R A T I N G L E V E L S a n d G E N E R A L R E Q U I R E M E N T S

WebsAwards believe in equal opportunity and have no minimum Award Program age limit for owners that may apply to us for an assessment. We believe that the challenge to achieve ones goals encourages those among the awards community, both new and old, to gain new knowledge and apply new skills to their Award Programs ultimately climbing up the 'ladder' of success.

To achieve specific Rating levels an Award Program should meet the following:

: Level 1 - All of the General requirements and all of the Criteria Rubric requirements for the Level.

: Level 2 - All of the General requirements and all of the Criteria Rubric requirements for the Level.

: Level 3 - All of the General requirements and all of the Criteria Rubric requirements for the Level.

: Level 4 - All of the General requirements and all of the Criteria Rubric requirements for the Level.

: Level 5 - All of the General requirements and all of the Criteria Rubric requirements for the Level.

G E N E R A L R E Q U I R E M E N T S

Please ensure your Award Program -

1. Fully meets, In total, its own criteria. (Lack of compliance in this area will result in a refusal of any upgrade applied for with a downgrade possibly being applied if your award program is already rated.)
2. Does not display any forms of abuse and/or humiliation of people or animals.
3. Does not display and/or provide access to illegal and/or potentially illegal activities - warez, porn graphics and/or content, incitement to illegal activity, violence and/or discrimination, abuse, pyramid and/or down line schemes, scams etc.
4. Does not display the infringement of not acknowledging the copyright and/or the trademarks of others, Note: from March 7th, 2010, any award program displaying the Code of Ethics (COE) must also display the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike United States License. Please also refer to the Code of Ethics (COE) Display navigation link.
5. Does not display hate messages and or defamatory remarks toward other web sites, individuals, organizations, services or groups of any kind.
6. Does not identify within any applicants status page the applicants name, site title or URL whether a winner or non winner.
7. Is not less than one (1) year old, has award winners selected and displays at least six (6) nominees and/or finalists listed for the current year if issuing only one (1) or more annual awards. (This clause is not applicable to achieve a WebsAwards Level 1.0 rating or Provisional Membership.) Please note: If an Award Program is already rated Level 1.0 the owner may not apply for an upgrade until the Award Program is not less than one (1) year old, has award winners selected and displays at least six (6) nominees and/or finalists listed for the current year if issuing only one (1) or more annual awards.
8 Is original in both design and content or in essence what would be considered to be “one of a kind.” (Please read carefully the Derivative Works information - part of our Copyright requirements applicable to all Rating levels.)
9. Is displaying no less than six (6) correctly listed award winners that equal or exceed the Award Programs stated criteria. (This clause is not applicable to achieve a WebsAwards Level 1.0 rating or Provisional Membership.)
10. Is displaying award winners that have been acquired by applications and evaluations and not by solicitation and/or gifting. (Gifting does not include items such as friendship and/or appreciation awards/gifts.)

Does your Award Program display SAFESURF PICS labeling or any other like certification? If so, it should meet the following:

11. If any Award Program pages display an SAFESURF or like resource image but the pages are not correctly labeled according to requirements WebsAwards will view the display of the image as an illegal activity unless the Award Program owner has written permission from SAFESURF or any like organisation to display the relevant image without the pages being correctly PICS labeled as such displays are misleading to viewers in that web site pages carrying an SAFESURF image are more likely to be perceived as trustworthy than pages that are not PICS labeled. Web site pages may be checked for correct labels by inserting the relevant URL's using this link to the SAFESURF Test.
It is expected at WebsAwards that all Safety ratings displayed are valid irrespective of which organization they are issued by therefore the above applies to all and/or any Safety ratings.

Does your Award Program display custom made W3C images? If so, it should meet the following:

12. WebsAwards evaluators will not penalize or disqualify applicants for display of custom designed W3C Validation Link images to match their web site design as the custom made images (2 and 3 below) containing the terms XHTML, CSS and AAA validation are acceptable as W3C Validation linking images according to the regulations the W3C Consortium - Section: Frequently Asked Questions about Logos - Paragraph: Q2.
Examples:
You may not display any validation image that is derived from or closely resembles the W3C logo image displayed below in image 1 however you may display images with a logo that that in no way resembles image 1.
Use of the text ' W3C ' in any derivative image other than with the approved W3C colors is not acceptable.
The background colors you choose when creating derivative images are your option (see images 2 and 3.)
Basically the rule is: You may display a custom designed image where the overall color does not represent the W3C image and where the logo text W3C is not displayed. This covers all custom designed images whether blog sized or otherwise.

image 1 image 2 image 3

However, the above clause does not apply to applicants who display W3C Validation images of any type within their web site and clearly have no intent to be valid. Such displays will be viewed as illegal use of the W3C image as the W3C consortium are very firm in their requirements for display.

Is your Award Program a rated or Provisional Member with WebsAwards? If so, your display of our badges should meet the following:

13. WebsAwards rating, provisional membership and/or linking badges must be displayed in either the “Memberships”, “Associations” or starting (“Index”) page of your Award Program. They must NEVER be displayed in the Awards won section. We do not require that our rating badge be placed 'ahead of ', 'in front of' or in a more prominent position than other rating badges but we do require that our rating badge be displayed with equal representation to other rating badges (examples: AS!, W.T.A, U.W.S.A.G etc.) WebsAwards Staff are now enforcing this policy. Please also refer to Incorrect display of the WebsAwards Rating Level and/or Provisional Membership Badges in our AP Removal Rules (see navigation.)

We are interested in learning how you evaluate a web site

14. WebsAwards is interested in learning how you evaluate a web site and why some web sites receive your lower level awards, some your higher level awards and others receive no awards. Provide us with samples of the feedback you give to web sites you awarded and those that were not awarded. Do you have any applicants that would be willing to let us ask them how they experienced your evaluation? If so, please get your past applicants written permission prior to making an application providing us with their contact details. Please advise past applicants that all personal details provided will remain private with only the URL of their web site and any comments made being forwarded to the relevant WebsAwards Judges.