ILM Ballot Polls for 2014 and beyond -- order, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc

For most of these polls I feel a good schedule is two weeks of listening/voting and one week of rollout. Nobody is forced to spend two weeks doing their homework, but most of my favourite poll experiences have been cases where I only knew a fraction of the discography beforehand and used the poll as an opportunity to dig deep (e.g. Motown, John Cale, Neil Young).

I doubt there's anyone here who votes in every single poll, and running overlapping polls is definitely a good idea, though organising one of these is hard work and every poll runner deserves to have the board's attention when they roll out so there shouldn't be two results threads at any one time imo.

I think it's okay to announce it in this thread if you're planning a bigger general/non-artist poll, just to we don't get several of those running at the same time, and I think so far it's worked fine.

I'm tentatively open to this way of thinking - - - so there's a less-formal but still-in-place way of making sure there aren't multiple long-ballot mega-polls competing (or covering the same ground)? That was part of the big issue a year ago (notwithstanding whatever else was in play) - "all time albums" was unveiled without preamble just as the similarly vast (and long-scheduled) Classic Rock was due to unfold. The system has survived other "big" polls gliding by, it's true.

fwiw there has been intermittent discussion of a half-decade thread happening in 2015 for a couple of years now

2) A track that's shorter than 10/15/20 minutes can be valid if it's at least twice as long as the second-longest track on the same album.

I doubt Leee or anyone is gonna start calculating average track lengths within a whole genre, so non-album singles would still be problematic... But I don't see how this poll could be run in a non-problematic way, since the definition of "epic" length varies so much between genres.

I'm disinclined to include songs based on their relative lengths, since a 4-minute punk song could qualify. What's more, I'm using "epic" merely to denote "really long song," not "WHOA THAT WAS EPIC, MAN," so no "November Rain."

I think the original 10-minute-rule is a pretty good one. It's not like the whole top 50 is going to be ambient tracks.

it would be best to break each epic up into its respective parts, so in the final result we would see, e.g. how the Sweet-like fast part of "Bohemian Rhapsody" fares vs. the repeating instrumental part of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," etc.

subpoll?

Two Points

• Perhaps Genre/Label polls should be moved to a separate list, as they work on different timetables than individual artist ones.

• There really needs to be more of an overlap in the single artists polls. Seems to me a voting thread shouldn't have to wait to get rolling until after the previous poll is done rolling out. A attentive pollrunner should monitor what's going on before their turn. The sign that the poll before you is doing results should prompt you to get what you need together for voting, and once that's done get the thread going. Rollout Thread A and Voting Thread B can coexist.

^^^ I had assumed this was still/always the case!

rmde at any epic poll with rules that might exclude "Freebird"

Then strike "epic" and substitute with "15-minute long."

http://media1.giphy.com/media/STs07TDdxyKru/giphy.gif

sore gif of epic ack

I think the original 10-minute-rule is a pretty good one. It's not like the whole top 50 is going to be ambient tracks.

― ⊤ℝolliℵg M∃th H∑a∂ (seandalai), Wednesday, February 4, 2015 4:03 PM (18 minutes ago)

Kashmir - 8:32

favorite bible verse

http://download.lardlad.com/framegrabs/9F14/031.jpg

nah it's all about Pathway To Glory 8:37

just as the similarly vast (and long-scheduled) Classic Rock was due to unfold

and when did that classic rock poll take place again? july or something?

just run the poll when you like jf

Yeah. Doesn't seem that long ago, but I guess it is. xp

just as the similarly vast (and long-scheduled) Classic Rock was due to unfold

and when did that classic rock poll take place again? july or something?

― Eric Burdon & War, On Drugs (Cosmic Slop), Wednesday, February 4, 2015 6:29 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this does not strike me as a fair line of argument. IIRC (and brief control-Fing of this thread seems to back me up), some dude initially put it on pause because of the unheralded album poll. after that kerfluffle got sorted, he then had to postpone due to work etc., but - - - and this strikes me as significant to the points up for discussion - he resolved this by consulting with other people coming up in the queue, dropping himself down in line, and basically working it out with people. then when it came it was the best poll ever and the summer that never ended, and also Sandy.

he didnt put it on pause; he wasnt ready to run it. but who cares really. its just ridiculous that people want jf to join a queue for something that isnt an artist poll.

classic rock poll was pure glorious ecstasy, best poll ever

can we not go through, again, this weird ritual of pretending there's some consensus or tradition about "artist" polls but NOT about any other kind of music listening poll? i mean there are plenty of sensible ways to disagree about how to move forward on this but insisting that without the magic word "artist" all other concerns are moot is just...weird. like it might be pertinent in certain concrete ways, sure, let's talk about them, but this "i didn't say simon says" thing is not convincing by itself. i, and i think most others here, are trying to figure out the best way to do this that's funnest for all, which is a tricky thing we probably won't 100% agree on because we get different things out of polls, and recognize different aspects of them as the thorny/tricky areas, etc. that's cool, that's the fun of talking through this like it's a constitutional convention. good discourse. "but it isn't an artist poll!" is...not.

