Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
maybe next time it would be a plus to announce the beginning of the nominations on the main boards at forums rather than just the winners. that would give webmasters a chance to take part in the process - nominate the sites they feel are the best and vote rather than being handed results they didn’t get a chance to be a part of.
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
[QUOTE=AlexManifestMan;25992] I know exactly how we got the award we received. We nominated our site and then asked our members and blog readers to vote for us. Simple as that.
[/QUOTE]
So, it’s a popularity contest.
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
I think they did actually.
My main problem is, that often in competitions or awards, you have to put up banners advertising the award site on your own site. Too me thats free advertising, and advertising space on gaydemon is very valuable. I can’t justify swapping out a large income stream with free advertising for another site.
So my choice is limited to relying on the audience of the award site and that the audience knows of my site. That in itself is no problem as long as the audience is large enough.
But for me to start thinking about participating in an award the site where the voting and nominations takes place got to be almost as large as my own site, if not larger.
Alas, it comes down to proving its size and stats, which I can understand many site owners are not comfortable doing.
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
[QUOTE=dannyz;26075]While we won 2 awards, which I am very appreciative of, I can certainly understand Bjorn’s concerns. I think everyone in the industry is hungry for a non-biased, truly democratic and accurate awards system that reflects the full diversity of original websites that make our work so exciting for surfers. While we did take the time to nominate our sites for inclusion in the awards, I could tell by how few ‘competitors’ we had that it wasn’t actually much we won.
Why not think about, at least until you guys get a bit larger and more known within the industry, letting webmasters on forums such as this one help with nominating the sites? A lot of the time, us webmasters are just too damn busy to keep up with everything going on to nominate sites ourselves, but I think you’d get a lot more nominations and sites getting included next year if more of us webmasters were involved with not only nominating our own sites but each others.
I am very happy that it looks like you guys are open to suggestions, and I do think the EGPA guys have a great idea. Perhaps we can offer them more advice and help them to create the fair and non-biased awards program we’d all like to see. As Bjorn said, credibility is a very important factor with running an awards show and working closer with webmasters such as the ones on this forum will be a great way to both achieve that and grow the show.
All Best Wishes,
Daniel[/QUOTE]
Thank you for participating Daniel and congratulations 
As you all can see we are trying as best as we can to make this work, and provide webmasters with an awards that is as fair as we possibly can, As Marc said we were pleased with the results, considering it was the first one… It could have been far worse and at least people did participate in this.
Everyone here all knows how difficult it is to actually achieve user participation… And I think we did well even if I do say so myself.
Like Daniel has said more webmasters offering us help, advice and continued participation would be appreciated… I think we are all agreed on the fact that something ran this way is much needed… afterall it is you guys we are trying to provide this for.
All the studios, models / actors that have won our other European gay porn awards contest, appear to be very pleased with them and do hold them with a sense of accomplishment and pride… It is just a shame that all those people do not circulate around webmaster forums, not to my knowledge anyway…
I will not mention any names, but talking to them face to face at our awards events, they are all very positive, And it really is a great honor for me to meet all these fabulous famous people on a personal level that the majority of people can only dream of ever hoping to catch a glimpse of never mind shake their hands and have a conversation with… And what is more EGPA feels very humble and proud of the fact that all these people participate and travel 1000’s of miles to attend!
I am in no way being big headed, just relaying some facts, and as I stated I feel humble and honored by it.
In time I hope our web awards will achieve the same level of success, and the winners will have a sense of actually having won an award that they consider to be worth having, only time will tell.
Just in response to gaydemon, Placing our banners on any site advertising our web awards is not a requirement! … but if you want to make it known that you have put your site forward and want to get some votes for it then your surfers will need to know, a text link even would be sufficient, maybe not as effective but none the less, just a suggestion…
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
if votes is all it takes, then the sites with the largest amount of surfers will always win, not the best sites. it would be more fair if all votes had to go from your page to each site and come back to vote. so any program with a pay per sale twink site will be able to send tons more traffic than a well-crafted niche revshare site.
when a friend asks me to vote for their band, i don’t check all the bands on the site they’re on - i just vote for my friend’s band and move on. so i don’t really have a clue which band is the best - i’m there to support my friend.
that doesn’t mean that all the sites that win aren’t good, but some will win only because they have more traffic and a place to put the “vote for us” link. which means they aren’t necessarily the best sites or even the best sites nominated. i guess that a contest like this is basically a traffic contest, and what it shows is what site has - and is willing to send - the most surfers to your site.
while i’d love to see an award given for merit rather than traffic, putting it together would be quite the challenge.
