I know there’s already been a lot of talk about E-Peen today already, but what the hell, this is on my agenda.

Been quite a few comments lately about awarding special E-Peen™ to those contest-holders who have created a contest of significant value for the Flamebate community. And we think it’s a good idea. There’s a major difference between something as far-reaching as the Forumwarz Top Model contest, and a contest that awards one Brownie Point to a random poster.

Now, implementing this might not be so simple. I originally proposed that only those contests that were co-sponsored by Forumwarz (and thus already have E-Peen attached to it for the winners) should be eligible. However, such contests are rare, and we often miss the opportunity to sponsor them. It’s unlikely that we’d even recognize their potential until after they’ve finished.

Therefore, we propose that an E-Peen be made available for any contests that are a proven quality, and have been identified as such…independently. To prevent Peenwhoring, we wouldn’t consider a contest just because, say, the holder asked us to, or if they included a stipulation about it in the rules. Instead, we’d ask that our moderators use their judgment to bring it to the attention of the admins.

Of course, it’s not out of the question that individual users might nominate a contest and alert our moderators to it. We just want to avoid being swamped with Peen requests by contest-holders. In any case, we think this could be a good incentive for users to hold truly great contests.

We understand that there’s bound to be some dispute over which contests ought to be awarded this E-Peen, and some people might feel slighted. But, this is a risk we’re willing to take.

That’s why we’re going to allow you — the users of Flamebate — to nominate previous contests for this E-Peen award right now. All you have to do is post a thread naming the contest you think deserves an award, include a link to it, and give us a quick explanation of why it’s special.

Users can then reply to your post and agree or disagree. They can also vote your post as “win” or “fail.” Now, we recognize that the win/fail system of voting is flawed and subject to abuse, which is why we’ve never used it in any official capacity before. And we still aren’t, at least not for anything crucial.

But, for the sake of experimentation, let’s see how it works as a guideline. If it even remotely parallels our own decisions, then yay for us.

Now go, go, go!