This thread is exclusively for the discussion of the forum awards and the process around them. If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, please feel free to contribute. We’ll definitely be evolving this each year as we learn and grow, so any feedback is greatly appreciated!
As noted in the rules for the awards, there will be no campaigning / advertising for the awards; any such posts will be deleted.
My first thought is that I am really against this.
This is essentially a popularity contest, and you are going to get people who are butt hurt by not winning/not even being nominated. Emotions run high whenever there is stuff on the line, even meaningless stuff like badges and I would not want to see this community shift its posting behaviour because of this contest. I thought one of the reason you can't see post counts anymore was to prevent the artificial inflation of the count, this just brings that mentality back. In the back the mind there is always going to be "I am not posting to be helpful, I am posting to WIN!".
I figure that just by posting this I have tanked my chances of winning anything because of the ill will it will generate, and that's probably not even a conscious choice for most people reading this (and I only really had a shot at one award, Bolster Allies, and then only if every one forgets Silverleaf's recent form).
Great points, Matchstickman! Definitely appreciate it. I seriously hope that the community is mature enough not to take offense at you raising this concern - I know I'm not offended or upset by it. I'd prefer we have honest, mature discussion, and we're usually pretty good about that. (And this is exactly why we created this thread.)
Before posting my thoughts on this, I'll let others chime in. It'll be good to hear if that's the dominant concern!
If this were done back in 2012 (or even 2011) I might actually have a shot at someting. But, for the most part, 2013 is when my involvement started to wane (at least as far as my internet presense), as well the size and diversity of the community increase dramatically.
I nominate Matchstickman for
Isolated Hero: As the first to dissent againt a popularity contest, he has earned it. Shun the non-believer!
I think it will be fine, I doubt anyone is too excited over gaining badges from this. Plus I think most of them are pretty obvious.
Although if there was a badge for Remorseless Provocation I'd work to earn it, I love that card.
Can we add some more though?
The villains of the forums need recognition.
Scum and Villainy: for the forumite who best exemplifies the Evils of Ronway.
Consider the Price of Victory: For the forumite most willing to argue things beyond the point where the argument was productive.
Unforgiving Wasteland: for the mod most likely to shut down a thread, or generally tell us all to behave.
Off the Rails: Forumite most likely to cause a thread to be split.
Ha. Funny, but definitely a bad idea. "Here's an award because a majority of people think you suck!"
I think its a nice idea even though I share a bit of Matchsticks hesitation. But there are a lot of positives to consider as well.
Id like to maybe see a rule where you can't vote for yourself. This should be about the community recognizing positive work of their peers, not themselves (love the no advertising rule).
I was kind of hoping for Consider the price of Victory. Oh well.
If we are going to do this should we make the nominating Private, and then do a vote with nominees and a short sentence or two as to why they deserve it, something like:
Off the Rails:
Nominee Silverleaf: For intentionally and gleefully participating in puns threads, Language debates, and potential invasions of other sovereign nations.
And then we'd all vote secretly as well. I have some I would have trouble deciding between, and publicly nominating feels awkward.
Nominating may absolutely be done privately if you want. Feel free to message a moderator (myself, Rabit, or arenson9), if you don't want to do it publically.
So many of you are hilarious. That's gonna be the hardest fought catagory.
Can't nominate yourself, I'd totally agree on, but not voting yourself probably means that most people nominated for a given award won't vote in it, which makes little to no difference to the result (and, indeed, if the result is that the humble choose to vote for others while other people decide to reserve their vote to improve their own chances, well then the former lot are getting fewer votes and that kinda sucks a little.
I had a point, I think… Right, yeah, I think you should let people vote for themselves, with the expectation that they will, although that being said I'm now kind of unsure, and wondering whether to delete this rambling post or post it as is…
Oh, crap, bracket.)
Isn't the nomination/vote the same thing here?
Nope. Voting will happen later!
The idea is an interesting one, but I can see Matchstickman's point. Surely forum members who have been around the longest, who are more well-known will be the only ones nominated and voted for?
Well, yes. It's hard to be known for being the funniest if you don't post funny things. I don't really see the point of correcting for that.
I think it'll be funny and fun as long as we keep it light with kinda tongue-in-cheek awards. I think most of us get along well enough to not foster negative feelings from who gets nominated and who doesn't, so I'd say let's give it a try. If it's a catastrophic failure, well then we can always shut them down.
