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2010 Awards Start Soon

It's hard to believe that in only a month the awards will be starting up again! There are some exciting changes this year that I'm looking forward too. One of the largest is the addition of a 3rd stage with judges. We are still looking for (a lot) more judges so if you are interested in helping check out the forum for more information.

There's a lot of work to do and first on my list is to update the banners for this year. For those of you who have signed up for our newsletter you should receive an email soon when they are ready. Until then please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns!

~gu | Feb 6th '10

Open Call for Judges

In less than 5 months voting will begin again for the 3rd annual Bondage Awards. It was mentioned recently that there would be changes to how the voting worked. The most significant change was the addition of a judging stage. (That's where you come in)

What are we looking for? We need people from all corners of the industry who are willing to cast a few votes across all categories during the final stage of the awards. It won't take much of your time and you will be doing a great service to the community. If it sounds like something you would be interested in please stop by the forum for more information.

More information here: Bondage Awards Forum

If you are interested you can contact us here, on the forum or twitter.

~gu | Oct 06th '09


New Forum & Some Changes

Since starting these awards the mission has always been to make things as fair as possible. I've always been in love with the idea of the public voting, but as many of you know it comes with issues. Due to the limitations of the internet, keeping things fair is at the very least extremely difficult. I've spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the best balance and I feel the changes below to help restore some balance. Starting next year, the following changes will be made.

Change #1 - One of the most time consuming and difficult part of running the awards is managing the text entries. In the past they have always been tallied, stripped of cheating and counted to see which contestants made it to Stage Two. The litany of difficulties with this process is daunting.

Starting next year the first stage will strictly be a nomination stage only. There will be no more minimum vote requirement to be eligible for stage two.

Change #2 - All stages will operate under the premise of 1 IP Address = 1 Vote (per contestant). What this means is once someone has voted, they can't vote for them again. The voting system will allow everyone multiple votes (1 per day), just not for the same contestant.

Change #3 - The biggest change of all will be the addition of a new stage. Unlike the other stages, this stage will be voted on by a panel of judges. My hope is to assemble 100+ people from all walks of the industry (webmasters, models, riggers, photographers, et al). The judges will vote in each category which will be combined with the public votes to reach a final judgment. I will release more detail as we get closer to voting time.

As I am sure there will be a lot of questions and concerns, there is now a new discussion forum dedicated to the awards. Feel free to stop in or better yet, sign-up and post your thoughts (http://forum.bondageawards.com).

~gu | Aug 22nd '09


Post Awards Update

I apologize in the delay in responding to some emails and getting some things posted. My hope is to have everything answered and done by this weekend.

A couple things I wanted to mention. First I have posted some of the banners for the top three in each category. If you place in the top three of any category and would like your banner posted, you can send it to john at bondageawards dot com.

Secondly, I'm in the process of setting up a forum to discuss past and future awards. I'll post here when it is ready.

~gu | May 12th '09


2009 Results Posted!

The results are tallied and can be seen here.

I want to personally say congratulations to everyone who won this year! The competition was far more fierce, not only in voting volume but the number of contestants. I also want to thank the thousands upon thousands of people who took a few minutes out of their day to show support. Great work all around this year!

As there was last year, I am sure there will be a lot of questions concerning the results. I'll be happy to answer them all but ask that you keep a few things in mind before emailing me. This is a popular vote and is not much different than a political election. Like those elections, there is always a sizable group of people who think another candidate is far more qualified. Secondly, take a few moments to read a post from last year on this topic. It is from April 27th, 2008 and titled "Honesty is the Best Policy".

I'll be working on the award graphics soon and emailing them out when I have them ready. If you do not receive an email in the next two weeks, please shoot me a message as I may not have your contact information. If you have any special sizes or background colors you would like, please let me know ASAP.

Again, congratulations to all who won and nominated!

~gu | April 19th '09


Voting Closed for 2009

The final votes have been cast for 2009 and thanks to everyone out there we had a huge turnout. Thanks to all who participated and supported their favorite people and companies, all of us certainly appreciate it.

So the question on everyone's mind is... where are the results? They will be posted next Sunday on the 19th of April. It takes a full week of double-checking all the votes before I can post them. I appreciate your patience and people let me know if you have any questions.

~gu | Apr 12th '09


Voting Ends Soon!

Just a friendly reminder that voting will end when the clock ticks midnight on April 11th.

~gu | Apr 8th '09


Stage Two is Ready

At midnight tonight (EST, -5 GMT) the second stage of voting will begin. There are only two weeks of voting in this stage, so make them count! Before things get started, I wanted to mention on a few things.

