Web Site Award Regulations
Of The National Teen Courts of America
All award nominees must agree to accept all the rules and regulations pertaining to award nominations and acceptance. All sites must fully respect copyright laws. We will not knowingly accept applications for sites that plagiarize sound files or graphics, nor will we allow sites that steal band width. Credit in some way should be given to others when their authorized graphics or other materials are used.
Part I
We are for free speech but there are children and parents who often use this web site as a resource.
We shall not degrade the youth or scare possible visitors by showcasing them any explicit web sites.
Awards will not be awarded to sites with or links to
Adult, Violent or Hate Themes
which include the following descriptions:
and Awarded Sites that Later Carry These Unacceptable Themes
Automatically Forfeit their awards
A. Profanity
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo - includes: Subtly and/or explicit Implied through Slang
2) Technical Reference - includes: Dictionary, encyclopedic, news, technical references
3) Non-Graphic-Artistic - includes: Limited non-sexual expletives used in a artistic fashion
4) Graphic-Artistic - includes: Non-sexual expletives used in a artistic fashion
5) Graphic - includes: Limited use of expletives and obscene gestures
6) Detailed Graphic - includes: Casual use of expletives and obscene gestures.
7) Explicit Vulgarity - includes: Heavy use of vulgar language and obscene gestures. Unsupervised Chat Rooms.
8) Explicit and Crude - includes: Saturated with crude sexual references and gestures. Unsupervised Chat Rooms.
B. Heterosexual and/or Homosexual Themes
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo - includes: Subtly and/or explicit Implied through metaphor
2) Technical Reference - includes: Dictionary, encyclopedic, news, medical references
3) Non-Graphic-Artistic - includes: Limited metaphoric descriptions used in a artistic fashion
4) Graphic-Artistic - includes: Metaphoric descriptions used in a artistic fashion
5) Graphic - includes: Descriptions of intimate sexual acts
6) Detailed Graphic - includes: Descriptions of intimate details of sexual acts
7) Explicitly Graphic or Inviting Participation - includes: Explicit Descriptions of intimate details of sexual acts designed to arouse. Inviting interactive sexual participation. Unsupervised Sexual Chat Rooms/ News groups.
8) Explicit and Crude or Explicitly Inviting Participation - includes: Profane Graphic Descriptions of intimate details of sexual acts designed to arouse. Inviting interactive sexual participation. Unsupervised Sexual Chat Rooms or News groups.
C. Nudity
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo - includes: Subtly and/or explicit Implied through composition, lighting, shaping, revealing clothing, etc.
Web Site Award Regulations of the National Teen Courts of America Continued
2) Technical Reference - includes: Dictionary, encyclopedic, news, medical references
3) Non-Graphic-Artistic - includes: Classic works of art presented in public museums for family viewing
4) Graphic-Artistic - includes: Artistically presented without full frontal nudity
5) Graphic - includes: Artistically presented with frontal nudity
6) Detailed Graphic - includes: Erotic frontal nudity
7) Explicit Vulgarity - includes: Pornographic presentation
8) Explicit and Crude - includes: Explicit pornographic presentation
D. Violence
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo
2)Graphic, Detailed Graphic, Graphic-Artistic, Non-Graphic-Artistic and/or Technical Reference
3) Inviting Participation in Graphic Interactive Format
4) Encouraging Personal Participation, Weapon Making
E. Sex, Violence, and Profanity (Use to cover three themes with a single rating.)
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo
2) Graphic, Detailed Graphic, Graphic-Artistic, Non-Graphic-Artistic
3) Explicit Vulgarity and/or Crude
F. Intolerance of another's race, religion, gender or sexual orientation
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo and/or Technical Reference
2)Graphic and/or Non-Graphic-Literary and/or Discussions
3)Endorsing and/or advocating Hatred and/or Violent or Hateful Action
G. Glorifying Drug (including alcohol and tobacco) Use
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo and/or Technical Reference
2) Graphic, Detailed Graphic, and/or Graphic-Artistic Non-Graphic-Artistic
3) Simulated Interactive Participation and/or Soliciting Personal Participation
H. Other Adult Themes
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo and/or Technical Reference
2) Graphic, Detailed Graphic, and/or Graphic-Artistic Non-Graphic-Artistic
3) Explicit Vulgarity and/or crude
I. Gambling
1) Subtle and/or explicit Innuendo and/or Technical Discussion
2) Graphic-Artistic and/or Non-Graphic-Artistic, Advertising
3) Simulated Gambling, Real Life Gambling without Stakes
4) Encouraging Interactive Real Life Participation with Stakes; Providing Means with Stakes
Web Site Award Regulations of the National Teen Courts of America Continued
Part 2
Evaluation Guidelines
First and foremost, we are looking for new and innovative design and layout ideas. This may take the form of a truly original idea or a tried and true concept used in a creative new way.
In addition, we will consider the overall "look" of the page, the user interface, the page layout, the reader friendliness, and so on.
