First of all, I really appreciate seeing suggestions and interesting discussions. Everyone sees things from their own viewpoint. And I think it's important to try and see things from every angle. Sometimes people have reasons behind their own arguments that you may not have considered. But sometimes people don't really consider all of the implications of their idea. That's why it's important to discuss it.
As I see it, everything on the front page should be of practical use to every user. That should be the primary focus. If it's of no use, then it will be of little interest. Let's cover what's there right now....
News and blogs... a way for users to get information about things going on, whether it be things to participate in or news about something that happened to keep them informed, or maybe even a new feature of the site.
Latest Tracks, Recently Awarded, MX Supporter Tracks, Best of the Week, all are dynamic lists changing all the time. Always new things to try out and keep you engaged as a player.
Canyon Leaderboard, Top 10... I actually see less use for these as they don't change that often. However, it serves as motivation for users to try more tracks, post more replays, and it increases the chances that you might get feedback on one of your tracks.
I don't personally see how a list of most awarded authors would be of use to me. I mean, we can already look up that information by going to the user page and searching for those stats.
I'm #7 on that list. So maybe I even speak as an insider here. I just don't see a reason to reward someone's popularity. The popularity should be reward enough, shouldn't it? And that's what awards really are, when looked at in mass. It's a metric of the author's popularity.
I'm very well aware that my tracks are no better than a lot of authors who receive a fraction of the awards. And that's not even a style difference. Some tracks are in the exact same style as mine, and yet they receive very little attention.
I'm not saying my tracks are bad, but I really wouldn't want to be in a list of "Best 10 Authors". It's simply not accurate. I don't mind there being a way to look up authors with most awards. It's definitely interesting. But if you put it on the front page it suddenly becomes more than interesting, it becomes
important. And I don't think it's important.
The topic says that it would be a way to honor them. I don't really see the amount of awards you get as an achievement to be honored. It's something out of your control. We should instead honor those who strive to make good tracks, doing so by giving heartfelt feedback to them and taking the time to try their tracks. It shouldn't be based on past award counts they get, but instead on the quality of their tracks.
In the tracking clan I'm in, we have the motto... "awards don't make the track". It means, the amount of awards a track gets doesn't really tell much about the track itself. Awards should not be the motivation for building a track. Your motivation should be about pushing the game forward, being innovative, or simply having fun, making something you want to make, or something you enjoy to drive. If people reward that effort with awards, so be it. For sure, awards are always nice to read, and help promote your track so that more people play it. That's of course appreciated. But awards are not what really matters. It's the track that matters.
I think we have to keep focused on tracks here on MX, not awards. The past is full of experiences where people became obsessed with awards. Some still are. Awards simply aren't that important.
If none of my future tracks got any awards, I would continue to build, because I love to the process of creating, and I love making something that I enjoy driving.
Well, those are my reasons why I think such a list is not the best idea. It serves no real purpose, except to further inflate the popularity of authors who are already well known.
There are other lists that would be interesting to me and useful on the front page, like the list of newest tracks by your favourite authors. On TMX United we also had the ability to choose which windows we wanted to see on the front page. That was cool too.
And of course, I'm really stoked to see a Valley LB! Mostly because it means we'll have Valley at that point.