Tronny

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A Tronny is an award given to community members for outstanding achievement, lack of achievement, or doing nothing at all. They are held annually at the end of ever year, or at least they are supposed to be. It is a very sketchy tradition. Ideally the awards will be given out over the holidays, sometime around Christmas or New Years.

Tronny Awards Procedure

The current procedure involves the entire community in a fully open and transparent fashion. All that is required is a single Tronny enthusiast with good organizational skills, time, and the dedication to make the event happen.

Discussion

The self-appointed Tronny MC will start a clearly labeled discussion thread. A title such as "20XX Tronny Categories and Nominees | OPEN" is a good start. This tells the community "Hey, it's Tronny time! Let's talk about what categories we should have and who should be nominated." If everyone is paying attention this is exactly what will happen. The Tronny MC should create the discussion thread will in advance of the actual Tronny ceremony and a few weeks before the voting starts. Sometime in November is good. This allows enough people to see the thread and respond with their thoughtful, creative suggestions. The MC should clearly state when the discussion ends and when voting begins. Also, should remind the community to follow these helpful guidelines:

  • Limit your nominees to one deserving person per category. If two tronners are submitted for a single category only the first should be counted.
  • Do not submit categories without nominees. If a new category is created make sure it meets the following criteria:
    • The category should not be redundant or too similar to an existing category. We don't need a category for "best cutter in Fort" when cutting itself is a prerequisite of being a good attacker.
    • The category should not be vulgar, racist, or sexist. Be creative and fun with your categories and try not to me mean.
  • Only categories with more than one nominee will make it on the ballot. Be thoughtful when making a category and choose one that will easily fit more than one nominee. For example "best project god" is too narrow and can only have Z-Man as a nominee.
  • When picking categories and nominees, think about the whole community. Armagetron is more than just Fort/Sumo and Clans.

Community members can nominate themselves. Why the hell not? It's a Tronny, not an elected office. The MC might start the thread with his own categories and nominees and perhaps provide a template with popular categories for copy and paste. When the time for discussion ends, the MC should thank the community and label the thread closed. The categories and nominees should be gathered from the discussion and presented in a well-organized, legible ballot. Here is an ideal Tronny Discussion Thread as an example.

Voting

Like the discussion thread, the Voting Thread should be started well before the Tronny winners are announced. Early in December is a good time to start a vote. The voting portion of the Tronnies requires much time and organization by the MC. This is because transparency must be maintained while protecting the secrecy of the votes. To avoid accusations of fraud or favoritism the MC much show there are no more votes than voters and each voter must be able to verify their vote. This is accomplished with voting receipts. The process is as follows:

  1. Voters PM the completed ballot to the MC.
  2. Voters must also post in the voting thread to confirm their vote has been placed.
  3. The MC records their vote and gives them a receipt in the form of some identifier. A series of random numbers and/or letters is a good receipt.
  4. The MC should keep track of the votes and receipts.
  5. After the vote is completed and winners announced, the vote tally and receipts should be released to the community.

The MC should disregard ballots with new categories and nominees. Also, nominees can vote for themselves (for the same reason they can nominate themselves). In case of a tie, winners will share the award. Tronnies are awards given for recognition. It is not a competition. Here is an ideal Tronny Voting Thread with ballot.

History

So Majesty! Very angles!

The Tronnys seem to have their origin with the player apparition with the help of Woned and Desolate in 2010. The forthcoming awards were announced on December 31st to be decided by a secret committee and the winners revealed sometime later.

"These fortress/sumo community awards, or Tronnies, are based on the entire year of 2010, no earlier and no later."~apparition

As owned explained a few posts later, the secret committee was comprised of members of the active Fort/Sumo Clans/Teams and categories/nominations were limited to this range due to the fact the committee didn't know much outside of it. The first Tronnies were generally well received with a small handful of community members feeling a little turned off due to it being secret, narrow, and in some cases, mean spirited.

The following year's Tronnies did not fare nearly as well as the first. The secret committee did not have the same enthusiasm for the project and nominees were not announced until nearly a month after the categories. Instead of adding suspense, the delay caused the novelty to wear off. Others lamented the lack of diversity and bias. Community members deeply questioned the methods. Committee members appeared to fight among themselves. Everything was generally hostile, which further damaged interest in the Tronny Awards. Still, after the winners where announced there was much rejoicing.

Tronnies in 2012 were an abject failure. After receiving harsh criticism of the 2011 awards, apparition opened the Tronny selection process to the public. However, interest was at an all time low and participation was slight at best. Apparition disappeared from the thread (and the game apparently) leaving the Tronnies abandoned. While the 2012 Tronies started in time, two months past without a single award given. On July 31st of 2013, orion tallied up the votes and revealed the winners. No one seemed all to excited about their awards except for chrisd who is excited about everything (so that doesn't really count, right?). A few days later, Soul announced he would take over the Tronny Awards and run it with a secret committee. But this was proven to be easier said than done.

The 2013 Tronnies started with all the grace of a category 4 hurricane making landfall. Soul and orion followed the original formula, but the community had changed. The original 2013 categories and nominees suffered all the problems with previous Tronnies (centered too narrowly on Fort/Sumo, lack of diversity in nominees, apparent bias, etc...) and without any of the clever and fun "current event" style categories. After a few rough pages of personal attacks, sinewav stepped in with an alternative solution meant to bring the Tronny Awards back into the open. Soul gave it one more shot before sinewav usurped the Tronny Awards like the jerk that he is. At the time of this writing it is not clear how the 2013 Tronny Awards will play out. However, participation and enthusiasm is fairly high. Hopefully this year will teach the community valuable lessons on how to improve this tradition. It will be interesting to see how the 2014 Tronny Awards will be run.

