Award Voting 2019

[Mumbling]

Voting for the 2019 Gang of Five Forum Awards has officially begun!  In this topic you may post your votes for those individuals which you feel is most deserving of the awards mentioned in the rules topic.

Just as a reminder, in order to be qualified for any award you will need to vote for at least 4 of the 5 award categories.  If you skip 2 of the main 5 categories then you must vote in the Appreciated Member award in order to win an award yourself. 

With all of that in mind, please keep in mind that the annual forum awards are meant to be a fun event, and a chance to recognize those on the forum who have contributed to making it the welcoming and interesting place that it is.  There are so many deserving candidates, and I will take at least a few hours to consider my choices, but feel free to begin voting in this topic whenever you are ready to do so.

A running voting tally will be maintained on this initial post.  Please keep in mind, however, that there will be some delay in when we can get around to updating the totals. We will try to update it daily.

~Fanart Award

Flathead770 - 11
Darkwolf91 - 3
LeventeII - 1


~Feedback Award

Sovereign - 6
Anagnos - 4
Rhombus - 3
F-22 Raptor Ace - 1
ImpracticalDino - 1
Mumbling - 1


~Friendly Member Award

Rhombus - 6
StardustSoldier - 4
Mumbling - 4
DarkHououmon - 1
The Lone Dragon - 1
Anagnos - 1


~Proactive Award

Mumbling - 15
Sovereign - 2
Flathead770 - 1


~Role Play Gamer Award

Nick22 - 4
Rhombus - 3
Sovereign - 2
LettucebaconandTomato - 1

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

~Fanart Award: SKIP as I don't do that section.


~Feedback Award: So this sounds like a second award dedicated to fanart and fanfiction? I'm still not active in that section, so I guess for the first time I gotta SKIP twice and make sure I post in Appreciated.


~Friendly Member Award: RHOMBUS works very hard to maintain a positive attitude and increase the overall knowledge of the forum. He is constantly posting useful things he thinks the rest of us would like to learn, and he's always available for a conversation on almost any topic.


~Proactive Award: MUMBLING is getting stuff done! Organizing the fandub and the sing-along, posting this very thread for the awards, and frequently replying to people in the bugs and "ask an admin" threads. She's also very diligent at sending daily gifts in Pokemon GO


~Role Play Gamer Award: NICK is literally the only possible vote. Any other vote is wrong. Nobody except me, brek and nick even post anymore and the other two are just posting in solos with nick (or Insane Cafe, where nick is GM) nick's the only reason anything happens in that category.

[jassy]

Fanart award- Darkwolf91’s art still catches my eye so my vote goes to her!

Feedback award- Sovereign’s responses to both my art and writing have helped me improve tremendously, which I am very grateful for.

Friendly member award- my vote goes to rhombus  for this one as well. As stated above, he tries hard to maintain the forum’s positive atmosphere which is one of the things I enjoy most about this place.

Proactive Member award- Mumbling is very diligent and is always updating us on what’s going on with the forum and what not so i vote for her!

Roleplay Gamer Award- I’m not that active in that section so I’ll skip this one.

[OwlsCantRead]

Fanart Award: I slowly realized that I really like the traditional style of pencil/pastel pieces, and this year I feel like Flathead770 has done the best at that in the Fanart Prompt challenges. The pencil sketches with shadows & shading+soft colors makes it really feel like a school art piece, but one imbued with personality. LeventeII is a close second at that style though!

Feedback Award: Sovereign can always be counted on to post an in-depth analysis of almost every single piece of art and prose posted on the GOF within a few days of it going up. He's very punctual and impartial in that regard, stating his thoughts with a ferocity that is seconded only by Rhombus. This year there have been a few more up-and-comers who are starting to pick up this feedback train, so maybe he'll get some competition soon.

Friendly Member Award: I had to really debate this one because I kept going back-and-forth on my choice multiple times! Most of the time, everyone here is just so nice! In the end, I had to go with Rhombus for this, because he never fails to liven up and bring up the tone of the atmosphere with his posts from what I've seen on both the forum and Discord. He's very pleasant to talk with, never letting the admin rank he holds form a barrier between him and the other members. And on a personal note, if he hadn't helped validate my account last year when I sent an email wondering why my account's activation link didn't work, I might never have made it on the GOF as a member. It was the concerned and soothing email reply which made me know that this community is inclusive and impartial, and thus I feel it's only right that I extend my vote to him.

