User blog:Aquamarinesandopals/April OTM Voting

Congratulations to March's winners!! I think we can all agree that Percy Boots, Barley, and Deryn Corbeau are more than deserving of the titles they've won this month. Be sure to send them your congratulations < 3

There have been more, significant updates to how voting works this month, at user suggestion.

This month voting will only last til the 24th of March. We hope that closing the voting will allow for a week for the admin team to get things ready to post, so there will be less of a chance of the OTMS going up late. While winners do get featured for several months on the navigation tab and permanently on the COTM/SOTM page, it has been pointed out that OCs getting significantly less time on the front page is hardly fair. We hope this will help.

Note: This does not change when winners will be posted. We will always aim to have winners posted by the 3rd of the month.

This month is basically a trial month to see how this feature works and if we find it be ineffective we will revoke it in the May voting.

The new rules implemented last month about how to lay out your votes are still in place. Please read the voting blog post every month so you are aware of these updates! We will just discount votes that do not comply with the rules.

As mentioned, this vote will close on the 24th of March at 23h59. That's only 19 days, so get voting!

Rules

 * 1) Do not vote for your own OC.
 * 2) An OC who has already won cannot win again.
 * 3) A character with the same destiny as a previous winner cannot win.
 * 4) You (the driver/creator) cannot win an OTM twice in a row (you're free to vote for an OC who fits this description but they won't be able to win until a month has passed).

In regards to SOTM:
 * 1) You can vote for a ship you have an OC in.
 * 2) You can vote for a ship solely comprised of your own OCs, if you wish.
 * 3) OC/Canon is allowed.
 * 4) The ship does not have to be a romantic relationship nor does it have to contain just two OCs. Poly ships or friendships are totally fair game.
 * 5) All the OCs in your ship must be present on the wikia to win the award. You may vote for a ship where only one character has a page, but the ship cannot win until / unless all the OCs have pages up on the wikia.

Here's a link to the list of COTM and SOTM winners, please give them a read.

How to Vote
So, you've read the rules, but you may be thinking "That's all very well and good Spades but how do I vote?"

Well hypothetical confused voter, follow these simple steps!

COTM

 * 1) Comment down below which OC you would like to vote for - You can vote for multiple OCs!
 * 2) We encourage comments about the characters and why you like them.
 * 3) Character names should be given in full.
 * 4) Links should be provided anyway, but especially if you've nicknamed the OC in your comment.

SOTM

 * 1) Comment down below, noting the ships you would like to vote for.
 * 2) Please list both / all the OCs involved and their ship name. (e.g. 'I'm voting for Jone, which consists of Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe.)
 * 3) Once again, we encourage little comments about why you like the ships.

Misc

 * 1) You may vote multiple times and you don't have to do it all at once! If you want to add more votes you may make a new comment or edit your old one.
 * 2) You may vote for COTM/SOTM in the same comment.
 * 3) Please actually list a character or ship! I know it's annoying, but simply saying 'any of x's ocs' does not count as a vote. I don't have the time or energy to research every oc a person has ever made. A character or ship must be named to count.

Things to Remember

 * 1) Don't feel pressured to vote for what everyone else has voted for if everyone is voting similarly.
 * 2) The winner may be unexpected as we count all votes from all previous months when deciding who wins.
 * 3) It would be wise to vote for OCs with active users.

In Case of a Tie
The admin team has no specific protocol for a tie, but in the unlikely event we need to pick between two OCs/Ships, we will consider the following:
 * 1) Which OC/Ship has been on the list the longest.
 * 2) How many votes the OC/Ship generally gets per month.
 * 3) Reasons people have given for voting.
 * 4) How many different people have voted for the OC/Ship.