Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

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Kouri
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Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Kouri »

I wasn't all that sure on where to put this thread, but I settled on Fan projects since it's directly related to the forum. If any mod feels like it would be better placed anywhere else, feel free to move it over.

Lemme start off by saying that this is just an idea I've had in my head for the past couple of days. It's not a big deal, but I thought it was kind of a neat idea so I figured I'd go ahead and share it here and see what other people thought of it. Maybe if it was well received, we could do something like this here. "Testing the waters" so to speak...

Anyway, I'm borrowing this idea from another forum I check-in with semi-regularly that's basically a fan-site for this band I like (I'm not a registered member, but I like to keep up with new information.) Basically, every year they have this "awards event" where forum members submit categories for awards, nominate fellow members for each category, and then vote on a winner. The winners of each category (aside from recognition) get a fancy little signature banner that they can use (if they want) for the rest of the year saying that they won. Some of the categories from last year's awards were like:

Funniest Poster
Most Inspirational
Best Graphic Designer
Most Random
Most Addicting Thread
Best Writer
Most Knowledgeable (in Music)
Most Likely to Become a Mod
Most Likely to Take Over the World
Most Likely to Be a Spy
Biggest Fan
Best Photographer
Most Likely to be Hiding in Your Closet
among other things...

And then there were a couple of categories limited strictly to Moderators (freeing up the other ones to be limited just to regular members) like:

Funniest Mod
Most Active Mod
Wisest Mod
Mod Most Likely to Strike Fear into the Hearts of n00bs
etc.

I'm mostly just sharing this with you guys because I want some opinions on the subject. How would you feel about doing something like this with these forums? Any questions or concerns about it? I would appreciate any feedback at all about it, whether its positive, negative, or uncertain. If it seems like a lot of people are on board with it and the Mods are okay with it, I would love to do something like this. Obviously, I'd be very much available to help with putting it together, since I'm technically the one pitching the idea. I feel like it'd be kind of fun, myself :)

If you're curious about how the process of nominating and voting goes, I don't know ALL the details (and obviously we'd be free to do things our own way) but essentially there were two people involved with putting the whole thing together and they start up a thread once they're ready to start a new round of awards. Members send a PM to one of them with some ideas for categories they want to see put in for that year (I assume some of the categories are decided on from the start). Once a final list is put together by the people in charge, members submit possible nominations to start off with in another PM. After sorting through all the submissions, the ones in charge put together a list of FINAL nominations with anywhere from 3-5 users nominated for a single category. From there, users go to some separate site (I assume its some kind of free voting/polling site) where they do the final voting. From there, obviously, winners are chosen and announced.

Like I said, I'm not making a formal suggestion at this point. I'm just throwing this idea out there to see what other people think. If there's a problem with it, or you guys aren't interested, we obviously don't have to do it. But if the response is good, I'd love to give it a try. I imagine it'd be a good way to get people involved with something and a way to "commend" people for their efforts or contributions to the site (even if it's for something silly.) What do you think?
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Dissension »

I've moved your thread to "Announcements & Feedback," given it pertains to creating a site-wide event.

I'll let others give their opinions before presenting my own.
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by RatHead »

I think that that would be fun, but we might have to think up some more awards to add to those like most dedicated character fan (king fan, grape fan, etc), and other simaler ones. btw, just curious, what band (please b a rock/metal band pleasepleaspplease: )
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Kouri »

RatHead wrote:I think that that would be fun, but we might have to think up some more awards to add to those like most dedicated character fan (king fan, grape fan, etc), and other simaler ones. btw, just curious, what band (please b a rock/metal band pleasepleaspplease: )
It's a message board for Evanescence. Not everyone's cup of tea, but a popular rock band nonetheless. I like them well enough :)

And yeah, I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of other categories. I just picked a few of the better ones they had to use as samples. I'm not too sure about awards for fans of specific characters, but if enough people like the idea, then hey, why not? :lol:
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Kyuunado »

Sounds cool, but for all the people here you would need a fair few awards. :lol:
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by RatHead »

Ok Cool, and Evanesence, Nice! i got one of their albums, forget what it's called, but it's got bring me to life, my immortal, etc :)

also how do i do those thing at the bottom (_ _ _ fan)
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Kouri »

I know there's a thread under Fan Projects that has a bunch of things like these that you can use. I think the thread is called "userbars". I'm sure you'll find some of them there to paste into your signature.

But otherwise, you just have to make them. I whipped up the ones I'm using with Photoshop myself.
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by RatHead »

Thanks Kour1!
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Hlaoroo »

I like the idea. We've done similar things at school before. Obviously we'd have to consider carefully what awards are being given and to whom, as we don't want anything derogatory or anything that could be conceived or construed as derogatory and we don't want to force awards on people who don't want them. For example, "Most likely to be hiding in your closet" would be out as well as any "wooden spoon" awards for people in last place. The other risk is that it might alienate those who aren't nominated/voted for and make them feel left out, but on the other paw, it might also encourage them to become more prolific posters so they can win in the next year.
Logistically, I don't think it would be too difficult to implement given that there are many voting and survey sites around nowadays which could be used to manage the whole thing.
We could even encourage forumites to come up with awards and then have the mods vote on the list that will be used for the yearly awards.

