| Some.thoughts.and.informations |
- welcome - motivation -
ideals - dedications
 -
Hello,
come in. We proudly love to present to you the world's greatest awards
treasure (at the moment). Enjoy! You may ask 'why this strange site?' To
be honest, we don't know. We ourselves feel still in the beginning phase,
far from our vision of how this site should look like. But maybe we apply
a lot or/and get much sympathy for the heart and soul of this site: the
bringing together of Tibetan Buddhism, new-age thinking and astrology in
our own and slightly unconventional way. Some may also like our colorful
and unusual design, others the general magical feeling, the wealth of information
this place offers or admire even the courage to create such an honest offstream
site. Whatever it may be, we warmly like to thank all reviewers, who demonstrated
the immense kindness of going through our pages and sending their comments
and awards. Not to forget to thank also all those reviewers who kindly
checked this site without leaving an award. We honor this too! - It's definitely
not the number of awards which counts, but the spirit of kindness, respect
& cyber-friendship in which it is given! The ideals of honoring others
by symbolically granting an award are as old as the human civilization.
But in the cooling down athmosphere of our global village (now more a market
place), the recognizing and enforcing of each others work is one of the
last and thereby very important niche's for keeping the important human
and personal touch alive, we all like to see! This comprehensive galleries
are a manifestation of this spirit and should inspire others to share those
ideals.
-
Beside
this there are so many additional useful and enjoyable functions these
gallery and review pages fulfill. They are not just a feast for the eye,
doors to explore so many other wonderful realms, but also a unique documentation
of a new art-form (which we call 'awards- and logo-art'), an inspiration
for award designers, a realiable recource for award searchers, awards historians
and what we call 'award scientists' or at least a unusual linksite. Inviting
reviewers to our site helps also to spread some of our ideas and ideals.
Anyhow, the many positive feedbacks make us happy and optimistic for the
future of a growing spiritual awareness. - And please don't get a wrong
impression. We are not following a new Olympic discipline of 'award-hunting'
or cultivating a profile-neurosis. You may call us award-lovers or collectors,
but don't name us 'hunters'. We simply have this crazy weakness/passion
for beauty, originality and kindness and love the feeling to be interlinked
with so many outstanding sites and personalities. We take good care for
all their unique little treasures and try our best to treat &
present them with love, care and respect. Our more than 200 award-related
pages are completely dedicated for the sake of a more human and enlightened
world and as a pixelling offering and enjoyment for the Buddhas of all
cosmic directions (hope that they don't burst with laughter!).
|
- our site - patchwork -
awards - scales - ratings
We
don't share the view that sites which take much time, effort and dedication
in collecting and presenting many awards are 'punished' by some award programs
for even doing this. That's simply a childish and undifferentiated attitude.
Sorry. The only criteria should be if a site is good enough for a special
award and it's criteria or not. We also like to add that we welcome the
honest efforts of various groups in trying to develope some kind of web-standards
by e.g. establishing rating systems and ethical standards for awards and
awarding sites (like Focus, Award Sites or Paris Excellence). Things like
HTML, loading time, navigation, links, spelling or browser compatibility,
java- and banner overloadings, the awards program itself etc. can possibly
be valued. On the other side one can not transmit all those standards and
ratings, often based in the spirit of business design (which has it's own
mains, rules and regulations) on more spiritual or artistic orientated
homepages where people don't expect extreme quick loading times, sterile
frames etc., because there is simply no hurry for a quick business. Our
'business' is simply to activate the innate wisdom of our visitors and
those wisdom things are time consuming by nature :-) So, inspiring pages
like our's follow simply other rules & aims and need to be weighed
with different scales. This does not mean that many business, hi-tech and
tone-in-tone created designer sites are not admirable, amazing and even
touching. But in the field of private homepages, designed by amateurs like
us, criteria like e.g.: enthusiasm, idealism, spiritual flair, beauty,
individuality, honesty, originality, inspiration, wow-effect, content ...
have a higher rank. One generously should overlook some rough edges concerning
HTML, spelling errors or color balance. - Concerning our own site we definitely
can't transport the most vital and colorful spirit of Tibetan Buddhism
or of the vibrant and even more colorful Sixties, by using a greyish, cool
structured or too elegant designed style. It simply wouldn't be authentic
and could kill & sterilize all it's vital spirit of improvisation and
spontaneity. We even love to keep some rough but human & most lovable
edges here and there. Of course we try to give our best. But so far this
place is nothing more than a first sketch or patchwork and far from perfection
:-) Do you like patchwork?
