Nominate in the 2018 Muskies Awards!

Welcome to the eighth Fringes of Algo Community Awards, the Muskies! As part of this year's anniversary celebration, these awards will recognize outstanding members of the community in many areas over the past two years. Best of all, the winners are selected by you, the community members! It is now time to begin that selection with the nomination process!

When submitting nominations, please keep these rules in mind:

• Nominations will be accepted only from accounts created on or before March 11, 2018.
• You may nominate up to four entries for each category. If you submit more than four nominees for a category, only the last four will be counted.
• You cannot nominate yourself or a work that you created or co-created.
• To be eligible, the entry you are nominating must have been submitted or actively updated somewhere on the Fringes of Algo website between March 14, 2017 and March 13, 2018. This time frame will be referred to as the "entry period" below.
• To be eligible, content must be posted somewhere on Fringes of Algo.
• Image artwork must be hosted directly on Fringes. Offsite image artwork, such as those hosted on Photobucket and linked in a topic here, are not eligible.

Also, please note that you are not required to nominate for every category. You are welcome to nominate for as many or few categories as you wish. The same is true for the number of nominations in a category. You can submit up to four, but one or three is equally fine. The more valid nominations we get, the better, but there's also no pressure.

The top nominees in each category will be selected for the ballots. Voting will be available through the poll system on these forums during the week of dates of April 1 - 7. The winners will be officially announced on April 8. Usually we have the winner announcements on April 1st, the anniversary of the site, but this year we're pushing it back a little due to an early Easter holiday.

Here are the categories for which you can nominate entries:

1. Best Original Character
   This award acknowledges a remarkable original, fan created character. Fan characters have appeared in fan fiction, artwork, games, roleplaying, and other works shared with the community. You can find summaries of some eligible entries in the Original Characters topic. It is not required for an original character to be mentioned in that topic for you to nominate the character.
2. Best Other Fan Work
   This award recognizes fan creations in the areas of fan games, music remixes, and videos. Eligible items can be found in the Fan Games, Music, Video & More forum (in any unlocked topic updated during the entry period).
3. Best Forum Game
   This award recognizes your choice for the top game active during the entry period in the Forum Games and Roleplay sections.
4. Best Avatar
   This award recognizes your choice for the member who has used the most impressive avatar during the entry period. See the Avatars & Signatures topic for some avatars members used.
5. Best Signature
   This award recognizes your choice for the member who has used the most interesting signature during the entry period. See the Avatars & Signatures topic for some avatars members used.
6. Most Successful Discussion
   This award recognizes your choice for the best discussion topic on the forums. Non-discussion topics or topics that fit into another award category (such as Forum Games or Fan Fiction topics) are not eligible for this award.
7. Most Enthusiastic Fringer
   This award recognizes a member of the community who has shown a great enthusiasm for some activity during the last year. Whether it's obsessing about a certain game, posting news stories, entertaining with random skits, or some other activity, this is something the member does often and does well. (Fringes Staff Members - Wolf Bird, Atlinsmere, Snorb, Silver_Surfer1, and Thoul - are not eligible for this award.)
8. Fringer of Excellence
   This award recognizes an outstanding member who you feel best illustrates the qualities that the community values. Kindness, sharing knowledge in a productive manner, things like that. You don't have to be a Phantasy Star expert to receive this award - just a great community member. (Fringes Staff Members - Wolf Bird, Atlinsmere, Snorb, Silver_Surfer1, and Thoul - are not eligible for this award.)

In addition, we also have the following categories that will be included in later portions of the Muskies. Nominations are not accepted for these categories during this year.

1. Best Fan Artwork
   This award recognizes your top choice for outstanding fan artwork. Please note this is for an individual piece of artwork, not an artist's body of work as a whole. The Muskies Eligible Fan Artwork Gallery displays all artworks that may be considered for this award. As there are only a few this year, they'll all be included in the vote automatically.
2. Best Artist
   This award recognizes your top choice for an artist that has displayed great skill in a visual medium. For this award, please do consider an artist's body of work as a whole.
3. Best Writer
   This award recognizes your top choice for a writer that has displayed great skill in the written mediums of Fan Fiction, Original Writing, or Roleplay. For this award, please consider a writer's body of work as a whole. Only the following members are eligible for this award:
   Atlinsmere, Rylen
4. Staff Member of the Year
   This award is intended to acknowledge the staff member who you feel is deserving of special honor due to their contributions to the community and its livelihood. The voting ballot will consist of Wolf Bird, Atlinsmere, Snorb, and Silver_Surfer1.
5. Performance Based Categories
   These will be awarded based on the performance of members during the entry period, which can be determined by simple numerical values. As such, voting will not be held for these awards. These awards are subject to cancellation in the event of an excessive number of ties. (Please note: the Best Achievement Hunter award is cancelled this year for that very reason.)
   
   • Most Active Quiz Taker - For attempting the most quizzes.
   • Prominent Poster - For creating the most posts (excludes non-discussion posts, like Forum Games).
   • Top Conversation Starter - For creating the most topics (excludes non-discussion posts, like Forum Games).
   • Most Artwork Reviews - For the most reviews of other members' artworks.
   • Most Literature Reviews - For the most reviews of other members' Fan Fiction or Original Writings.

So, that's the basics of it. Please take the time to nominate your favorites so we can have some great voting ballots.

You nominate by sending a private message to a special account dedicated to the Muskies Awards. Please do not post your nominations in this or any thread. You can use this link or the private message link on the post following this one. You can find a blank nomination ballot in that post; using the private message link on that post will automatically copy the ballot to the private message form.

If you have questions or other concerns, please direct them to me by private message using the link on all my posts or profile, or by replying to this thread.

Nominations will be closed on March 31, 2018 at 11:59 pm US Eastern Time.

Here is the ballot you can use for nominations:

At last, the so awaited Muskies Awards ! Always a great pleasure to participate !

Yay!!!!!!!! The Muskies! Fun, fun, fun!!!