Proactive Award: Mumbling did a lot for the forum this year. The emote challenge, the voice-over/sing-along, the mobile theme, just being there to speak her thoughts as both a member and an administrator in general. Sovereign comes quite close for finding the LBT6 beta script, though. That certainly generated a discussion.

Role Play Gamer Award: I'm not the most active at role-playing, but I am aware that there are quite a few here who are staunchly active in this section, so I feel like others who're more cognizant of the situation at hand can give their vote for it.

[Anagnos]

Fanart Award: While I personally have no intentions as of now to start making my own work on this section, I’m glad to see that there’s been a surge of improvement lately from everyone with their recent works in particular. Therefore, picking out one wasn’t easy, but I’m confident when I say that in my opinion, there’s none more qualified than Flathead770.

Feedback Award: Well then, I must say that choosing one person for this particular section wasn't an easy decision, as there are many in the forum who have given great feedback to others. But I can only vote for one, so I had to take some time to ponder about this. The upside would definitely be for me specifically that there certainly wasn’t any lack of focus for the most part, which helped ensuring that we wouldn’t be lacking in terms of content. Like I previously mentioned, many in the forum have been very helpful giving out important feedback on other people’s works. It’s something that I try to do to the best of my ability and as often as I possibly can. That said, if I haven’t given any feedback on some of your works here, that is because I tend to focus mostly on the newer stuff. Without going deeper into my reasons of my decision on this matter, I’ve had plenty of time to reconsider my decision, but there’s no way around this. My vote ultimately goes to Sovereign for his exceptional insight he can offer out of the blue. His input has improved my writing abilities tremendously, so it would make sense for me to pick him in the end. Still, I must remind people that I’ve received a ton of other good feedback from different people, and would like to offer them my gratitude.

Friendly Member Award: Alas, this one was exceptionally difficult to partake in, as everyone I’ve interacted since I joined the forum has been nothing but friendly and welcoming in basically everything a person could do here. I have a feeling I certainly will not be the only one who struggles with this one in the end. There are few individuals whom stand out to me the most, but once again it wasn’t an easy task to choose only one. I am still positive in my final decision to name The Lone Dragon as the one who has stood out the most for me. He is always a very pleasant company to be around with, even with just plain conversations.

Proactive Award: There’s really not a lot I can say about this part, except that there are a number of people who have been very active lately on the forum and adding new topics for people to converse about and have fun with games (I am one of those, guilty as can be). Still, there’s only one person that I can really think about whom would fit this category the best, and that person is none other than our dear Mumbling. She certainly deserves it for the hard work with getting stuff done on the forum, which is why I don’t hesitate to call my vote for her.

Roleplay Gamer Award: Even if I have already done a few posts in the RP section, I’m still not exactly familiar with it like a few people here are (I believe I don’t need to point them out, as people probably know them very well). Still, I am familiar enough to know who utilizes most of their time to make sure this section stays alive, so I will have to give my vote to Nick22. His dedication to the Roleplay section is certainly something to take notice of, and I’m quite happy to see that people find such enjoyment to apply their time to.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

After learning feedback can also be about fiction, I'm gonna vote for F-22 RAPTOR ACE. He's writing an awesome Darwin's Soldiers story
an awesome Darwin's Soldiers story and I've had a blast talking with him about it and exploring Hans and Werner's place in the universe. F-22 is very open to suggestions and loves to bring others in on the editing/narrative planning process. It was also great working with him to co-write a different story starring his characters. I'd never co-written a story with anyone before, and he made it a cooperative and enjoyable experience.

[Mumbling]

Fanart Award

Partially thanks to the Fanart Prompt, the section is getting a lot of activity and it's great to see so many people joining in, both new and old! That also makes it rather hard to pick someone! LeventeII has been experimenting with different styles, which is lovely to see. Flathead770 is improving all the time (and has come up with the most amazing yellow belly ). However I am once again inclined to vote for Darkwolf91 due to her excellent drawing skills. Keep up the amazing work, everyone.

