First of all, I want to congratulate everyone who won. JumpAction, Conan, Champ, Uninspiredcup, and Zassimick- ya'all were my personal picks too, so I'm really happy you all won. A very deserved sweep for Conan this year, too. Really, really glad you get the mantle this year, bro.
Secondly, I want to discuss something here- it's something I have actually already discussed with a fair few users who have asked me about the delay in publishing the results this year. There is a reason they were delayed- they were delayed because I lost interest in the SWAs. And I lost interest because the community lost interest.
Look, organizing these community events is a massive task- it requires a lot of time, effort, commitment, and resources. You get nothing out of it, and you expect nothing out of it- you do it for one reason only, and that's to see community engagement. The entire idea is to do something for the community, and for the community to then engage with it. When the community fails to participate you end up being disheartened and discouraged. What, ultimately, is the point of me spending any time in organizing, posting, and counting these if System Wars doesn't even care?
I have been involved with the organization of these awards for years now. I have directly led them for the last three years. The last two years, I have had to tag and request upwards of a hundred users each time, beseeching them to participate and vote- because most people won't participate themselves. They don't care to. I actively chose not to tag people this year- my hope and understanding was that the momentum from the last two successful SWAs, as well as a generally active year on this board, would lead to a naturally high turnout for the awards this year. I was wrong, we ended up with the lowest turnout, with just slightly over 20 voters.
At that junction, what's the point? Why, really, should I bother? Really, if it were up to just me, I wouldn't have. It's thanks to PikminWorld deciding to do the counts and sending them to me that the awards are posted at all. So that's done- but that's the last time I do these. The community doesn't care, and so I have no reason to expend time or effort on this. I won't be organizing the SWAs starting this year- anyone else who wishes to is free to. If you need any help, or if you need any resources necessary to organize these (such as the Google template, etc.), please feel free to message me, and I will be happy to help or just give you advice. But I'm personally done spending so much time on something that the community has made it very clear it doesn't actually care about.
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