First off, great post by seahawkfreak and his closing words are the clincher: "It has already made me think about how I could contribute better to the site." Wow. That's great stuff right there.
There are a dozen or two posters whose stuff I nearly always enjoy reading, and even when they say dumb knee-jerk reaction stuff (IMO) here and there, it doesn't take away from the many gems they contribute.
What I've really been enjoying lately is that the civility and football-knowledge-quality of posts has taken a slight, but clear and noticeable, uptick over the last couple months. Fewer useless pissing matches, more openness to others' points, higher quality information.
The "Pick #120, Will Dissley" thread exemplifies this. I started out knowing nothing about the guy and through the knowledge shared, came out with a clear idea of why PC/JS made this pick and why it's an awesome one for the Seahawks, and excited to see his contributions. Posters shared outraged or enthused initial reactions, and as more information came out during the thread, the information shared cut through many of the "lip service platitudes" and player-protecting coach-speak around the Seahawks TE position, and openly revealed some of the "dirty laundry" secrets and issues. Pete's *actions* in selecting Dissley revealed so much; even his coachspeak and JS's comments after the selection completed the picture in a congruent way. People shared assorted Dissley videos, which seemed to largely win over the initially outraged posters, when they saw film of the kinds of plays this guy makes in the passing game. This is the kind of thread that makes .NET a great place to be a fan and a student of the game. And yet, I could easily name half a dozen more; "#27 Rashaad Penny", "Solid B", and others.
I like the idea of recognizing high-quality posters with awards, and I think the nomination process is fine; maybe just request the nomination to include a mention of a specific post or range of posts that exemplifies the nominee's work and the reason for the nomination.
I have mixed feelings on the idea of voting for posters; there's the engagement of .NET denizens, yes; on the other hand, there's the clique-y beauty/popularity contest "feel" that could easily creep in. Then there is the administrative work for the Mods, of one-more-thing-to-do. So maybe let the voting run a couple more month cycles and see how things feel. Maybe limit winners to one recognition per quarter, if there are overly frequent repeat winners. Overly frequent? The goal, IMO, is to recognize a range of positive contributors, in order to support the overall quality of posts and interaction on the board.
I suggest, in addition to "Poster of the Month" Mods consider an "Unsung Hero" or "Spirit of .NET" award each month, to be selected by mods. to recognize posters who are just doing what they do, simply being who they are, catch them in some gem of a post or a thread that *exemplifies* the best of what we want .NET to be. For example, for April (really Feb/Mar/April), I would nominate kf3339 for the idea and execution and the resulting moderation approach of the "You're the GM!!!!" thread. Besides keeping things moving in that dead period between the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft, the tone established in that thread established a new and more constructive "feel" in threads of that type.