Just fwiw, decade/half-decade/eoy/genre/etc polls routinely get north of 75 voters (and often 100) so pretending they're just the same as basic artist ballot polls is bit disingenuous. Whether or not you participate in them, many other people do.

i'm fucking pissed i got bumped, but i will work it out with Leee. i want to do mine before Opening Day. i let this thread know where i was and when i was going to be ready.

Would never say they're *the same* - just would rather the discussion revolve around the real differences (like your point abt participation) and how those might relate to different ILX customs, than just 'this thread is only for artist polls and this isn't an artist poll, end of story,' which has been made several times (not by you), and debunked (e.g. by DJP pointing out the non-artist polls that have been run through this thread, etc)

Jordan was otm

2 cents: Don't see why ballot polls shouldn't be run Friday-Friday with the weekend for tabulation and a Mon-Thurs rollout (forced leisurely pace would be excellent, as I too find the quick rollouts sorta sadmaking), and run like 1 per week. Seeing as we have a list of what's coming up for the next approx 100 years, it's not like you wouldn't be able to listen to the ones you want to participate in well in advance if you're the kind of person who needs to really dig deep or the artist has a large catalogue, and I imagine even the most active folks participate in maybe 1/2 the artist polls. Bigger polls w/noms threads could maybe run over the course of a month or so (2 weeks noms, 1 week balloting, mon-thurs rollout) & be coordinated w/the artist polls so no 2 polls share the same due date and rollout schedule... I realize that's probably really idealistic and a lot of scheduling work (poll coordinator gonna have to make a gantt chart) but in theory something a lot more accelerated than what we've got now should be doable, no?

I barged ahead and finally have this running:

Everybody I know can be POLLED here: The Spacemen 3, Spectrum, Spiritualized, and descendants poll thread (ILM Artist Poll Thread #57)

So I'm arbitrarily deciding on the following parameters:

15-minute minimum track length
2-week nomination period

Any strenuous objections?

I feel strongly that I want to vote for live version of Yoo Doo Right and it's 14:sthg

ditto "Achilles Last Stand" ditto ditto 10:23

LL otm.

And since the Who's "A Quick One, While He's Away" was, for all intents and purposes, the first Rock Epic, I'd propose 9:10 as the minimum.

Wouldn't something like "Desolation Row" or "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" predate that?

D'oh, you're right. Both predated the Who song.

A lot of songs I'd want toinclude are in the 10-15 minute range but I'll work with whatever the rules turn out to be. >15 means I'll mostly vote for jazz I guess.

In terms of an actual rock group, probably the Rolling Stones' "Goin' Home" is the first; Freak Out! came out a few months later, but I'm not sure you'd want to count the long songs from that.

Arthur Lee:

"The song 'Revelation' was a long jam we did so the musicians could express themselves. The Rolling Stones saw us play at the Brave New World, and they recorded a long song on their next album. After our album came out, I got the blame for copying them!"

It sounds like everyone would be happier with 10 minutes than 15 -- that's the absolute minimum that I'm willing to go, as I originally wanted to 20.

as somebody who likes a whole lot of really long songs, I'm cool w/that

Many thanks, in addition to voting I'm looking forward to discovering many more super long songs to like.

I suspect half of these will be proper epics and the other half will be endless vamps. I'm totally down with that.

I wasn't gonna participate in the epics poll but just realized it will give me another excuse to advocate for 50 Foot Wave's Power + Light.

How's it gonna go, noms and votes or just votes?

Definitely noms. What's a fair number: 20 per poster? (I really want to work 20 into this poll.)

La musica si muove appena: The ILM ITALO Poll (Results Thread)

67. Emo/Screamo/Mallcore/(post)Hardcore - Mordy
68. Creedence Clearwater Revival - crüt
69. Hard Rock/Hair Metal - how’s life
70. Extreme Metal - Viceroy
71. Stephin Merritt - Gukbe
72. Metallica - Pleasant Plains

What would be the thinking of moving the Metallica poll up a few spots to give some breathing room between it and those generic metal polls?

15 minutes seems too long if you're going to have anything besides prog and jazz. Not being able to vote for Marquee Moon is just wrong.

maybe instead of voting for specific tracks we can just spend three weeks nominating and voting for what set of conditions make an "epic"