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themaninblack

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Posts posted by themaninblack

  8. Posted

    IMPORTANT(ish) NOTICE:

     

    Next year, the site will have a bit of a face lift. Make things a bit more readable for a start. The pictures & archive issue is being tackled as it's all a bit of a mess.

     

    So, I shall be temporarily removing celeb pictures form the site. They wont be abolished as I haven't come up with a way of removing the link when generating new pages. So it will the same as before in 2017 in terms of the celebs involved having their own pictures (including the new ones).

     

    However when it comes to the archives (2004-2016 inclusive) there will be changes in the manner of the 2003 archive (pictures of celebs on the "Who Died" section - no pictures of non-dying celebs in the main celeb pages). So, I'm shipping them all out...but they'll be back in another format.

     

    2017 will have new, more integrated look (the tricky bit is working out the CSS for the generated pages which I inherited to match what I've created for the index, theme team & drop forty pages as they're a bit of a bastard to work out!).

     

    Seeing as the archive update will cover 13 years, this will take a bit of time and will be rolled out through 2017...

     

    Some other bits and pieces: As part of the simpler, cleaner feel of the new pages, the schema for names (and possibly places of birth too) is being simplified - no accents, umlauts or other faggly bits. Don't worry when sending teams if they have those things - as part of the process of entry I have an online function which converts to "normal" characters. I'm trying to apply some consistency. I may even just have birthplace to City/Country or County (State)/Country etc, rather than some of the more baroque birthplaces I've had to enter over the years...

     

    As you were...

     

    • Like 3

  17. Posted

     

    So basically no changes then. Looks like we will all be picking a bunch more nobodies and cancer mums so long as death awaits them. It's kinda sad you let the list of sources dictate 'fame' instead of common sense. And if there is no element of fame involved, why are we doing this? My team will start off with whatever is left from Shameless and build from there.

    SC

     

     

    I am looking forward to the kick off, although I am disappointed that we are still allowing non-celebrities to be (qualifying) picks.

     

    I WAS hoping that we would only attribute points to those who get an obits from authorised sources ***AND*** which describe the “celebrity” of the stiff in the first (say) 30 words of the article.

     

    For example – the following are from qualifying obits from this current game –

     

    · “Italian beauty queen who became a 1950s screen goddess”.

    · “The character actor was best known for playing . . . . “

    · “ the talented Cuban trumpeter”

     

    These suggest to the casual reader that, in life, the person had some discernible “celebrity” attributes.

     

    HOWEVER, the following from officially scoring obits do seem to lack the celebrity status required (IMHO) for a celebrity dead pool

     

    · “Brave mum-of-three”

    · “a Nevada woman “

    · “Pakistani student”

     

     

    There are millions of Brave mums of three, thousands of Nevada women and thousands of Pakistani students, however, in today’s society that does not make them celebrities, whereas – I contend - being a Beauty queen, a character actor and even a Cuban trumpeter does.

     

    I know it can be difficult to determine “celebrity” (is a rubik’s cube champion or the world bog-snorkling champion a celebrity???) but I think a bit of common sense should prevail. We all know what 'celebrity' is. It's like pornography - I can't provide a definition of what it is but I know it when I see it.

     

    I think that allowing picks who are famous for dying (and not for their celebrity whilst still alive) has significantly weakened the game.

     

    That said, bring it on.

     

     

    To be frank, this is an issue I've prodded around without coming to a satisfying conclusion. I received an email from another prospective competitor just prior to opening the nominations which covers much the same ground: What is classed as a "celebrity" and indeed what is classed as a "theme" team. In broad terms, I would regard a theme team as one which narrows the options somewhat.

     

    When it comes to celebrity, it becomes an administrative quagmire if you set out to enforce restrictions. For instance at what point and by what particular criteria do you judge who goes in and out? There's likely to be around 450-500 teams of 20 "celebs" each, so potentially I (or whoever succeeds me as host) will have to go through each team and judge they are excluded based on certain conditions. The UK obit rule is the key factor in whether a hit gets points or not and is therefore the most reliable indicator we have, but of course you cannot foresee whether there will be a UK obit for nominated persons and base your decision on exclusions on that. And as we know, Shamless for example only got 5 scoring hits, enough to almost certainly win the TTL but most of the "hits" of his didn't get the points. But of course Shameless was on the start line to begin with...

