# Community Participation > Mapping Challenge Archive >  2016 Map Awards (Annual Challenge replacement)

## ChickPea

Hi everyone, here's an update on the annual challenge.

The Community Leaders have discussed this at some length, taking into account the comments and suggestions from members. We feel that, whilst there were some excellent entries last year, and a more than worthy winner, overall the challenge didn't entirely achieve what was originally intended. We had hoped to watch the finest maps develop over the course of many months, but - with a few notable exceptions - that didn't always happen. There were many unfinished entries, more than most monthly challenges, as it proved difficult to sustain momentum and enthusiasm over the year, with other projects and real life demanding time and attention. There were also some technical issues with file size limitations that couldn't be addressed.

Perhaps, in retrospect, we should have anticipated some of these issues, but nothing like this had ever been tried before and we weren't quite sure what to expect. We feel that re-running the challenge in its current format is only going to invite more of the same, as the underlying issues are still there.

We appreciate, however, that some of you liked the concept of an annual challenge, so here's what we're going to try this year. Instead of entering a challenge, we're going to run a 'Map Oscars' award at the end of the year (name might change!) We feel this is an acceptable compromise that allows the prestige of an annual award, yet hopefully addresses at least some of the problems from last year. This is how it would work:


Members work on their own maps all year long, without any intervention from us.Around late November/December - dates to be finalised - we're going to call for nominations.There are going to be a few different categories in the awards, not just one 'Winner Takes All' (more on this below). Everyone has one nomination per category, which they can use to nominate one of their own maps, or someone else's if they don't have anything suitable. We'll create threads for this nearer the time.Once the nominations have closed, polls for each category will be created and the winners will receive the same Annual Challenge badge won by Tainotim last year. 

If you want to work towards a map specifically created for this annual award, you're more than welcome to do so (but create a thread in the normal WIP folder, rather than the Annual Challenge folder.) Or, if you don't have time to make a specific entry but feel you made a killer map during 2016, you can still enter. Instead of rewarding the best map made for a particular challenge, as happened last year, this time we're trying to showcase and reward the best maps posted in the Guild during 2016.

As for the award categories, we're looking for ideas on these and I'm going to create a thread where you can post your suggestions (please post category ideas in that thread only, so that everything is in the one place.) Unlike the real Oscars, we aren't going to have a ridiculous amount of awards. The number isn't set in stone, but let's tentatively say somewhere around half a dozen, so please don't post lists with 30 suggestions!

As for rules/entry criteria, basically any map that was posted in the Finished Maps folder during 2016 is eligible. It doesn't matter when you started it, so long as it's showing in Finished Maps between 1st January 2016 and (roughly) the beginning of December, it's eligible. Commissioned maps are eligible too, provided you have the permission of the publisher. We may promote the winning maps on other sites and we need to be sure whoever commissioned the map is OK with that.

So, that's the plan for 2016. You've got the rest of the year to work on your entries, or maybe you've already made a map or two that you think would work! We hope this type of competition will suit more people and we'll get a high level of participation when it's time for nominations. Obviously there are still a few details to be ironed out, but we'll update this thread with more information towards the end of the year.

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## Lingon

This sounds really great. I _was_ hoping for a return of last year's format, but you've convinced me, this seems like an evolution of the idea.

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## ChickPea

I'm glad you like it, Lingon.  :Smile: 

I'm hoping we can get the categories sorted out within the next few weeks, so that if someone wants to work on an entry for a particular category, they'll have many months to do so. In many ways, this wouldn't be that dissimilar to last year's annual challenge, at least until the nominations/voting begin.

We're trying to decide on a name for the awards. Current favourite among the CLs .... The Mappies. Anyone got a better suggestion?  :Question:

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## Lingon

> In many ways, this wouldn't be that dissimilar to last year's annual challenge, at least until the nominations/voting begin.


That's true  :Smile:  And The Mappies is pretty great  :Laughing:

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## waldronate

"The Mappies". Just one slip of the finger away from the "The Nappies". I like it!

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## ChickPea

> "The Mappies". Just one slip of the finger away from the "The Nappies". I like it!


