I think the fact that Nick had to post that "update" shows that ticalc.org knows this system is bad, they just don't know how to fix it...

No, I imagine he did that so as to avoid another pointless criticism from you, but it seems that he wasn't successful, because you found a way to criticize anyway.

Why did he say "how to improve the current system" if this system was supposed to be so perfect? Kirk, normally people don't say stuff like that unless they know they will get that kind of feedback.

Nothing is perfect, and it can always be improved.

True, then why didn't they include that message on all the previous POTM news items? You are trying to explain away the obvious...

It amazes me that you always claim to have the perfect answer to everything, but have yet to provide a good solution to the POTM problem. Your suggests are often shot down by others as they are not good ideas. I've noticed that the last comment to every thread has your name on it. It makes me wonder what you do with your free time.

What suggestion of mine was shot down because it was not a good idea?

Frankly, ticalc.org doesn't want my suggestions or ideas, because if they did, they wouldn't have fired me. But then again, they did hack into my website, so maybe they *do* want some of my ideas...

When did they hack into your website? And, are you sure it was ticalc.org?

A few weeks ago. Nick did it. I complained to the coordinators but they refused to do anything about it. I should e-mail them again...

Ok. It seems pretty clear to me that you need to get over it. This is just a website. It's just a place where people can go to get programs. It's not the ultimate source for anything. Just because you got fired (and you pretty much deserved it) doesn't mean that you can go around bashing people and criticizing as you please. You act like this message board belongs to you. Every time you respond to a post made by someone from the ticalc staff, you blatently insult them. Dude, you need to get a life. It is completely pointless for you to continue in this manner. Go start your own site and run it how you please. I'm sure you could grab a handful of followers and have fun elsewhere. Then when somebody makes a mockery of your site will you realize just how immature and crude you are. Enough is enough. Get over it already.

Jake

Go jake!!!

Tell it how it is.

Sorry, but I was not bashing or insulting anyone in my comment. Note the 3rd guideline:

"Don't insult or flame other people in your comments."

I suggest you follow that one.

Then what the hell have you been doing for the past three months?

I sure as hell don't flame people in my comments...

I know I SHOULD send this in an e-mail to ticalc, but I don't believe they're gonna listen to just one person. So, I'm putting this as a comment so ticalc can see all the responses to the thread and see that I'm not alone (assuming of course that people share my view.... if no one replies, it'll be obvious that no one agrees)
Anyway, the system MUST be revamped. Looking at the winners, there were 4 ASM programs and 1 computer utility. Since the votes were just thrown together, why did ticalc bother to separate the nomination form into categories? Why not just throw 'em all together, and totally eradicate the chance of any basic program of winning? There were only 2 BASIC programs in the top 20, and very few BASIC programs have any shot against even decent ASM programs.
Also, several programs (Turbo Challenge mainly, although there are others up there that I THINK were past contenders if not winners) seemed to make it as ports. Now I know a lot of work goes into a port, and I agree that a z80->68k port or vice versa must be written basically from scratch, but a 83 -> 83+ port (whether Ion or regular) is NOT that much work. (Yes, I know I'll hear it from some porters, but it's true... the main steps are relocating variables and changing call to bcall()...) The point that I'm making here is that some ports (ESPECIALLY 83->83+) should only allow one POTM per processor that it's written on...
Yes, I know I'm stirring up controversy, but I mainly want to hear what everyone thinks about this. The process needs change, and a single e-mail will do nothing.

I disagree (refer to my post above); the current system is very good. The only problem would lie in ticalc.org incorrectly choosing programs. In my opinion, ZTetris should not have been a contestant, as you (indirectly?) mentioned. What it basically boils down to is, did the porter make any significant changes? If the porter didn't make any changes, and the program _hasn't_ won the potm yet, nominate it anyway, but the author gets the award. But if the program already won potm on any other platform (of the same processor), it shouldn't be eligible, unless the porter made definite changes.

And what if the porter did make "significant" changes? And it did manage to win the POTM award? Who gets the award? (Assuming here the POTM is recognizing authors not programs...)

Well since the POTM is for _programs_ and not _authors_, it seems reasonable that they would both get it, or discuss it, etc... If the author had already won a previous one, however, the porter would be able to take _credit_ for getting "another" one in the case he made changes...

But that is all subjective. Who's to say or decide whether a port has enough "significant" changes to warrent being featured again?

