Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today is the day you’ve all been waiting for. There have been literally a single thread about this before, and I have taken it upon myself, with some help from Hoffmanmyster, to create;
THE FIRST MONTHLY KEYBOARD OF THE MONTH THREAD!
I have no idea what I’m doing as standard, so I’m going to be learning this as I go along, developing and improving the process until everyone is satisfied with how it runs. I have a basic idea of how it will all work, so we will use it as a foundation, and go from there.
So.
1. A nomination thread will go up for the last two weeks of every month. You can nominate anybody you like, (even yourself) and any person can have any number of nominations every month. This is going to be the nomination thread for December.
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. Keyboards may be resubmitted in subsequent months, but they must have had a picture or progress posted within the calendar month that they are nominated for.
d. NO THEMES RIGHT NOW. These may or may not follow in the coming months. This also may or may not tie in with the calendar that may or may not happen at the end of next year.
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. I’m not sure if there will be a prize every month, but if there is then I will sort it out and backdate it if I come up with one in a few months time.
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 in a year’s time.
DISCLAIMER: This process is open to change. If there are any concerns about the process, please post in the KOTM feedback thread in the Off Topic section of the forums. (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=66797.0) If anybody wants to help out or contribute anything at any point, feel free to shoot me a PM or post there.
Nominations for December will last until 00:00 GMT on the morning of the 1st of January
Below is a rough example of how nominations should be laid out, as well as it being my actual nomination for KOTM for December.
My nomination:
Link: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=61198.msg1554311#msg1554311
Bianco’s Lightsaver with Nuclear Data SA set
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-FmG3H7SFbIM/VIK4a-VTVPI/AAAAAAAAKYw/4XOqz-6Qhqk/s1600/DSC02767.jpg)
Reasons why: This is the first time I have seen this board. It was posted in the Nuclear Group Buy thread, and I think it just looks great with the uniformity of row 3 SA, and with the tight layout of the board.