A transparent process
How winners are determined.
Thing of the Day is a community award. Every winner — daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly — is decided by a ranked vote of real people. The rules below govern every cohort, in every category, on every day.
Step 1
Submit a Thing
Submitting buys a pass — 1, 7, 30, or 365 days. While a pass is active, your Thing is automatically entered into every daily cohort it qualifies for. You never need to resubmit by hand.
Step 2
The community votes
The day after a Thing enters, voters open the day's ballot and rank their top five. One ballot per voter, per cohort. Ballots are final once submitted.
Step 3
A winner is named
Results post the next morning — overall, and once per category. So there is always a two-day lag: enter today, vote tomorrow, win the day after.
Day D
Submission enters the cohort.
Day D+1
Voting window opens. Ballots rank Top 5.
Day D+2
Tally posts. Winner announced.
Scoring
Ranked Borda scoring
Each ballot is a ranked Top 5. Points are awarded by rank — higher rank, more points. Every Thing's total is the sum of points across every ballot it appeared on.
| Rank on a ballot | Points awarded |
|---|---|
| 1st | 5 |
| 2nd | 4 |
| 3rd | 3 |
| 4th | 2 |
| 5th | 1 |
Scopes
Overall and per-category awards
A Thing competes in every category it's tagged in plus the overall pool. There is one point total per period; it just appears on multiple award pages. Each category crowns its own winner; the overall crown goes to the single highest score across the entire cohort.
Year-end
Thing of the Year
The year is special. There is no separate year-end vote. Instead:
- We sum a Thing's cumulative weighted points across every day, week, and month of the year.
- To be eligible, a Thing must have won at least one Thing of the Month award that year. For a per-category Year, that Month win must be in the same category.
- The highest-scoring eligible Thing wins. This guards against single-day surges and recognizes sustained excellence.
Behind the math
Weighted, not raw
Every award is a weighted sum of ballot points, not a raw count. Each voter belongs to a segment, and each segment has a multiplier. Today only one segment exists — regular users, multiplier 1.0 — so results are 100% community-driven.
The structure exists so that, in the future, admins can name category industry leaders with a heavier per-category multiplier. Every vote stores its weight at the moment it was cast, so historical results stay reproducible even if the weights table changes.
The fine print
Tie-breaks and small cohorts
- Tie-break: if two Things finish on identical totals, the earlier entry into the period wins; if still tied, the earlier first-vote-cast wins. Deterministic, always.
- Single-entry days: a category award is granted even with a single eligible entry. Admin approval is the only filter — anything goes.
- Empty days: if no Thing competes in a category, no award is issued for that period.
Ready?