Awards By Year

2013

PENDING

2012

Category Winner(s) Runner Up(s)
Sexiest Eber
Get puched Liz
Rookie of the year Wolf
Best predictions Cronix
Veteran of the year Lacka
Friendliest Chrisd
Spamer Chrisd
Obsly awesome outside tron 3b
Player we want back Clime
Most addicted Wolf
Most improved appleseed
Funniest RoterBaron
Citizenship Sine.wav
Best racer Woned
Worst racer everyone
Best inactive Durka
Best defender Luffy
Best sweeper Poke
Best attacker Vov
Best center DGM
Most influential Concord
Best singlebinder Wap/Dreadlord
Best sumoer Wap
Clan we miss most TX
Best Ladle 49,63,64
Best TST team Wap-Liz
Biggest upset Baylife
Most influential clan Revolver
Most improved clan Redemption
Best clan Rogue Tronners
Fort MVP Vov

2011

Category Winner(s) Runner Up(s)
Sexiest: raph
Needs to Get Punched in the Face Liz
Best Predictions Cronix INW
Veteran of the Year FoFo Durka
Rookie of the Year VoV appleseed, gazelle
Flowers! chrisd psy
Sir Spam-a-Lot theroze, swiss, cody
Best Extremely F-cking Long Electronic Music Mix Creator MB53 sine.wav
Player who disappeared in 2011 that we want back! RudyCan’tFail, madmax, flex, 1200, liza/0ma, Tsugaru, beanertron, Wildcat, Spook, nara, freako
Open Team Tronny AshitakA, garisimo, chrisd
Most Influential Concord MB53
Occupy Arma Phytotron sine.wav
Most Improved Gazelle VoV
Most Addicted MB53 Hoax
Best Tronny Statue Creator Word
Best Singlebinder dreadlord Lackadaisical
Best Inactive Durka madmax, PsYkO
Best Defender insa wap
Best Sweeper slash wap
Best Attacker FoFo, Gonzap
Best Center Woned ppotter
Best Sumoer wap Xyron
Fort MVP ppotter Liz
Most Valuable Poster presented by Z-Man sine.wav

"Simple criteria a bot could evaluate: no warnings on your head, not a developer, most posts in 2011. Somehow, sine managed to post more last year than most others manage in their whole career and demonstrated that you can have disputes and controversy without low blows or trolling."

Ladle 50 Speeders
Best Team/Clan Forums or Site http://crazy-tronners.com http://unk.me
Best WST Team Name Powerpuff Girls
Worst WST Team Name Chronically Pour Beer Over Elmo
Team/Clan We Miss Most Tronners Unlimited, Dark Syndicate
Biggest Ladle Upset/Best Ladle Surprises

1) Ladle 48: uNk.team vs TX , 86 - 34 to TX... uNk.team wins!
2) Out of nowhere TX wins Ladle 44... and then wins Ladle 45
3) Ladle 52: Swift beats CTa in the FIRST ROUND
4) mYm started to win... a lot...

Best WST Team HORD Music Lovers
Best TST Team Liz/Wap
Best Ladle 50 47
Most Influential or Innovative Speeders mYm
Most Improved uNk, mYm
Best Overall Speeders mYm

2010

Category Winner(s) Runner Up(s)
Most Addicted Tronner Mb53
Has a Thorn in his/her Ass Phytotron Lizmatic
Most Influential on the Tron Community sine.wav Concord
T.I.L.F. Sunny
ih there. no talk lyk tis. srs. nao. kay? kay. srs fays. Spamme_~R~_ Clan
Players who Disappeared in 2010 that we want back! Tadd, Psyko, Hoop, Oblivion, Liza
Needs to Get Punched in the Face Lizmatic, Sasori, Vogue, Gawdzilla, Deadmau5
Best Inactive Tronner Durka newbie
Tronner Who F*cking Curses the Most Syllabear Deso
Friendliest Tronner chrisd Fofo, Nelhybel
Old Guy Who Just Doesn’t Quit compguygene Radian
What the **** did he Say? Orion Fini
Spaaaaaaaaaaaaam. Mecca chrisd, Magic
Best CT forum Stalker Deso MB53
Best Comic Writer Cosmic Dolphin
MediaTronny Pr3
Best Ladle Ladle 31
Best Sumo Tournament WST 6
Best WST Team Rudy/Punish/Beaner/Durka Gonzap/Wap/Lacka/Puuquie/Emmy, Deso/Woned/Xyron
Best TST Team Justin/Madmax
Biggest Ladle Upset Oracle beating Speeders in Ladle 39 PRU beating uNk in Ladle 34
Most Improved Tronner Potter Titanoboa
Most Improved Clan/Team uNk R
Worst Ladle Team FTW dBd
Most Influential on how the Game is Played Flex Epsy
Best Singlebinder madmax Lackadaisical
Best Defender Emmy Luffy
Best Center Woned Liza, Titan
Best Sweeper Slash FoFo
Best Attacker Gonzap Potter
Sumo MVP Xyron Rudy
Fort MVP Woned Titanoboa
Most Influential Clan/Team Speeders CTa
Most Innovative Clan/Team uNk Plus, Speeders
Best Overall Clan/Team Crazy Tronners Speeders