I'd say put out some feelers like you've done, Kouri, and if the people are responsive and like the idea then go for it. ;)
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Kouri »

Well... normally, I'd think that a month of inactivity would be enough to signal people's disinterest towards this, but considering that the few responses I've gotten have been pretty positive, I figured I better go ahead and post something else to let everyone know that I'm still down to work on this if people want to. I'll add a few more things in case it helps:

1.) Now that I'm out for winter break, I have plenty of time to devote to this project should it be okay-ed. For sure, I have lots of free time through the end of December and for most of January.

2.) In my free time today, I started messing with the idea of what a signature reserved for one of the award winners could look like. This is still just a prototype and likely won't be the final product, but here's one I put together:

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Obviously for different categories, anything blue could change to a different color, the representative character(s) would be different, and the bookshelf background would be changed to something else more suitable. Like I said, this probably isn't the finished product. I'm still new to signature-making. I still need to mess with different sizes and resolutions aside from just getting more accustomed to the ins and outs of photoshop. If someone else is good at these, they're welcome to help if they want :)

3.) Obviously, I'm still supporting the idea that members can help decide on what categories we could vote on, but a few more ideas that I'm sure would be used are things like:
-Favorite Fanfiction (see banner above :p)
-Best Artist
-Favorite Roleplaying Thread (and/or similar things like 'Best Game Master' or 'Best Roleplayer'... I'm sure those who participate in that forum could give us some valuable input)
-Friendliest User
-Most Involved User
-etc.

That's all I can think of right now, but like I've said before, there's tons of possibilities. Going off of what Hlaoroo last said, we should probably keep away from any awards that seem like they could be taken the wrong way. Of course, I'm all for fun/wacky award categories, but I don't think anyone would be sad if we decided not to use "Most Likely to be Hiding in Your Closet." I feel we should also offer enough categories to provide plenty of opportunities for people to be nominated and/or feel involved in some way, but no so much that the whole concept feels diluted. In other words, enough awards handed out so that it doesn't feel exclusive, but not so much that the ones given out seem less meaningful (and the few who wouldn't get one end up feeling left out.) Obviously, this is an issue that would be worked out during the preliminary decision-making, but those are my thoughts. I'm also toying with the idea of handing out smaller signatures (maybe like a quarter of the size of the winning banner) that can be given to the official nominees to offer some recognition to more than just the winner. Something simple that just says they were at least up to win the award and to recognize their contributions even though they didn't win.

Anyway, those are just some things to think about. If anyone else has any ideas, I'd love to hear them! Just keeping the thread alive to show that I'm still up for working on this :mrgreen:
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Foxstar »

No. Do you people really need your own special little pats on the head and little belly rub? No.
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by RatHead »

OOOOOH A BELLY RUB!!!!
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Kouri »

Aww, who doesn't love a good belly rub? :lol:

But more seriously, I can see where it might seem a little excessive. I was imagining it as a way to incentivize people into participating more on the forums in one way or another as well as recognizing some of the people who make this place what it is, you know? We could always trim down on some of the more... "nothing special" kind of things, but I mean, if the whole thing still seems too frivolous, we don't have to do it.
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Foxstar »

You use the fourm or you don't. Special head pats are not needed.
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by RatHead »

OOH WE'RE GETING HEAD PATS TOO!?!?! *purrs*
and Kouri you are 100% right about the belly rubs *still purring*
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Dissension »

Foxstar wrote:No. Do you people really need your own special little pats on the head and little belly rub? No.
Foxstar wrote:You use the fourm or you don't. Special head pats are not needed.
Be nice, Foxstar.

I understand why y'all want to do this. However, it amounts to a popularity contest with the potential to hurt a lot of feelings. That's not really 100% in line with what we've always tried to maintain as an inclusive, supportive environment, a kind of "safe haven" where everyone gets along (as best they can). We're open to suggestions of all kinds, including contests. Having said that, this is one we can't officially endorse. I'm sorry for any time lost while you were working on this and thank you from the bottom of my heart for participating in, enjoying, and endeavoring to further the Housepets! community. Keep being awesome!
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by RatHead »

*still purring from belly rub & head pat*

wait so does that mean you're restricting this?
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

Post by Dissension »

Well, we're declining the suggestion. I'm not sure if that counts as a "restriction."
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Re: Housepets Forum Awards??? (thoughts?)

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Dissension wrote: I understand why y'all want to do this. However, it amounts to a popularity contest with the potential to hurt a lot of feelings. That's not really 100% in line with what we've always tried to maintain as an inclusive, supportive environment, a kind of "safe haven" where everyone gets along (as best they can). We're open to suggestions of all kinds, including contests. Having said that, this is one we can't officially endorse. I'm sorry for any time lost while you were working on this and thank you from the bottom of my heart for participating in, enjoying, and endeavoring to further the Housepets! community. Keep being awesome!
I understand. That seems like a very legitimate concern and I thank you for the formal and polite way of officially saying "no." I guess now I can stop being anxious over the fact that this idea seemed to just be hanging in the air for as long as it did. And don't worry, the only real time I spent on this aside from writing posts was the one or two hours I used to make the signature. No biggie. :)
Thanks for the clarification!
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