KOTM Feedback thread

[njbair]

I have a suggestion to even out the problem with great keyboards getting in the shadow of hard to beat competitors certain monthts: a second chance poll with all the second place kbds of every month (before the keyboard of the year poll) where the three most voted kbds gets into the keyboard of the year poll. Thoughts on this?

This is an excellent idea, like wildcard teams in the playoffs. Unless one of those runners-up have already won some other month, then their spot would be bumped to the next highest nominee.

Along similar lines, what if multi-month winners are combined into a single entry for KOTY?

[Yoe]

I have a suggestion to even out the problem with great keyboards getting in the shadow of hard to beat competitors certain monthts: a second chance poll with all the second place kbds of every month (before the keyboard of the year poll) where the three most voted kbds gets into the keyboard of the year poll. Thoughts on this?

This is an excellent idea, like wildcard teams in the playoffs. Unless one of those runners-up have already won some other month, then their spot would be bumped to the next highest nominee.

Along similar lines, what if multi-month winners are combined into a single entry for KOTY?

Good thinking!

I'm not sure if merging multi-month winners into a single entry would make the chance at the trophy any less good. I mean, if the two or more keyboards are sharing an entry, wouldn't that entry get the combined votes for those too? I believe separate entries would be more fair after all.

[njbair]

I have a suggestion to even out the problem with great keyboards getting in the shadow of hard to beat competitors certain monthts: a second chance poll with all the second place kbds of every month (before the keyboard of the year poll) where the three most voted kbds gets into the keyboard of the year poll. Thoughts on this?

This is an excellent idea, like wildcard teams in the playoffs. Unless one of those runners-up have already won some other month, then their spot would be bumped to the next highest nominee.

Along similar lines, what if multi-month winners are combined into a single entry for KOTY?

Good thinking!

I'm not sure if merging multi-month winners into a single entry would make the chance at the trophy any less good. I mean, if the two or more keyboards are sharing an entry, wouldn't that entry get the combined votes for those too? I believe separate entries would be more fair after all.

That same thought occurred to me shortly after I posted. I was trying to equalize everyone to one entry, but you're right, that just doubles up the votes for that person.

[njbair]

So I'm testing out a cool way to help promote KOTM.

I wrote a small web app that generates image links for Keyboard of the Month. For this month I went with an MS-DOS WordPerfect theme:



The cool thing about this is that I can set up the app to always show the current month and link to the current thread. So all you'd have to do is drop the bbcode in your signature once, and it will update itself.

Also, to help avoid banner blindness, we can make the whole thing basically disappear (1x1 pixel image) when we're not using it. Believe it or not, there's an image below here:



I have full control over fonts and colors as well. Here's one I made for October:



And an oldschool gameboy-style nomination link:



Let me know what you think. If you want to help me test it, put this code in your signature:

Code: [Select]

[url=http://kotm.lab.nickbair.net/link][img]http://kotm.lab.nickbair.net[/img][/url]


[HoffmanMyster]

So I'm testing out a cool way to help promote KOTM.

I wrote a small web app that generates image links for Keyboard of the Month. For this month I went with an MS-DOS WordPerfect theme:

Show Image

The cool thing about this is that I can set up the app to always show the current month and link to the current thread. So all you'd have to do is drop the bbcode in your signature once, and it will update itself.

Also, to help avoid banner blindness, we can make the whole thing basically disappear (1x1 pixel image) when we're not using it. Believe it or not, there's an image below here:

Show Image

I have full control over fonts and colors as well. Here's one I made for October:

Show Image

And an oldschool gameboy-style nomination link:

Show Image

Let me know what you think. If you want to help me test it, put this code in your signature:

Code: [Select]

[url=http://kotm.lab.nickbair.net/link][img]http://kotm.lab.nickbair.net[/img][/url]


This is really cool. 

Edit:  It would be a lot more complicated, but having the ability to edit colors and fonts for ourselves would be awesome.  I like the way the blue one looks by itself, but I'm not the biggest fan of how it ended up looking in my sig (I prefer more bright colors ).  If I could customize mine to be CMYP I would love it even more. 

[njbair]

So I'm testing out a cool way to help promote KOTM.

I wrote a small web app that generates image links for Keyboard of the Month. For this month I went with an MS-DOS WordPerfect theme:

Show Image

The cool thing about this is that I can set up the app to always show the current month and link to the current thread. So all you'd have to do is drop the bbcode in your signature once, and it will update itself.

