GB nominations for builds after GB 39

[parsifal]

With Stephs reconsideration the poll changes to the following

Heavy Hitters (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs) (22) / Korean War (1) (Total 23)
Aces (13) / WW2 Nth of 60 (1) (Total 14)
MTO (13) / Seaplanes/Floatplanes (1) (Total 14)
PTO (13) / Spanish Civil War (2) (Total 15)
WW2 D-day and after war in the west (12) / Cold War (2) (Total 14)
WW2 Night Fighters (7) / WWI (2) (Total 9)
BoB (7) / A/C of the movies (2) (Total 9)
Carrier a/c 46-82 (5) / Between the wars (3) (Total 8)
WW2 Eastern Front (5) / Carrier a/c 39-45 (4) (total 9)

Tie breaker mentions
Between the Wars (2), Eastern Front (3), Commonwealth(2), Night Fighters(2), Jet Fighters of WW2, D-Day, MTO, BoB, Multiple entries for aces,

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Hi guys,

I know, it been a long time for me to be off line, this modelers block can be so irritating and has no rhyme or reason for striking, but it does. However, I have been sitting on the peripheral and keeping my eye on you chaps and been keeping in with your finished builds, not to mention still doing a spot of my own modelling as and when the mood strikes and whenever that was, I was trying to catch up on some of the GB's I missed. Thank you also to Michael for taking up the reins of organizing the next GB list, one wonders if it will go out another five years like this last one which I for one never expected.

I was also reading the dilemma post in GB35 about GB participation or lack off, and it got me wondering if there could be a better way of approaching the next group builds listing. I appreciate that you have already got a short list of sorts Michael, but my thoughts went to the possibility of opening and simplifying each build theme, giving it a wider scope and setting on a sort of repetitive theme over a number of builds and mainly focused around WWII. Ideas such as:

1 Allied aircraft of WWII.
2 Axis aircraft of WWII.
3 WWII Lend Lease aircraft in Allies operation.
4 WWII aircraft of the Axis allies.
5 WWII aircraft in pre or post war operations.
6 Free and Easy Build, must be military and have flown.

With GB having such a wide scope as this, everybody who wants to get involved will have a lot to choose from. They have the whole of the six-year conflict and in whatever theatre they choose, single or multi engine aircraft, land or floating. The only criteria we would need to be established is that the build has to be a subject from history and fully authenticated not only in its introduction summery but in the presentation of the finished build. The reason for the 6th "Free and Easy Build" is so that those who want to branch out from time to time, have the opportunity to do so, but for the more ardent Spitfire, Beaufort, Bf-109 or Fw-190 builders, you can still play to your hearts content.

Also, with this form of listing, it could be use as a base for specific builds and if desired, refined for example:

1 Allied aircraft of WWII – Battle of Britain.
2 Axis aircraft of WWII – Eastern Front
3 WWII Lend Lease aircraft in Allies operation – Italian Campaign.
4 WWII aircraft of the Axis allies – Pacific War.

One more thing, I don't feel there is a need to worry to much over the repetition of builds as most of you guys out there are keen fans of the WWII period, so if you have Allied or Axis builds almost running back to back, what the heck, your still building good models and having fun.

Okay folks, I've said my piece and look forward to the shouts and screams and what f*** this all about comments. Go to your hearts content and have fun.

 

[parsifal]

It would be great if you came back as a regular vic. We miss you mate.

what do people think of vics suggestion? My $0.02 worth is that there are arguments in favour and against a more general themed structure, but I think this general approach overall is actually more narrow in choice of subjects. Its the tyranny of the majority. We absolutely need our staples and that's what most people will always select. However I also believe there are people out there that want a specialized or unique subject choice. I believe that if we restrict it to the "mainstream" only, so to speak, we face an ever decreasing participation as people wander off to do their own thing so to speak. I believe this method of nomination I am using retains our roots whilst also opening the build choices to other areas that are perhaps less often travelled, for those who are into that sought of thing.

Interested to hear how people are feeling about this.

 

[fubar57]

Welcome back Vic. As Michael said, your input and knowledge are greatly missed. I understand what you are going through with the modelling blockage: I'm in a small one right now though its mostly self inflicted. Probably 95% of my stash is WWII and that's where I feel the most comfortable. I have a hard enough time figuring the differences between a Mk.II and a Mk.V Spitfire without having to learn the different communication arrays between an F-16A and F-16C

 

[Wayne Little]

A bit late coming to the Party..... but my choices would be....

