doing some MIDI reviews for next years Cacos though, heh!

[Astronomical]

26 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I do not care about the whole “who dunnit first” thing at all, so please bare that in mind, but of the “iwad midi pack revival projects” of the past year, I’m certain the first one was .MIDtwid, which I started in October of 2020. Granted, Peter was a way more proactive project lead, and is simply a more effective MIDI maker than me in general.

 

I really don’t like seeing arguments between people from different classic Doom subcommunities though, especially over something like this. I’m used to it, given my history on the MP side of Doom, but I still don’t like it. It would be a pretty funny turn of events if everyone kissed and made up and Peter ended up doing some MIDI reviews for next years Cacos though, heh!

People are upset that Peter is the one to bring it up, however I don’t think it should matter who brings up the concern. Even if he has something to gain from people discussing it. 
 

I would however say that Peter would make a wonderful addition to the team, as I assume that there rules (or at least soft rules) preventing someone from selecting their own work. This would prevent any concerns surrounding his work not getting any recognition. While still addressing the concerns surrounding the lack of support towards the work done my midi composers. 

[Major Arlene]

7 minutes ago, Astronomical said:

People are upset that Peter is the one to bring it up, however I don’t think it should matter who brings up the concern. Even if he has something to gain from people discussing it.

My problem with Peter is not that he brought it up at all, as said, we're happy to take polite, not passive-aggressive suggestions, it's the way he first brought it up, then, when corrected and told, yes, we did recognize MIDI creators, we get told it's not enough. Moving the goal posts is exhausting for everyone and doubling down on it is not in any way a smart thing to do.
I've already addressed the other points so at this point I have nothing further to add. If people would like more content added to the awards then please begin to make that more visible in your posts throughout the year, instead of demanding a re-write of the awards postmortem.

[Maribo]

I don't really understand the bit about being put in the the sidebar being a slight or an insult... Do people not read them? They're obviously not front and center, but the bits in them are often just as interesting as the main showcase articles. I mean, I guess you could argue that you could collect all "sidebar content" and devote it to its own page, but I dunno, I like reading the sidebars (when the page has one) before I go on to the next full page. It helps with the reading pace since the write-ups for the full articles can get pretty lengthy.

[Jimmy]

Late to this party but...

 

 

On 12/10/2021 at 8:08 AM, Peter said:

The Plutonia MIDI Pack 10000% deserves to retroactively be awarded a 2013 Cacoward.

 

please stop, my dude

[Peter]

3 hours ago, Scuba Steve said:

@Peter, I take it you're volunteering to help guest editorialize articles when we need people to write about music?

Absolutely! I'll always be available to help with something I'm as passionate about as music! 😍

 

 

15 minutes ago, Maribo said:

I don't really understand the bit about being put in the the sidebar being a slight or an insult... Do people not read them?

They aren't indexed or easily searchable. They may as well not be there in terms of preservation and for looking back on things in in the future.

 

39 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

My problem with Peter is not that he brought it up at all, as said, we're happy to take polite, not passive-aggressive suggestions, it's the way he first brought it up, then, when corrected and told, yes, we did recognize MIDI creators, we get told it's not enough.

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Peter

[Horus]

51 minutes ago, Peter said:

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

Yikes.

[Obsidian]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

 

See, the thing with that is that the manner in which you deliver your point changes how people will respond to it. If you want people to actually take your criticisms onboard, some politeness goes a long way towards making that happen: if you're just here to bitch though, then you're pretty much actively cultivating negative attention and the conversation is poorer for your contribution.

 

Do you want to have your points addressed in a civil manner? Or are you just here to bitch? It's up to you.

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

 

Wow. Lifestyle tip champ. If you want a certain change to happen, being polite about it has a considerably higher chance of getting that change to happen. Where as your chances of your current technique working could be fairly be put in the sub 1% region.

[kristus]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

I used to be quite the asshole around here and I probably had a lot of ways to justify that to myself. But the thing about being part of a community is to build bridges, not tear them down. You have a specific interest in this community. You can't expect everyone to care about that as much as you do by default. You have to cultivate that through positive action. Not by aggressive demoralizing.

 

The only point you're making by acting like this, is that you're not pleasant to be around.

[Gregor]

4 hours ago, Peter said:

They aren't indexed or easily searchable. They may as well not be there in terms of preservation and for looking back on things in in the future.

I beg to differ. The sidebar is clearly visible when you're reading the "Other Award" section. It's actually difficult to miss and i certainly saw it when i perused this year's Cacoward pages. Mind you, in terms of exposure, the community midi packs probably received more attention than any of the Cacoward winners, simply because decino mentioned them several times on his channel, contributed midis himself and specifically featured your soundtrack for his playthrough of the Master Levels. Maybe people just didn't care that much about new music for Doom 1 and 2 or TNT because all of these already have excellent, dedicated soundtracks to begin with; unlike Plutonia. Anyways, you can't really argue that those midi packs didn't get any attention. And they are enshrined and linked in the official Cacoward article for 2021. The reason they didn't get center stage is simply because the actual maps that were created this year deserve that spotlight more. Many of these projects would otherwise be lost in the vast ocean of dead Doomworld threads. Like tears in... water?

Edited December 20, 2021 by Gregor

[LadyMistDragon]

3 hours ago, Peter said:

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

 

Speaking as an incredible rude and self-righteous American, I can tell that that is the absolutely WRONG way to go about it. There's too many idiots in real life who think they can just shout at retail workers and whoever else and somehow expect they'll be automatically listened to. Whereas in reality, you run a serious risk of your opinions being stonewalled if you're just an ass in how you choose to express yourself.

[dew]

4 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

There's too many idiots in real life who think they can just shout at retail workers and whoever else and somehow expect they'll be automatically listened to.

