When looking at the award nominees, it was important for us not to discriminate towards active members and to mindfully approach every possible thread as a winner. Many thread authors who could have won the award had already become moderators, and thus were ineligible for the award. I think that some of the more inactive members winning the award shows the ingenuity and diversity of our community, and surely it was never listed that you had to have 10,000 posts to win this award. In a fitting irony, some of the most inactive people have won this award. So far, I have heard not heard anything from Vadim Cool. It is very likely, then, that since 48 hours will soon have passed, that we will be nominating another award winner in his stead. That person could literally be anyone, so long as their post is of great value to the community. Ah, the point of this award was to highlight the contributions of even the most basic of members, and it was a surprise to us when we reviewed our most popular posts that we found some remarkable consistencies:
1. By far, the most popular posts, in terms of views and replies, were very specific in the title, detailing the exact subject or problem. Many times these posts reference specific hardware, file names, or features.
2. By far, the most popular posts, in terms of views and replies, contained a possible solution from the original author of the thread, thus bringing about a brainstorm of ideas from the rest of the established community.
3. And by far, the most popular posts, in terms of views and replies, were technically sound, written by modest people who visited the site every once in awhile on occasion.
This was a shocker to find these consistencies. Many sites have linked to these posts, and as a result, many people have been helped by these. There are still thousands of other posts with similar properties. Perhaps most importantly, is that while loyalty to the website is very important to us, the content of messages is paramount. Why, then, would we discriminate against even an inactive member from winning such an award?
The award process
Selecting the winners of this award was not easy. So many people, especially the regulars, have posted a great deal of important information. But in this round, these members were chosen for authoring these threads. It may be some time before we can sponsor a similar competition, but I hope that everyone praises the contributions of these members. Irregardless of their status, they are still members. Iroken22 was a member of our moderator staff and walked away from that position, and still won the award. Even this shows that anyone who contributes sound information had the chance to win the award. With so many good threads, it was like choosing lotto winners, and so part of that process is very difficult. Because once you award someone something, others may feel cheated or condemned. But I would like to assure everyone who is aware of this awards process that we have attempted to conduct it fairly and judiciously. We have discussed many ideas which we wish were possible, and these ideas sometimes have never gone public. One idea, some time ago, was to try to figure out a way to send all of our active members t-shirts, mousepads, or coffee mugs, but we simply could not fit it into the website budget. It got to a point where we had completed the full design of the mousepad, and then discovered the thousand dollar price tag and the impossibility of shipping these out to thousands of people by hand.
I hope that you understand that we would like to award our entire community, but reality prevents us from doing this right now. I would like to hint that this may change after January, as at our web hosting options, but I can make no promise as of right now.
Either way, please support those who did win the contest, irregardless of their post count or activity. It could be you who wins our next award, so stay tuned
As an update, we are in the process of having the Windows 7 Ultimate gift-wrapped retail box sent to New York, and then from there it will be sent to sabrehagen. He has provided us with his shipping information, and this will be an exciting time for him. We are still waiting to hear from Vadim Cool.