Also, to help avoid banner blindness, we can make the whole thing basically disappear (1x1 pixel image) when we're not using it. Believe it or not, there's an image below here:

Show Image

I have full control over fonts and colors as well. Here's one I made for October:

Show Image

And an oldschool gameboy-style nomination link:

Show Image

Let me know what you think. If you want to help me test it, put this code in your signature:

Code: [Select]

[url=http://kotm.lab.nickbair.net/link][img]http://kotm.lab.nickbair.net[/img][/url]


This is really cool. 

Edit:  It would be a lot more complicated, but having the ability to edit colors and fonts for ourselves would be awesome.  I like the way the blue one looks by itself, but I'm not the biggest fan of how it ended up looking in my sig (I prefer more bright colors ).  If I could customize mine to be CMYP I would love it even more. 

I figure the colors will change each month, to help promote each month's poll. People look right past something once they get used to it.

It's also not very straightforward to change fonts because you're working with x/y coordinates, filenames, etc. So I don't know how I would go about that.

But I appreciate the input because it didn't occur to me that people might prefer certain colors in their sig.

[katushkin]

That's really awesome! What do the words change to based on? Is it just something you write yourself?

[rowdy]

I figure the colors will change each month, to help promote each month's poll. People look right past something once they get used to it.

It's also not very straightforward to change fonts because you're working with x/y coordinates, filenames, etc. So I don't know how I would go about that.

But I appreciate the input because it didn't occur to me that people might prefer certain colors in their sig.

What about changing the colours to match the primary colours on the previous month's winner?

Either the keycap colour for the background and the legend colour for the text, or maybe just the the predominant two colours (case, keycap, modifiers, whatever stands out most).

[njbair]

I'm open to whatever people think is best. I can do any font and color combination as long as I can upload the font to my webserver. It takes some manual work to tweak the font sizes and positions, but that's once per banner.

[njbair]

Does Kurplop's unfinished board belong in the running this month?

[trees]

Does Kurplop's unfinished board belong in the running this month?

I wouldnt think it should until its finished. THEN it can sweep the polls.

[jbondeson]

I think the rules should have some caveat that the keyboard be complete. Because otherwise you have people not voting for it, or it going into kotm a second time when it is complete.

[katushkin]

Definitely something to take into consideration. We did only have four nominees this month other than the one CPT posted this morning, and that one didn't get a +1.

I think if it happens again in a month where there are more contenders, it would be something I would enforce. However this month there wasn't enough interest to prevent such a highly praised board getting through to the vote.

[HoffmanMyster]

We did only have four nominees this month

If you really needed more nominees, I could have nominated myself.  Not something I'd normally do, but if we need more in the pool I wouldn't mind.  (although it seems silly, cause it's unlikely anyone would vote for it if it's not nominated, yknow?)

[E3E]

I know that it hasn't been decided what the winner of KOTY gets and such, but I just want to thank everyone again for the votes. I couldn't be happier with all the love my build has gotten in the closing months of the last year. Whatever you guys come up with, I'm sure it'll be awesome!

The KOTM calandar alone is something I'm very much looking forward to!

[pr0ximity]

This "no self-nomination" rule seems very silly to me, I don't understand the motivation. IMO, should be closer to a film festival where you enter your keyboard. Did I miss the reasoning behind that somewhere?

[katushkin]

This "no self-nomination" rule seems very silly to me, I don't understand the motivation. IMO, should be closer to a film festival where you enter your keyboard. Did I miss the reasoning behind that somewhere?

It was more a thought of; "If it's good enough, someone else will nominate it" sort of thing. I'm not sure if that is the reason why we are getting less nominees this month, but it could be a factor.

[HoffmanMyster]

This "no self-nomination" rule seems very silly to me, I don't understand the motivation. IMO, should be closer to a film festival where you enter your keyboard. Did I miss the reasoning behind that somewhere?

It was more a thought of; "If it's good enough, someone else will nominate it" sort of thing. I'm not sure if that is the reason why we are getting less nominees this month, but it could be a factor.

I've posted a few boards over the months that I thought were pretty cool but never saw a nomination.  It's incredibly likely that people just weren't interested, in which case that's fine, but it's also possible that people simply forgot about them.  I'm not fussed either way, but allowing people to "remind" others about their boards might be good.