Feedback Award

I have no experience in the fanfiction part of the forum, so this will be based on fanart only. There are many people who comment on almost every piece of artwork, often full of praise and constructive criticism. Some that come to mind are Sovereign, Ducky123, OwlsCantRead, Anagnos, Sneak, Flathead770, and ImpracticalDino, and I'd like to thank you all for your activity in that section! My vote goes to ImpracticalDino for many positive reactions, while still speaking their mind about what can be improved.

Friendly Member Award

You know what? This is getting more difficult with each of the sections. I think almost everyone on here is eligible for this award. However, my vote goes to StardustSoldier for the great chats we've had and all the genuine interest he expresses in everyone and everything.

Proactive Award

I'd like to vote for Flathead770 for keeping the fanart prompt alive and kicking, and making many behind-the-scenes contributions to the forum, such as emotes and post icons!

Roleplay Gamer Award

I'm not active in this section, so I'd like to skip my vote here.

[DiddyKT2]

Fanart Award

I'm guilty of not spending enough time on the fanart section of the forum, so I'm afraid I'll have to skip that one.

Feedback Award

I've been a prolific fanfiction writer for the past two years on the forum, and all the reviews help inspire me to write better stories and become a better writer. Of all those who provide constructive criticism on my fanfics, Anagnos, OwlsCantRead, rhombus and ImpracticalDino really come to mind, but in the end my vote goes to Sovereign. You've been ultra serious when it comes to pointing out my flaws, but you're always trying to provide some form of encouragement for me to keep improving. I said this last year, but you remind me of my Creative Writing professor, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. My only resolution for next year is to try not to be repetitive with Ducky and Petrie stories!

Friendly Member Award

Unfortunately, I'm still not as social as I probably should be. I did only just create a Discord account last week, but I haven't really done anything with it yet. However, I would probably credit the time I spent helping out with the fandub project for this vote. I've gotten along well with all those who I've met here, but this year I give Mumbling my vote. She was so nice in inviting me to the fandub project, and in return I played quite a crucial part in making the project a little easier (aside from just my Petrie voice ). It was the highlight that made my 2019, and I'm happy to talk with her whenever I get one of my rare opportunities, such as sharing the different ideas we had for the "If We Hold on Together" sing-along project.

Proactive Award

Forgive me if it's wrong to vote the same member for two different categories, but again I feel that Mumbling is most deserving of the Proactive Award for doing everything in her power to keep the fandub project alive when it seemed that it was going nowhere.

Roleplay Gamer Award

I do NOT do RPs, so I'm obviously skipping this one, too.

Oh, ... I guess that means I'll have to cast my vote for Appreciated Member ...

Edit by Mumbling: We'll vote for Appreciated Member once the initial votes are completed - so I have removed it for now. Please see the PM I sent for more info

[StardustSoldier]

Fanart Award:
I haven’t been active in this section, although I would like to be in the future. However, my vote would go to Flathead770, for explaining to me how the process works and giving me some private encouragement to (eventually) start sharing my own drawings. Much appreciated.

Feedback Award:
Skipping this one, as I don’t have any fanfiction or fanart posted at the moment.

Friendly Member Award:
This was a tough one, with many potential candidates, as I’ve met a lot of really nice people since joining the community. I decided upon DarkHououmon because of all the great chats we’ve had about Minecraft, Digimon, drawing, writing, among other things.

Proactive Award:
Going to vote Mumbling here, as it was her idea to transcribe the LBT movie scripts into Google Document format and then eventually upload them to the wiki (which is still a work-in-progress; I’ll post them when they’re done). I’ve had a lot of fun working with her on that. She also helped organize the LBT 6 Community Watch.

Role Play Gamer Award:
Again this is a section I haven’t (yet) been active in, but I would like to vote for rhombus in this case, for answering my questions, helpfully explaining to me the ins and outs, and showing me which roleplay threads are currently active.