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
[QUOTE=basschick;26152]if votes is all it takes, then the sites with the largest amount of surfers will always win, not the best sites. it would be more fair if all votes had to go from your page to each site and come back to vote. so any program with a pay per sale twink site will be able to send tons more traffic than a well-crafted niche revshare site.
when a friend asks me to vote for their band, i don’t check all the bands on the site they’re on - i just vote for my friend’s band and move on. so i don’t really have a clue which band is the best - i’m there to support my friend.
that doesn’t mean that all the sites that win aren’t good, but some will win only because they have more traffic and a place to put the “vote for us” link. which means they aren’t necessarily the best sites or even the best sites nominated. i guess that a contest like this is basically a traffic contest, and what it shows is what site has - and is willing to send - the most surfers to your site.
while i’d love to see an award given for merit rather than traffic, putting it together would be quite the challenge.[/QUOTE]
Sorry let me explain : The “vote for us” banner / link maybe a little misleading in the respect that it takes you directly to a checkbox type survey as it were, where you can see all of the sites listed and vote for any site you wish to it does not have to be the site you clicked the link on… Click link on site “A” get taken to “VOTE” page vote for either site “A,B,C,D,E…” , But you can only vote once in each category the program makes sure of that… If you want to vote for more then you would have to go to your friends house use his computer and a different email address… and then go to another… etc… Not really worth the effort to get a few more votes… there is another possible way I thought of but, would take a shit load of hard work, and besides you would really have to know what the vote count was in the first place, because even if it did work it would ring alarm bells with me soon as I seen a high number of targeted votes and would investigate…
Nothing is 100% fool proof … But yes Basschick if I am reading you correctly then we are already doing what you suggested, so high traffic is not going to help your site, but a large loyal fan base just might… but even then they might seen another site on the list and think “hold on” that’s better than where I have been going lets vote for this one…
All submitted sites are checked first by myself, to make sure they are not spammy or have stolen content or the C stuff or viruses whatever…
Of course I am only human and it is possible I could miss something shrug But on the one occasion that I did this time round it was quickly pointed out to me by another webmaster…
It was nothing major anyway and the exact details are private between EGPA and the party’s involved, as you can appreciate.
Thanks for the input Basschick
EDIT :
Just like to add that when I check the sites it matters not what they look like to me only the fact they are not doing anything they should not be doing within reason.
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
my friends’ bands links also take me to a page with all the listings on it. i find their band and vote. since i doubt there’s anything particularly unique about me in this respect, i expect that anyone who feels any personal or brand loyalty will vote for the person or site that sent them.
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Yes that is true… And is why the awards are publicly elected as it is what the public like not what a panel of judges think… So as stated before in this thread it may not necessary be the best site design or whatever, But is what the public like…
Take a very popular American ads site for example in my personal opinion the design is outdated and is a pain to navigate, but millions of people use it every day and has survived the test of time… The public love it and that is were we are coming from with these awards.
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Another example, lets take horror films :
The press and experts tell me in reviews that “Film A” is “terrifying and will have you on the edge of your seat” etc etc … 98% of the time I sit and laugh my nuts off all through it and get told to shut up 
Where as about 28 years ago I found when they first ran the full series of Salem’s Lot (since then they cut so many bits out of it, it is not the same at all) had me on the edge of my seat the build up was slow but the scary bits where scary.
All down to personal taste… does not mean the reviewer was right or wrong, he might of thought it was as he described it and was terrified… But do the actual public agree with him after watching it? … So is it really the best because he said so or is the best because the public think so…
Were working from the public angle
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Something else that I never really gave much thought to is the actual site design for the web awards site, simple is what I prefer, but is that what people would expect to see? … Would it be better if I was too change it more along the lines of the news site in my sig? … Or go for an all out fancy site that looks more like a sponsor tour page type thing with all the heavy graphics and stuff?
