I’m going to be blunt and say I think that’s a really stupid rule that will add way too many complications. It’s just a deathpool, not a national budget.
No. As someone mentioned in the 2009 thread, Ariel Sharon has been terminally ill for about three years now and he ain’t dead yet. Also, what’s the point of picking the young and healthy? The point of the game, as it were, is to score points, not just make lists.
This I agree with. I’m all for reinstating the “no people who are only famous for being sick” and the “death must be reported by a major news source” rules. Major news source doesn’t have to be limited to just CNN or BBC, but a worldwide newspaper/website or Google News. I personally have a Google News alert set for Lillian Jackson Braun, my perennial top o’ the list, because while she’s a famous writer, she’s not at the level of celebrity where her death will make headlines.
I suppose there are two possible objections here: her illness, and her status as a relative of the true celebrity.
I would allow her. She was famous before her illness, plus any spouse of a candidate for high office is effectively part of the ticket and becomes a true celebrity.
The only rule I think needs some tweaking, is the “how famous are they” thing.
**Rachm Qoch’s **entry of that cult leader and then every last member of his family just seems to go against the spirit of the game. It’s not like any of those other people are famous for anything other than being related to the cult leader, who is only famous for being a criminal, essentially.
We’re supposed to be running a macabre little game in which we vulture over the nearly-dead or speculate upon which would be the most shocking demise.
To post something like that just to score points seems … I don’t know … un-fun, or something.
As I said in the other thread - I’m inclined against the idea of making an exception about terminal disease reports. Even with something like pancreatic cancer, individual variations with even a hugely deadly condition will still leave some people beating the odds.
I’m also against qualifying celebrity. For one thing, it would kill off the possibility of local celebrities - something that’s getting more rare in this day and age, but still happens. More to the point, there are still a lot of niche groups that will have their own celebrities that may or may not be widely recognized.
Yeah!
Says the person who suddenly saw five more people jump onto the Shirley Temple Bandwagon after I posted her name.
To expand on this a little, I think the cult leader himself is definitely a valid pick. The extended members of his family, who on a cursory Google search do not appear in any news reports, are much more dubious.
She is fair game. She has breast cancer and they are doing a lot with it bnowadays. She has money so she gets very good care(the American Way).
I wonder how you determine celebrities from other countries like Iceland. The Worm could give us 10 names from an Icelandic cancer ward and we would not know better.
I decided to limit my definition of “celebrity” to people who have a Wikipedia entry. This is the reason I dropped Gulistan Dugan this year.
As background, the “nobody on death row” rule started because I thought of a way to game the system: find a bunch of people who were due to be executed in some place like China or Iran or Texas and make a list of their names. As a bonus, people who are executed are often young so you’d make a lot of points. So I added this rule to prevent such a plan.
The underage rule started when a player picked the five-year-old son of a celebrity who had a terminal illness. I thought that betting on a child’s death was too tastless even for this game so I created an age restriction.
The rule prohibiting anybody on the board was created for similar reasons. Somebody did pick another board member (who was in fact a minor celebrity). But I thought “What happens if he actually dies? While everyone is mourning the death of a fellow doper is somebody going to claim the points?” Again, too tasteless so I changed the rules.
I like the idea of giving the first person to pick a person an extra point. I think it encourages people to find new people rather than just follow the crowd. Plus it’s a good way to break ties. I had considered making such a rule back when I ran the game but quit before doing so. (I also considered adding an additonal category where people could guess a celebrity marriage that would end in divorce in the upcoming year with a point for every year the marriage had lasted.)
But being as I no longer run the game, I have no say in what the current rules are. If amarone is willing to do the work, he gets to make the rules.
As I said upthread, I don’t like this idea of someone getting extra points just because of “Firsties.”
I think the “Unique Pick” award would encourage enough people to not follow the crowd. I got a Unique Pick this year with Jim McCay, and I think I have a Unique Pick in Art Donovan (although I’m not positive that no one else has picked him; and by that same token, is he considered enough of a celebrity?).
Some people like to wait till the last minute to submit their picks. I don’t see any reason to reward those who are sitting by the computers when amarone posts the thread.
As far as the “only famous for being ill” rule proposal. Where do you draw the line?
Take Jane Tomlinson for instance. One could argue she was only famous because she had cancer. On the other hand one could argue she was famous for her books, her charity work and her athletic feats such as riding her bike across the US. It would necessitate lots more rulings from amarone and is that what we want?
As for a fame requirement, I think it’s overdue. There were a couple people picked this year who are no more famous than I am. If we had a list of acceptable cites it would add some challenge to the picking process as you would have to ask yourself “will this person’s death be newsworthy” before you make the pick. It also would kill any carping about person x not being famous enough.
I understand the concern that if we had just two cites (CNN, BBC) it would give an edge to American and British dopers, but when you look at it more closely, I don’t think so.
Just looking at today’s news for instance I found this story about a cricket match between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on CNN. Believe me, nothing could be less interesting to the American public than this. But CNN involves a big global operation that services the whole world and includes sites like CNN International.
But what the hey, we could expand the list.
I don’t know what it means to say we could use any site linked to Google news. I don’t know what Google news looks at. Google news is always changing it’s links as well.
I also wouldn’t want any local sites such as city newspapers and such.
As for people who are terminally ill, I think a rule in this regard would be a mess. Celebrities often keep their illnesses secret. Take Paul Newman, for instance. He kept his cancer a secret as long as he could and even when the news broke he said he was doing well. Other people are rumored to be ill, but don’t confirm it. Furthermore, who is to say what “terminal” is? Is Seve Ballasteros terminally ill? Is Steve Jobs? And what of people who are fine today and then get the mega-plague tomorrow? Do they count? Are we going to make amarone go back to see if the announcement of the illness was made before Dec. 31?
The “no political prisoners” rule is too vague. It was intended to prevent people from picking hostages taken in Iraq who were being executed on a regular basis. I think the rule should simply be that you can’t pick someone who is being held hostage.
If someone is famous for anything else beside their illness, then fine. In fact, judgment calls could be made in the case of someone like Ryan White, who became famous because of his diagnosis and activism, years before his actual death.
Not giving points for someone who is known to be gravely ill is stupid. Picking low-hanging fruit has always been a part of this game- just because I didn’t pick someone who’s death seems imminent doesn’t mean that no one should.
Why try to legislate everything? If there is an instance of a questionable “celeb,” then address it as it comes up. Sheesh…
I think the looseness of the rules we have now is about right for the game as we play it.
Based on the care and thought invested in many of these proposals, I would support more than one member here if they were nominated to the Supreme Court :), but I’d rather not have to deal with matters of such complexity in service of playing a trivial game.
Sometimes the major news sources are too restrictive for our purposes. For instance there have been many science fiction authors whose deaths were not widely reported. These are authors that have a very large following, some are award winning and are cettainly famous to a large group of people. For instance I don’t remember seeing Robert Asprin’s death reported on CNN. I would argue that he was certainly famous. FTR no one on my list falls into this category so I have no reason to push it.
Sure it annoys me that RQ wins every year with a list of people I have never heard of. I don’t view the Premier of East Bumfuqistan as a celebrity but he would be famous in some parts of the world. Other than excluding those known only for their illness I see no other rule changes. I would not be against the right to challenge any picks with Amerone as the arbiter.
I propose a new category: Missed it by that much. The winner is the person who has the most unused alternates kick it during the year.
