David C. Grosvold Honored with 3rd Place in Astronomical League 2006 Webmaster Award

Monday, June 05 2006 @ 11:59 pm EDT

Contributed by: bobmoody

AOAS' own David C. Grosvold, 3rd Place winner of the Astronomical League's Webmaster of the Year Award!
We are pleased to announce that AOAS webmaster Dave Grosvold has been selected by the Astronomical League as the 3rd Place winner of the 2006 Webmaster of the Year Award! Please join us in congratulating Dave on this prestigious award by sending your best wishes to him at webmaster@aoas.org!

Websites and their webmasters are one of the most important aspects of today's modern and active astronomy clubs and organizations. A well-done website has the ability to make its visitors sit up and take extra special notice by the way it is presented and maintained, and must also be easy to navigate through. We're all so proud of our AOAS website and of David Grosvold for his dedication and insight that has now been recognized as the 3rd Place winner for the 2006 Webmaster of the Year Award.

Dave began work on our website long before the majority of the members of AOAS were even aware that he was doing so. We had discussed needing a new website based on how our original website looked from the late 1990's. In over 3 years of operation, our old "geocities" site had garnered a mere 3300 (roughly) visits, although I did see a couple of notes left by folks from other countries in the visitors section. That made me somewhat proud to think that a person from Belgium would take the time to leave a short note congratulating us on how that website looked and for the info it contained. That was when I first realized the world-wide reach that the Internet provides.

Now, it seems funny to think back on that original site and compare it with what we have now. When Dave launched our new website on June 17-18, 2003, I was so excited when I first saw it. It looked great, had lots of potential for growth, and most importantly to me, it had the ability to allow ANYONE to contribute stories and articles to it for posting. It took into account that many folks might not have the ability to write html code, yet whatever was submitted would automatically show up as a polished and attractive submission. We welcomed (and still DO welcome) submissions from anyone, anywhere, on topics of interest to amateur astronomers everywhere.

Click read more for more information

This year's Webmaster of the Year Award was administered by Bob Schneider. According to Mr. Schneider, this year's competition was between only 5 nominees, which gave the three judges plenty of time to spend on each site for evaluation. The judges used the following four things when considering each website: 1) Content, 2) Ease of Navigation, 3) Ability to Attract People, and 4) It must have a link or reference to their involvement in the Astronomical League. The first three catagories are rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (lowest to highest) for a highest possible score of 30 points. The final catagory was a requirement for consideration in the competition.

This year's First Place winner was Drew Carhart of the Naperville Astronomical Association at www.naperastro.org. The second place winner was Travis Swaim of the Oklahoma City Astronomy Club at www.okcastroclub.com. There are no runner's-up and only the First place winner receives a plaque. Please click on these links above to examine the other winning sites.

Since June 18, 2003, our AOAS website has had 170 stories and articles posted, 54 links added to all types of companies and sources of interest to astronomers, and we've posted 413 events announcing conjunctions, observing sessions, classes and other happenings. We've also run 11 poll questions to get the low-down on how our members and visitors feel about all types of subjects. As of tonight, only two weeks short of having been "up-and-running" for a full 3 years, we have had 876,565 "events" to the system! Not only is our website attractive, it is perhaps more importantly a widely-used website.

We could not be more proud of our website, nor more proud of our webmaster extraordinaire, Dave Grosvold. I hope that all our members will hold your heads just a little higher, and throw your chests out a little further whenever you have the opportunity to tell someone about our (now) Award Winning Website! It gives me the desire to do more, and to do it better than ever, so that we might well be chosen as the FIRST place winner of the Astronomical League 2007 Webmaster of the Year Award!

CONGRATULATIONS, DAVID!

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