This is the fourth year of the increasingly inaccurately named Shmoo Poll (a name I only adopted because everyone else started using it)! Thanks to Z and HaqDiesel for their help this year (and last).

PLEASE READ THE RULES!

I’m trying something different this year. Head on over to http://www.obner.org/poll/ and check out the ballot. Despite the ballot being hosted on obner, you do not need to be a registered member of obner to participate.

We are making use of the Charts function this year, so there will be no write-ins. It will make things easier on you if, before you start to fill in your ballot, you head to the Charts and check to make sure all 20 of your albums are already listed. If not, add them, but make sure you're not duplicating existing albums and certainly not misspelling anything! Note that The Go! Team and Annie albums are both 2004 albums. Be particularly careful with "The" bands as some are listed under T ("The New Pornographers") and some aren't ("Constantines").

Another suggestion- don’t vote until you’re confident in your rankings. You have until January 15, there’s no reason to vote today. Looking at you, frostingspoon.

Here's how the voting works:

Everybody ranks their top 20 (or less) albums of the year and submits them on the above website. I conduct the point scale as follows:

Ranked 1-5: 4 points
Ranked 6-10: 3 points
Ranked 11-15: 2 points
Ranked 16-20: 1 point

This way you don't have to decide an exact ranking and there isn't a huge spread of points separating albums at the top from the bottom. Feel free to leave blanks.

So then I rank them and we get an overall top 20 or so. I always end up posting the entire rankings though, because people want to see where their favorite album landed if it’s not in the top 20. We may do a write-up of the top 20 again this year if people want to volunteer to write them.

Please only vote for albums released in 2005. DO NOT SCREW UP HAQ'S CHARTS.

The deadline for this poll is Sunday, January 15th, 2006 and 11pm Eastern Time, so you should have plenty of time.

Only entries submitted via the http://www.obner.org/poll/ site will be accepted. Entries posted in this thread will not be counted (unless also submitted via the site).

If you have any problems with the ballot, it’s probably because you’re computer illiterate. However, feel free to PM HaqDiesel or myself if you still can’t figure it out.

Any questions?

Mod, make with the sticky.

so to get albums not included in the drop down menus we need to add them to the charts first?

This again reeks of more work than I'm willing to do.

you da man.

Yus.

I still think the points system is a little bootleg but I'll play along. Thanks again guys for putting this shee together.

gotcha.

Oh, and do we copy/paste our lists into this thread for discussion or do we need another sticky thread for that?

Last year someone started another thread, I don't recall if it was sticky or not.

Okay, Northern Soul started one.

Voted.

Looks fancy. As soon as my exams are done I'll get right on that.

dumb question, but is there a way you could list all the albums somewhere so I don't have to look through the drop-down each time? I'd like to rank based on looking at a complete list.

Is it possible to view the voting in realtime, like a poll?
Or is it a secret until the big day in January?

Edit: and you didn't leave many options for a positive response to the poll in this thread.

BOOOOOOO

Dag-nabit.

Best one yet, shmoo.
This looks mighty easy for us to execute, leaving figuring out our personal rankings as the most challenging task.
Awesome job.

And I'm for writing some synopses if we do that this year. PM me as we get closer to that happening.
Thanks.

BTW, I just got up and I'm stupid. Where are the charts so I can put Kingsbury Manx and Run the Road on my list?

EDIT: Ok, gotcha

I just added like 6 albums or so.

Is Stars considered 2004? or 2005 because that's when it was released in the states?

i am considering it 2004 because i leave albums in the year when they are originally released. in this day, anyone should be able to get access to any album, no matter where it's released. i seem to be in the minority, though.

...and it won't let me submit, btw. I ranked what I knew / liked.

got yo back, z

It won't let me add in a new album. Or maybe I just don't understand how to add one.

You and fastnbulbous need to get a room....

Did you skip 15 but fill in 16? Because that's what I meant. It should work if you fill in consecutive spots.