Haha, yeah, that occurred to me too.  :Very Happy:

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## Hawkin

Why don't you call them after a famous cartographer? At the top of my head: Ptolemy and Da Vinci.

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## Jaxilon

@Hawkin I was thinking "Magellans".

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## cinsev

for some reason my brain immediately said "the mapskers"  lol  and no im not joking.  :Smile: 

no thrown tomatos please.

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## ChickPea

No tomatoes, I promise! I think I actually prefer Mapskers to Mappies.  :Very Happy:

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## jbgibson

We could use this as an award:



It's a Blaeu Man Group....

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## Hawkin

@ Jaxilon That's an awesome idea!

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## cinsev

Chickpea:  Well then thank you!  i just enjoy the name becasue its fun but not so, so close to oscars thats its own thing

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## mearrin69

Great idea. I'm in...if I can field some maps before the end of the year.  :Smile:  Definitely looking forward to seeing the nominations.
M

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## Diamond

> We could use this as an award:
> 
> 
> 
> It's a Blaeu Man Group....


How'd I miss THAT?   :Very Happy:

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## vorropohaiah

is nominating your own map going to be the norm or are we expected to nominate other people's maps in preference of our own? personally i find it strange and counter-intuitive to nominate my own map/s? is it just me?

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## Hai-Etlik

If we name the awards after someone, it should be someone associated with fictional cartography in particular, or with the aesthetics of cartography rather than technical aspects.

Karen Wynn Fonstad or Nicolas de Fer might be good choices.

A prominent guild member who died might also be a good choice.

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## Abu Lafia

That is a great idea Hai-Etlik, Karen Wynn Fonstad is indeed the best person i could think of for naming such an award after, not only because i have good memories of drooling hours and hours over the Middle earth Atlas after opening it for the first time.

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## ladiestorm

I have to admit that while I like the 'Mapskers'  I agree with Hai-Etlik.  His idea to name it after a famous fantasy cartographer might make it more 'meaningful'?  If that makes sense?

I had a thought about the nominations... I think one of the rules should be to PREVENT us from nominating our own maps.  I mean, actors and musical artists can't nominate themselves for the Oscars or the Grammys... plus, nominating other's maps instead of your own, encourages people to check out other cartographers' efforts, which, in turn, promotes the togetherness of the guild as a whole.

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## Neyjour

> I had a thought about the nominations... I think one of the rules should be to PREVENT us from nominating our own maps.  I mean, actors and musical artists can't nominate themselves for the Oscars or the Grammys...


I strongly agree with this.  Nominating yourself for an award is in very poor taste...




> plus, nominating other's maps instead of your own, encourages people to check out other cartographers' efforts, which, in turn, promotes the togetherness of the guild as a whole.


To me, _this_ is what the spirit of this place is all about.   :Smile:   Not self-gratification.

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## Midgardsormr

I disagree. I believe cartographers should be permitted to submit their own work for consideration. Call it a "submission" instead of a "nomination," to reduce the sense that you're patting yourself on the back.

Otherwise, you're only likely to get entries that are fresh in peoples' minds at the time nominations open, leaving out work that was made early in the year or after nominations were opened. (This is part of the reason we have "Oscars Season").

If someone works specifically toward this award all year only to not get nominated because they weren't permitted to submit their own work, that could leave a very sour taste in their mouth.

Finally, we already have a nomination system in place with the Cartographer's Choice award.

edit: And by the way, productions _do_ nominate themselves for many awards, such as the Emmys and VES Awards.

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## onez

I probably agree with Midgardsormr.
This is a challenge in spirit after all, right? So I guess it should be more about submissions than nominations.

That being said, either way is OK with me  :Smile:

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## vorropohaiah

> I think one of the rules should be to PREVENT us from nominating our own maps.  I mean, actors and musical artists can't nominate themselves for the Oscars or the Grammys...


any yet artists can submit their work into spectrum, which is something closer to this. 

