mined from this thread -

>>> Seems like poo pooing the awards for various reasons is pretty popular.
>>> I'll feel a lot more convinced of the poo pooer's sincerity when one of them
>>> wins an award in NAHBS 2010 and refuses the award citing their principles.
>>> Personally I would be excited and honored to win an award and just just try
>>> to believe that I won because my work was judged as fairly as possible to be
>>> the best in that category at that particular time.

i won 2 awards at nahbs 1.0 without even knowing there were
awards in the works. as a result of that, and kinda sorta being
blindsided by the ordeal, i refrained from "entering" any bicycles
in any nahbs awards since atmo.

>>> Thanks so much for you insight, it's invaluable and I get what you're saying.
>>> After starting this post last night I started thinking about the judging process
>>> and started wondering how much involvement the builders themselves had
>>> originally in the criteria used for the judging. Maybe this is a discussion that
>>> could be had.

my belief system is that judging at all is inherently wrong.
not illegal, or unethical, or immoral. just wrong. build for
yourself and then judge. rinse. repeat. atmo.