[katushkin]

This "no self-nomination" rule seems very silly to me, I don't understand the motivation. IMO, should be closer to a film festival where you enter your keyboard. Did I miss the reasoning behind that somewhere?

It was more a thought of; "If it's good enough, someone else will nominate it" sort of thing. I'm not sure if that is the reason why we are getting less nominees this month, but it could be a factor.

I've posted a few boards over the months that I thought were pretty cool but never saw a nomination.  It's incredibly likely that people just weren't interested, in which case that's fine, but it's also possible that people simply forgot about them.  I'm not fussed either way, but allowing people to "remind" others about their boards might be good.

Yeah true. I was just hoping that if someone liked a board enough they should remember it. I should probably be a bit more lenient with it really and allow it.

[E3E]

I've posted a few boards over the months that I thought were pretty cool but never saw a nomination.  It's incredibly likely that people just weren't interested, in which case that's fine, but it's also possible that people simply forgot about them.  I'm not fussed either way, but allowing people to "remind" others about their boards might be good.

Though I don't own too many customs, I've gotten this vibe a lot, even with the board that WON all the things, haha. Sometimes I post pics and I just feel such a disinterest and it can be pretty annoying, so I understand the desire to want to self-nominate to get your board out in a thread where people do care.

I swear, every time I post my Hammer Alps board, the Duck Eagle I modded, EVERYONE just says "nice wrist rest," and I'm like

Hahahaha.

Though, that one was actually nominated by others. I tried to self-nominate my little blue Infinity build when I finished building it and it didn't really help at all, haha.

When I first got my Octagon and built it with Jukebox, I reeeeally wanted it to get nominated for a KOTM poll, but no chance in hell, haha; it was never nominated and I didn't self-nominate. Jukebox and the color red on keyboards are both very polarizing things for people.

[rowdy]

This "no self-nomination" rule seems very silly to me, I don't understand the motivation. IMO, should be closer to a film festival where you enter your keyboard. Did I miss the reasoning behind that somewhere?

It was more a thought of; "If it's good enough, someone else will nominate it" sort of thing. I'm not sure if that is the reason why we are getting less nominees this month, but it could be a factor.

I've posted a few boards over the months that I thought were pretty cool but never saw a nomination.  It's incredibly likely that people just weren't interested, in which case that's fine, but it's also possible that people simply forgot about them.  I'm not fussed either way, but allowing people to "remind" others about their boards might be good.

Yeah true. I was just hoping that if someone liked a board enough they should remember it. I should probably be a bit more lenient with it really and allow it.

If I see something that really grabs my attention, before the month's thread is created, I will bookmark that post.  Easy to link it when the thread starts.

[katushkin]

If I see something that really grabs my attention, before the month's thread is created, I will bookmark that post.  Easy to link it when the thread starts.

I think I may be being a bit optimistic/arrogant hoping that a lot more people do this. I appreciate all the effort people go through to nominate boards, shout out to cptbadass who trawls through the DIY threads every month for me

[Snowdog993]

I think the heart of the problem of this whole thing is, from my point of view, is that anyone can have a keyboard and they are all special to the people that have them.  I made a calendar of the keyboards I thought were special to me.
I'm happy and content with that.  As far as I am concerned I already have my keyboard of the year.

Why make it a contest?  There is no contest.

[katushkin]

I think the heart of the problem of this whole thing is, from my point of view, is that anyone can have a keyboard and they are all special to the people that have them.  I made a calendar of the keyboards I thought were special to me.
I'm happy and content with that.  As far as I am concerned I already have my keyboard of the year.

Why make it a contest?  There is no contest.

Well initially, I started this because OCN had a KOTM competition and their winner was a poker that had half WoB and half BoW caps. That was it. There was a discussion on here about it, and I went; sod it, let's show people what REAL enthusiast keyboards look like!

But as it has progressed I think that while people DO have their own opinions about their own boards, some people like to look for (and deserve) recognition of what they have done to their boards, whether it is building it from the ground up, creating a unique mod, collecting some rare pieces all together on one board, or showing off a great colour combo, and I think that having the poll show them beating other great boards at the end of the month is a testament to their hard work, and some people are very happy to win.

[njbair]

I think the heart of the problem of this whole thing is, from my point of view, is that anyone can have a keyboard and they are all special to the people that have them.  I made a calendar of the keyboards I thought were special to me.
I'm happy and content with that.  As far as I am concerned I already have my keyboard of the year.

