I had planned to make the announcement, but I was out of town this weekend when the announcements were supposed to be made, so Deb made the time to fill in. We'll get the top 10 put up later today.
Joshua, we agree with you about flash, clutter, and putting every modification known in a site, that's why judging gives equal treatment to site design, appropriate use of modifications, user experience, site integration, and color scheme. Tastes differ from month to month in what we consider excellent in each category, but every site rec'd the placing they deserved that month. Stuff like dhtml rollovers and such do not get marked down if they don't work in NS 4, since most things do not work in NS 4, but as long as they don't break on NS 4, we don't consider it a minus, rather a plus that they put the extra effort in to take advantage of the newer browsers advances without breaking on the older ones.
"Clean" design is my preference too, but a site like dreamless.org would most likely not win, just because there's no site integration, the color scheme makes it next to impossible to read, etc. Balance is key in this.
Planetplastica and emceearena rec'd almost straight firsts and seconds because you don't really notice all the individual modifications (tho I am sure there are many involved), everything just works together. When you open their site, your first thought is "wow!". Once you get past that, you also see the user experience (content, atmosphere, etc) is what makes you stay... and come back.
Everyone must remember the greater purpose in our monthly spotlight, the interviews.. and the info everyone can gain from them. Even if you didn't visit the sites once, but read the interviews, you will get the necessary knowledge to improve your own site... the greater purpose, for sure.
A reminder that next month we'll be choosing the winner from out of the six previous monthly spotlight winners, and members will get a chance to vote in this as well, with the vote counting toward a portion of the final tally. The following month, we'll be moving to all version 6 UBB's, so you'll hve about 6 weeks with the released final code to work it into your site.
Those that did not win, if you'd like private individual constructive criticism, email me, and I'll help you out... you must have entered the contest to get this tho... so please do not email me if you haven't entered.
BTW, congratulations to the winners, excellent work.
