Member of the Month Awards

[Princess Rescuer]

KawaseFan, in order to encourage a plethora of more interesting topics and better writing, do you think you should start with a "Member of the Month" section?

I imagine good criteria for Member of the Month would be something like quality over quantity in posts, the start of interesting topics or discussions, or something that positively impacts the Umihara Kawase games or community. It should not just be superficial things like "most frequent member". That's silly.

I can think of downsides to this. MOM awards might not go to people like Kintyorru, an amazing player who is very active in producing high-quality superplays and tutorials, yet he isn't a frequenter on these forums. Plus, there might be too few active members and the same handful of people (me, you, Texh, Sol-Alpha, and a few others) might run away with the awards month after month after month. Plus there shouldn't be any sort of favor or immunity privileges or anything- that would just encourage abuses of power such as going ban-crazy or harassing others like in so many other forums.

Oh, and it shouldn't be more than an ancilliary feature on the site- nothing that gets all that much trumpeting.

Or don't do it. Your call.

[KawaseFan]

I appreciate your suggestion and agree with most of it in terms of how such an award system would ideally work (though I definitely wouldn't be awarding member of the month to myself), but I feel uncomfortable with suggesting that one member is being a better member than others.  I'm a big believer in all members being considered equal: it's why I've removed post-based member groups; it's why I've hidden post counts from showing alongside these posts.  I feel that having a member of the month award would contradict that.

[Princess Rescuer]

What about just a "hall of fame" with descriptions or something? Nothing you'd have to update on a monthly basis.

If you feel that will have ego-inflating consequences, don't do it.

[KawaseFan]

It's less about the risk of ego-boosting (though I obviously would still want to avoid that) and more about not wanting to give the impression to those not awarded - whether it's member of the month or a hall of fame - that they're not doing as well as a member.  Admittedly a hall of fame would be better in that regard, but it's still not something I feel comfortable with.