Why make it a contest?  There is no contest.

The great part about KOTM is that, if you feel the same as Snowdog, you don't have to participate at all. But for those of us who like the idea of a little friendly competition, it's a great thing.

I do think self-nominations should be OK. It's really the +1's that determine the finalists, anyway, so why not? And while I appreciate Rowdy's point about bookmarking for later, a lot of us are just never going to get into that kind of habit. So self-nominations make sure things don't get forgotten about.

[suicidal_orange]

So with a prototype winning we have a new rule to discuss - is the final version elligible when it's done or do new pics go against this win?  I still don't think the prototype should have been in at all (even though I voted for it ))

[nubbinator]

If it's a functional prototype, all is good.  If the final version is a new board that is new and different from the prototype, I don't see why it shouldn't be eligible.

[xondat]

I think the idea is the thing that made it win, I suppose next time it would be visuals...

[katushkin]

So with a prototype winning we have a new rule to discuss - is the final version elligible when it's done or do new pics go against this win?  I still don't think the prototype should have been in at all (even though I voted for it ))

I think this was a point discussed when Kurplop designed and made his Alumapop, I believe it was nominated in the design and completion stages.

I am inclined to let it be nominated again, obviously I would like to say what the new version SHOULD be judged on, but weather or not it will is another story. I think execution will be the biggest factor but I dunno, I guess it's up to you guys.

[rowdy]

I like how the number of votes for each entry for August was multiples of 8

[chuckdee]

An idea on how to get people more aware of the monthly polls.  As it stands, you can't set a reminder as each month gets it's own thread.  I do think that each month having its own thread is a good thing, but maybe a list of the months in a separate thread that people can watch/notify on. 

[suicidal_orange]

A simple idea in the hope of getting more interest - could you add a note in the OP of the Nomination and Voting threads saying to post as well as voting, so they stay in spy longer?

[katushkin]

An idea on how to get people more aware of the monthly polls.  As it stands, you can't set a reminder as each month gets it's own thread.  I do think that each month having its own thread is a good thing, but maybe a list of the months in a separate thread that people can watch/notify on.

Do you reckon if i posted in the Announcement thread for each vote, then deleted the posts, then posted again, would that work for notifications?

A simple idea in the hope of getting more interest - could you add a note in the OP of the Nomination and Voting threads saying to post as well as voting, so they stay in spy longer?

Yeahhhhh, I could do that, but I don't really want people to just spam "Voted!" but I could post every couple of days in there to remind people instead?

[suicidal_orange]

An idea on how to get people more aware of the monthly polls.  As it stands, you can't set a reminder as each month gets it's own thread.  I do think that each month having its own thread is a good thing, but maybe a list of the months in a separate thread that people can watch/notify on.

Do you reckon if i posted in the Announcement thread for each vote, then deleted the posts, then posted again, would that work for notifications?

There's a 'Notify' button at the top of the subforum, I don't use notifications but just clicked it and it asked if I'm sure I want to be notified of new threads so hopefully that works?  I've clicked it, you post a thread and see what happens

A simple idea in the hope of getting more interest - could you add a note in the OP of the Nomination and Voting threads saying to post as well as voting, so they stay in spy longer?

Yeahhhhh, I could do that, but I don't really want people to just spam "Voted!" but I could post every couple of days in there to remind people instead?

Only problem is peak time is evening in the US when you're asleep - that's when it needs bumping.

[TalkingTree]

Perhaps having a link to the subforum in the navigation could giving the desired visibility.

[chuckdee]

Thanks for the new thread... I'm not sure of the overall effect, but I do think that it will allow those that want to be notified to do so in a non-obtrusive way.

[pr0ximity]

Would there be any appetite for adding something to the header of the forum? A blurb above the navbar would catch attention, but I've no idea how widely people have access to modify the site to that degree.

GH has always been very poor from a UX perspective in regards to drawing attention to Announcements, given not everyone uses the Home forum tree to navigate (I use mainly Watched, Unread, and Spy). Might be worth raising as an idea more broadly than just KOTM, but I think it would fit that use nicely.

[HoffmanMyster]

Would there be any appetite for adding something to the header of the forum? A blurb above the navbar would catch attention, but I've no idea how widely people have access to modify the site to that degree.

