I voted for people I think deserved whichever award. IMHO Pedestrian will win a lot of them.

Hey Zoony, is your Avatar Hitler, Edgar Allen Poe, or John Waters? And why does he have a Horseshoe Crab on his nuts?

I like to think of him as John Waters, but maybe he was just inspired by John Waters.

And that's not a horseshoe crab, it's a sea sponge or something. How can you grow up in Massachusetts and not know what a horseshoe crab looks like? :p:

Because I wasn't looking at it at the time. NSFW really.

people nominated other people who piss them off in the negative categories, and when the voting came, they're not bothered, cos the pissant will not know who voted

likewise for the positive categories, it's mostly to reinforce friendship in the nomination stage - when it came to voting, seems like they're not bothered cos nobody knows who voted who

Personally, I think the musicbanter awards are a bit cumbersome and thought they were when I was doing them. I didn't really come up with a better way as far as I can remember (or did I?), but perhaps it's possible.

One round of nominations and one round of voting is too much, I think. Perhaps one round is enough; just turn the nominations into votes.

Aw, is somebody feeling grumpy?

I've always thought this and have always been confused by why we do it the way we do. I avoided bringing it up this year though because I wanted to avoid another debacle like the one Urban and I caused last year.

Well I'm always grumpy, but no I wasn't mad then. I really need to work on my Internet-Tone. I come off wrong every single time.

I think the nominations are a Bulwark against people not knowing what they're talking about, rage votes, and people voting for Person A because they forgot about Person B.

What might be smarter is if you do these things more quickly. So the day after Thanksgiving you say "If you want to nominate someone, send me your suggestions." Give that 5 days and make a point to personally PM 5 people who are highly active and know a large population.

Then open up each category with the folks nominated and create an "other" option. Not only is the process too long and visible (Why is who is nominated seen but not who is voted for?) but its forgettable. Make it much faster IMO.

One round of nominations followed by a public thread for final votes with an option for those wishing to vote privately via PM.
The nomination round always generates some good banter, as would a public final voting thread.
I think PM'ing the final vote is an ant-climax for most people.