Talk:Charles S. Roberts Award



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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

to move. --liquidGhoul 23:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Move request
Requesting page rename to "Charles S. Roberts Awards" .. it is the official name of the award. The award is a proper noun and questions of plurality and singularity (award vs. awards) don't matter, the title of the award is "Charles S. Roberts Awards". -- Stbalbach 19:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Support rename. --Groggy Dice 00:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC) Half-support to "Charles S. Roberts Award." When I moved the page, I considered adding the middle initial, and didn't mainly because of the number of pages linking to the name without it. However, there is a singular/plural issue. They are called Awards because there is more than one given out, in different categories. Any one award is, well, an Award. And Wikipedia naming conventions favor singular. --Groggy Dice 20:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The official name is the "Charles S. Roberts Awards" and it refers to a yearly event where awards are handed out - the people who win are said to have won a "Charlie". No where on the awards website does it use a singular case, or call an award a "Charles S. Roberts Award". The wikipedia guideline (it is a guideline) is for descriptive terms, not proper nouns. This is a proper noun. You will sometimes see third parties call it an "Award", but I've never seen it referred to as such by the people who run the awards. So basically it comes down to a question of original research and verifiable source. What is your source that the name of an individual award is officially called a "Charles S. Roberts Award"? -- Stbalbach 22:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I've emailed the contacts on the awards page to get their opinion. Will post when they reply. -- Stbalbach 22:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I heard back from them and Charles S. Roberts Award is the appropriate name of the award, "Charlie" is a nickname. Note the "S." and capitalized singular "Award". I'll change the rename request if you can change your vote to support. --Stbalbach 23:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Support as amended. (Hi!) --Dhartung | Talk 04:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: There is a related matter you may be interested in. Around the same time I moved this article, I was looking at Category:Charles Roberts award winners, and put it up for a speedy rename to Category:Charles Roberts Award winners. Again, I considered adding the middle initial, but decided that was more than I could justify for a speedy rename. Presumably, according to the same principle, you would want that category renamed (to "Charles S. Roberts Awards winners"?) --Groggy Dice 04:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Should be Category:Charles S. Roberts Award winners -- Stbalbach 23:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Someone has objected to adding the middle initial on a speedy, so I've had to drop it again. As soon as the speedy goes through, it can be put up for a rename. --Groggy Dice 19:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There really is no debate. The correct name is CSRA. I emailed the president of the CSRA and he told me flat out in no ambiguous terms, CSRA is the name. I have the email and can post it if required. Can we just move it and deal with any complaints afterwards? -- Stbalbach 00:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Name and organizers
Currently, the article states: "Originally the awards were called the Origins Awards and it was only in 1988 that Charles Roberts agreed to let his name be used. The split from the Origins Awards occurred in 1987, after Fortress America by Milton Bradley Company won an award. Fortress America was not considered a traditional historical wargame by the grognards in the wargaming community."

Do we have any sources for that? In 1987, the CSR was taken over by Rodger B. MacGowan, and he received permission from Roberts to use his name. It is not clear whether the awards formerly hadn't used that name at all, or had used it with a separate permission, or without permission at all. Was "Origins Awards" an official name prior to 1987, or just a common shorthand? Did it refer to the H.G. Wells Awards, too? Also, sources for the split (disagreement over Fortress America) would be very welcome.

Who were the original organizers of the award? It seems to have had informal or at least simple origins: "The originator of the CSR Awards was John Mansfield (at that time editor of the amateur magazine Signal). John collected ballots from attendees and based these awards on this voting held at Origins I." Later on I guess that the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design was involved, but I don't know for sure. I guess older gaming magazines like Albion or Courier might have more information - does somebody have access to them?

What were and are the specifics? Is there a jury? How is it formed? Or a public vote? Then who decides on the nominees? What is eligible at all? --Jonas kork (talk) 12:27, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * These are all really good questions and I think a history of the award would make an excellent bit of investigative journalism for a game magazine, before these people pass on and the cultural memory is forgotten. -- Green  C  21:35, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The award is defunct
The award website is dead. There have been no awards for 5 years. There is no activity online or in any sources showing the award is alive. I read in online forums (now lost) that award organizers stopped giving it out due to apparent lack of interest vs. amount of time and energy required to manage it. This is about as good as we are going to get. So the question is which is more accurate description of the award in 2018: the award is alive, or the award is defunct? A reasonable period of grace is fine but 5 or 6 years, a dead website and rumors of abandonment all add up to "defunct" as being more accurate at this moment. That doesn't mean the award no longer exists (it does historically) or that it can't be reconstituted in the future. But right now it is more accurate to describe the current state of the awards as "defunct". One would need to produce sources showing some glimmer of life to say otherwise. It the award comes back, the article can change to reflect it. -- Green  C  00:26, 17 December 2017 (UTC)


 * It has returned as of May 2020. -- Green  C  21:36, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

"recent" vs "previous"
What purpose could this divide possibly serve?

What is gained by not listing awards in chronological order? By making up this arbitrary 2009 split?

CapnZapp (talk) 14:09, 30 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It looks like the section starts at 2003, not 2009. And this section exists because someone took the time to fill it out. Anything previous to 2003 is missing data. Feel free to contribute and rename the section. -- Green  C  14:23, 30 July 2023 (UTC)