Patrick

Welcome, harithapa.

Welcome aboard, 126barnes. Glad to have you. Patrick

We now have a little over a week until nominations close. Please submit your nominations soon. Thanks! Patrick

Congrats chiliphil1!

Sounds like a fun time, Bob.

Hello, Welcome to the 14th annual KarateForums.com Awards. Through these awards, we recognize just a few of the individuals who have made outstanding contributions to KarateForums.com in the past year. Over the last 13 years, we have honored 128 different members with a nomination and 44 with an award. Both of these numbers will grow again this year. Your participation is vital. It is the members of this community who select the nominees and vote for the winners. What You Should Know Before Nominating 1. These awards take into consideration all community activity between October 19, 2014 and October 18, 2015. Members must be nominated based upon their activity in this period and articles nominated for Article of the Year must have been published in this span. 2. To nominate, you must have a KarateForums.com account with at least 25 posts made on or before October 18, 2015. 3. Only one member or article can be nominated for each award. In other words, you cannot nominate the entire staff for Staff Member of the Year. You have to pick one person. One person can be nominated for more than one award, however. 4. You cannot nominate yourself, or an article that you wrote, for any of the awards. 5. Your nominations will be kept private. We do not publicly reveal who nominated for whom. 6. Please do not attempt to artificially inflate our nomination totals in any way. This includes, but is not limited to: trading nominations, encouraging people to nominate indiscriminately (publicly or privately), sending spam and any other behavior that could lead to results being artificially skewed. Members found to be participating in these activities will be disqualified from nomination in any category. 7. Though it is unlikely to occur, a banned member cannot be nominated. 8. Please note that you do not have to nominate in every category. You can nominate for as many or as few as you would like - please go for as many as you feel comfortable with. The more valid nominations that we receive, the better! From these nominations, the ballot for each award will be chosen, consisting of the top 4 nominees plus ties. Through the poll system available on these forums, you will be able to vote for the winners! Categories Important note: all members (including Sempais and Senseis) are eligible for nomination in any category, except where otherwise noted. However, I (Patrick) am ineligible for nomination in any category. 1. Member of the Year This award is intended to acknowledge the member who you feel best exemplifies the qualities that KarateForums.com puts a premium on. Knowledge is valuable, but most valuable is a kind and helpful nature. You don't need to be a martial arts expert to be nominated for this award - you need to be someone who is kind and who shares what they know in a productive fashion that helps others. Current staff members (Sempais, Senseis and Patrick) cannot be nominated for this award. 2. New Member of the Year This award is the same as Member of the Year, except that this one is strictly for members that registered on or between the dates of October 19, 2014 and October 18, 2015. Eligible members must have made at least 50 posts by October 18, 2015. Current staff members (Sempais, Senseis and Patrick) cannot be nominated for this award. 3. Community Spirit Award This award should go to a person whom you feel has a strong passion for this community. A person who is all about the home team - in this case, KarateForums.com. 4. Staff Member of the Year This award is the same as the Member of the Year award, except that this award is for current staff members only (except Patrick). If you are unsure of who is on staff, please visit http://www.karateforums.com/staff.php for a complete listing. 5. Funniest Member of the Year Humor is an important aspect of the forums, and this award recognizes the member who has brought a smile to your face many times. 6. Karate Contributor of the Year This award is for your favorite contributor within the Karate forum - a member who has added substantial value in that section in the past year. 7. Jiu-Jitsu and Grappling Martial Arts Contributor of the Year This award is for your favorite contributor within the Jiu-Jitsu and Grappling Martial Arts forum - a member who has added substantial value in that section in the past year. 8. Equipment Contributor of the Year This award is for your favorite contributor within the Equipment forum - a member who has added substantial value in that section in the past year. 9. Health, Training and Fitness Contributor of the Year This award is for your favorite contributor within the Health, Training and Fitness forum - a member who has added substantial value in that section in the past year. 10. Instructor Central Contributor of the Year This award is for your favorite contributor within the Instructor Central forum - a member who has added substantial value in that section in the past year. 11. Article of the Year This award distinguishes your favorite article that was published in the KarateForums.com Articles section on or between October 19, 2014 and October 18, 2015. Whether the article enlightened or inspired you, this is the place to recognize it. Here are the articles that are eligible for nomination, in order of publishing date: How Not to Get Hit by Nathaniel Cooke (Book Review) by Lupin1 The Martial Arts: Where Egos Go to Die! by sensei8 Traditions by Dave Lowry (Book Review) by Wastelander Karate by Hidetaka Nishiyama and Richard C. Brown by sensei8 5 Ill-Advised Things Every Brown Belt Should Do by Lupin1 The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu by Wong Kiew Kit (Book Review) by Zaine Lessons in The Art of War by Martina Sprague (Book Review) by DWx Martial Arts Nutrition by Teri Tom (Book Review) by ninjanurse The Secrets of Kalis Ilustrisimo (Book Review) by tallgeese Taekwondo by Kevin Hornsey (Book Review) by bushido_man96 Ulu Knife Techniques and Lessons from How It Is Used by cathal Please note: we have decided to remove the Korean Martial Arts Contributor of the Year award, due to a lack of activity in that section. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to bring it back. Ready to Nominate? Please nominate. You will find a blank ballot at the bottom of this message that you can copy and paste. You nominate by sending a private message to the account with the username Awards through this link: http://www.karateforums.com/privmsg.php?mode=post&u=2715 - nominations will be closed on November 2, 2015 at 9 PM ET. Please do not post your nominations publicly in this thread or elsewhere in the forums. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to private message me or reply here. Thank you for reading and for visiting KarateForums.com. Your participation in these awards is what makes them meaningful. I can't wait to see who you choose to honor this year. Here is a blank ballot that you can use:

Thanks Bob. What all did you do? Patrick

I appreciate the kind words. Patrick

Happy birthday, Bob! I hope that you have a great day. It's a bit ironic that the Cowboys are on a bye week. Thank you for all of the great contributions that you have made to our community. Patrick

Glad that you all found these numbers interesting. Did anyone notice any interesting names near the bottom of the list? Haha. I apparently allowed people to nominate me in the very first year of the awards (I didn't win in the category I was nominated in). I had totally forget about that; it was so long ago.

Hey all, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. The 14th annual KarateForums.com Awards will open to nominations next week and so I thought it would be fun to take a look at the history of the awards, by the numbers tied to nominations. Previously, our awards page has listed how many times each person has won an award. Winning is awesome, but I also think that being nominated is really special, too, because it means that someone took the name to put your name forward. Without the nominations, there are no votes. 128 unique members have received 340 nominations for 89 different awards, which have been won 101 times (it is more than 89 due to ties). 1,523 total votes have been cast. I was curious to see how many times each member had been nominated, so I went back and counted all of the nominee lists. These numbers reflect the number of times a member appeared as a nominee in a category. If the member was nominated more than once where that is allowed - for example, more than one article by that person nominated for Article of the Year - then each nomination is counted. The number of times this occurred is noted in parentheses after the username. If your name is on this list, that means someone else took the time to nominate you. I think that is pretty great. Just 128 different members have been nominated. When you consider how many active members our community has had over the years, that is a really small number. Of course, Brian (bushido_man96)'s total of 31 nominations in 30 unique categories is staggering. That really speaks to how the community has valued his contributions over the years, just like it speaks well of everyone who has received multiple nominations. Given that Bob (sensei8) is tied with Brian for the most award wins (13), I was surprised to see that he was fourth in nominations with 17. That's incredible. I hope you find these stats interesting, and I look forward to see how everyone nominates in the 2015 edition of the KarateForums.com Awards. Thanks, Patrick

Thank you for your kind words, Kanku65. It means a lot. I appreciate that you are a part of what makes it true. Patrick

Hello and welcome, Lugh.

Thank you for sharing this with us, Shawn! Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. The October selection is... Kanku65. Congratulations! Thank you for the great contributions that you have made to our community. Sincerely, Patrick

Congrats Doire. Patrick

Welcome Maybetrue. Patrick

Cowboys up 28-25 as I write... which is good, since I picked them. The Dolphin defense has been really disappointing to me, so far. Our defensive line was supposed to be one of the league's best, and they just haven't dominated the line. Hopefully that's just a temporary thing.

Bryant has had an awesome season! Congrats. The Cubs have already clinched their wild card spot and will be playing against the Pirates (most likely in Pittsburgh) in the one game playoff. If you make it, you never know what could happen. Exciting times. Definitely excited that the Yankees will probably be back in the playoffs. Even though we've been really fortunate since the mid-90s, I always tried not to take playoff baseball for granted. Being out of it these last two years has stunk. (I realize that sounds ridiculous if your team hasn't seen the playoffs for many years). Unless a collapse occurs, the only playoff spot still seriously in play is the second wild card slot in the American League. Astros, Angels or maybe Twins.

Hey Paul. Welcome.

Here's a clip from the film:

Looks good!

Haha. Nice one, Bulltahr. Patrick

Congrats on the launch, Luther unleashed! Good luck with it. Patrick

Great speech, Bob! To be a great member here, I believe you have to be willing to listen and willing to share. If that means you have a big mouth, so be it. But I wouldn't describe it that way. The Pred, JR 137, Bulltahr, Kanku65, mazzybear, Titanium, Heidi, hammer, chiliphil1 and Alex - really enjoyed reading your replies and sharing your thoughts. Patrick