Hrm, I got to thinking, why most of us seem to get rather bent outta shape over the results of the awards each year. This is a forum full of nerds. And nerds, for the most part, are social outcasts. Most of us have memories of really lousy highschool years in which we were ignored, ostracized, bullied, etc., and loathe popularity contests. However, when we escape to the forums and see that people respond well to us, we're known by name and such, then it gives us a feeling that perhaps we have gained some popularity. Then comes the awards results and the same two or three people won the same awards as usual. We scroll down the list to find our names and see either very, very few votes or our names are not even on the list. We are once again reminded that we are not popular and are merely tolerated. And to be quite honest, it really [tornado fang]ing hurts.
Yeah, popularity on the Net means bupkiss, but it's popularity that most of us nerds would otherwise never have. So it's relatively easy to see why anyone would latch onto such popularity. It feels good to be liked, dammit!
But then again, we're leaving the voting to young, immature, socially-awkward nerds, and they will immediatly flock to those who garner the most respect and admiration, or just randomly pick people as they really don't know who to vote for to begin with.
Since the Member Awards are not well-recieved at all, perhaps those awards should be done away with entirely. Have the Best of That Previous Year, but leave out the Member Awards. During the voting, people take it too seriously. After the results, us sore losers feel maligned. No one is having fun with this, obviously.