Why not just avoid all the controversy and let the members choose AOM? hey russ, long time no see. the direction we are heading when we started on this was trying to address the two largest areas of complaint and perspective... one was the 'intent' of the AOM... the other was a popularity vote. i think we can satisfy both issues here by addressing each with it's own event, have an AOM (not sure if the committee is going to be permanent or not but we'd like to see how it works for a bit), and a Member of the Month, where members of various groups and user-group-circles can vote to show their appreciation of someone they consider special. the whole point is to get as many members as possible into the spotlight. we have such a diversity of talent and interest here that i think the aom was just not satsifying to enough people. now, i realize that my words are going to be dissected and trashed and stomped on... that's okay... i know that some folks are really upset. what i want to stress is that we are really trying to work this out for everyone's benefit if you will work with us, we can eventually work out some solution that will satisfy both camps.