The games topics barely filled a salt shaker.

And I'm very grateful for that. I was expecting a bloodbath where rage was everywhere and the salt coursed out of everyone's veins and the oceans raged with waves of red and white. Instead most people were okay with the games cut and accepted, even the people who disagreed did so in a mostly respectful and calm manner. I'm sure there's someone out there who is still raging, but I'm quite pleased with how things turned out!

This is one of those times where expecting the worst ended up being for the best, because I was very relieved with how the games topics went. There wasn't even a lot of salt on twitter, which surprised me.

What went smoothly

-I announced dates so people could prepare.

This is pretty simple. I announced the start date and cutoff so no one was surprised when events were going to occur.

-There were firm rules established so things didn't go out of control.

There weren't any super long, rambling posts, nor were there people suggesting games 5 times after their first bid was rejected. Overall things were civil, at least in the topic itself. I guess having no mercy paid off. ;) The rules helped reduce clutter and made most of the posts worthwhile.

BTW, I really want to shake the hand of whoever made that pic.

-Explanations for why games were cut.

Were my explanations always great or correct? No, but I would say the majority of them were well-reasoned, and the reasons at least gave people a baseline to debate on.

-Overall, things were pretty chill and civil

I think the last three factors contributed to how calm the games topics were. By announcing the dates and fielding questions, people were prepared to submit their games. With the rules being established, there wasn't much ambiguity about what was and wasn't allowed for submission. With the explanations and people being able to post rebuttals, people could voice their disagreement, which is important because people need an outlet for disagreement. Without such an outlet, I think there would have been a lot more trolling and shitposting.

What could be improved or needs changing

-A submission form

It's no secret that the forums choked and couldn't handle the traffic. There were also so many submissions that I ended up overlooking a couple, and a form would solve both of these problems.

-I apparently don't know how to complete sentences.

Honestly, this is mostly from responding to 10+ people at once and spending at least 8 hours a day on the games topic. My brain was fried the first two days. The only problem changing to a form is that there might be less

Anyway, while there are definitely possible improvements (as there always are), I would say this year's games topics were definitely better than last year's, and went quite well overall.