GH has always been very poor from a UX perspective in regards to drawing attention to Announcements, given not everyone uses the Home forum tree to navigate (I use mainly Watched, Unread, and Spy). Might be worth raising as an idea more broadly than just KOTM, but I think it would fit that use nicely.

I do know we can customize the "News" section in the upper right, under the search box.  I wonder if that might be a decent place to put something like this?  Obviously it would still be really easy to miss, but wouldn't hurt.

[katushkin]

Would there be any appetite for adding something to the header of the forum? A blurb above the navbar would catch attention, but I've no idea how widely people have access to modify the site to that degree.

GH has always been very poor from a UX perspective in regards to drawing attention to Announcements, given not everyone uses the Home forum tree to navigate (I use mainly Watched, Unread, and Spy). Might be worth raising as an idea more broadly than just KOTM, but I think it would fit that use nicely.

Unfortunately my moderator privileges are limited to the KOTM sub forum so i have no ability to do that, but I would definitely pose that to the Global Moderators. I mean if we did have something like that then if I was to get granted some more options to update something like that, then I could just do it at the same time I do the rest of the stuff soooooo yeah

[rowdy]

Have I missed something?

Is this still a thing?  Last thread is for October nominations, and we are well on the way to January now.

[katushkin]

Have I missed something?

Is this still a thing?  Last thread is for October nominations, and we are well on the way to January now.

Yeah that's my bad. I'm sorting some posts out this week.

[rowdy]

Have I missed something?

Is this still a thing?  Last thread is for October nominations, and we are well on the way to January now.

Yeah that's my bad. I'm sorting some posts out this week.

Cool, thanks.

Didn't mean to call you out or something, but I'm not around as much as I used to be and thought I'd missed out on something.

This section is great because it shows the cream of the crop of latest keyboards and mods for those of us who do not have the time to scroll through all the media threads

[katushkin]

Cool, thanks.

Didn't mean to call you out or something, but I'm not around as much as I used to be and thought I'd missed out on something.

This section is great because it shows the cream of the crop of latest keyboards and mods for those of us who do not have the time to scroll through all the media threads

Nah, i know you weren't. I've been putting off doing the posts for a while but coming back to see someone concerned about it not being up to date gave me that little shove to do it all.

[suicidal_orange]

I've just worked out why this doesn't work very well.  As I browse today when I see a cool board but can't nominate it because we're still looking for November nominations.  Clearly the nominations shouldn't close immediately at the end of the month but could the next month's nomination thread be live too?

[katushkin]

I've just worked out why this doesn't work very well.  As I browse today when I see a cool board but can't nominate it because we're still looking for November nominations.  Clearly the nominations shouldn't close immediately at the end of the month but could the next month's nomination thread be live too?

Yeah, I think this is a good idea. We haven't changed the script of when the threads come up reeeeally in the three years we've been doing it, so this is probably a good idea going forward. The problem you've encountered is definitely something i've thought about before, and it does seem like a stupid problem to give ourselves.

I'll do that going forwards

[Lastpilot]

  Hello old friend. I just wanted to say thank you for keeping up with these awards. It's nice to come back and browse through the years/months that I missed.

[katushkin]

Hello old friend. I just wanted to say thank you for keeping up with these awards. It's nice to come back and browse through the years/months that I missed.

Thanks friend, good to hear from you again. We keep on keeping on, thank you for your help right at the start and your support

[richfiles]

This has certainly been a slow summer for KotM. Just curious if there is going to be a backlog worked through, or just a "summer" vote that comes up, or how this is going to be handled, assuming this restarts again. It's always been a joy to see people's unique keyboards. I won't lie... I'm on the verge of finishing a project that's seen 5 years of delays, too busy moments, technical (spelled software) hurdles, and even a heavy dose of straight up procrastination... I'd be a little sad to have followed this for 5 years, get to the finish line... and not be able to partake.

Like I said, I'm just mostly curious how this summer gap is being handled.

[suicidal_orange]

KotM is basically dead, less than 1% of users vote let alone nominate boards and the last vote thread went sour.  Too many IC and GB threads clog spy so no-one sees the KotM threads and my attempt to promote it with our drop overlords was silently ignored.  Katushkin posted this announcement if you haven't seen it

[richfiles]

"prolonged period"
"this isn't me stopping KOTM for good"



I friggin' hate 2020...