The Lists Project

[Rayon Vert]

Jeez, I was looking forward to eventually circle back to the 1930s again - now looks iffy that I'll make it (or with faculties intact)!!

Carry on, though.

[swo17]

Haha, remaining lifespans are certainly a valid concern!

Another wild thought if people are open to this tremendous slowdown: You'll notice that 16 months per decade would give us another 7 whole months for the 1960s, which we could potentially spend doing a really long Round 2 where we try out these year-by-year mini-lists starting with 1960, just like people were clamoring for from the start. Then after we go through each year and reach the final deadline, I could perhaps post results that show how things changed between Round 1 and Round 2

[domino harvey]

This discussion has turned me into the lady doing math GIF meme

[swo17]

Honestly dom, it's your birthday, your call

[domino harvey]

I think only one year, 1960 (or 1970 if you don’t want to deal with it yet), should be done as a trial list to fully gauge interest before any long term plans are made

[Pavel]

Maybe we extend round 2 and spend a month of it doing 1960 before we decide whether to do that for all years (and whether to do it for the 70s as well)

[swo17]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too

[Rayon Vert]

If that gets decided, let us know the dates soon enough so I have time to order a few discs!

[swo17]

My thought is that 1960 runs through the end of February and the Round 2 deadline gets pushed back until at least the end of March, if not longer depending on how 1960 goes

[Rayon Vert]

OK, thanks. I'll just wait a for clear signal the mini-list is official before making purchases.

[domino harvey]

I just took a tally and I have seen 115 films from 1960 and I have ~85 unwatched films from the year ready to queue up

[Rayon Vert]

I only count five 1960 films on my own list (though they are all in my top 12) so it'd be a nice excuse to delve deeper and give credit to the many I had to cut.

I just counted and I've got 10, and I know one of yours isn't one of mine as much as I like the film!

[TMDaines]

Can we extend this list by another ten years? I think I could watch the 60s until the end of time.

Agreed. I hereby petition swo to run ten full lists, one for each year of the 60s

Thirded.

I don't think I ever have been so influential in my entire life. It was just a throwaway comment! When a butterfly flaps its wings...

Jeez, I was looking forward to eventually circle back to the 1930s again - now looks iffy that I'll make it (or with faculties intact)!!

Carry on, though.

Yes, these lists act as big chapter marks in life. It is scary how much my life has changed since I last did the 60s, and I don't like to think about how many cycles I potentially have left in life!

[TMDaines]

Also, wouldn't it get confusing to have all these deadlines at regular random dates (Apr 17, May 8, May 29, Jun 19, Jul 10, etc.) as opposed to just always on the last day of the month? I don't mind letting the timing breathe a little (or a lot) so that people don't feel rushed contributing to genre/auteur projects as well and/or having a life. What's the rush really to move right along to the next time period? One thing that could be worth targeting is getting to the next all-time list at a clean cut-off point. So for instance, if we gave each decade 16 months, it would look something like this:

05/21 - 08/22 1960s
09/22 - 12/23 1970s
01/24 - 04/25 1980s
05/25 - 08/26 1990s
09/26 - 12/27 2000s
01/28 - 04/29 2010s
05/29 - 08/30 2020s

Of course, we could also just pick an ideal duration, apply that to each decade, and then when we get to the current decade, we can simply pro-rate all the points and everything based on multiples of 5 and 1 for each year included (i.e. if the current decade covers the 8 years of 2020-2027, everyone would submit a top 40 and a film would need to place on two top 8s to be eligible for the all-time list)

Seems a tad long, in my opinion. I like a good chunk of time for the decades, but do like to cycle through them. It doesn't really matter how long these decades are, we all end up with a pile of unwatched films and regrets at the end of each submission period.

[therewillbeblus]

I'm in the same boat. Ten months-one year feels like enough per decade. Even if a film winds up orphaned, sometimes posters signaling "orphans" they are passionate about in their posted lists helps me prioritize those films to seek out later* vs. titles not bolded/colored that are more popular... so some of the proposed procedures that would 'save' orphans might actually take some films out of the limelight down the line

(*once I circle back after some time and space; I'm personally not as likely to binge orphans to rescue when I'm already getting burnt out on the decade at the end of these list projects, and a longer timeline isn't going to minimize that effect!)

[swo17]

Noted. Yeah, forcing it so this round ends close to the end of the decade is not necessarily what's best for actual discussion and participation. 16 months would feel long to me too, unless there was a general consensus that a) going year by year is a great idea and b) one month is just not enough time for each year, whereas something more like six weeks is the sweet spot. It could even be something that varies by year, where we start with a month and then allow for a two-week extension only if a certain number of people request it. Either way though, I do think this is a promising suggestion to help better justify a longer project length in general. The nine months that we've been using is already an arbitrarily long time, and I think this will help us hone in on how much time is really best for each decade

[swo17]

Let's collectively decide in another month if we want to follow up the 1960 list with a 1961 list and so forth (each tentatively lasting only a month). That will give people like Rayon Vert adequate time to stock up on a watch pile

[Toland's Mitchell]

If we end up going through every year of the 60s, will the larger decade project go on with it, or be cut off at some point? I just hope a month-long 1960 mini list doesn't sway the decade list to slightly favoring that year. Doing all ten years would be fair, but would also extend the 60s project until nearly 2023.

[swo17]

If 1960 goes well I'd like to follow it with the other nine years. Which, yes, at one month each would take us out to at least the end of the year. I'll put this to a majority vote from among all list contributors in another month

[swo17]

I think I've found a site for doing lists that I like a lot better than Google Forms. There are two different formats that could work, drag & drop or dropdowns. Could a bunch of you try these out and give feedback on your format preference? I'd also like to get a feel for how to work with the output, so feel free to complete the surveys. No need to put a bunch of thought into your selections--this is only for test purposes. (Note: Neither option will let me constrain the rankings to both at least 10 and no more than 25, but the important thing is that you can vote for 10-25. If you vote for more, I can just disregard the excess votes.)

[DarkImbecile]

Having tried both, the dropdowns worked better for me because dragging from the lower reaches of a long alphabetical list back up to drop into the list being populated is more cumbersome; the dropdowns would also be a little easier to use if the dropdown menu was limited to only 25 possible slots rather than 139

[domino harvey]

Dropdowns were way easier on mobile for sure

[swo17]

I can't limit the dropdowns to only 25, unfortunately. And yes, having to drag over from the bottom of the list of eligible titles to the sorting area is the biggest inconvenience of the drag & drop option, though once you have the titles there, it's nice to be able to actually see your list and move positions around if desired

[DarkImbecile]

Dropdowns were way easier on mobile for sure

I should have specified before, but I was doing it on a laptop

[swo17]

It looks like both of you also completed surveys under both formats. Thanks for doing that. The output is laid out the same either way, so neither is preferable from a tabulation perspective. If there are any other suggestions about how this is all laid out, please let me know. I've done a lot of research into existing websites that could work for this, and even though this isn't a perfect solution, it's insane how much this one lets you do with a free account. They even have free 24/7 technical support, which I already used to confirm that I can't make improvements in the areas I've mentioned