[Sovereign]

Fanart Award:

While there have been various promising new artists on GOF this year, there has really just been only one person whose art’s quantity and quality have stood out. While Darkwolf91 has still submitted amazing stuff, I can only cast my vote for Flathead770 as his style is just great to look at (and he’s also constantly improving) and I’ve been surprised by just how consistent he has been with publishing new pictures. For these reasons, he deserves this award without a question.

Feedback Award:

 This is a really difficult award for me to vote on as there have been many people on whose quality feedback I could trust on. Some of those people are rhombus, DiddyKF1 and OwlsCantRead but this time, I’ll vote for Anagnos . Not only are his reviews submitted unbelievably quickly but they are also very interesting and most of all, he’s not afraid of pointing out problems in my and the others’ works. The readiness to do that is always appreciated and that is a huge part why I’m voting for him.

Friendly Member Award:

As others have pointed out, this is a very hard category as there have been many people who’d deserve this award. All of the people I mentioned in the previous category as well as Vojeds have been extremely kind to me in the previous months but this time, I’ll pick rhombus for this award. I’ve greatly enjoyed our conversations and his ability to stay calm and reasonable in almost any situation is something I can’t help but admire. He’s also a great admin and his presence across the forum and Discord makes it impossible for me to not vote for him.

Proactive Award:

I can’t contest what others have said. It has been great to see Mumbling assume her previous position as one of the kindest members on GoF and one of the most motivated ones as well. Her efforts with the emotes and fandubs as well as hosting of the forum awards leave very little when it comes to this category. In addition, I’m extremely grateful in her help in putting the LBT 6 script together as it saved me a lot of time. With all that said, my vote goes to Mumbling and she couldn’t possibly have done more to earn it.

Role Play Gamer Award:

It has been sad to see the slowing down of the rps this year but that doesn’t prevent me from casting my last vote. While all of the players have done a good job with their posts, even more valuable has been the consistency in their postings. The one member whose posts we haven’t been forced to wait has been rhombus and his posts, while posted rather promptly, have been constructive and interesting ones as well.

[Ducky123]

I just wanna say here that I will not participate this year since I've largely been inactive safe for the creative parts of the forum. I couldn't make a proper judgement anymore.

[ImpracticalDino]

Fanart Award: While I only had a short glimpse of this section, I have gotten a general idea of everyone's art style. My vote goes to Flathead770 for his amazing, delicately perfected pencil and color drawings that he has made so far. Every time a new piece of art comes out from him, I'm always left amazed and coming back for more. Trying to find any flaws in his drawings is sure hard to come by. It's obvious how much love, time, and effort he dedicates into each piece, no matter what the theme is. His recent drawing of the Yellow Belly named Brootie was a definite selling point for my vote. That was pretty creative and original in my opinion.

Feedback Award: My vote goes to rhombus for this award. On every fanfiction that he reviews and gives constructive criticism towards, I thought that his insight was the most thoughtful and helpful out of everyone's. He's always thorough and detailed with every fanfiction he analyzes, citing what he liked, didn't like, and also what can be changed/fixed. That can also be attributed with his phenomenal writing skills, which I have seen for myself when he answered one of my questions in his Ask Me thread. He's definitely a great person to go to if you want to have your fanfiction and writing abilities improved.

Friendly Member Award: StardustSoldier.
No doubt about my choice for this award. The first person I ever interacted with when I joined this forum, he's always active and keeping it as inviting as it can possibly get. Of course, everyone else here does a tremendous job of keeping a benevolent environment around here, but StardustSoldier is closest to my heart. I look forward to his discussions and posts every time I login here. He's humorous, fun, open-minded, and just an overall awesome guy. Not just him, but many others is the reason why I will continue to frequent the Gang of Five for years to come.

If you're wondering what my honorable mention for this award would be, it would most certainly go to Anagnos.

Proactive Award: I have to go with Mumbling as well for the Proactive Award category. She has done the most for the forum in terms of setting up different projects and events. She has also personally helped me a lot with issues that I had on the forum in the past, so I appreciate her for that. I would end up repeating what everyone else has said for their reasons of choosing Mumbling, so I'll leave it at that.