I don't think we should let fear of catastrophic failure prevent us from having a little fun... especially when such a failure wouldn't even have seriously long-lasting negative consequences.
Exactly. This is meant to be a fun activity for the group. Don't take it too seriously. Just remember the good times from the last year, and let us know who brought them to you!
I think the system is fair, I might suggest that each person win only one award, don't know how that would work though.
Also: "Why do stop lights turn Red?"
"You would too if you had to change in the middle of the street!"
BOOM! beat that funny people!
Meh, I say let's give it a shot. I have no feelings that could be hurt. 
Some thoughts:
I think there must be at least two nominees for each category. I mean, you can't really vote if there is only one nominee and it feels wrong to just give the award to someone who runs unopposed, even if they may be the most deserving.
Don't tell anybody how many users voted and by how many votes the winner won. I know, it's a common sense thing, I am only mentioning it because that way it feels less like a popularity contest who those who are concerned by that.
I actually think all nominations should be made secretly, and that there should be a list updated with the names of those who have already been nominated for an award.
I don’t really feel qualified to nominate, BTW, but I am happy enough to join in the voting.
Why isn't there a catrgory for best looking, fire-flinging cultist?
Because we don't have anyone who fits that description. 
+1 for Rabit.
Also, no Smoke Bombs award for stealthy drop of information before disappearing?
I mean, other than Christopher.
Given the interest in making the nominations private, I've updated the rules to reflect that. Nominations will be done via PM to one of the Mods, and the Mods will update the nomination list.
Sound good?
Thanks for the feedback, folks! It is greatly appreciated - keep it coming. 
If there was an award for coolest people in the world, I'd give it to all of you guys/gals. 
And EvanDan with the late steal for "Inspiring Presence" 
Nope; this falls within the time period for the 2014 awards :P
Sounds like kind of a fun idea. I don't know if I can think of anone specific to nominate for anything, though - I mean, there have been so many threads and conversations and discussions and stuff, I can't really remember who said what or whether one person stands out as being better at talking about certain things/in a certain way than others. I'll have a think about it, though, and see if I can think of any examples of stuff which will lead me to nominate someone for something :D.
We need a "Rookie of the Year" award for most active new member (or something along those lines to make the newer folks feel welcome and all that)... maybe call it "Next Evolution"
Ha. And if there are joke awards made there should be a "Return with the Dawn" award for best thread Necromancer.
I would like to see some sort of nomination statement posted with the nominations. It will be hard for me to vote just based on the names, without jogging my memory on who did what.
Maybe since nominations are private cast, you can add a little 1 sentence blurb about why you choose them, and the mods can condence those into a comprehensive blurb for voting purposes? Just thinking out loud.
If I get round to nominating anyone, I was planning on doing just that anyway. Everyone's posts tend to blur together in my head, though, and I can't really remember specific examples of individuals saying particular things - I just have a kind of vague memory of some of the stuff that came up on the forum in the past :D.
That would work, if the mods are up for it.
Interesting idea - sure, it's a bit of a popularity contest, but it's nice to show people they're appreciated in some way. I'll have to have a serious think about my nominations, because there are a few where I could easily nominate several people.
We do a similar thing in my choir, but much less formal - people nominate other people for silly things like Best Beard or Most Enthusiastic Singer or Most Likely to Sing a Really Wrong Note Very Loudly In a Concert, and it's usually very funny. I have never won one of these awards, no matter how hard I worked on my beard growing. Oh well. Next year I'm going for Person Most Likely To Hold The Social Secretary To Ransom In Order To Get An Award.
I do like the idea of the funny awards people have suggested too. Except the Cultist award. Dammit, Cursed Acolyte!
Ah, superlatives. In my high school robotics team I won "Most likely to be reading right now, and not even realize that he won this superlative." I did, in fact, have a book with me, but I wasn't reading it at the time.
That'd be me on any football forum. I live in hope of getting one person to actually read a book and understand what is actually happening instead of blindly defending their club… Still, I had someone write in phenomenally poor prose that I was uneducated and should kill myself which tickled my sense of irony…
Quick reminder, folks: Nominations don't start until Monday. We aren't actually ready to start processing them. (Honestly, we don't have time this weekend.) Also wanted to give you time to suggest modifications to the process, as you've done. I'm hoping we can get an answer to the suggestion of condensing the additional details for you. My only fear on that is our misrepresenting someone's intentions, but we should be able to manage around that.
