AQ : Rantings and Ravings

Awards here, awards there, everyday there seems to be more and more pages giving out awards to other pages. This trend disturbs me each time I see yet another award. I know what you might be saying, "afraid of a little competition?" However, my problem isn't that pages are giving out awards, it's the reasons why a page gives out an award.

I've been visiting pages that either are on our 'worst' list or easily could join our list. Then I notice this thing has won several awards. So why did it win these awards? I would like know what the person liked or what they didn't like. Often there is nothing to say why it won the award, just a link to the page that handed it out. So of course, follow the link to the other page to see if there are any answers there, but of course nothing. No reviews, no simple points, not even criteria for winning. Sometimes I will run across something stupid like "All you have to do is nominate your page," or "I'll look at any page for this award except hentai ones." Like that is supposed to help.

I know awards are often handed out just because someone liked a page. Awards and reviews are always based on one's or (like in our case) one group's opinion. A good page could be a bad page to someone else, so you should always support your opinion with something! Even just points like: "I liked the layout" or "Lots of correct information" or "liked this section because…" Our page shows and tells why we handed out an award by providing access to the reasons why we liked or didn't like a page in our reviews. We further support this by providing guidelines and tips, listing what we typically like or don't like. Sure it's still our own opinion, and you don't have to agree with it, but we at least explain why we gave out an award.

The original idea behind some awards was to help support or encourage page creators that show promising ideas and work. So they will keep up the good work. A good idea, but ironically, there are so many awards being handed out now, the opposite is happening. There are a lot of pages that stop improving after they have received a ton of awards. People that have OK pages and getting overly confident, thinking they have a very good page, and don't need to do much more with it. In my opinion, a good page is a page that never stops changing, expanding or trying to find ways of improving.

Sure it feels great when you win an award, someone acknowledged your work. However, you should always ask "why did I get this and what can I improve?" Remember, nothing is ever perfect. Opinions and comments are a great ways to get ideas. If your the one handing out the award tell people why you did! Otherwise your award is nothing more than a pic and a slick, simple marketing ploy to get more hits. I'm really starting to believe that's what alot of these award schemes are all about.