2020 has been a big year in the history of Steem. In February Steemit, Inc entered into a strategic partnership with the Tron Foundation. Since then Steemit has gone from strength to strength to consolidate its position as the leading crypto based social platform. This amazing progress over the past year could not have been achieved without the commitment and dedication from the ever growing Steem community. We would therefore like to recognize the contributions from so many hardworking Steemians with the first annual Steemit Awards. ![2020.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYVfZbB6WGpyRndQ6rWnbQZibUv2xU57txTFQvkwDj8yw/2020.png) As a starting point we would like to say a big thank you to @girolamomarotta, the Country Representative for Italy, who initiated discussion of the Steemit Awards which gave the impetus to move forward with the idea. --- --- ## The Steemit Awards Categories

As this is the first year for the Awards we are keeping it simple with just three categories... ### Best Author

This will be for the individual who has consistently produced the highest quality posts. Their posts might be on any subject. --- ### Best Contributor to the Community

This will be for the person who has made the greatest contribution to building the Steem community. It might be through their work as a Country Representative, or through setting up and running a Community, or organizing contests or other events or projects. --- ### Best Community

This will be for the most active and successful Community. The Community might be new or old, and might represent a country, or cover a particular subject. It is not just about numbers of members, but about community activity such as running contests, encouraging and rewarding quality posting, and welcoming and helping newcomers. Building sustainability and self-reliance through growing a community curation account is also important. --- --- ## The Steemit Awards Prizes

For each of the three categories there will be five winners. For the Best Author and Best Contributor the prizes will be... * 1st prize in each category - 100% vote from @steemcurator01 & 100% from @steemcurator02 * 2nd prize in each category - 80% vote from @steemcurator01 & 80% from @steemcurator02 * 3rd prize in each category - 60% vote from @steemcurator01 & 60% from @steemcurator02 * 4th prize in each category - 40% vote from @steemcurator01 & 40% from @steemcurator02 * 5th prize in each category - 20% vote from @steemcurator01 & 20% from @steemcurator02 Individuals will only be able to win in one of these categories. --- For the Best Community the prizes will be... * 1st prize - 25000 SP delegation for 3 months * 2nd prize - 20000 SP delegation for 3 months * 3rd prize - 15000 SP delegation for 3 months * 4th prize - 7000 SP delegation for 3 months * 5th prize - 4000 SP delegation for 3 months Communities will need to have a dedicated community curation account to be able to win in this category. --- --- ## The Steemit Awards Nominations

As the first part of the Awards selection process we are inviting people to make Nomination Posts. In your posts you can make nominations for one, two or all three of the categories. You can nominate yourself or others, but you can only make one nomination for each category, and you should only make one nomination post. For each category nomination you make you should explain in no more than 250 words why you think the person or community should win the award. Nomination posts can be made in any language and must be submitted by 11pm UTC on Tuesday, January 5th, 2021. The posts should include one tag for each category you are nominating for... * Best Author [ #awards2020-author ] * Best Contributor to the Community [ #awards2020-contributor ] * Best Community [ #awards2020-community ] So your posts may have one, two or three of these tags depending on how many categories you are making nominations for. The tags should be in the first five tags, and you should also include a tag for your country such as #italy. --- --- ## The Steemit Awards Shortlisting & Winners

From all the nominations we will then make a post for each of the three categories with a shortlist of nominations. These posts will be published by Friday, January 8th. We will then ask the community to 'vote' on the shortlisted candidates through comments on each post. All comments should be made by 11pm UTC on Friday, January 15th The Steemit Team will take on board these comments as part of their final selection of the five winners for each category. We plan to announce the winners by Friday, January 22nd. --- --- These Steemit Awards will be a great way to round off a very special year for the Steem Community. We are really looking forward to reading the nomination posts. So many people have made so many excellent contributions during the past year. We hope you will all share our excitement for these Awards. Thank you, _The Steemit Team_