The Redwall Compendium's Awards
 

Here are where the awards given to the Compendium are kept.  You can also see who has won the Compendium's award. The resource reviews and notes about awards recieved are all Snowspine's, and the Compendium is not currently giving out awards.
 


 

 

Awards Won

Click on the award to go to the site that gave it.

 

*_* Shiiinyyyyy... This is the first award for the Compendium alone (the Beastiary received some awards before the Compendium was created).  Thanks, Fort Ruddler! *distracted by shiny letters*

Lunar Isle kindly gave the Compendium these neat awards!  The purple one says "This Site Won The Lunar Isle Gold Medallion." I tried sharpening the letters in my imaging program, but it didn't help much, so I just let it stay the way it was...

Yay! Redwall Inside reviewed the Compendium and gave it a 4.6 out of 5.0.  Thanks, RI!
A.Y.A.D was nice enough to give us their award of excellence.  Thanks, AYAD! *.* I like the fiery background. Fiiiire... Oooh. GATHER Online gave the Compendium a nice long review.  Fwee. Pawflash gave the Compendium this award.  Thanks Pawflash!  I like squirrels a lot, yeppers!
[nothing here? *cry* sadness.]
Oooh.  It's all...gold and shiny and fiery... *.* How purty.  It's from...*deep breath* Lancepaw Bellamima Rosaline Felicia Fortesque. *whoosh!* Fwah.  Hares and their long names... She runs Lancepaw's Fort and gave the Compendium this lovely award.  Thanks, Lancepaw! Wah!  There's no award here?  How sad.  Poor little blank space, all lonely and empty... You want to fill it with something, don't you?  You know you do!  So if you have an award and you think the Compendium deserves it, use the Contact page to send it along.  Thankee! Sunfur of Fortress Zion emailed me this adorable award. 

Awards Given

Ratings are on a scale of 1 to 10.  Any site with lower than a 6.0 on any of the values or anything lower than a 7.0 on the overall value does not get an award.

The Redwall Headquarters - See the award they received

  • Design: 9.0 - The Headquarters is very easy on the eyes.  The graphics are attractive, the font contrasts nicely with the background, readable but not jarring; tables are used to very good effect...it's just an all-around nice design.  I do have a few complaints, however: there are perhaps too many graphics, and the cursor trailer is incredibly annoying.  The introduction section of the main page is good; it all fits on one screen, the title is attractive, the picture of the Redwall Champion fits well; but below that things get very busy.  Perhaps if the menu on the left-hand side of the screen was small enough to fit on one screen, the barrage of words and images on the bottom three-fourths of the page would be acceptable; they'd just be extra, rather than the viewer having to stare at the chaos while looking at the main links.  But the use of transparent images and tables is quite impressive.  Navigation is quite good.  Overall, a very nice design.
  • Resource Value: 9.5 - Excellent, excellent, excellent.  There's the usual information on books, series, and Brian Jacques, as well as snippets of news from the Redwall world.  There's also a listing of goodbeast and vermin characters, though not nearly complete as Snowfur's Redwall Encyclopedia.  The collections of poems, songs, and riddles from the books rivals the Music section of the Compendium's Redwall Troupe.  There's a large collection of extensive book quizzes, and lists of various characters - wielders of Martin's sword, Abbots and Abbesses, Salamandastron Lords and Ladies, etc.  An excellent section is the Maps section, which holds scans of almost all the Redwall maps.  The Picture Gallery has pictures from the books and Redwall.org.  There's also quotes, desktop backgrounds, Redwall products, and links to other sites.  All in all, a huge amount of resources.
  • Content: 9.5 - There's a lot of content in the Redwall Headquarters, most of which is listed above.
  • Originality: 9.0 - The design is lovely, and I'm going to say it's fairly original because I like the look of it so much.  Except for the cursor trailer and overflow of graphics, of course.  The character lists are something I haven't seen before, and I've never seen such a large collection of maps or poetry from the books.  The desktop backgrounds are quite original too.  Nicely done.
  • Overall: 9.0 - I almost gave the Redwall Headquarters a 9.5, but I've given 9.0's to sites that are roughly its equal, so.  The design is excellent, though it could be cleaned up a little; there is a lot of content and resources; and it's fairly original.  Definitely worth the Compendium's award.