A perfect or near-perfect POTM system would be one that that fewest of these such subjective decisions would have to be made. Because when a lot of these subjective decisions have to be made on a regular basis, people are going to disagree with some of them and question the POTM outcomes.

So what is your ideal system of POTM voting? No offense intended. Do you have an idea? Or do you just not like the current ticalc system?

-Dot-

Depends on how you define Program of the Month... but I think I would definately have more than one category, probably one for each calculator.

But- wasn't that the way the POTM was before? And maybe I am wrong, but didn't you complain about the old POTM system? It seems you do a lot of complaining. Maybe you are very smart at Ti-Calcs and designing webpages. I sugest you build your own calc page if there is so much you think needs to be improved at this one. Really. I'd visit it over ticalc if it was better. But for the record i think ticalc is a great website! :)

-Dot-

The old system had its flaws too, this one has more. :) With the old system, they never took out the past winners, ports, etc. from the nomination list even though they said they did. Also, Nick featured a 65-byte BASIC program a while back. Obviously, he did not test that program. I don't care how good a BASIC programmer you are, but a 65 byte program should not be featured.

Hypothetically, if SMB for the 83 is a final version and someone ported it to ION, the porter should get the award because the porter had to figure out how to separate the code into two smaller pieces, each being below 8k. Same thing for Lotus Turbo Challenge.

You are right ticalc.org won't listen to one person. They want you to e-mail them in private so ideas such as this don't get posted publically. But then when you e-mail them in private, they basically just ignore you.

There are no such things at categories here. ticalc.org was misleading to group them into "categories" for the voting process. They did that just to "help" people remember what calculator each program was for. Ideally they should not have done that.

I think ticalc.org needs to clarify what POTM really means. Is it rewarding the author or the program istself? If its rewarding the author, than ports should always be eligable, no matter how easy they were to make. However if its rewarding the program, than ports should not be eligable, unless the game was rewritten from scratch, such as Z80 -> 68K. Then its a totally different game.

But yes, I agree, the system needs to be fixed. ticalc.org took a major step backwards with this "revamp". It isn't working. It's obvious from the fact that Nick had to post that little update.

I would think the Program of the Month is rewarding the program, not the author, since it is _program_ of the month, and not _author_ of the month. And I can't say if i think ports should be eligable or not. On one hand, i see your point, they are _not_ new games. On the other hand, Ztetris ported to the 83+ would make lots of 83+ users very happy! Now as for the overall voting system, whichever the most popular programs are, should win, regardless of what calc, I think. I know it may not be fair to the users of less popular calcs, but, IMHO, the POTM is really for the most popular game, regardless of platform. Think about computer games: A game written for Windows is gonna be much more popular then a game written for Apple computers, simply b/c more people use PC's w/windows. That doesn't mean that the Windows game is necesarilly better. Same concpt applies here. Anyway, whatever you may think of this, I think that even if TiCalc may be flawed, I still apreciate their work very much, its the best TI Calc site on the net. :) Sorry this was so long. Congrats to all the POTM winners! :)

-Dot-

I think your analogy to computer games doesn't fit very well. Usually when giving awards to computer games, they do give seperate awards for Mac games. And since PCs have at least 90% market share, generally awards like "Game of the Year" are games on the PC, not the Mac. However, I'm sure there are such awards as "Mac Game of the Year", and so on.

But in the case of calculators, there is no clear-cut majority calculator. So its just not as simple as with computer games.

But I guess it depends on how you think of the situation. You could think of each calculator and its users as a seperate "entity", and then you would give out awards, such as the POTM, with each calculator as its own category. You could even have seperate assembly and basic categories within each calculator. That way, only users for that calculator would vote for the best programs for that calculator. This way, less popular calculators do not get "romped over" by the more popular calculators. However, this makes it easier to win an award for a less popular calculator, since there are fewer programs to compete against. Also, with this approach, all ports would be able to win the award, since ports would be crossing over into a different "entity".

But you could also think of the situation where the entire TI community is one "entity" and you lump everything together into the same pot. All programs compete against eachother, like the current system. This way, the winners will be the most popular programs overall, and your program must be really good to win. However, the bad side is that less popular calculators get romped over because there aren't enough users to vote, and plus BASIC games will almost never win, because they have to compete against assembly games for all the other calculators. Using this method, ports would not be allowed to win such an award, since the program "had its chance" when it originally came out.