It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The Legends Committee is proud to kick off the new induction cycle with a revamped community nominee system.
Designed by Mare
It is an honor to be back for my second year as one of the Legends Committee heads alongside Iceyfeet1234 and Orange. Before we move into the Community Nominee voting for 2024, let us revisit the Legends Town Hall, which was held on March 28 this year.
Legends Town Hall 2024 Recap
Conversation first arrived at perhaps the hottest and most contentious issue among legends: the idea of undoing or revoting on the actions of previous iterations of Legends Committees. This was at the forefront of arguments against the idea of revoting on decisions made by previous committees. It puts an unnecessary target on multiple parties—the legends involved, the committee members, and the original voters themselves. Interestingly enough, this creates a sort of paradox with the previous revotes. Those against revoting were also against the idea of undoing the previous revotes on the same grounds of not wanting to mess with previous results.
Those in favor of revoting argued that it is the committee’s responsibility to ensure that every legend on the page meets the standards of the committee as it stands now. This was especially relevant because of last year’s changes to invite legends to the committee regardless of their activity status in the community. In most CPPS legends boards, the committees tended to include mostly active legends, with a few historical names here and there. At the end of the day, this remained the most divided issue.
It is important to remind everyone that the votes from the town hall do not indicate that something will or will not happen. The votes are simply for the committee heads to gauge how the larger committee feels about various topics.
As shown above, two-thirds of those present voted against the idea of revoting already inducted legends. This is a notion that the committee intends to keep unless there is a shift in opinion. We feel that revoting on previous individuals can damage the reputation of the construct of legends as a whole. Though there are concerns about the circumstances of previous committees, we find our time is better spent focusing on the future to ensure that forthcoming inductions are sound and justifiable. Engaging in previous years’ discussions makes it harder to build credibility for future years.
The other hot-button issue among the legends was the idea of reclassifying legends to different years. There are years where legends were simply labeled under the year they were elected—something that CPPS armies mostly adheres to—and there are years where legends were inducted under the year the committee or community viewed as an individual’s “peak” of their career.
There is also the issue of individuals remaining active after they were inducted and later achieving even higher milestones. A common example brought up is 2018 Legend Xing, who went on to win two Person of the Year awards and numerous other accolades up until his retirement in 2023. While some likened the action of reclassifying years to revoting on previous inductions, others argued that the legends page serves as a historical record, and the information displayed should represent the events of each year clearly.
Ultimately, another two-thirds majority viewed the issue as something the committee can consider doing. However, it is not something that is on the mind of the Committee Heads for the rest of this year.
The rest of the topics resulted in mostly unanimous agreement.
The two topics that are important to highlight here are the first two, both of which pertain to community nominations. We heard the criticism last year of the community nominees feeling pointless, and came into the town hall knowing that we were going to do the community nominee voting before a list from the committee is finalized. This not only helps the community feel more involved, but also gives the committee tangible data to see how the community feels about multiple people at a time. With that, the legends unanimously agreed that the committee should have the ability to add onto the nominee list after the community nominees are decided.
I want to stress that nominees who were supported by the community will be valued accordingly, and nominees that were not will be discussed to see why the community did not show up as much for them. The other topic- Ranked Choice Voting- received unanimous support as well. However, the Committee Heads are not ready to implement the feature at this time. We want to see how this year play outs with Community Nominees and will continue to tweak the system when it is necessary. That segues perfectly into what everyone is actually here for: the Community Nominee Voting!
Community Nominee Voting
This year, we are starting with the community to gather input on who is viewed as worthy of a Legends nomination. Community members can submit a ballot to write in any individuals they believe deserve a nomination. The top three individuals with the most votes will automatically be added to the official list of nominees.
While the remaining candidates submitted will not automatically be included, the Legends Committee will review the vote totals for each individual. This data will help determine whether these individuals should be considered, alongside the usual discussions about their careers.
Voting process
The Community Nominee ballot will be done on Google Forms this year. Though the form requires users to use an email, we will not be able to see what email was used. However, we still recommend that voters use an email that does not contain and is not linked to personal information. We also ask that voters only send in ONE ballot. Once you submitted your vote, you MUST send a Direct Message to one of the Legends Committee Heads to confirm your vote. IF YOU DO NOT DM A COMMITTEE HEAD, YOUR VOTE WILL NOT BE COUNTED. The Committee Heads and their Discord usernames are as follows:
- DMT (dmt7)
- Iceyfeet1234 (iceyfeet1234)
- Orange (iamorang3)
The ballot can be accessed by clicking HERE.
What comes next
The Legends Committee heads have been hard at work over the past few weeks finalizing both the nomination process and this years committee. The community will have until Thursday, December 19th at 11:59 PM EST to submit their ballots. After that, the three community nominees will be finalized and the Legends Committee will compile the rest of the list over the weekend. If all goes according to plan, the full nominee list will be revealed on Monday, December 23rd. During the wait for the results of the Community Nominee vote, the Legends Committee as a whole will meet for the first time and begin early discussions on who they think is worthy of being inducted.