I want to thank kbennett for responding to these threads and any other mod that has participated. : ) First, I must clarify the AOM are polls not contests. Contests on Renderosity are where members submit work and receive a prize if win. We also have sweepstakes sometimes where members can submit information for goodies. The AOM and AOY is neither a contest or sweepstakes it is a vote. We have had the AOM for a few years now...since fall of 1999. We prefer to have the members nominate and then vote, but found this to be full of clones and difficult to keep track. We pulled this due to member request, being an unfair process, and lack of the validity of the process. Trying to keep this process we implemented something to track clones, but this began to take way too much time of an admin and could not be justified. After several unhappy discussions from admins, mods, and members in continued threads about how the AOM was being handled, admins changed to a nominating committee. This was to be an unbiased group that selected on work and talent. This process worked in the beginning but without a dedicated admin to manage the communications, it began to fail. We pulled this process 2-3 months ago and implemented the mods/admins nominating system. We knew that this process would be better because of the ease of communication and knew the team would be objective, therefore making a more fair nomination process for the AOM. Plus we found a decrease in clone voting with the nominating committee process and wanted to continue this way. Seems we elimated the popularity piece, not sure that is good or not, but seems to be a more fair voting process. As I have said before, we have not been able to get the AOM quite there where all members agree...might not be able to make that happen with this event due to many issues all the way around the AOM. The best way we know is to try different ways and see if it gets better. As of now this is the best process, we have discovered. The AOY was first implemented last year and was changed due to inproper voting. It should have been setup like last year, but I messed that up. I know that it does not come across very professional with how the AOY went up, then down, then up and then down. In my opinion it was not very professional but I had to make it right. There was lack of communication with the admin team and therefore it was not the best presented. That was my fault, no other admin or mod. At this time, all I can do for that error is to apology for how it was implemented this year. I am not very happy with myself on how this came off. I will be taking the suggestions that members are presenting as well as mods and discussing with admins. It may be several weeks before you hear back on this issue, but we will keep you updated. We are interested in getting the AOM as fair as we can with voting, until then the AOY will continue to be voted by the admin and mods at this time. thanks tammy