Having
surfed more than 50,000 sites in the last years has not just trained our
eyes and mind. For our private orientation we started to mark very special
sites using a three star system. We didn't find time yet to design our
linkpages with some 3000 bookmarked and rated sites. But we like to introduce
our ratings already on these awards pages, marking outstanding sites with
one, two or even three stars (*,
**,
***).
Should you share a similar taste, those marks make it easy for you to find
the right places straight away. But keep in mind, that sites are living
organism and can dramatically change for the better from one day to the
other. So, best you check them all :-) We decided to value a site by summarizing
content, design & general impression in a proportion of 30:30:40. As
a working title for this type of rating we did choose '3rd Eye Impression
Rating': The left eye for the content, the right one for the design
and the third and most important one for the general taste and feeling
of a site. All sorts of 'irrational' factors like beauty, emphasis, web-magic,
originality, artistry, creativity, inspiration, kindness, new age spirit,
open-mindedness, individuality, enlightened craziness etc. play an important
part in this kind of inspired evalutation. We are quite sure, that we overlooked
many hidden jewels, but this illustrates already that we don't feel as
some ultimate and god-like judges. (Un)fortunately more as some ordinary
human beings. - It's not easy to impress us, but if you think you can or
have to, you may send us your URL for having a look and you may receive
our 3rd Eye rating logo with one, two or even 3 stars on it. But please
don't feel disappointed! By our experiences so far less than 10 % of all
sites activated our 3rd eye :-) This does not mean that the other
sites are bad. They may be of high importance seen with somebody elses
eyes!! But we want to follow our heart, use our own eyes, be honest to
ourself, and keep a certain standard. Sites which award us are automatically
candidates for this rating as well as for our Kindness Award. Notice that
we decided to offer this rating-possibility to 'all' sites. It does 'not'
matter if you have an awards program or not. We also want to mention that
we don't have any ambitions to compete with excisting rating systems! -
Established and important ratings like e.g. Focus, Award Sites, Paris Excellence,
Metatronic etc., are not yet marked on all review pages. This work is actually
in progress. |
- opinions - subjectivity
- variety
In
general we doubt that there ever will be something like a fixed standard
or an 'objective' rating system, being able to cover *all* aspects and
types of website's. Especially when it comes to the important and absolutely
irrational overall impression there will be 'always' different opinions.
Look at the arts, literature, entertainment etc. Give the same book to
10 critics and you receive 10 completely different reviews, and what's
even more crazy, they may all be valuable and ok in their own context.
We 'love' this varieties and controvercies, making this world, or in our
case the net, such an interesting place. The reason for all this has much
to do with the more or less prejudiced ideas of the reviewer of how a site
has to function as well as with his personal background, horoscope, mind
capacity, special sympathies and antipathies, visual taste, education,
his biography, actual mood, interests, age-group and many other imprints.
All this get's now in interaction with the often completely different intentions
and personal backgrounds of the site creator. This 'can' develope into
a creative process from which both parts are able to profit (in case they
are open-minded and willing to understand each other). We had such interesting
and clearing dialogues with many reviewers. - In terms of percentage we
would see a 40:60 relation between rational and irrational factors in evaluating
a site, even though most evaluators may not be aware of this. Giving awards
too we know about all this, but decided to allow the irrational components
to have the final say. - With our pages we experience all this divergency's
on a daily basis when we receive a gold, silver, bronze and merrit award
on the very same day and from more or less equally ranking sites. - Anyhow,
just imagine how boring it would be if all sites in the net would look
like our's :-) We certainly would be the first to change everything immediately!
Long live variety! |
- thank you - danke - merci
- gracias - grazie
 We
don't want to miss this opportunity to thank all reviewers very much for
their kindness to visit our site, spending much time and energy to look
at our strange offstream issues and sending their remarks and award. A
big hug for all cyber-friends who designed a special award for this site!!
And a big thanx to all those anonymous evaluators which didn't award us,
but offered their precious time to work through these pages! Not to forget
all those who sent unsolicited awards. We admire you for having the patience
of fighting through our German-English mixup (the Irish find it 'charming',
but they are very kind people) and all those foreign language reviewers,
who had to explore this place by using time-consuming translation services.
- Many reviews we received are really helpful, practical, encouraging,
even touching. As another nice result a lot of lovely cyber-friendships
started via a site review. - In return we've created this easy to surf
and with love & attention designed awards galleries to present the
awarding sites as professional and beautiful as possible. Most awards are
really beautiful and unique pieces of art, where everybody gives his best
to find a design-quintessence of his individuality and thereby inviting
and attracting kindrid spirits to visit their realms! We want to add, that
being visually orientated, we are a bit picky in asking for awards. Beside
a few standard awards we only submit our site for awards which have a nice
designed or unique logo together with a site of special interest. This
goes equally for private homepages and a few commercially orientated sites
which show some heart and soul. So, being part of these galleries is also
something special! Thank you again for practicing kindness, generousity
and help with your advice. Let's keep the real awards-spirit high,
Hans & Thomas
p.s. 'Kindness', following the
Buddhist understanding, is a general & natural friendly attitude combined
with a clear, sharp and differentiated mind, spontaneous wisdom & without
expecting or giving up one's spiritual pride & firmness. It has nothing
to do with emotional petting, clinging, unclear feelings, ego games, masochism,
an empty social convention or a false understanding of 'mercy' :-)
All awards-galleries and review pages are
best viewed on full screen! |
- awards - plans - pixelling
magic
With
the begin of the year 2001, and when our site is further developed, we
have plans to start our extended awards-program with 15 stunning award-beauty's.
Don't try before end of January 2001! In the meantime visit our exclusive
gifts galleries and award yourself with one of our unique creations. The
"IAS & Manjushri Mandala Kindness Award
1999/2000/2001" which we introduced in July 99 can now be applied
for. The new 2001 version, differentiated in gold, silver and merit, will
be available also end of January. It's our popular and prestigeous award
for all kinds of demonstrating web-kindness, creativity, uniqueness, generousity,
sharing, caring and 'turning on' (read criteria).
- And never forget (e.g. when you apply for an
award): even behind the most stunning and stylish logo you find human beings
like you and us!..-.It's.all.'just'.pixeling.magic.;-) |
| actual
number of awards: 2731 (up
to gallery 195) |
| -
updated March 27 - 2001 / next update: May 02
- 2001 (in case we've got new awards) - |
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In case you find any wrong or dead link, or links which have changed their
address, please send us an.email
- All Awards-Galleries (and
all other pages of this site) are not.compatible
to AOL-Netscape 6! - |
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