I'll chip in with my thoughts but before doing so I am pleased Snooks is going to run this process and am completely confident that he will do so in a fair & open way. Whatever he decides I will gladly support.
My thoughts have centred around 2 main principles:
- Equality of opportunity for performers
- Profile of the forum voting members
I joined the forum in late 2012 and did not really watch any shows before then. I therefore don't nominate girls from before that period as I don't know them so I absolutely am guilty of recency bias. (In fact I vote for my favourite girl!) I do however look at nominees as rounds progress and try to research who they are before adding my votes. That may make me unusual but I do think it should be easier for someone like me to be able to acknowledge show "pioneers".
I would therefore suggest that there is a method chosen to enable girls from before a selected date to be nominated for the HoF in a 'pioneer' category. The period that relates to could advance each year to reflect the evolution of forum membership.
In addition I would be happy if the 'pioneer' nominees were determined by a small group of forum members selected by Snooks and the Mods to reflect forum members who have knowledge of that era. A list of perhaps 5 nominees could then be put to the wider membership with say a brief description of their careers (links to the A-Z of girls or their threads provided?). Then one single vote for these nominees with the winner elected or if a tie those in the tie elected.
I would continue with the Day & Night categories for other nominees even though the boundaries for the girls are now more blurred because I believe that forum members viewing habits may still be better served in that way. I also think that a good night girl may get more votes than a day girl simply due to viewing numbers rather than a true reflection of contribution to the channels.
As others have said I'm not in favour of multiple rounds of votes. In fact I don't see the girls competing to be in the HoF at all. It is our way of honouring them and we should be considering a variety of performance aspects in that process. Is a girl of more merit if she appears on a show for 10 years (so clearly being a valuable source of earnings for the channel) or making an impact for 6 months then disappearing never to be seen again? We don't currently seem to really recognise that.
So to summarise I'd have 3 categories
Pioneers
Dayshow
Nightshow
Turning to voting I'd remove multiple rounds of voting and have a nomination round and then 1 voting round. If 2 or 3 girls tie at the top then put them all in. If people prefer more than 1 voting round then take the top 4 or 5 into a final selection but then any girls tied for top place get elected.
I would also suggest that all results with number of votes are published for each stage of the process.
Have fun determining how you want to run it Snooks