1. Aircraft of the Aces which could be separated to Allied and Axis maybe ?
2. Favourite WW2 Aircraft Got a good response first time around....
3. Pacific Theatre
4. Eastern Front
5. Night Fighters

I could make this list much longer....

 

[parsifal]

With Wayne's nominations included, the poll now looks as follows;

Heavy Hitters (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs) (22) / Korean War (1) (Total 23)
Aces (18) / WW2 Nth of 60 (1) (Total 19)
PTO (16) / Seaplanes/Floatplanes (1) (Total 17)
MTO (13) / Spanish Civil War (2) (Total 15)
WW2 D-day and after war in the west (12) / Cold War (2) (Total 14)
BoB (12) / WWI (2) (Total 14)
WW2 Night Fighters (8) / A/C of the movies (2) (Total 10)
WW2 Eastern Front (7) / Between the wars (3) (Total 10)
Carrier a/c 46-82 (5) / Favourite a/c of WWII (4)(total 9)
Carrier a/c 39-45 (4)/ **********


Tie breaker mentions
Between the Wars (2), Eastern Front (3), Commonwealth(2), Night Fighters(2), Jet Fighters of WW2, D-Day, MTO, BoB, Multiple entries for aces(2),

 

[JKim]

I propose that we drop the the dual themes for any WW2-based GB, since those will most likely have good participation.

 

[Crimea_River]

Great to hear from you Vic! Don't be so rare as we miss you around here.

Regarding Vic's suggestion, I think that making the subjects more general would not be necessary. As you can see, we have some very popular specific subjects shaping up and, not surprisingly, many are repeats of popular subjects from before. I think that the issue that we ran into before was that there were too many subjects scheduled over too long a period and the least popular ones got pushed to the back end of the period. Couple that with a changing community and we will get these dry spells.

I think that we should continue with the current polling method of picking popular subjects and make the GB schedule no more than 2 years long, i.e. about 8 subjects, and refresh the poll after the 7th GB closes.

I'm also not keen on split builds.

 

[T Bolt]

I think John has a good idea there. Drop the split builds from the WWII GBs and keep them for the builds outside the WWII era. Given a choice between a WWII subject and something else I will probably go with The WWII one, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to do something different for a change, and doing more than one entry in a GB lately had only contributed more partially finished kits laying around and I have more than enough of them.

 

[T Bolt]

I know I've already put in my picks but it just dawned on me that we have never done anything to cover the China-Burma-India Theater of War. Maybe we could include that if only at part of a split build

 

[parsifal]

If we drop the split builds from WWII principal build subjects, and limit the final cut to a two year program 98 builds) there will be no split builds, The final build schedule on that basis would be


Heavy Hitters (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs) (22)
Aces (18) )
PTO (16)
MTO (13)
WW2 D-day and after war in the west (12)
BoB (12)
WW2 Night Fighters (8)
WW2 Eastern Front (7)

Given the popularity of the first two subjects, there is justification to drop the last two nominations and replace them with repeats of the first two. On that basis the build sheet would look something like this


Heavy Hitters (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs) (22)
Aces (18)
PTO (16)
MTO (13)
WW2 D-day and after war in the west (12)
BoB (12)
Heavy Hitters II (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs)
Aces II

A lot of votes will have been ignored and a LOT of alternative subjects dropped. There would be no split builds however.

Is that how people want to progress. If so, there aint much point in continuing with the nomination process, since there is zero chance of any of the other nominations getting into the final cut. Ther just are not enough people who have not yet nominated to change this mix very much.

Might be that I get to build a lot of ships over the next two years.......

 

[JKim]

I'm not opposed to split themes if the topics are not popular. I think the topics that have polled over 10 votes each will be popular enough to stand alone. However, we could consider the last two slots as less popular and therefore possible split themes.

Something like this...

Heavy Hitters (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs) (22)
Aces (18) )
PTO (16)
MTO (13)
WW2 D-day and after war in the west (12)
BoB (12)
WW2 Night Fighters (8)/Carrier AC 46-82 (5)
WW2 Eastern Front (7)/Favorite AC of WW2 (4)

 

[parsifal]

Well that is better from my perspective. That would justify a continuation of the nominations, but only from the perspective that secondary builds and/or the last two primary builds, which have an outside chance of changing. the chances of that are pretty long.

