On September 25th, 2005, the New Times Editor announced the coming of a new "Whyvillian in the Spotlight." Just about every winner of this award so far has had abuse raining down on them like the rain that pours down in England at the moment . . . stupid rain.

As a previous winner of the award I decided to write this article.

So . . . What are they saying? They're saying that all of the people who win this are popular in some way or another. I'm not going to sit here and deny it because it's true. Although this, you've got to consider why they're popular. Imagine someone who wants to get far in Whyville and they become a very commited Times Writer or designer to a point where they are "popular." Why does this mean that they shouldn't get the award?

Another point that is raised up sometimes is that nearly all of the W.I.T.S winners are from Club Why. This is partly true, yes. Why? Maybe these people feel more comfortable in Club Why. Maybe the people in Club Why can be more bothered to post articles.

As for friends nominating their friends, are you sure it's not the fact that they're the only ones who know them and can pick them out as a good perosn.

Did you know that, on talking to some of these winners, they don't like the popularity? I got tons and tons of mail and "fans" after I got the award. I feel grateful for every single one of them, but when you have a lot of schoolwork to accomplish, it does get a tad annoying reading through your 300 mails you recieved while you were away.

I'm trying to defend this but the problem is there are some severe problems with it. The above problems really need to be considered as actually being true.

I think that the biggest problem though is people putting the winners down so that they feel bad. Would you call these people "stupid" or "undeserving" or as we saw in a certain winners BBS "vain and conceited" over . . . and over . . . and over again. Saying it on a BBS is like a virtual spit in the face and can make people feel very bad. It's abusing the BBS and it's not fair or nice at all.

No one's ever going to be happy with what is chosen. The people who can be bothered to nominate people get told that they're choosing only the popular people. The people who "know the good people" never nominate them. We're going to get nowhere with promoting people who are going to get flamed.

Should we carry on with this? As much as I appreciated achieving this I believe that it should be a privilige and not a right. Some people are greatly abusing this, and they have been doing it for a long time, as soon as it started in fact. Don't get me wrong, it's a great idea, but to really get the desired result it needs cooperation from you, the Times Readers and BBSers.

We could go back to the Good Citizen of the Month option where Y-Helpers, Senators etc., nominated people they thought really deserved the award and they have earned the experience to be able to say that.

I think that there needs to be some major changes in the way the Whyvillian in the Spotlight is run. This could include disabling comments, making it more of an "interesting" person that gets it rather than a "good" person. Commenting on it is fine but putting people down and saying they shouldn't get the award for one reason or another is just not on. At the worst, we could remove it completely.

Whyvillians, Editor, Staff of Whyville please take these points into consideration . . .

Cobd