Thank you all for taking part last year, we had some really fantastic boards showing the huge variety and creativity of our users, and hopefully we have more of the same this year!
This year's rules are slightly different, in that you may only nominate other people's boards, not your own, and also only
please.
The slightly modified rules are here, but after this month they will remain only in the Announcement thread.
1. A nomination thread will go up for the last two weeks of every month. You can nominate anybody you like other than yourself, and any person can have any number of nominations every month.
a. These boards should be ones you are drawn to, ones that stand out for one reason or another. Keysets, modifications, whatever you fancy. I don’t want to have to post guidelines or restrictions on the boards, but I may change this depending on the types of submissions we get over the first few months. Please also say a little bit about each board you nominate, as to the reasons why you think it deserves to be up for KOTM.
b. The board must have been posted to the forums since the start of the calendar month. It can have been posted before then, but you must provide a link to the images that were posted after the first day of the calendar month.
c. If you are nominating a user-built projects, please refrain from nominating them until after the project is finished, otherwise they have the potential to win multiple months with the same board.
2. However, after the initial two week period of nominations, a user will only have ONE board get through to the final public voting process. The final three nominees will be selected by myself from the most nominated and praised board in the nomination thread. E.G. If one board is posted and has the most +1s, quotes or references by other users in said thread, that will be chosen as one of the final three. Essentially, there is a crowd unofficial voting before the public voting. The final three are not up to me, they are up to you.
3. PLEASE post some good quality photos of the board you are nominating. I’m not looking for Macro lenses and DSLRs, but maybe more than one, top down, blurry shot would be nice. I realise if it isn't your board there isn't much you can do about it, but just pick a couple that aren't terrible from an album or post.
4. On the 1st of every month, a poll thread will go up. This will consist of three finalists. Again, a user will only have one of their boards get through to this stage during any particular month. You can of course be nominated on another month. There will be one vote per person, and the results will remain anonymous until the voting closes.
5. After a period of one week, the voting will be closed and a winner will be announced. The winner will be posted both on that month's voting thread, and the following month's nominations thread.
6. The winner of each monthly process will go through to the ANNUAL KEYBOARD OF THE YEAR process, and the winner of the will DEFINITELY win a prize which I will work out at some point... The monthly winners will get a sticker or two as well
KEYBOARD OF THE YEAR SPECIFIC RULES1. The Keyboard of the Year vote will go out after the final winner has been decided. This will now be run concurrently with the nomination thread of the first month of the next year. So KOTY 2016 will be run during the month of January 2017 along side the nomination thread for KOTM for January 2017. Get it?
2. Each user will be given three votes. Twelve boards is a lot to choose from, and it makes it a lot easier to decide which has the most appreciation by giving everyone more than one vote. You don't have to use all of them, but you will get no more than three.
3. The vote will run for 10 days to allow for more users to join in the final big vote