Creating The Criteria
One of the most important documents in any
significant awards program is the criteria. In fact, an
awards program is typically only as good as it's
criteria. The only factor that is more important is an
active, willing awardmaster who is actively working on
his or her program.
That being said, the next question that comes to mind
is "what makes this document so important?" The answer
is simple. The criteria is the contract, so to speak,
with other webmasters who submit their sites for review.
A well written criteria document should tell prospective
award submitters exactly what needs to be true in order
for them to win your award.
Thus, an awards program with a well written criteria
will flow like clockwork and will be a pleasure both for
submitters and awardmasters alike. Everything is spelled
out and everything is understood.
A set of well written criteria makes the awardmasters
job much easier. You see, all you need to do is compare
the site against your criteria. Nothing is left to
chance and there is little room for doubt. For example,
if your criteria says "good navigation" and you cannot
find your way around the site, well, then it's obvious
what you need to do, isn't it?
How do you come up with a good set of criteria? Well,
sit down and think about what your awards program is all
about. Personally, when I came up with my programs I
began from the theme and worked down. Let's say I wanted
to award good science fiction sites. That's the theme.
Now it's possible to design some criteria around that.
What kind of sites are you looking for? What, in your
opinion, does it mean for a site to be "good", "great"
and "excellent"? What is a bad site? What do you never
want to see in a site? What kinds of things do you want
to encourage?
Always remember to look at both the positive and
negative sides of the coin. Start general: what is a
good site and what is a bad site? Then work your way to
the more specific: good navigation, good layout and so
on. The more specific you get, the easier your job as an
awardmaster is. On the other hand, by making your
criteria too specific you may be excluding perfectly
good sites that truly deserve to win your award.
It's a good idea to actually look at some sites that
you think might win your award. Surf to them and look at
them. What makes these sites special in your mind?
Remember to look at some sites that definitely would NOT
win: what's wrong with them?
Okay, so what's in a good set of criteria? First is
the theme. What kind of sites, in general, are you
looking for? Next is more specifics - do you care about
navigation, design, HTML coding, content, advertising
and so on? In our awards program, for example, we care
concerned with content and layout. Thus, HTML coding is
not even considered or looked at. We simply do not care
how good or bad your code is - it's not relevant to our
purposes. Other awards programs, however, deem HTML
coding and style to be of primary importance. It all
depends on what is important to the awardsmaster.
Start writing down the things that you care about,
one line per item. In addition to the item (good HTML
code for example) it's a good idea to state why this is
important. If you do this, try and tie it back to your
theme. Thus, in our program we say good navigation is a
must - because we want to award websites that
communicate well, and this means it must be easy for
someone to get around the site and find what he wants to
find.
Sometimes you may not be able to tie an item back to
the theme - you want to see good HTML code, just because
you think that is important. Don't worry about it - this
is your awards program so make sure you are happy with
it.
Before you are finished, spend some time thinking
about what kinds of sites you will NEVER award anything
to. These are the exclusions, and they should be clearly
listed in a separate section of your criteria. For
example, you don't like Satanic sites? This is the place
to tell them to buzz off.
Be as brutal as you want. Remember that by giving an
award to a site you are more or less granting them your
blessing - so by all means don't give an award to any
site which violates your code ethics or your morals.
Just be sure and state these in your criteria. For
example, we feel that
psychiatry is
unethical and all psychiatrists are evil, therefore we
will exclude sites which promote those subjects. If you
feel that anti-Christian sites violate your ethical
beliefs, then be sure and exclude them.
Oh, sure, you will get an email or two from someone
who feels you are being unfair or silly or stupid. Who
cares what they think? This is your awards program and
you do not have to support any activities which you feel
are unethical.
It is also a good idea to visit
http://www.awardsites.com and look at some of the
awards programs posted there. Check out their criteria
and see what other people are doing. Remember, do not
plagiarize, just see if you can use any of the concepts
yourself.
Write it all up in the form of a list and post it
with your awards program. Check it over a few times to
be sure this is exactly what you want, then publish it
on your site.
Now, run your awards program using the criteria as
your guide. Remember this is a contract with submitters,
so be sure to judge their sites using your criteria and
nothing else. If you find sites which somehow do not fit
properly, then judge them using the criteria anyway -
and modify your criteria for the future.
What do you do about those people who submit sites
which do not meet the criteria? Some sites bury a
password somewhere within the criteria which must be
included on the submission form. If the password is not
entered then the site is automatically rejected. In
other words, one of the criteria for winning is the
webmaster must have read the criteria! I prefer just to
apply the criteria - it soon becomes obvious what needs
to be done.
Create a good criteria document and you will be
running a class act - an awards program which works
well, attracts good sites and makes your own site look
good.
Additional Information
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