Nominees, winners and losers

The paper tries to convey the idea that choosing a winner among a group of nominees or short-listed candidates may hurt those who bestow prizes, those who are selected, as well as those who base their own choices on the ranking. We base our observations on examples of contests (movies, literature, and music) in which winners often turn out not to be better than nominees. Our suggestion is therefore to select, say five candidates, and not to rank them, but reward all nominees equally.