I don't mind either way as long as we get something decided. We're almost 2/3rds the year and we don;t really know what's going on here  :Frown: 




> If someone works specifically toward this award all year only to not get nominated because they weren't permitted to submit their own work, that could leave a very sour taste in their mouth.


yeah, i'm hoping to get a map ready by year's end though I have a lot o preliminary work to sort through before i post anything, so I agree with this

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## Mouse

My personal opinion is this:

Each member should be permitted to nominate up to three finished maps, but not their own work.  After all, we can't rep ourselves, so why should we be able to nominate ourselves?  That smacks to me of _vanity_ of the highest order!If the more popular artists end up nominated several times over for several different works, only the work that has the greatest number of nominations should be considered to have been entered.  That way we don't end up looking at nothing but a single cartographer's work, which I'm sure would be just as embarrassing for them as it would be for the rest of us. If a person doesn't want to be nominated for whatever reason, they should be able to politely decline the nomination.  The genuinely shy should never be forced into a spotlight.

These are only my thoughts on the matter, but whatever you do, you really need to control it so that you don't end up with every single finished map sitting in a humongous pile waiting to be judged, or you will end up taking another whole year to finish the job.

Well - whatever you decide, you can always change it for next year if it just doesn't work  :Smile:

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## ChickPea

I just raised this again with the CLs a few days back, so we haven't forgotten. Hopefully we'll have an update soon.  :Smile:

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## DanielHasenbos

I think everyone should be able to submit (not nominate!) their best maps, just like the challenges. The reason I find it important that you can submit your own work is that there are a lot of great artist around here that simply aren't so well known. I fear that when others should nominate a map these silent beauties are too easily overseen.  If we end up with people nominating maps of other's it would be more like 'The Grand Cartographer's Choice Awards', which would be an interesting concept on its own I guess.

I'd say the most important question is: do we want this to be a challenge where people can choose to enter themselves, or an award ceremony where people are nominated?

-Dan

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## Falconius

I was thinking the same thing.  There is no need to duplicate Cartographers Choice, only a far more reductive version of it.  If this is a challenge people should obviously submit their own maps.  We already tried people making their maps specifically for this challenge but it didn't work so well.  I don't think awards show style is really the way to go, there is a reason the Oscars spend oodles of money trying to make the ceremonies interesting, and that's because at it's core award ceremonies are boring and meaningless.

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## Mouse

I think you will find that if we are allowed to nominate our own maps there will be just too many for the judges to cope.  That's all.  I know I wouldn't want to be faced with a pile of several thousands with only thirty days to make a decision.

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## Falconius

For there to be thousands of submissions, every guild member active or not would have to submit something.  That simply isn't going to happen.  And presuming that each person can only submit one thing (or if there are categories perhaps one thing per category, or perhaps one thing only), there are not going to be that many submissions.  Presumably it's going to be a multiple choice poll like it is for the challenges, so you are going to be judging  :Wink:   If there are more than say 30 maps then it could be an arduous task, but I don't think there will be that many.

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## Mouse

Self nomination?  Well you can count me out!  I don't happen to have a very high opinion of any of my maps!  LOL!

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## onez

What if we have some categories that people enter via submission, and others where entries are nominated by others?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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## ChickPea

Nothing is decided yet, but my personal opinion was that you'd have  one nomination per category, and you can use it to nominate one of your  own, or one of someone else's. It's entirely up to you. 

I don't  see anything wrong with submitting your own maps for a couple of  reasons. Firstly, people who enter challenges submit their maps for  judgement by their peers every month, and everyone is cool about it.  Secondly, as Dan mentions, there are some hidden gems posted by people  who aren't around the Guild as much as others, and they might be  overlooked because of that. Frankly, even maps by the regulars posted a  while back might get overlooked. Who can recall everything posted in  Finished Maps this year?!

If people have one nomination per  category, even if they aren't nominating their own work, they can still  participate in the  event and have an interest in the outcome. We want to showcase the 'best  of the best' of 2016, and whilst it's certainly possible we  could be deluged with entries, realistically I'm not so certain  that'll happen. However, if there were a huge number, perhaps we could do a  run-off poll or something like that. 

I feel the main thing we  need to iron out right now is what the categories are going to be, so  that if someone wants to create a map for a specific category, they still have  the time to do so. I  hope we can have this at least sorted out within the next few weeks, and the nominations thing can be finalised after that.