Maybe it is the first impression that is part of the problem? …
As their is nothing to be improved upon on the voting technique far as I can see, biased on it being from a public perspective after all and not a panel of judges…
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Righto, so I have started to restructure that site… the 2008 nominees section is not very pretty atm, but there still there… going to take a few hours work to sort that as I have each category in php files with special <divs> to display correctly with the old style and for ease of updating (well was)…
Now seeing that nobody has pipped up, I can only assume that the actual site is ok…
So I decided that maybe some clarification was needed on a new “about” page instead, here is my addition to it :
May we just point out that our awards are publicly voted on there is no panel of judges and our awards can not be bought. It really is the votes cast by the public that determines the outcome of the awards. So if you happen to see some very well known site in any category and it does not win then it is purely due to the public not voting for it…
Webmasters have been asking in forums all over the Internet for sometime now for a truly democratic awards and voting system biased not on how much traffic you have or how big of an advertising budget you have or who you know, but biased purely on the votes made by everyone that participates, with multiple voting choices it is not just a case of clicking one link from a site to vote! They click a link to our voting pages and make their own decisions on who they wish to vote for… we are doing everything possible to ensure that is what we provide.
More and more people are learning of our new awards everyday, so the next one will have a much bigger public and industry awareness and that means more sites submitted and many more votes, And overall become more competitive as more of the larger and longer standing sites participate in these awards. It will be interesting to see yet again what the public prefers over who has the biggest budget to spend on development and advertising.
I hope this is now very clear to those of you who did not fully understand that EGPA does not operate in the same way as many other awards companyâsâ¦
Andy Robson.
Couple of things I really do need to know is, Have I now made it quite plain how these awards work? and have I explained it correctly? as in is it too blunt, or does it just sound like a load of bollocks…
We are trying our hardest here to set the record straight and make this truly how you guys think it should be, I keep hearing through the grapevine that an awards like this is what fellow webmasters want…
I feel I have met you all more than half way here, and provided information that others do not disclose.
Or is it more fun to just keep on hearing everyone complain about the other awards systems and never put a step forward to make it happen how you want it to?
So now is your chance to make your input and give me some constructive feedback in return please…
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
lol thanks, but somehow its just nothing i want to get into! I got enough people who dont like me as it is 
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Well, all I can add to this thread is life isn’t fair and no election can ever be totally fair either! We have to accept some pitfalls and not get too hung up about them, and it does seem the EGPA guys actually pretty cool 
I could feel sorry that no-one nominated my site, but then I didn’t bother myself so I can’t really complain! Next year I’ll try and pay more attention But what I would add is if everyone nominated themselves then you are going to need to find a way to narrow down the finalists of each category, otherwise your voters will 1,000’s of sites to choose from and that will be a nightmare!
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
[QUOTE=Adam Mason;26372]Well, all I can add to this thread is life isn’t fair and no election can ever be totally fair either! We have to accept some pitfalls and not get too hung up about them, and it does seem the EGPA guys actually pretty cool
I could feel sorry that no-one nominated my site, but then I didn’t bother myself so I can’t really complain! Next year I’ll try and pay more attention But what I would add is if everyone nominated themselves then you are going to need to find a way to narrow down the finalists of each category, otherwise your voters will 1,000’s of sites to choose from and that will be a nightmare![/QUOTE]
Thanks for your positive feedback, Adam much appreciated
Yes the possibility of there being 1000’s of sites did cross my mind, My thoughts were to split the category’s up into their own separate voting process so people do not have to go through them all, if they do not want to.
For example :
Voting selection page contains a list of the category’s…
Select a category browse the list make your vote…
Back to voting selection page… rinse and repeat… Or come back another day and vote on a different category if you wish…
Complicates the restrictions on stopping multiple votes from the same person per category… But I know of a way to achieve that
Some people may only care to vote on one or two category’s that way I know and might not bother with the rest, That might be a good thing and make for a more accurate result, If they only vote on what they care to instead of making them also vote on category’s they might not give to hoots about.
Something to consider at least I think… (grumbles, more f-ing work lol)
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Well, that’s one way… or you could slim down the final candidates by limiting it to the top 10 sites per category according to the number of nominations recieved. So, if only I nominated my site as being worthy, yet in the same category / niche 10 other sites got more than one nomination, my site wouldn’t be in the final.
I don’t see how anyone could complain at that scenario (although some will!)