Role Play Gamer Award: Skip

[StardustSoldier]

Mumbling is female, fyi. But thank you very much for the kind vote.

[ImpracticalDino]

Mumbling is female, fyi. But thank you very much for the kind vote.

It's my pleasure, StardustSoldier.

Well, erm...anyone who knows me well enough would know that I would always use male pronouns for some reason, no matter what gender. It's probably due to the fact that I type rather quickly without thinking about small details like that, and my brain automatically tells me to write down the male possessive. I don't know, really. 

I almost never bother correcting it, but for the sake of keeping it formal and because you pointed it out, I'll fix it.

[Mumbling]

Haha! Just for ref, I don't mind being called either he or she! Biologically female, yes, but rather neutral when it comes to my actual gender

[Sneak]

<offtop>
 
is there a thread with list of users and their genders (I believe there's)? I want to be enlightened. 
</offtop>

I think I would skip voting this season.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

<offtop>
 
is there a thread with list of users and their genders (I believe there's)? I want to be enlightened. 
</offtop>

Yup, here (And you've posted in it ). A lot of users also have their gender listed on their profile

[Flathead770]

Fanart Award: LEVENTEII
This has been a great year so far for the fanart section with a good amount of new people joining in! Hopefully this keeps up throughout the next year! I would like to thank everyone that has participated in the prompts, both new and old! While their are a lot of capable artists in this category, I would like to once again vote for LeventeII. His consistent and often creative drawings have been most welcome in keeping up support for the prompts as well as keeping my motivation to draw as well!

Feedback Award: MUMBLING
There have been quite a few people that I've had the privilege of getting feedback from to help me improve. While Sovereign has been the historic vote for me these past 2 award periods for his constant helpful criticism this time I'd like to vote for Mumbling for her feedback on all my icons and emotes. I guess you could say this is a little unfair as she was running the emote contest and is an admin so her being quality control comes with the job with both of these, but she has particularly helped with getting the emotes to look proper and identifiable at the ever so small 25x25 pixels for Discord

Friendly Member Award: STARDUSTSOLDIER
Always a hard one. I've had amazing interactions with basically every member on here throughout the year but I think I'll go with StardustSoldier this time around. A relatively newer member, but one who has not hesitated to join in on almost every discussion with something nice or helpful to say!

Proactive Award: SOVEREIGN
I agree that Mumbling has done a tremendous amount to make the GoF more lively, but in keeping with my voting strategy on voting for the people who helped out with reaching out to various people who've worked on the LBT series and getting the script for the first LBT, I'd like to vote for Sovereign this time for his contributions on getting the early LBT6 script to share with us.

Role Play  Gamer Award: SKIP
Not an area I visit so I can't make a proper vote on this.

[rhombus]

Fanart Award:  There are numerous talented artists on the forum and each brings their own strengths and unique styles to the table.  That being said, I do think Darkwolf edges them out in terms of the amount of detail and emotional salience she showcases in her work.

Feedback Award:  Anagnos has provided a lot of constructive feedback in the fanfiction section this year, and always in a way that is both supportive of his fellow writers and honest in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of their respective entries.  For this reason he has my vote for feedback award this year. 

Friendly Member Award:  In terms of friendliness and helpfulness there are many members of the forum who are deserving of recognition.  From Anagnos, to Stardust, to The Lone Dragon, there have been many instances of those members and others being welcoming to new members and providing them with assistance.  But that being said, I think that my vote has to go to Mumbling due to her efforts to welcome new members and to assist others with their forum-related issues.

Proactive Award:  For me, there is only one possible choice here.  Mumbling has been very active in both the forum and the Discord server with a variety of projects and improvements.  Not to mention that her contributions to our admin discussions have been invaluable in making decisions concerning the future of the forum.

Role Play Gamer Award:  Sovereign has been a reliable member of the two roleplays I have been involved in and he has made interesting posts that are in keeping with the characters he is portraying.  I just wish that we had more activity in this portion of the forum altogether as, in the case of the two RPs I am involved in, the reliability of prompt posts from some members is quite lacking.

[UnionRags123]

I'm abstaining

(i deleted what was here before)