Pawflash's Redwall Abbey - See the award they received

  • Design: 8.5 - PRA is easy to navigate and the font is readable on the subtle background: the first things I look for when rating design.  However, it could do without the two images on the main page.  The title image is good; the squirrel and Redwall picture from redwall.org could stand to be trashed.  Too many images on the front page is tacky.  If Pawflash is in love with those pictures, a splash page or an image page is the place for them, not the main page.  Perhaps they could be replaced by a text introduction, an about page, or the updates page.  If we're nitpicking, then making the link color something that goes with the background would help to make the site more attractive, as would changing the color of the dividers.  A navigation page with every section in the site listed with a brief one-or-two-sentence explanation of each page would be very helpful, as PRA is such a vast site with so many sections and pages that it's easy to get lost despite the simplistic design.  Overall, though, the design is fairly well done.
  • Resource Value: 9.0 - One interesting section of PRA is the Gatehouse, which contains the writings of various recorders throughout the Redwall novels.  Another resource is titled Salamandastron, containing a list of all the rulers of the fire mountain, the descendants of Lord Stonepaw, and the family of Urthclaw and Loambudd.  There's also a Favorite Quotes section with quotes from the novels, a fascinating history of Martin's sword, a touching tribute to the various characters that died in the novels, maps of the various places in the Redwall books, a dibbun-to-English dictionary, and book reviews. Pawflash's site is definitely a good resource!
  • Content: 9.8 - PRA is packed with content, only some of which has been listed above.  There are games galore, interactive stories, quizzes, and much more. 
  • Originality: 9.5 - Many of the sections in PRA are highly original, found nowhere else on the ROC. The Redwall University is quite original as well, but I hope no one thinks I'm copying off Pawflash's title when I (eventually) create the ROC University for the Compendium... I've certainly never seen a history of Martin's sword anywhere else, or a dibbun-to-English dictionary.  The site title is overused, however - there's more sites entitled "[Webmaster's name here]'s Redwall Abbey" than I can count.  Even so, that doesn't detract much from the originality of the rest of the site.
  • Overall: 9.0 - I'd give PRA a 9.5 if the design was jazzed up a bit, but everything else is wonderful.  There's so much to do and apparently more being added constantly, if the busy Updates page is any indication.  Definitely worth a look and the Compendium's award.

Mattimeo's Secret Hideaway (formerly at http://www.mattimeo.main-page.net) - See the award they received

  • Design: 8.5 - I'd give MSH a 9.0 or even 9.5 if Mattimeo takes that evil Comet Cursor off his site.  It's one of my pet peeves, and although some people think it's cute, I think it's a virus.  It downloads itself onto your computer and is a pain to uninstall.  Also, Mattimeo has some difficulties with punctuation: he uses "it's" when he should use "its" and rarely inserts spaces after commas.  On the other paw, he makes great use of tables and the site itself is very attractive.
  • Resource Value: 6.5 - MSH has only a few resources, the most interesting of which is Mattimeo's Family Album.  There is also a page with summaries of the books, a poll and a survey.
  • Content: 7.5 - There's really not a lot of content in MSH, although as a new site it may grow as time passes.  Right now, though, all that it contains is what is listed in the Resource Value of the site.
  • Originality: 7.0 - The most original part of MSH is Mattimeo's Family Album.  Everything else has been done to death by other sites.
  • Overall: 7.0 - MSH is a fairly average homepage.  All that sets it apart from the thousands of other Redwall homepages on the ROC is its design and the Mattimeo family tree.  I'd like to see more original ideas and more content overall at MSH; family trees of more Redwall characters would be quite interesting.

