The OtakuBoards Nifty Fifty

The OtakuBoards Nifty Fifty is an annual Community Event created by Shy in 2005. At the start of each year fifty members, threads and things are selected as being “nifty” by the community, thus creating a fun and nostalgic look back on the site’s past year.

The Nifty Fifty was designed to be a more objective and inclusive version of the popular Otaku Awards. Covering a wide variety of topics, the Otaku Awards’ winners were always the site’s most popular members and often OtakuBoards staff. This was because the Otaku Awards relied on member voting to decide the winners, which meant they were little more than a popularity contest. 2004’s Otaku Awards proved to be the most biased yet, and it was ultimately decided that they should be discontinued in favor of something new.

For the Nifty Fifty members are allowed to nominate up to ten items. However, unlike the Otaku Awards the winners selected in the Nifty Fifty are not necessarily the fifty who have received the most nominations. At the start of the nominations process a diverse group of members, “The OtakuBoards Nifty Fifty Committee” are selected by the Event Master to compile a list of the fifty nominations they feel best represent the community. Each member of the committee comes up with an individual list, and from those the final list is compiled by the Event Master.

Individual banners for each of the fifty winners were added to 2006’s awards, adding a new visual appeal to the event. These banners are created by volunteers from within the community, and have proven to be just as prized as the awards themselves. Unfortunately the creation of these banners take a great deal of time, and contributes to the nearly month-long gap between the end of nominations and the announcement of the winners.

While the demand for voting-based awards come up from time to time, members have fully embraced the concept of the Nifty Fifty. Each annual installment of the event is more popular than the last.

Categories: Events