If you do not see your name/company in the voting lists, it could be for a few reasons. The most common is insufficient unique votes. Another reason is qualifications; each person/company must adhere to the voting rules.

Some people/companies are easier to qualify than others. If you feel a name is missing (or shouldn't be listed) from the voting list, please let me know ASAP. Click the Contact Us link in the header and I will address it as soon as I can.

Happy Voting!

~gu | Mar 28th 2009


Stage One Voting in the Bag

When this season started I was unsure how things would go. I expected they would go well, but to be honest, I was a bit worried that I wasn't getting the floods of email I did last year. I shook it off assuming the updated FAQ and some email mailings were the reason. Well I'm happy to find that my fears were for nothing and we had a great first round of voting. How good you ask? Just north of 22 thousand votes and over 9 thousand more votes than last year!

I will be combing through all 22k votes and tallying the votes up for Stage Two this week. So take a break and think about who you will vote for in the next stage. Voting with start up again at midnight on the 29th, mark your calendars!

~gu | Mar 22nd '09


One week left!

For those of you who are not on the twitter feed (yet!) the voting so far has far exceeded last year's stage one counts! Woot! There is still a week left for stage one voting and I am hoping we can break 25k, but honestly beating last year already is damn cool in itself. Don't forget to vote everyday and in all categories ;)

I have added a newsletter sign-up to the site (sign-up here). I encourage everyone to sign-up, especially potential contestants. I can't tell you how many emails I get titled 'I didn't realize they started already...' Don't worry, we don't spam and I especially won't send any naked pictures of myself! :o

~gu | Mar 14th '09


*tap* *tap* Is this thing on?

Over the past week I have received a few emails with the same general question.

Why are the awards so sexist?

Since there are probably many more of you with this question on your mind, I thought I would answer it here and hopefully put everyone at ease. I'll start by saying that when I created the awards I had no intention of creating biased categories . I still don't. If that were the case, the rules would reflect it.

The truth is that one day I looked through my large assortment of photos, picked a bunch that I liked and forwarded them to an illustrator and let her artistic eye go wild. Ecstatic with the images she produced coupled with the pressure of getting the awards going last year on time, the idea that it was sexist in any way never crossed my mind.

The awards ran last year and were a success. I learned a lot and got a lot of great feedback from everyone. Interestingly enough, of the hundreds of suggestions I received all last year, none suggested gender neutrality. I wish someone had. Things would have certainly been different this year.

So what to do now? Let's continue to have fun, which is really what this whole thing is about right? Vote for who you want regardless of gender illustration in the categories. If you have ideas, suggestions or complaints, take a few minutes to send me a note. The gag in my mouth prevents me from biting ;)

~gu | Mar 4th, '09


Stage One Voting

Welcome everyone to the second annual Bondage Awards! As promised, the first Stage of voting has opened up, so let the voting begin! Just a few reminders:

I wish everyone the best of luck this year and please, if you have any questions, problems or complaints feel free to let me know.

Click here to Vote

~gu | Mar. 1st, '09


FAQ & 2009 Rules Posted

I have updated the FAQ as well as posted the voting rules for 2009. You can find the FAQ here and the voting rules here. There are only a few days left before voting begins. If you haven't already, be sure to put our banner on your site - the more votes the better!

~gu | Feb. 25th, '09


Banners Posted, FAQ Next

I have just posted the banners (Contact Page) for this year's awards but I didn't go overboard. If there is a size or color that you would want, please send me a note. I plan to make these sizes (300x300, 160x600, 120x600 and 200x200) but please request them if they don't appear in a few days.

There is less than a month left before the awards start! I will be updating the FAQ this week regarding this year's rules and changes. I will be sending out a welcome email no later than tomorrow so if you do not receive one, please send me a note and I will add you to the mailing list.

Thank you in advance for your support; I look forward to making 2009 a great year!

~gu | Feb. 1st, '09


It's 2009 already?

Wow, where did the time go?

It seems like only a few short months ago I was announcing the recipients of the 2008 awards and here we are again, getting ready for 2009! Last years inaugural year was an amazing success and with any luck this will be even better.

Many of you have written in asking if there will be awards this year and others asking when, so I want to address those questions first. Yes, there will certainly be awards this year and voting will begin Sunday March 1st, 2009.

In the coming weeks I will be posting new banners, updated FAQs as well as guidelines for this years awards. I want to thank all of you who wrote in with suggestions and ideas to make this year even better.

Until then, I want to wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year!

~gu | Jan 1st, '09