Thanks goes to Malte for updating these!
The Voting Process
- Every active member of the GOF with at least 100 posts who has been a member for at least one month and has been active in the GOF since the beginning of the year is entitled to vote and be elected for an award.
- We STRONGLY encourage people to vote for as many awards as possible. We understand that in a few cases people cannot give a vote as they are not participating in the issues the award is about (the RPGs in particular). Therefore a voter may skip up to two awards in the voting and still qualify to be elected for an award him or herself.
- Nobody is entitled to get an award if he or she did not vote him or herself or cast no vote on more than two awards. If the majority of votes on an award goes to somebody who skipped more than two votes the award will be given to the one with the second highest vote on that award.
- We discourage voting for yourself, but you may do so in no more than one category if you feel you really deserve that award so much that voting for anyone else would be dishonest. If there is a draw between two candidates and one of the two candidates voted for him or herself on the awards the draw is about the candidate who did not vote for him or herself wins the draw without a further run off.
- If you vote for somebody on a particular award, please give us a couple of lines on why you voted for the particular candidate. Sometimes decisions are VERY hard to make. The explaining lines may also give credit to other members even if you don't vote for them but still feel that they have also featured in the field of the respective award. If you give credit to more than one candidate with the vote make sure that it is clear who is the one who got the award by underlining the respective passage or by setting it in bold type. The credit one gives to a candidate through the explanatory lines is as much of an award as the badge in a signature is and also the explanatory lines make any match fixing unlikely. Therefore the explanatory lines are absolutely obligatory. Votes without comment are not valid and will therefore be treated like a skipped vote.
- Because of the rapidly increasing number of voters and eligible candidates (there have been 60 last year while there will be at least 90 this year) the number of awards that is issued after the election will be increased. Not only the one who receives most votes on a particular award but also the one with the second most votes may wear a badge of that award in his or her signature after the election. There will by no first and second place badges, but as there are at least four drafts for every award badge the one with the most votes may pick the own draft first while the one with the second most votes may then pick one of the remaining drafts.