We will also consider how well the design supports the theme and content. The rest of the criteria depends on the individual members of the Judges Tribunal (see below.)
Part 3
Judges Guidelines
Nominations come in two ways.
1) Through a Judge's Nomination. If a judge independently finds a site worth of consideration, it is automatically nominated.
2) Through Independent Nomination. When two independent nominations for the same site are submitted by web surfers, a Tribunal of Judges is notified. Each member will individually review the site and then send a return form to the Court Master. If ½ of the judges want the site to be considered, it is then nominated.
Once a site is nominated, all judges submit a form to the Court Master that states what they like about the site and what they dislike. They also recommend the site for a Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, or no award under a particular category. The Court Master complies and posts the responses to a private forum. The judges then have an opportunity to review the other members observations and change their award votes if they choose to do so. Members are permitted to discuss nominated sites outside of the private forum and attempt to sway votes.
Once all votes are noted as finalized by the judges, it is determined by the following criteria which award, if any, a site will win and under what category:
Awards are bestowed in two major categories
Teen Court Programs
District Teen Courts
Teen Courts
Student Courts
Youth Courts
Peer courts
Non - Teen Court Programs Supporting Youths
Non-profit Organizations
Individual Sites, Group Sites, , Commercial sites, and others
Web Site Award Regulations of the National Teen Courts of America Continued
Category Awards are presented with:
Platinum - 90% of votes voting for Platinum
Gold - 80% for Gold or Platinum;
Silver - 70% for silver or higher
The Court Master at his/her sole discretion, may award a Bronze trophy to a site receiving at least 60% of votes.
The Court Master, at his/her sole discretion, may block the nomination of any site.
The Court Master at his/her discretion may overturn all votes based on a discovered violation of guidelines or Regulations.
Any change to the functions, procedures, and/or decisions of the Judges or Court Master may be made at the sole discretion of the National Executive Director.
Part 4
Considerations
The following considerations may increase your chances of winning, but certainly do not guarantee anything:
All judges will be looking for innovative design ideas and elements; resourcefulness, ingenuity, and simplicity, but not boredom.
Likes
Organization, content and artistic style, and easy navigation; easy on the eye, interesting, humor, American principles, morals, and ethics; sites designed for teenagers, youths, and family principles; free links- but not only links, educational but fun and interesting sites, youth leadership, original graphics, or graphics with credit, used in themes, artistic quality with layout and color balance; and more.
Dislikes
very slow download times, simple errors, broken links, (HTML programming is NOT a requirement), hard to read pages, gratuitous animations, sites under major construction, (we realize that sites must grow and change as necessary and this is acceptable, but not unfinished sites) advertising disruptions, banner disruptions, sites with no method of contacting through email and/or postal mail; sights that emphasis commercial sales, particularly in over 50% of the site.
All Judges are very fair and a lack of interest in subject matter shall not influence decision. The primary criteria will always be innovative design, value of resources material, target audience and other factors.
Due to the large number of submissions we may receive at any given time, we are not able to respond to every application. We will attempt to comment on every site we review, but if we fail to respond to you, please accept our apology. Notice of Awards, if awarded, may take up to six weeks. If your site does not receive an award, it may be resubmitted after you have made appropriate changes.
Web Site Award Regulations of the National Teen Courts of America Continued
Final Note
International web sites may applies only in English at this. This is due to the fact that judges only understand and speak English.
Anyone who nominates their site multiple times at a single time or use any spamming methods are instantly disqualified. Please only hit the submit button once, it will get to us. You will be notified if your email has been received.
Please submit only one web site. If you submitted more than one, only the first one you submitted will be reviewed and the rest disqualified.
If you do win an award you will be sent a notice by email along with an award attachment. You must return a response to this letter within seven (7) days so that we can confirm you received the award. If not we shall pressume you either did not receive it or you refused to accept it and therefore, we may possibly remove you permanently from the winners list.
You should have a good understanding of design, what works, navigation, and more before you enter. We do not award for effort but for achievement. If your web site is not properly completed then it will not make it past the first round. Property of your web site should be original including the graphics and content as much as possible. Any work stolen from another is instant disqualification and notice posted of poaching. If you have any questions regarding the work of others, ask first before taking, the work may be under copyright.
By nominating your site and/or adding our award to your page you are accepting the terms set forth in the rules section. If anything is added to your site that is in violation of any of these rules, you MUST remove the award from your page. Please be advised that if we do find illegal material on your site we WILL contact your ISP and any legal authorities relevant to your city. There are NO exceptions to this. We don't mess around with the safety of children and we are VERY strict about it. We randomly monitor pages to make sure that inappropriate content is not added
INFORMATION REQUIRED FOR AWARD NOMINATIONS
Name of Web Site
Web Site Location
Full Real Name (and Title, If Appropriate) of Nominator
E-mail Contact Address
Reason for Nomination in 50 Words or Less
Send to
Email: ntca@earthalliance.com
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