I would love to hear the opinions of the GB doyens including Wotjek on this issue.

 

[parsifal]

To try and understand the forces underpinning this debate, we need to understand some theory here. This is essentially a debate about "First past the Post Voting" versus "proportional representation voting" Iam advocating a proportional representation system, but that doesn't make the FPTP systems invalid, just different.

For a comparison of the two systems I would suggest the following links:

Advantages of PR systems —

Advantages and disadvantages of FPTP system —

 

[Crimea_River]

.....Given the popularity of the first two subjects, there is justification to drop the last two nominations and replace them with repeats of the first two. ......

I don't agree with that.

I could live with John's suggestion. What do others think of a 2 year cycle?

 

[Donivanp]

Well let me throw my two cents worth in,
1) Twins, any twin engined aircraft (no time req)
2) I like heavy hitters.
3) Jets 1940-1950 first gen jets.
4) I like Aces like Fubar.
5) and I like the carrier 46-86

 

[Crimea_River]

Fubar is an Ace?

 

[Donivanp]

Well Duhhh!

 

[parsifal]

With Donivamps vote included, the nominations under a Preferential voting system (PVS) is as follows:
Heavy Hitters (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs) (26) / Korean War (1) (Total 27)
Aces (20) / WW2 Nth of 60 (1) (Total 21)
MTO(13) / Cold War(2) (Total 15)
WW2 D-day and after war in the west (12) / Spanish Civil War (2) (Total 14)
BoB (12) / WWI (2) (Total 14)
WW2 Night Fighters (8) / First Gen Jets (1940-50) (3) (Total 11)
WW2 Eastern Front (7) / Between the wars (3) (Total 10)
Carrier a/c 46-82 (6) / Favourite a/c of WWII (4) (Total 10)
Twin Engine A/c (no time limit) (4) / Carrier a/c 39-45 (4) (Total 8)


With a First past the post (FPTP) system Donnie needn't have voted. The shortlist would be

Heavy Hitters (Bmbr a/c, no ftrs) (26)
Aces (20)
MTO(13)
WW2 D-day and after war in the west (12)
BoB (12)
WW2 Night Fighters (8)
WW2 Eastern Front (7)
Carrier a/c 46-82 (6)

((note we can add the fillers alternatives later)

 

[parsifal]

I instituted this poll on the basis that our group are facing some serious problems in the longer term. These relate mostly to a falling participation rate. People are deserting the GB system. The question is why. The most pronounced issue that has arisen in the current round of GBs seems to me to be a lack of interest in the later less popular GBs, and conversely, a lack of variety in the subjects so as to attract "new blood" or entice "old hands" back as it were. These two demands appear to compete and conflict with each other.

The current poll reinforces that theory in spades.

We have a situation where the top nomination is polling 26 "votes" whilst the bottom selection is just 6 "votes". You don't need to be a Rhodes scholar to work out that by the time we get to the end of this two year cycle, our build program will have well and truly run out of puff.

It gets worse. Perhaps without realising it, the voting system we are now tending to advocate is a known suppressor of minorities….unless you run with the main stream, your interests will not be represented. Unless we accommodate those minorities I am firmly of the opinion that our group will continue to wander away to do other things. Your build choices might reflect what the majority want to do, but in case you haven't noticed, that majority is shrinking with virtually every build. In my opinion we have to come up with a system that appeals to those fringe dwellers where I am hoping potential participants are lurking. If Im wrong we die anyway, if Im right we might be able to reinvigorate the competition. I frankly don't see the problem with a split build system. Those of you who only want to build the same old same old can happily keep doing that. I will be doing that on some builds. If Im right and there are peripheral fringe dwellers out there we might attract them with a greater amount of choice.

The only other way I can see is to have a much more generic list of titles, much as Vic suggests. In which case this nomination process is not needed. The problem with Vics suggestion is that it means the competition will need to become so general as to lack structure and purpose. I don't know about you, but I prefer a structured, ordered regime.

The bottom line I think is this….we need to change, or our completion will wither. The numbers show that I believe, and its corroborated by the experiences since about GB32 (the current GB seems to be the exception) .