I'm glad that someone is able to take up this responsibility. I think it is important to have an individual by name who can head up a project and be accountable. That said, I also think it would be a good idea to have a small cabal of associates who also have access to voting records, to head off termination and even delay. Were such a cabal to be formed, I hope my name is considered.
Brian, you make a lot of good points; while I disagree on some points, it looks like we are on the same page for most things.
1. Things from the old competition should be cleared up, but if we are going to have two formats this time around (see below), it would be overkill to redo the last competition as well. Certainly it is only fair to allow the games to compete. You might go so far as to guaranteeing a spot on the ballot for those games (this is assuming that there would be a primary to see which games get to compete--after this long, there may be too many games for everyone to get on the ballot).
2. While I agree that the Wiki is an invaluable tool for the community and it would convenient to use it for the competition, I think it is important to make sure that game submission and voting can both be done without membership to the Wiki. I am assuming that we will get mentions on
Looneylabs.com and
Wunderland.com, so no doubt there will be a good number of potential voters who want to participate, but not enough to sign up for something. There should be an email option as well for anything that requires membership to the Wiki.
3. Once or twice a year is, in my opinion, more preferable than quarterly. I don't think every game made in the time frame should even be allowed on the ballot, necessarily. The Icehouse Null Game was in the first competition--how? Fewer competitions a year will increase the average quality of the games.
4. I strongly disagree with adding prize support to the competition. The traditional "prize" of having your game recognized on likely printed is good enough. A Crystal Caste set would be enough motivation to get someone to cheat, and even a set of ZPIPs or a fancy piecenik set add something to the game that I'm not sure is proper. If it were a Looney-supported prize--say, off-coloured pyramids or some cash--I may feel different, because then it could be more in the line of reimbursement for printing rights.
5. I very much like the idea of a dual-format. This is in line with what I was suggesting earlier about having a Treehouse-centric ballot and a separate open ballot. This time the themed format would be Treehouse, and next time it could be Volcano caps, or tarot cards, or whatever. For all the reasons you mentioned, especially fostering creativity in games, I think it is a fantastic idea.
James