CORIM (formerly at http://avidgamers.com/corim) - See the award they received

  • Design: 9.5 - CORIM has a nice design, well organized and easy to navigate.  The dropdown menus near the top of the site are extremely convenient.  The link names are simple and self-explanatory, so there's no real need for a site map, which CORIM lacks.
  • Resource Value: 7.5 - Although CORIM has several useful and interesting resources, there's really not a lot that can't be found elsewhere.  The Mole Translator is quite interesting for if you have difficulty figuring out certain words in molespeech.  The Songbook, with songs from the books, is incomplete- but then again, so is the Troupe's.  Like many sites, this one has a Recipe book as well.  I think the most interesting part here, however, is the Downloads section.  There are Redwall games you can download and other unique things.
  • Content: 8.0 - CORIM does have some useful and interesting content, as listed above in the Resource section, but there could be much more than they have.  However, they are still under construction, as noted by the "Coming Soon" section of the site, so I suppose they'll grow in content as time goes by.
  • Originality: 8.0 - There are quite a few original aspects to CORIM, such as the stuff in their Downloads section.  Apart from that, however, they appear to be a fairly typical Redwall club, although since a password is required before anyone can get into the Members' Area, I don't know what exactly they have.
  • Overall: 8.0 - CORIM is a relatively average club, but the site design and the little extras such as the Downloads make it fairly unique.  I give it an 8.0 overall.

Silverpeak Island (formerly at http://silverpeakisland.com) - See the award they received

  • Design: 8.5 - The use of graphics may be the best I've ever seen, but the navigation could be made much simpler.  The front page is simple enough, allowing the visitor to go to one of four subsites, as it were: Silverpeak Island, the main and original site; the prestigious yearly Redwall Awards, recently moved to Silverpeak; the Redwall Connection, a ROC "meeting place"; and Hyperlynx Web Design, a webpage designing service.  The Redwall Awards and Redwall Connection are excellent, and would receive at least a 9.5 in just about every category if they were being reviewed separately.  However, what I'm mostly concentrating on is the "main" section of the site- Silverpeak Island itself.  It's got a lovely design, excellent use of graphics, and is very pleasing to the eye, but very frustrating once you try to figure out what's going on.  The site mascot is sandwiched between a link to a list of miscellaneous pages and an art gallery.  There's an information page on  the webmistress Bandeye Maia Linsang, a Redwall name generator, etc, etc... all with nondescript names such as "Grass Hut," "Palm Grove," and "Minko's Hideout."  Fortunately, once you get past the Wizard of Peak (the name generator), the names fall into a discernable pattern - Redweb Review, Silverpeak Award, Links, and so on and so forth.  Also missing from the site was a mission statement, a summary of some sort- the closest thing to it is a short paragraph that left me feeling just as confused as before.  It's not specified whether the club section is neutral, peaceful, for goodbeasts, or for warriorbeasts.  But perhaps I'm being too harsh- the difficult navigation and nonsensical organization (why is the club section mingled with Bandeye's art gallery and a name generator?) in the Silverpeak Island section of the site is about the only design flaw.  Other than that, it's excellent... which is why it gets an 8.5 and not a lower rating.

  • Resource Value: 9.5 - Despite the fact that much of Silverpeak is a club, it has some excellent resources. Almost all of these are found in Minko's Hideout, which contains many miscellaneous pages.  One such is the Redwall Insult Archive, containing a long list of insults from the Redwall books.  My particular favorite is the Redwall timeline, which shows the order of when the books were told and when major events took place; the order of heroes, villains, abbots/abbesses, and Badger Lords/Ladies.  There's also a list of weapons used in the books- both conventional weapons and improvised ones. 

  • Content: 10.0 - Silverpeak is loaded with content!  From an active club, to a cyber adoption page, to an image gallery, an insult archive, and so many other things too numerous to list here- it's packed so full that perhaps I can understand the reason for the difficult navigation.  Where do you put so much stuff?  And this is without taking into account the subsites- the Redwall Connection and the Redwall Awards.  You have to look for yourself; I can't possibly summarize everything.

  • Originality: 9.5 - I was somewhat torn between 9.5 and 10.0 for Silverpeak's originality, but I really don't like giving out 10.0's like they were pennies... *heh* So, a 9.5.  Silverpeak is very original - how many clubs have you seen set in a tropical setting?  I can think of one other- Redwall Beach - but I think Silverpeak Island came first... correct me if I'm wrong.  The various miscellaneous pages are quite unique, as is the entire design.  All in all, a 9.5.