*Stresses out the boredom and rage against the machine with every gum chew* Will that be all or do you want even more free extra spit in your cacoward dedication?

[Tristan]

12 minutes ago, Gregor said:

Maybe people just didn't care that much about new music for Doom 1 and 2 or TNT because all of these already have an excellent, dedicated soundtracks to begin with; unlike Plutonia.

 

Honestly the Plutonia MIDI Pack didn't even get that much attention when it released, its popularity is something that only came along years later. The more recent packs have actually fared much better, Cacowards mention or not.

[Astronomical]

I think I am going to just leave this thread on the note that everything we do here is out of the love for the game, and no one likes to be discredited for the work they put in. 

[Kinsie]

3 hours ago, Peter said:

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

[Gregor]

1 hour ago, Kinsie said:

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Really? Good to know. I always thought vinegar was better for that.

[Edward850]

56 minutes ago, Gregor said:

Really? Good to know. I always thought vinegar was better for that.

It depends on if you have houseflies or fruit flies.

[Remilia Scarlet]

15 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

It depends on if you have houseflies or fruit flies.

But what about Brundleflies?

 

Anyway, some of the discussion led me to have a somewhat random thought.  Since I usually see discussions year after year regarding things like visibility (such as if the sidebar is easily visible or not), why not split the Cacowards up into a twice-a-year thing?  The Summer Hell Awards and Cacowards.  There's various ways you could split them up (do maps and mods during the Cacowards, while speedrunning, music, and whatever else during the summer awards, as an example).  It may also help keep the total work done during a single awards session down.  Or at least it might for a while, since I'm sure the content amount will eventually catch up with it anyway :-P  There's always other ways to split them as well, like half and half.  Or just two sets of 10 maps + the usual other awards, though that's a lot of work.

[Revenant100]

3 hours ago, Gregor said:

I beg to differ. The sidebar is clearly visible when you're reading the "Other Award" section. It's actually difficult to miss

I beg to differ to differing. The sidebar is unquestionably where content goes to be lost and forgotten. As an example, earlier this year, I had reason to go over past Cacowards to check which recently released source ports had been formally acknowledged for whatever reason. This includes non-winners, aka sidebar content. One port I distinctly recall being mentioned in the past was Quasar's Calico port. However, finding it in the Cacowards was easier said than done. It's not mentioned in the port's DoomWiki article (suggesting the sidebar acknowledgement itself is not notable), it's not mentioned in any of the DoomWiki's individual Cacoward articles, and of course it's not mentioned in the front page indexes of any of the Cacowards proper. In the end, I had to go back through each year of the Cacowards and check every single page to see which sidebar Calico appeared in. After almost 30 pages, I eventually found it in the sidebar of 2017's Gameplay Mod Awards page. That's buried pretty deep among unrelated content for something that's "difficult to miss." Sure, I could have also just done an external search with a search engine for the page that had both the terms "cacowards" and "calico", but it'd only be this easy in cases where you have an inkling of what you're searching for. Imagine trying to find sidebar content you're not certain of!

 

And that's not to say the sidebar can even be called consistent. 2021 is the first year in which, instead of being relegated to the sidebar, the runners-up are mixed in the same pages as the winners. In fact, I guarantee you readers casually ran through this year's Cacowards without realizing which ones were the winners and which ones were the runners-up as the only distinguishing mark between the two was this new icon, something which has never appeared in years prior and was not established for 2021. But I digress: To anyone who's been reading the Cacowards for years now, at a glance, you might think the sidebar was eliminated this time around, and to new readers, you'd have no idea there was supposed to be any content there at all.

 

So of course, after browsing through four consecutive pages of the Cacowards with a no sidebar material in sight, I guarantee you many readers weren't even thinking to look out for it when it suddenly reappeared on the Special Features page, the sixth page in. This matter is immensely compounded on the mobile version of the site where the sidebar content is placed after the index, ensuring unsuspecting readers would go to the next pages without ever realizing said sidebar content even existed!

 

Truly, the Cacowards sidebar is where Doom projects, achievements, and miscellanea go to wallow and languish in a miserable and prolonged decay by obscurity. Is there any crueler fate? No, there is not.

 

And to illustrate all this, here's a fun challenge for you: Try to find the Cacowards sidebar that mentions my sprite fixes. I assure you it's there somewhere. Or maybe I'm just sending you on a wild goose chase. The truth is out there!

Edited December 20, 2021 by Revenant100

[MTrop]

12 hours ago, Peter said:

I brought up the lack of acknowledgment on behalf of every musician involved.

 

7 hours ago, Peter said:

Yeah whatever about what specific tone I used. If I'm making a point, then I'm making a point, I'm not all that interested in how polite my performance appears as.

If you're going to speak on behalf of "every musician involved," then perhaps they should find a better spokesperson (and I'm very sure they didn't pick you).

 

Most of the musicians here have their work in either their own original works or in collaborating with others, and it's an unfortunate situation, but you have a better chance of getting your work seen if it's paired with something original like a map or mod, not a WAD that can be dropped in anywhere. Otherwise, that's pretty much just gonna be seen as a mixtape.

 

So, my suggestion is to actively collaborate like the multitudes of other musicians here before you, instead of complaining about your work not being seen. I should hope that's not too difficult a task, despite the fact that you seem intent on making it so.

Edited December 20, 2021 by MTrop

[Quasar]

1 hour ago, Revenant100 said:

...it's not mentioned in any of the DoomWiki's individual Cacoward articles,...

This part is probably the mistake; it's a lot of work but we should really go back through and have summaries of every year's sidebar content in the articles. That they started life originally as one gigantic article that had grown to the point of being unmaintainable is one reason the content is so laser-focused.