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
again, it depends on if the awards claim this is a people’s choice or whehther the awards claim these are the best sites. while you can certainly easily tally up votes, the results won’t show the best site.
if any awards - and i’m NOT talking about these awards in particular - want to have awards for what are truly the best sites, rather than the ones that can send more traffic, they will need to be scored at least partly by criteria. and ultimately i suppose to be fair, even the criteria would need to be voted on.
seems like content quality, originality, ease of use would be at least 3 criteria. and then content quality would have to have different ratings for free sites and paysites and PPV (although why most ppv isn’t at least as high in quality as paysites, i don’t know). and then each voter would have to vote on each point. after all, some sites have HORRIBLE navigation, ugly looks but wonderful content and tons of personality. and that’s 4 different voting issues.
i mean, as far as paysites, all the awards let surfers vote even though they’ve never seen anything but the tour. to get a truly honest vote, surfers would all have to have access to the member area since this isn’t the academy awards, so we can’t send them screeners
[quote=Adam Mason;26417]Well, that’s one way… or you could slim down the final candidates by limiting it to the top 10 sites per category according to the number of nominations recieved. So, if only I nominated my site as being worthy, yet in the same category / niche 10 other sites got more than one nomination, my site wouldn’t be in the final.
I don’t see how anyone could complain at that scenario (although some will!)[/quote]
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Good points, but they just aren’t workable, are they? It’s a bit like saying no-one is really eligible to vote in the McCain / Obama election unless they have personally been able to meet and question the candiates directly themselves lol
Now… that restriction could really change the world… whistle
[QUOTE=basschick;26428]again, it depends on if the awards claim this is a people’s choice or whehther the awards claim these are the best sites. while you can certainly easily tally up votes, the results won’t show the best site.
if any awards - and i’m NOT talking about these awards in particular - want to have awards for what are truly the best sites, rather than the ones that can send more traffic, they will need to be scored at least partly by criteria. and ultimately i suppose to be fair, even the criteria would need to be voted on.
seems like content quality, originality, ease of use would be at least 3 criteria. and then content quality would have to have different ratings for free sites and paysites and PPV (although why most ppv isn’t at least as high in quality as paysites, i don’t know). and then each voter would have to vote on each point. after all, some sites have HORRIBLE navigation, ugly looks but wonderful content and tons of personality. and that’s 4 different voting issues.
i mean, as far as paysites, all the awards let surfers vote even though they’ve never seen anything but the tour. to get a truly honest vote, surfers would all have to have access to the member area since this isn’t the academy awards, so we can’t send them screeners ;)[/QUOTE]
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
well, some is literally impossible, but some of it is perfectly do-able. one could certainly have each voter rate each site on 5 or 6 points - say navigation/ease of use, visual appeal, content quality, whether the site delivers on its claims and personality.
[quote=Adam Mason;26430]Good points, but they just aren’t workable, are they? It’s a bit like saying no-one is really eligible to vote in the McCain / Obama election unless they have personally been able to meet and question the candiates directly themselves lol
Now… that restriction could really change the world… whistle[/quote]
Re: EGPA 2008 Web Awards winners announced !!!
Very good points … I can see “Best Site” getting changed to “Most Popular” <insert disclaimer here> lol
each voter rate each site on 5 or 6 points - say navigation/ease of use, visual appeal, content quality, whether the site delivers on its claims and personality.
Then really every voter would have had to visit each site in question and then vote on those 5-6 points for every site in the category, and then the score logged from that perspective…
That would be expecting too much from the voter IMHO… you know yourself what a pain it is when you get stuck with a survey and asked “How would you rate this service? … somewhat bad, bad, good, somewhat good, f-ing awful, or undecided” …
Then onto the next 50 odd questions… It drives me to distraction and I either tell them where to stick the survey or if I am in a good mood I just say the first thing that comes into my head (and thats usually enough to make them hang up, or run away! :D)
I can see where your coming from, but I can also predict that many people will simply not finish the voting process because of this and it being too long and drawn out…
Most peoples attention span is very short anyway… It really has to be “wham bam thank you mam” … quick easy voting… lets face it the people that take the time to click a link from a nominated site are probably going to just find that site on the list anyway and vote for them, unless they seen another site that they just happen to like better in the list…
The voting pages that we had this time round IMO were too long and time consuming… Hence why when Adam mentioned a possibility of loads of sites brought me to the separate voting on each category idea.
Even employing that idea and mixing it with the multiple choice on 5-6 different quality’s per site could well get way too much for the voter…
Don’t get me wrong I’m not urinating on suggestions given, Just trying to look at it from a voters perspective also…
Something I feel does need to be taken into consideration, or we might end up with more sites than completed votes lol