  • Overall: 9.0 - Despite the navigation flaws, Silverpeak is an excellent site overall.  It's very original, with great graphics and tons of content, and it's also a good resource- which earns you lots of points at the Compendium awards. *gryn* All Bandeye would have to do to get a higher rating would be to clean up the navigation and state the purpose a bit more clearly.

The Forbind Crossroads - See the award they received - Revised

  • Design: 9.0 - This is one of the better designs for a link site I've seen, if not the best.  It's attractive, easy to read, and easy to navigate.  I think this is the Crossroads' strongest point, actually.

  • Resource Value: 9.0 - It's a well-organized link site- of course it's a good resource! *gryn* The Crossroads has tons of links and there are more every time I visit, it seems.  The articles archived on the site add to its resource value, at least for newbies.

  • Content: 9.0 - There are plenty of links here, which gives it high content, and it has some very nice articles, such as "What is the ROC?", "Tips on RPing", and "Building a Character." 

  • Originality: 6.0 - There are lots of link sites out there.  This one is laid out a bit nicer, and it has some interesting extras, but it's not terribly original.  That doesn't detract much from its overall appeal, though.

  • Overall: 9.0 - I have to give the Crossroads a fairly high overall rating.  It's an excellent site, and I'm very impressed with it.  I think what would make it even better, however, would be a rating system for the various sites and perhaps even short summaries of what the sites are about.  Even without that, though, it's a very commendable site.

Fort Ruddler - See the award they received

  • Design: 10.0 - Fort Ruddler has perhaps one of the best designs for a Redwall club that I've ever found.  It's extremely attractive, with a very convenient sidebar menu that opens up to reveal every single section of the site and even sub-sections.   Some of the pages don't work, but that's because the Fort just moved servers on New Year and are still working out the bugs.

  • Resource Value: 7.5 - Yes, I know.  I had said I would rarely give this award to clubs.  However, Fort Ruddler has some resources that are invaluable for roleplayers.  If you click on the "About" portion of the menu, and then click on the revealed "Code of Morals," you'll find two tutorials.  One is on character development, and is in three parts.  The other is on roleplaying, and is written in two parts.  The tutorials are written very well, and the character development tutorial contains information on the typical personality, alignment, cunning/intelligence, fighting ability, and accent of just about every species, including some found only on the ROC and not in the books.  I used this section as a resource for the "In Redwall" sections of the Beastiary.  The reason Fort Ruddler only got a 7.5 for its resource value is because, while the tutorials are useful, they are a very small portion of the entire site, and there really aren't a whole lot of the tutorials.

  • Content: 8.0 - While the club section of Fort Ruddler is packed with content from its many contributing members, the Compendium award was made for resource sites.  What is in the tutorials is extremely useful, and there's a lot of information packed in those five pages, and so I gave it an 8 out of 10.

  • Originality: 8.0 - There are other roleplaying and character development tutorials out there; however, not many are as well-written and complete as Fort Ruddler's.  There are some very unique aspects of the tutorials, kicking up the originality rating.  The site as a whole also figured into this rating, and though Fort Ruddler is by and large a typical goodbeast club, it does have original touches that make it stand out.  The rating of 8 out of 10 seems to fit, in my mind at least.

  • Overall: 9.0 - Fort Ruddler is an absolutely excellent site, a very well-done club, and an interesting RPG.  If the Compendium award was for clubs, it would have received a much higher grade on the other sections than it did.  As a resource, though, it's not half bad, and I do admire the rest of the site.  The design brings the rating up several notches, and the tutorials are well-written and useful, adding to that.  As an overall site, I have to give Fort Ruddler a nine.

Criteria for the Compendium's Award

After some thought, I finally decided to give out awards for Redwall resources at the Compendium.  Ratings are on a scale of 1 to 10.  Following is a sample for the Compendium award.

Here's the criteria for the award:

  • Your site must be about Redwall.

  • It must have some Redwall resources!  This is the first thing I check for!  If your site doesn't have any Redwall resources, whether it be resources for writing fanfiction or information on the world of Redwall or some other resource useful to Redwallers, then you're automatically disqualified for the award! This award is really targeted toward Redwall resources, so the more resources the better - clubs and RPGs will rarely get this award.

  • It must have good content.

  • It must have a good layout and be easy to navigate.