GuitarBizarre

Am I alone in thinking that perhaps we have an AWFUL lot of categories?

I think a few could deserve to be pruned, tbh...

Most Enigmatic seems to me to be too vague of an idea to have an award over, for one. And while negative awards can be a joke, and positive awards an achievement, I don't really see why anyone would have any emotional response to winning something like this. Its the kind of award that makes me think we should have a thread, maybe in Editor's pick, where people can request that a member talks about themselves and tells us what they're all about. That way we can accomplish what this award accomplishes year-round - We can find out more about someone!

I move to strike this award from the record, and in its place, erect (You there at the back, stop snickering) a thread in editors pick where people submit requests for people to talk about themselves. The request posts would never be approved (similar to the avatar request thread), but they'd be seen, and a mod could PM the subject of the request with info that they've been nominated to participate in that thread. Subsequently their post COULD/WOULD be approved and form part of a thread wherein members give us info about themselves, without having to commit to a personal journal.

Most Mainstream Music Taste - I see the want for this as a companion piece to Most Obscure Music Taste, but honestly speaking, this has the same problem as the other - its not really the kind of award that I can see anyone caring about recieving. I vote that this be removed, and "Most Obscure Music Taste" be changed to "Most Esoteric Music Taste". That way its removing a boring award, and the remaining award stops being a competition to listen to the most unheard of stuff.

Clarification: I see the difference between "Obscure" and "Esoteric" music taste as being the difference between listening to only the most underground and underhyped bands, versus listening to such a wide and diverse cross section of music that it belies a deep appreciation of many forms of music, rather than a singleminded devotion to knowing of the newest and least known artists within a single scene.

It also eliminates the problem that if an artist is absolutely fantastic, they usually remain truly obscure (At least within their particular scene) for only a short period of time. (Some rare exceptions notwithstanding) Surely our award should reward members whose devotion to music includes both wide ranging tastes AND a finger on the pulse?

Biggest Contributor/Member Of the Year - Are these not practically the same award? I don't imagine anyone wins Member of the Year without being a massive contributor to the forums. I say we roll these into one. I know there are differences between the two, but mainly they're that "Contributor" makes people think of threadstarters and moderators, people who contribute in some semi-officious manner, whereas Member of the Year allows simply for people who want to vote for their favourite person.

Anyone else agree? I think with us potentially adding a lot of new awards (it seems), we could definitely do with pruning down or re-thinking some of the existing awards. Otherwise we're going to end up with 3 pages of awards to give out, and people already mostly submit partially complete voting forms anyway!

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