The problem as I see it is that we are trying to categorize a specific type of creative art, and that’s not an easy thing to do. Simply put, I think there are just too many different ways to interpret some (if not all) of these categories, and it isn’t terribly hard to “stretch” a map in one category into another category. Take, for instance, Francissimo’s Vlahalla Orbital Complex.

It is clearly Sci-Fi work, but what kind of “map” is it? For me, it is a structure/building map, but it could, with only a little bit of stretching, probably qualify as a town/city map in a modern or futuristic setting. Others might not see it as a map at all, but rather just a work of art (which it also is, btw, and a very well done one, imho) similar to those done by artists when new extra-solar planets are discovered. The same could be said for a really large colonization ship like the one in the movie Passengers. It is a ship (structure), but it has a bar, restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, and so on. Again, a little stretching makes it into a town and/or city.

Maybe the easiest way to set this whole thing up (and I’m not saying it would actually be easy to do since I don’t know how easy it would be to implement this sort of thing) would be to go into the Finished Maps forum and give it sub-forums similar to those in the Mapmaking Forum (i.e. a Regional/World sub-forum, a Town/City sub-forum, and so on) and ask members to post their finished maps only once in the most appropriate sub-forum. When nomination and voting time comes around, maps can only be nominated for the sub-forum in which they are posted and, perhaps if we continue to use it, a Best Overall category nomination.

That would break things down as follows;

Regional/World Map
Town/City Map
Building/Structure Map
Dungeon/Subterranean Map
Sci-Fi/Modern Map
VTT/Battlemap
Board Game Map
Best Overall Map

Not saying that we would have to have all of these categories, just tossing them out there for discussion.

Alternatively (and again, I don’t know how hard this would be to implement), maybe we could have special tags in the Finished Maps forum similar to those that we use in the Challenge Forums. Something like ### Regional/World Map ### or ### Town/City Map ###, and ask members to use the most appropriate tag when posting their finished maps. Then maybe a scraper could be used to show which maps can be nominated in which categories. Although that might also require the Finished Maps forum to be broken down into yearly sub-forums with each year being locked (again like the challenges) when the year ends so that the scraper would only pick up maps from the current year. I don’t know.

I like the Atlas Awards, because it is a great way to see some of the incredible works that have been accomplished over the year, especially when I miss seeing them when they are posted.

Just some ideas, thoughts, and ramblings. Feel free to scratch your head and wonder “What the heck was GW thinking?” Hehehe.