The 2007 My Tracks Awards

[ScotsBrutesFan]

It's not a question of your responsibility or failure.

The idea is sound enough, however the large number of different designs some gathered in a single thread, others in their own threads makes the reviewing and selecting process time consuming.
Also the 2007 year seemed to have fewer "graphics based" designers than previous years, such is the way with forums.

Rather than monthly competitions why not simply make a note of threads with designs that have caught your eye each month, and then towards the end of the year start a thread with links to those for judging.

[formula1fan]

SBF, you're a genius! I really don't know why I didn't think of that before! Thanks for the great idea, and I'll be keeping tabs on all the tracks that I like from now on. None of them will be mine, however, because if they were all mine, then that would just be favouritism, wouldn't it?

Cheers, SBF. You're a legend!

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Originally Posted by formula1fan

None of them will be mine, however, because if they were all mine, then that would just be favouritism, wouldn't it?

Perhaps a way around that would be base the selection of your own circuits on the amount of positive feedback...that way it wouldn't be favouritism, rather everyone elses positive comments.

Giving the idea more thought, come the end of the year if there is enough then you could post a couple of threads covering the 2 halves of the year, with the individual months that way, with a final based on the monthly winners.

Originally Posted by formula1fan

SBF, you're a genius
...
Cheers, SBF. You're a legend!

Well, your not the first to say tha...... Erm actually yes you are. WooHoo

[Chatters]

Or... You could make a separate thread for people to put their own nominated tracks into then we vote on all of them.

[formula1fan]

So...what you want is awards for every 6 months (from January to June and from July to December), and then a final round, taking the winners and runners-up from the categories in each award round. Is that okay with everyone?

[Chatters]

No, no, no... You create a thread called "My Tracks 2008 Award Nominations". You state what the categories are and people post there own tracks under different catergories. Limit everyone to one entry (ie: They can post a track for every award category, but not multiple tracks for a single category). Once the time for nominations have closed you get everyone to PM you their choices for who should win each award. No-one can vote for their own track.

[bio]

The only problem with this is that tracks are going to depend on one man's opinion. If the creator doesn't like it more than his other's, a track won't have a chance even if others love it.

[MagnetON]

Not sure if this is relevant or useful but "Thread Ratings" are enabled in the My Tracks forum, so why not just rate each thread/track when you see it? Ok, so it's not category based but it's certainly a start.

If you like you can come up with a workable rule set for a competition with a single prize for "My Track Of The Year 2008" and we'll put up a prize of a subscription and possibly even a trophy like we did for the photography contest.

[pirenzo]

Originally Posted by Chatters

No, no, no... You create a thread called "My Tracks 2008 Award Nominations". You state what the categories are and people post there own tracks under different catergories. Limit everyone to one entry (ie: They can post a track for every award category, but not multiple tracks for a single category). Once the time for nominations have closed you get everyone to PM you their choices for who should win each award. No-one can vote for their own track.

This is a good way of going about it I think.

Still, the nominations thread could easily get far too long itself. The original post would need to be constantly kept up to date with the latest nominations.

I would propose that you can nominate as many tracks as you please (within reason, it's no good just nominating everything you happen to like a little), but only the 5 tracks with the most votes will go through to the final competition in each category.

[formula1fan]

So, I rate the threads that contain tracks I like, categorize them, ask people for their nominations, announce the winners for each category, and put them into a final vote? Oh, and I just had another brilliant idea. Add a 'wild card' track into the final round, just to shake things up a bit.

[pirenzo]

No, you start a thread with the categories you want, then people post in that same thread the names of tracks, with a link, that they like.
Every month or so, a moderator (most likely me) will update your original post with people's nominations.
At the end of the year, you can start another thread, with the top five nominated tracks for each category, that people can vote on via PM, and maybe a poll for overall best track?? (composed of the 1 or 2 most nominated tracks in each category)

[bio]

Ouch, folks, I'm afraid it's starting to go a little too complicated... or just for me?

bio

[Chatters]

Just you.

[MagnetON]

Originally Posted by bio

Ouch, folks, I'm afraid it's starting to go a little too complicated... or just for me?

Me too!

[bio]

The last two comments next to each other just look funny

bio

[ScotsBrutesFan]

OK how about this as a way to at least get things moving.

We come up with a the categories...and stick with them for the year.
For me these shouldn't be overly complicated...and the nominations must be linked
Best gmaps/street circuit,
Best Gmaps/Airport/military airbase design
Best original single line design in the style of Racing Circuits or etrackson-line website
Best Original "full Graphics" design
Best initial Challenge (for example SpringBank from last year http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....82&postcount=1
Best Challenge Circuit ( **name**'s version of Springbank with link)
Best Modification/Edit of another contibutor's design
Best Modification/Edit of a real world design.

Not all the categories would receive nominations every month, and the same circuit could be nominated in more than one category.

At the end of each month a new thread is posted simply asking for nominations (links) in these categories for posts made during that calendar month....no voting, and there shouldn't be too many or be too time consuming to review and make your pick. This thread would be open only for 7 days and then locked.

the 2 or 3 most nominated in each category per month would go into semi finals, these could be held during the first or second week in May (January-April), September(May-August) and January (September-December) or perhaps 4 times a year if that fits better.

The top 2 in category of each semi final, going into the Grand final possibly during last week in January of the following year...
This would be 6/8 tracks in each category plus the overall track of the year award, which would come from those in the Grand final.

Prizes would be kudos to the category winners, and perhaps to take MagentON up on the suggestion a Prize for the overall winner.

Just my ideas...there to be shot at.

