Amarone, I thought of a way to enforce the new rule about not being famous for dying. When submitting names for the new pool, if there’s any chance that a celeb is obscure, require a brief statement of why they’re a celeb. For example
would suffice. You could then require the same clear text name as before for the submission mechanism.
Everyone picks Fidel Castro, so he’s an example of a no-brainer celebrity that you could give a pass on the statement.
The only new rule I expect is that they must not be famous just for being sick. And I include under that “famous for what they have done because they are sick.” This rules out people who, for example, undertake massive fund-raising efforts for their cancer charity, or fight the NHS, or give inspirational last lectures. If someone was not “famous” before being sick, that will disqualify them.
What I am thinking about is how players can nominate marginal people and get a decision as to whether they are valid. They can PM me, but I am a player too so they may not want to tell me their hot pick (although this year I did notice some of the “famous only for being sick” people and did not copy them as I felt it to be against the spirit of the game, if not the letter of the rules).
I could just allow people to pick the people but make sure they have alternates in the event that their main pick is disqualified. We could then defer any decision until a death, although that perhaps adds a bias to a later decision-making process.
So I am inclined to recommend that people name alternates, then in the first week of the new year request a status on any iffy nominations so that we can clear them up there and then. This still would not prevent a pick from being invalidated later if someone did not offer them up for consideration.
Damn, because I was gonna make a killing picking Stefanie Spielman next year.
I would like to suggest a new rule, to encourage early posting: the first person to post a name gets a bonus proportional to the popularity of the pick. For instance, the first person to post Patrick Swayze would have got a considerable bonus.
Mmm… I see where you’re coming from with that, but I’m not sure I like the idea of rewarding people who just happen to be at their computers more often (or earlier in the day on the day the Death Pool thread is posted, or whatever). I feel ridiculous saying this about a Death Pool game, but it doesn’t feel quite sporting, somehow. 
I believe all rules in the Death Pool, including this one I am proposing, should be illegal.
However, I’d have cleaned up under yours if I’d kept Koko Taylor. 
Some people like to wait till the very end of the month to post their list, so their don’t have to worry about making any substitutions in case one of thier picks dies in December. I don’t like the idea of rewarding people just for getting their list in right away.
Bad idea. Why should someone get more points than me for the same person simply because I swipe the name from their earlier post? The proposed rule discourages… er… recognizing a good thing when you see it.
If I’d named Patrick Swayze first but as an alternate, would the bonus points be awarded to the next person who named him as part of their list, or would the bonus not be awarded to anyone?
If I’d named Patrick Swayze on my December 1 list but swapped him out at 11:30pm on December 31, would the bonus go to the first person who named him and kept him on their list, or again would they go unawarded?
FWIW, I don’t like this proposed rule. I like the current formula for awarding points. I think people will rush in early lists so they can be the first to name their celebs and then make multiple revisions so that they can try for the early bird bonus on as many people as possible before submitting their final list at the end of the month.
The CNN/BBC/[whatever other particular source] thing seems to limiting. It’s going to rule out all sorts of people famous to certain groups, but that the general public just isn’t interested in.
Andrew “Test” Martin might not have been mentioned by CNN when he died, but he was certainly known to people who watch wrestling. Did any major news outlet even mention Captain Lou’s passing? That’s not rhetorical, I really don’t know. If he didn’t, with his work with Cindi Lauper and as Super Mario, then what wrestler would, short of a media whore like Hulk Hogan’s become, or a bizarre circumstance like the Benoit murder/suicide? Yet these are very famous people known to millions of people around the world. And sadly, they’re probably pretty good picks.
If a comic writer or artist like John Byrne, Jim Lee, or Peter David dies, is BBC going to say jack about it? Is anyone short of Stan Lee likely to even get a blurb outside of sources dedicated to comics?
Even with actors, if they aren’t big movie stars or leads on a hit show, they could go unnoticed. I don’t know if Glenn Quinn or Andy Hallet got mentioned on CNN or not, but certainly they didn’t get coverage of the sort that Heath Ledger got.
Fame’s relative, I don’t think you should pick a source or few sources and make their coverage the arbiter of who’s famous enough.
Lou Albano’s death did get picked up by major media outlets, including the Associated Press.
That’s why I continue to support using Google News as the source. It is an aggregator of hundreds of news sources, major and minor, and if it doesn’t appear in Google News, it ain’t news.
I have no plans to institute this sort of celebrity test. The only change I expect to propose is that we not allow those people “famous” only because of their illness. To repeat a phrase I have used earlier, this rules out the people featured in “plucky local teen fights cancer” stories. The Atlanta Journal Constitution had one of these just at the weekend. That is someone named in a major news outlet, but I don’t think it makes them a “celebrity”.
Let’s wake this up now we have three weeks to go before opening up nominations for the new season.
I do not want to implement any different scoring systems - too much work and I like being able to compare statistics with previous years.
I do not want to impose a rule where a death has to be reported in some particular news channel or channels or national media for it to count. I see too many pitfalls, or we become too prescriptive (CNN or BBC) and make the game harder for players from other countries.
The only rule change I propose to implement is not to allow people who would be unknown but for their illness/injury. For someone to be valid, there needs to be online evidence of their celebrity status separate from (and preferably before) their illness.
Any poster nominating a person who they have doubts about should also submit alternates, and request a ruling by January 7. I will make a decision, possibly including throwing it open for vote. If the nominee is vetoed, the first alternate is used.
After January 7, a nominee can be challenged by any other player (including me), and if s/he is vetoed, is not replaced by an alternate. I want to minimize the chances that the decision could be colored by a change of “status” of the alternate.
I do realize that this process requires me to take exactly the sort of decision that I am avoiding for candidates in general. However, I think it is worth it. Otherwise, we get a bunch of entries like this, which hardly fits the definition of a Celebrity Death Pool. And as a response to Fear Itself’s comments a couple of posts ago, I found that story on Google News, so I don’t think the presence there is a good criterion.
Any objections to my proposals?
Sounds good to me.
I like this one in particular, what I think of as the Terri Shiavo rule:
Wow, another year, another death pool. I’m getting all misty.
Hey, how about giving EVERYONE the points if Ariel Sharon or Fidel Castro dies. We make them “Honorary Death Pool Selectees”, and that way we can add a couple more choices without feeling we’re missing out on a (nearly) sure thing.
Well, they seemed sure things this year… and last… and the year before that…
Not really a comparable situation. She was more like “dead before she was dead”. The only ones to put up a plucky fight were her parents.
Deciding whether someone is a sure thing is part of the game. And whether old people are worth nominating. Yes, they are more likely to die, but score fewer points. Neither Sharon nor Castro are on my 2009 list and will not be on my 2010 list.
I like all of amarone’s proposals.
Kinda like “R S T L N. E” ?
The byzantine and laborious rules and scoring procedures has scared me away from previous Death Pools. They seem far more complicated than necessary. Is there a Readers’ Digest version somewhere?