In Days Of Olde, When Knights Were <B>…

by Gazoo, Webmaster
Gazoo's Gold
22 August 1999

Before we dive into the article I would like to take a few moments to thank our host, Don Chisholm, for allowing me to write an article and post it on his site. I would also like to take a moment to recognize some hard work:

Back in the days of dinosaurs (XT-osaurus and 286-Rex) the Website Award scene was a quagmire, a steaming swamp, an oozing bubbling Tar Pit. Smaller, newer awards were constantly being gobbled up, or forced to move on to new territories by the larger predatory awards until they eventually vanished entirely. An award would be born one day and vanish the next. It was a terrible, chaotic time indeed.

Then, just when it seemed that the swirling, maddening Chaos would ultimately prevail, out of the primeval ooze rose two gallant Champions of Good:

Sir David Bancroft, (Baron of Ratings and Knight of Focus) and Sir Don Chisholm, (Lord of the List and Knight of Order).

The townsfolk half-heartedly cheered them on. Many a Knight had tried and failed before.

Sir David, determined to win out over Evil, knew his path was clear. Having endured many trials and legendary battles, the stalwart and proud Sir David returned to the townsfolk and offered them sanctuary in a new land he called "Award Sites."

The townsfolk cheered!

Sir Don chose another path. He knew that to truly restore the Balance the common folk had to have safe access to awards and be able to keep track of the awards they had found. Sir Don rode off to the West and returned weeks later, bloodied but undaunted, bearing an ancient artifact of great power... the "Website Awards Worksheet!"

The townsfolk cheered!

And so we who would dare to follow in their mighty footsteps also cheer them in the grand old manner of the Gladiators of Rome:

We who are about to award... we salute you!

This Article

When Don asked me to write an article about Awards and my experiences with them I thought it would be a breeze. I was delighted to have the opportunity. It proved to be tougher than I thought, especially after reading the other articles in this series (which are excellent and you should read and memorize every word).

Website awards are an anomaly. There is no equivalent in any other medium so we, as Award Givers, are constantly breaking new ground, creating new rules, as we go along. So I thought I would use this article to pass along some thoughts on the nature of award programs and the direction(s) we seem to be headed in.

The Evolution of Awards

Watching award programs evolve on the Web has been a fascinating process for me. Not so very long ago a webmaster would simply find a site he/she liked and award it based on that criteria.

Then came the onset of "award applications." I have never really enjoyed this concept. A real award should be one given and not asked for, in my mind. But let's face it, with all of the millions of pages out there we have to have some way of finding deserving sites, and ultimately, the award application process is probably the most efficient way.

The theory is that with an award application you can weed out the crud by listing the types of sites that you would feel are worthy of an award and only ever have to go to sites that fit your criteria. The reality of the situation is that very few people ever bother to read criteria and apply for everything and anything thinking that if they apply for 1,000 awards they are bound to win some.

I watch my web site access logs very closely and something on the order of 1% of award appliers actually bother to read my award's criteria.

The good news is the award application is a dying animal.

The bad news is the award application is a dying animal.

Webmaster's are getting tired, and rightly so, of having to wade through application after application that do not even come close to fitting the criteria for their award. So, they are inventing entirely new ways to award sites:

The "Vote For Us" Method

On the surface of it, this would seem to be a very good way to dole out awards. The theory here is that people come to your site and like it so much that they feel overwhelmed with the need to click on a graphic and vote for your site.

I recently participated in one of the most well known "vote for us" programs (which will remain nameless) and it was a particularly unsatisfying experience. Being new to this type of award program I took some time and toured through some of the sites who had previously won the award in question. I wanted to see what I was up against.

I was thoroughly dismayed to find the award proudly displayed on a page with this text below it:

"I would like to thank all the people who voted for me and especially [name removed] for voting for me every day from all 20 of the machines at work. Each machine has a different IP address so she did a lot of voting!"

This type of award program has nothing, zilch, nada, zero to do with the merits of your work.This is a popularity contest at best. It is also a great gauge of how many friends you have on the web. But it is a damned poor measure of a web site's worth. Needless to say I removed my site from the "competition" immediately.

The "Best Award Money Can Buy" Method

This method of award giving seems to be making quite a stir on the web. You purchase an application and the Award Giver promises to promote your site a little bit better than the average Joe Schmuck who submits a site for free.

"For just a few dollars we will give your site extra consideration and mention it here on our site a few times."

Blech. What happened to rewarding hard work? What happened to a pat on the back because you created something above average? Now you can purchase your awards right over the web via a secure e-commerce server, no less. They take Mastercard and Visa too, by the way, so line up early.

The "Insert Stupid Requirement Here" Method

I think this one cheeses me off the most.

This is a very old method of giving out awards. The theory is you go to an award site and as long as you fulfill the requirements set out, you win! Yay! Woohoo!

Most of the time you will see requirements like these:

"You must sign my guestbook"

Why? What is the point? Do webmasters really need to fill their guestbooks that badly? My guess is that people see a full guestbook as some sort of bizarre status symbol. Go figure.

"You must link back to my site or I won't list you as a Winner"

Now what the heck is up with this? Either a site deserves an award or it doesn't. If you are going to give the award, give it and be done with it. In my award program I do ask for a link but I have always made it clear that it is not a condition of winning. I just appreciate it when people link the award back to my page. If they don't link back, that is just fine by me. It doesn't devalue their site in any way. A butt kicking page is a butt kicking page.

"Just join my webring and you can be a winner"

AUGH! Oh, the humanity....

Now, lest you think all award programs are like those mentioned above, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth! There are some excellent programs out there, just waiting for you to apply.

But I have to say, I am concerned about the future of award programs. At some point we, as Award program webmaster's, will have to decide if an award is truly an award or if it is just another promotional tool in a webmaster's arsenal of "notice me!" weapons.

If awards are to survive as the real pat on the back I feel they should be, then we need to do some serious re-thinking about the way we present our awards.

Just some food for thought.