     

    Which is why I decided at an alteration to the scoring (albeit minor) to encourage more "mainstream" picks and try to off-set the impact of the "cancer mums" phenomenon somewhat. I had originally came up with a much radical alteration to the scoring back in the summer but in the end practical considerations meant that it boiled down to a rather cautious addition...

     

    One option is to separate the two pools and that could potentially open the option of making changes to the points schema for both. However, there is the overlapping issue of the same celebs being included in two leagues. But the pro-TTL faction would complain that it would leave them put of the main pool and thus from gauging their performance against the main set of teams (Shameless sits in joint 38th position for example).

     

    And of course we must consider that there are those that are strongly against any restrictions to entry, the "Anything goes" faction...

  18. Posted

    love the new rule change about the Drop 40- it has saved Zsa Zsa from the axe, and perhaps might help us all move away from cancer bloggers?

     

    However can I just be a bit pedantic here.

     

    To win points, there must be the mention of a celebrity's death on a national online news source:

    BBC*:

     

    And from the UK versions of the following:

     

    ...and from these news sites:

     

     

     

     

    It sounds like a death must be mentioned on the BBC AND in newspaper AND on a news site. So each death needs 3 qualifying mentions for it to count.

     

     

    Should it be OR instead of AND, or is this indeed a change, which would basically eliminate all but well known celebs and high achievers from the competition?

    Of course it should be or.

     

    EDIT: It is or, but the email I sent was a somewhat hurried cut 'n paste job from last year's email, so forgot to replace the ands with ors, but it's there in the Rules & Scoring page. So carry on...

  25. Posted

     

    Whilst doing some background database updating in readiness for next year, I went all Wisden and compiled a list of teams with the best hit rate (i.e. most hits per year of competing). Here's the top 50 1996-2015:

     

     

    9.50 The Living End

    9.00 Meet Your Maker

    8.83 David Quantick's Showbiz Pals

    8.67 New Years And Drinks All Night!

    7.88 The Misers

    7.80 Golden Slumbers

    7.67 Poochie Died On The Way Back To His Home Planet

    7.67 Canadian Paul

    7.55 Octopus of Odstock

    7.33 Deceased Hose

    7.33 Already Dead

    7.17 Star Dust

    7.17 Impaled On The Antlers Of Doom

    7.14 We Spin Terror

    7.13 Ethnic Cleansing

    7.00 STAB in the DARK

    6.89 The Waiting List

    6.78 Wormer, He's A Dead Man! Niedermier Dead! Marmalard Dead!

    6.43 The Beatles Are Dying In The Wrong Order

    6.11 Carkers Convention 2016

    6.10 Dead Ends

    6.08 Deathlist.net

    6.00 They're Dead, Y'Know!

    5.91 Eejit

    5.90 Madonna's Hand of Bod

    5.88 I'm Sorry For Your Trouble

    5.88 Shovelful Of Dirt

    5.80 Windsor The Troll

    5.70 This Mortal Coil

    5.67 Inquilinekea/Simfish

    5.64 The Newstreet Boys Death Squad

    5.50 Going Underground

    5.45 Grobler's Stiff Ones

    5.44 Stiff & the Tears

    5.22 Lord Football's Usual List of Ill People

    5.13 JoeRam

    5.10 Eternity Tours

    5.00 Crazycarl

    4.91 Puzlman's Passing Picks

    4.90 Brown Bread

    4.89 The End of the World As We Know It

    4.70 Noah Reason And The Youth In Asia

    4.65 Drunkasaskunk

    4.60 The Conqueror Worm

    4.35 Mr C

    4.20 It's Grim Up North

    4.09 Bazzilliant

    3.90 Going Green

    3.37 Jesus Jones

     

    No doubt there'll be some changes once 2016 has finished...

     

    Shouldn't I be here with 4,6 hits per year? After the year my hit rate per year will be at least 5,67.

     

     

    Aye, but have you got enough points? This list of the 50 is those with the most accumulated points which are then subsequently marked by hit average. Incidentally the "least" experienced in that 50 is Golden Slumbers with 5 years, compared with the most of Jesus Jones with 18...

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