I'll go crack the whip with the other CLs.  :Smile:

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## Mouse

I still think that people who are naturally and genuinely shy should be able to quietly opt out without a fuss if they want to.

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## ChickPea

We certainly don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, so in this circumstance I'd suggest PMing a CL or using the contact form, and maps can be withdrawn from the process.

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## Mouse

Thanks Chickpea  :Smile: 

EDIT: its not that I dislike Challenges.  I have an entry in the current Lite Challenge myself, but that's different.  To me, the Lite Challenge is more about having a competition with yourself - pushing personal limits to achieve a personal best... which is a very different kind of animal to this new style of Annual Challenge, the flavour of which is beginning to approach the general description of a 'competition', rather than a challenge  :Smile:

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## ChickPea

It's no problem, Mouse. There's no need to explain or justify your feelings.  :Smile: 

I do understand a certain unwillingness to put your own maps forward. (I won't be nominating any of mine, for sure!) I need to look into it further, but I was kinda hoping that we can hide the poll results and only announce the winners. That gives a bit of mystery and makes it more like a proper award ceremony, since no-one will have any inkling of who's in the lead. And it also has the advantage that no-one need feel bad if their map doesn't do especially well in the voting. However, I'm not sure what sort of functionality the site's built-in poll feature offers, so this may not be possible.

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## snodsy

> Nothing is decided yet, but my personal opinion was that you'd have  one nomination per category, and you can use it to nominate one of your  own, or one of someone else's. It's entirely up to you. 
> 
> I feel the main thing we  need to iron out right now is what the categories are going to be, so  that if someone wants to create a map for a specific category, they still have  the time to do so. I  hope we can have this at least sorted out within the next few weeks, and the nominations thing can be finalised after that.
> 
> I'll go crack the whip with the other CLs.


CHICK;
Do you have a running list of the categories that you could post that people might add ideas for the next week or so?

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## ChickPea

Snodsy, I've replied to your comment in the award suggestions thread. I had posted a list in the CL forum that briefly summarised people's suggestions, so I've copied that over there. If anyone wants to discuss or suggest categories for awards, I'd appreciate if they could do it in that thread, so that everything is all in the one place. That'll make it easier for us to keep track of people's ideas.

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## Melissa J. Jackson

It's a really Big game for all of us

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## Wingshaw

I'm not sure if I missed an announcement somewhere, but I'm guessing that the Mapping Oscars isn't happening this year. Does anyone have any information about this?

THW

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## vorropohaiah

maybe there will be an announcement in the new year? I hope so, not that I have any maps i can 'enter'

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## tainotim

I was thinking that, like the regular Oscars, the best in this case maps, from last year would be decided early 2017. I hope so anyway   :Smile:

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## Diamond

To be quite honest, it seems all of us CLs (myself included) have either A) lost interest, B) haven't had time or were overwhelmed by how to orchestrate it all, or C) hesitated thinking someone else was going to jump on it.  It seems likely that nothing will get done by next week/end of the year, but I for one will get motivated to have an amazing Cartoscars* next year.  Sorry to all the folks that were looking forward to something sooner.   :Frown: 


*I kind of like that one!

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## Jaxilon

Cartoscars is a great one Diamond.

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## Diamond

Special announcement:

The 2016 Annual Challenge Awards will take place in March of this year.Phase one will be for you folks to vote on an actual name for the award!  That vote will take place in about a week.After that will be a nomination phase which will last for about SIX weeks.There will be several categories to nominate for and vote in - details to follow in mid-January.Voting will last for ONE week and will take place the first week of March.

Stay tuned for more details, and watch this forum for the name voting thread, which will likely go up this coming Sunday.

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## snodsy

One idea I'm not sure was discussed would be to vote for the BEST OF in the Challenge and Lite Challenge (taking all 12 months winners)  Just a thought.

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## Diamond

Okay, fellow Guildies: we have a name.  The Atlas Awards!

Tomorrow afternoon (my time zone) there will be a forest of new threads popping up here - stay tuned.  The next phase is a nomination period, and you'll all be able to have a voice there.

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## Midgardsormr

Terrific name! And it certainly suggests a good "trophy" image design.

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