[formula1fan]

Once again, SBF, you come up with a fantastic idea that I like. It sounds good to me, and I think that it would honestly work.

[werner]

Originally Posted by Chatters

Or... You could make a separate thread for people to put their own nominated tracks into then we vote on all of them.

I was thinking about something like that as well. Everybody who wants to compete in one or more of the several categories posts in a thread about that categorie his one best track. That way after a certain deadline you can create a poll with the subsciptions posted in that same thread.
I'll try one in a minute.

[werner]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

OK how about this as a way to at least get things moving.

We come up with a the categories...and stick with them for the year.
For me these shouldn't be overly complicated...and the nominations must be linked
Best gmaps/street circuit,
Best Gmaps/Airport/military airbase design
Best original single line design in the style of Racing Circuits or etrackson-line website
Best Original "full Graphics" design
Best initial Challenge (for example SpringBank from last year http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....82&postcount=1
Best Challenge Circuit ( **name**'s version of Springbank with link)
Best Modification/Edit of another contibutor's design
Best Modification/Edit of a real world design.

Not all the categories would receive nominations every month, and the same circuit could be nominated in more than one category.

At the end of each month a new thread is posted simply asking for nominations (links) in these categories for posts made during that calendar month....no voting, and there shouldn't be too many or be too time consuming to review and make your pick. This thread would be open only for 7 days and then locked.

the 2 or 3 most nominated in each category per month would go into semi finals, these could be held during the first or second week in May (January-April), September(May-August) and January (September-December) or perhaps 4 times a year if that fits better.

The top 2 in category of each semi final, going into the Grand final possibly during last week in January of the following year...
This would be 6/8 tracks in each category plus the overall track of the year award, which would come from those in the Grand final.

Prizes would be kudos to the category winners, and perhaps to take MagentON up on the suggestion a Prize for the overall winner.

Just my ideas...there to be shot at.

It seems a bit compicated to me too. I've another idea about how to do it though. witch you can read in another post.
I also want to say something about the categories though. I would keep them easier. For instance:
-Best new circuit
-best streetcircuit
-best real-trackedit
-best graphics

I am against the 'best-gmap-track' and 'best singlelinedesign' awards. Adding such award will only encourage people to throw tons of unthougth circuits at the forum, with the danger for the readers of overlooking good tracks while you are clicking away that sort of rubbish. That already happens way to much.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Firstly these are suggestions for the 2008 awards now, the thread has evolved.

THe single line idea was for those who don't have access to or don't consider their abilities highly enough to present "full graphics" versions, also Single line presentation is the method used as mentioned above by several of the more well known trackdatabase websites.

Gmaps has to be included because like it or not, its an easy to use and freely available design tool, which makes street or airport designs easier to present.

My quoted suggestion is to prevent having to go through so many designs in one shot over the year, rather monthly nominations, which will likely be 1-2 pages of threads each month, of which there may only be 3 or 4 of each possible type.
Finally the nomination and voting does sound complicated when written down, however in practise as will be seen if used at the end of the month, is actually fairly straight forward.

[pirenzo]

You know, I do think this has all got much too complicated.

For a start, there should be just one award. All these categories are just silly.
The only reason they seem to be needed is because generally people only look at either the graphics or the actual shape of the track. Both are almost totally meaningless measures of how good a circuit is, because anyone can come up with a good shape, or learn how to use photoshop.

It's the details that really matter. How do the punters get in, how does the circuit fit within the location, where is the run-off, where are the pits, how does an ambulance get quickly from crash site A to the medical centre at B?
If you took any real location, and put yourself in a real designer's shoes, you'll very soon see that the actual shape of the track comes after everything else, and becomes very much a compromise between the designer's vision and the realities of building and operating it. Those are what really counts, and if we were actually judging based on those criteria it would make no difference at all whether it was a street track, a road course, an oval or a rally stage or whatever it happens to be. It doesn't have to be beautiful (see the first few posts of the original mytracks thread), but I really do think a design where some thought to the details has gone in has to trump a simple line on a page any day.

If you must have categories, like werner says there should be as few as possible. And the nominations system needs to be simple and continuous. We don't want dozens of threads on the matter, and we don't want a plethora of rules for submission and categories to submit to.

[Chatters]

I honestly don't know how much all this discussion will accomplish... After we've decided on the various categories, and the voting process, we're still only going to get a handful of votes from the small majority of Tenthers who frequent this forum...

[shambles]

Just have a 'track of the year award'

each member who wishes to compete puts forward one of their own designs for voting, and the whole of ten-tenths comes in and has a vote (marketed via an announcement at the top of certain forum headers)

Have an opening post that asks members to vote based; i.e. taking into consideration the following; design features (corners), circuit flow, viability, location etc...

Simple.

Say that circuit nomination should be complete by the end of Jan, with voting running two weeks into Feb. Have a winner, give him/her a subscription or whatever and then we can have a celebratory orgy.

[bio]

I like this last idea. Keeping it simple might be the key to a working system - I mean a system that actually generates more than 2-3 votes.

[formula1fan]

Originally Posted by shambles

Just have a 'track of the year award'

each member who wishes to compete puts forward one of their own designs for voting, and the whole of ten-tenths comes in and has a vote (marketed via an announcement at the top of certain forum headers)

Have an opening post that asks members to vote based; i.e. taking into consideration the following; design features (corners), circuit flow, viability, location etc...

Simple.

Say that circuit nomination should be complete by the end of Jan, with voting running two weeks into Feb. Have a winner, give him/her a subscription or whatever and then we can have a celebratory orgy.

Shambles, I really think that your suggestion is a brilliant idea, and I think that it would work well. But, who would the nominations be PMed to?