Greetings Again,
This is Pep speaking for myself now. While this
thread is fresh, I would like to share some things with you. I also want to reintroduce the Forvm
Website Awards to a
membership of the
Classical Numismatics Discussion Board that has more than quadrupled since the Program was started on 4 August 2004.
The Program was first proposed on 3 June 2004 in a
thread and a public discussion took place for the next two months concerning its form. When the basics were established and a section of the Board was set aside for it, six volunteers were appointed to the 1st Forvm
Website Awards Nomination Committee. That Committee convened and formally launched the Awards on the August date above.
The
members of the Forvm
Website Awards Nomination Committee face election every year (except for the first year as stated above). New terms begin August 4th. As a matter of fact, we are in election season right now for the 4th Committee. If you are interested, the threads for declaring your candidacy are here (Be ready to
work if you win a seat! You should first read the rest of this post too.):
Chairperson:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=37824.0Standard Seat:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=37825.0The Committee is responsible for accepting website nominations from the public and determining their eligibility to run in the Program. At this point, I need to explain the Program.
Standard Award polling may take place from February to June and again from August to October.
Members of the
Discussion Board may nominate websites to poll for one of these Awards. Committee
members may nominate sites too but nominations from the public take precedence. We have categories for
Numismatic Excellence,
Classical Studies, and
Medieval Studies. Nominations are to be sent to one of the current Committee
members Here. That pinned post will also give you guidelines for website eligibility. You may also consult the
complete set of rules at the link listed at the bottom of that post. I'll describe the makeup of those rules a little later. The Committee member that receives a nomination will review it for the proper criteria and compliance with the rules. The member may also make a judgment on its content and chances of winning an Award. If satisfied, that member sends the nomination to the full Committee for consideration. The other
members review the website in like manner and, if satisfied, authorize it for a public poll. Such a poll is approval in nature (yes or no) as to whether the site deserves the
Standard Award or not. It does not compete with any other website at this time. One of the Committee
members starts the poll (so far I have been doing it) and leaves it open for two weeks. For your convenience, all polls are pinned while they are open. If you the public approve of the site, then it receives the
Standard Award. Here are what the
Standard Award Logos look like:
Recipients of the
Standard Awards are listed according to their respective categories. These threads are pinned but I also made the logos above clickable in case you want to view them now. Annual Award Recipients are listed at the top, which is a subject I will now discuss.
During November and December,
Standard Award polling ceases and the
Annual Awards take place.
The contest is also split into the categories of Numismatic Excellence,
Classical Studies, and
Medieval Studies (see Reply #3 below). Unlike the
Standard Award polls, the
Annual Awards are competitive within the three categories. The first half-or-so of November is dedicated to allowing those
Standard Award Recipients who have not yet posted the
Standard Award logo they received to do so. Logo-posting is a requirement to be eligible for the
Annual Awards. Only sites that have already won a
Standard Award and display them are eligible, except for sites that won an Annual Award in a past year and choose to display it instead. Around the middle of November, the Committee posts a call to accept these sites from you the public as nominations for the final polls in December. For your convenience, all eligible sites are listed in that post along with the guidelines for participation. After the period for nominations closes, the Committee tallies them up and starts the final polls. There are three polls, one for each category and the top nomination-getters compete for Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards within their respective categories. These polls remain open for about three weeks and close around the start of New Year's Day Greenwich Mean Time. The Annual Award Logos look just like the
Standard Logos do except for wreaths and years that are added as such:
There is also a Lifetime Award in each category for sites that win Gold twice. Recipients of this Award are excluded from all future
Annual Awards since they will make the contests too predictable. Here is the Lifetime Award Logo for the
Numismatic Excellence category:
For the rest of the calendar, January is vacation time. Nothing is done publicly and Committee business is kept to a minimum. Nominations from you for the
Standard Awards are
still welcome though. Only in January 2006 was the quiet broken as the
Forvm Award For Medieval Studies was launched in the later half of that month. June and July are months for Committee member elections, which you can read more about in the links above. June is also usually shared with
Standard Award polling. However, this June will see a halt to
Standard Award polling so this
thread can get more publicity.
(Note: See Reply #4 for current calendar starting in 2009.)
In addition to handling nominations, the Committee is also responsible for laying out the operational aspects of the Awards. As stated earlier, the basic framework governing how they run was established through public debate during the summer of 2004. Ever since then, Committees through the years have been creating and tweaking the finer details to make the Awards run smoother. Bad ideas were also dropped when they failed in actual practice. This evolution is
still going on and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Rules are usually made, changed, and rescinded within the Committee but they may be submitted for public decisions when the Committee desires. Any member of the Committee or any member of the
Discussion Board can propose a motion. The latter can contact a Committee member privately or post a public
thread with their concerns. Every word in a Rule is carefully considered before the Committee passes it or submits it to the public.
Needless to say, we now have quite a "
Rules Document" as I like to call it. It is featured in a pinned
thread Here (notice how all these important threads are pinned
). It is the official list of Rules that govern all aspects of Awards operation. However, don't let its size intimidate you. What you need to know in order to participate in these Awards is shared in simpler posts, like the first "Here" link I gave near the beginning of this post. Fresh posts guide you through the
Annual Awards and Committee member elections every year and hopefully this post is educational as well.
In case you're curious though, the "
Rules Document" is organized by subject matter and the Rule Numbers change as items are added and subtracted in the relevant areas. The first
part deals with qualifications for a
Standard Award. The next major section deals with how the
Standard Award polls are run. That is followed by the Rules for the
Annual Awards and then the Rules for Committee member elections. The last
part of the Document has to do with unpleasant scenarios that must be included for the sake of comprehensiveness. Smaller Rules that don't exactly fit any of these areas are dispersed throughout the Document in what seem to be the most appropriate places.
Now that I have given you the grand tour, here are some miscellaneous facts you might also like to know:
- The Committee is also called the
Comitia Curiata.
Members, past and present, are awarded this title in their profiles. The Chairperson of the Committee is also known as the
Magistratus Optima Lege.
Roman numerals indicate the number of terms served plus the current term, if applicable.
- The Committee conducts its business here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FORVM_Awards_Committee/- All
Standard Award candidates that polled for the
Forvm Award For Numismatic Excellence since this February have been nominations from you the public. Thank you!
- We now have Recipient websites written in English,
Italian,
Spanish,
German,
French, Danish, Dutch, Romanian, Arabic, Turkish,
Japanese, Lithuanian, Russian, Belarusian, Norwegian, Catalan, Castilian, Greek, Latin, and Etruscan.
- The highest turnout for a
Standard Award Poll so far was 54.
- The highest turnout for an Annual Award Poll so far was 74 (
Numismatic Excellence, 2006).
Thank you,
Kevin
Oh yeah, please support me for continuing on as Chairman for the 4th Committee!
