The add-on promotion contest is coming along nicely, with 36 entries to date. We thought it was necessary to clarify a bit more how the winners will be chosen.

We encourage everyone to read the reviews and vote for their favorite review but we will state once more that the popular vote will not determine who wins the prizes. The reasons for this are:

• Early participants have more time to gather votes than late entries, this would be unfair to late entries.
• The reviews of jury members can also be voted on but they are excluded from winning a prize.
• There is a maximum of 1 prize per person but the same person could get several of the top spots with different reviews in the popular vote.
• People may cheat with votes.

All this makes determining the prize winners based on the popular vote, risky and potentially unfair. Hence a jury consisting of several people who judge independantly is probably the best alternative available to us. That's what we have opted for and to clarify how we are going to judge the entries, we've decided to put the criteria "on paper" so to speak.

It is important to realize that we are not deciding what the best add-on is. We are deciding what the best review is, regardless of how good or popular the add-on is.

To determine the best reviews we will judge according to these guidelines:

1. Writing skills. Language should be clear (on-topic), lively, and without spelling/grammar mistakes. Non-technical people must understand the review.
2. Well organized information and details. Does it make sense? Who, what, when, why, and how?
3. Personal touch and objectivity. Facts should be accurate, good as well as bad points of an add-on should be shown. Shows the opinion of the reviewer.
4. Creativity. How interesting is the review? Is it inviting to read, is it humorous?
5. Research. Does the review show all aspects of the add-on?

Each of the four jury members will score each review. The top 10 reviews of each jury member will get points ranging from 10 for number 1 to 1 for number 10. These points will be added up creating an overal ranking which will determine who gets the prizes.

After the contest closes it will take a little time for us to go through all the entries and select the winners, how much time will depend on how many participants there are.

Otto