And FYI: The original list of awards was almost twice as long. We decided, for a variety of reasons (e.g., minimize complexity for the first time) to reduce the number to what you see here. 
We'll definitely evolve the awards for next year! 
[Mod arenson9] As a reminder, nominations aren't open yet and shouldn't be posted here.
Wait...we have to pick a handful of cool people on this cool forum to tell other cool people how cool these cool people are?
This awards discussion just got...
<dramatic pause>
Absolute Zero
This sounds like a lot of fun. There are SO MANY members on this forum with so much to contribute, though! I don't know that I'll even be able to narrow down nominations...
I won an award for "Most Likely To Become An Evil Genius" once...
How'd that work out for you?
I've pulled some fairly devious stuff, but nothing on the level of terralunar impulsion yet...
Okay, the Mods are okay with dealing with the blurbs if you want to provide them. I've updated the rules accordingly.
At noon tomorow, we start processing nominations! 
In two hours (Noon, Eastern time), nominations open! Rabit, arenson9, and myself are anxiously awaiting our inboxes being inundated.
Eh, close enough. 
Let the nominations commence! 
Reminders: By personal message and feel free to include a blurb as to why.
Huzzah!
Man, that was tough! Great job everyone and good luck!
Yay nominations! Everyone I wanted to nominate has already been put up! Drat!
Everyone? Really? 
I would like to double nominate all the nominees, so hereby be acknowledged of my renominationinging.
Seriously, I have no business up against Spiff though, what a lark but bless you to whoever put my name up.
I think we should take the nominations as an opportunity to recognize people who do good things for the community, regardless of whether or not someone else does more stuff. This might be more important than who actually wins the vote.
I agree with this completely. As I will not be nominating anyone, I hope everyone see this that way.
Ditto!
[NOTE -- Culled stuff because nominations should be sent as a PM to a mod, but didn't want to delete the post because a question was raised. --arenson9]
Moar nominations!
How about [DELETED]
Can we nominate non-forumgoers? Feels like [DELETED] from BGG should get some recognition for [DELETED]
As is often the case, I'm in total agreement with the sqgl. I like the idea of using this as a way to officially let people know we appreciate their contribution even if there's someone else in the same category who deserves the win more than they do.
I'm extremely proud and surprised to have received nominations myself, and it's a lovely feeling to know that a group of people think that you're funny/creative/nice/helpful/knowledgeable enough to be publicly recognised in some way for it.
I haven't sent in my nominations yet, but I see them as me saying thank you to the people who have made my Sentinels better in their own way. So thank you in advance, everyone who's done stuff. I appreciate it.
I thought we said it could be done either publicly or with a PM. Guess that changed? Sorry.
I didn't nominate in the end, as I'd essentially been ninjaed.
But I was thinking, how about a badge for people who were nominated but didn't win?
Wouldn't that remove the need for a vote at all?
I don't see any issues with someone posting in their sig they were nominated - Oscar nominees get that kind of thing all the time. But in general, I think keeping it to one badge for the winner of each category is going to be cleaner and easier, specifically due to timing this time around.
Bring it up when we ask for feedback on this in preparation for next year, though, and folks can pitch in their thoughts and concerns. I think it'll be good to have that discussion to refer to when we're planning next year's event.
Oh, and reminder: 2 hours left for nominations.
i wasn't clear - the winners would get the appropriate badges, and everyone else gets a "nominated" badge. Voting still absolutely necessary.
But sure, we can discuss it in the feedback thread or whatever. It was just a thought.
And a good one - thanks, Silverleaf.
Voting is now open, through 1pm Eastern on 25 April.
Vote here! https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RCRG7GY
Are we just on our honour to not vote for ourselves? (not that I think that one vote will swing the poll)
Just as a candidate for public office is eligible to vote for themself, so you have this option.
If you haven't voted, yet, please do! Only a couple days, left...
Voting closes today at 1 Eastern time! If you haven't voted yet, please do so!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RCRG7GY
Voting is now closed! Thank you all for your responses. Results will be announced soon!