It’s been another remarkable 12 months in the life of GTPlanet. We’ve had new games to play, new cars to drive and nearly half a million messages posted on our forums.
Since the start of December, our members have nominated their favorite people and moments from across the last 12 months on GTPlanet’s forums. The shortlisted nominations made it through to an open vote.
With 1,000 votes cast across all of our categories, our 2017 GTPlanet Awards had one of the highest rates of user participation ever. This means that anyone who wins a category can feel quite rightly that they have made an impact on our community.
The results are as follows:
Most Helpful Member
Generally, GTPlanet is a pretty helpful community, so finding someone particularly helpful isn’t always easy. It seems fairly appropriate then that the person who won the award is the person most directly responsible for the tone of the site. Though not one of the site’s most active public posters, his work behind the scenes make GTPlanet what it is.
GTPlanet’s Most Helpful Member in 2017 is… Jordan!
Friendliest Member
Like the award above, picking out a friendliest GTPlanet member is no easy task. Our friendliest member for 2017 has actually defended his crown from 2016 — although it was more of a landslide than last year’s result — and previously had a stranglehold on the most helpful category too. He’s also one of the site’s moderation staff, which suggests that we know how to pick them!
GTPlanet’s Friendliest Member in 2017 is… TB!
Funniest Member
This is probably the category most of us want to win. We all think we’re funny, after all, but GTPlanet has more than its fair share of comedians. Surprisingly though this year, the GTP members haven’t opted for any of the usual suspects. None of our traditional punfests, funny picture posters and F1 Picture Caption competition entrants got a look in. Instead it went to a mysterious member usually responsible for posting our news articles onto the forum. Some might say he’s not human; all we know is that…
GTPlanet’s Funniest Member for 2017 is… GTPNewsWire!
Nuttiest Member
This category is sometimes controversial. It encompasses those with a very unusual sense of humor, but also quite a few whose posts make you do a double-take. Or even a triple-take. This year we’ve got a winner who can make you do both — and one of the first Scandinavians to ever win a GTPlanet award.
GTPlanet’s Nuttiest Member for 2017 is… JockeP22!
Most Knowledgeable Member
Three things in life are inevitable: death, taxes and the destination of the most knowledgeable member GTP Award every year. It’s possibly a meme by now, or at least a running joke, but either way this award is going to the same place it has gone every year for the last thirteen years.
GTPlanet’s Most Knowledgeable Member for 2017 is… Famine!
Most Opinionated Member
One of GTPlanet’s hidden gems is the Opinons and Current Events forum. We may be an automotive and racing game media site, but our members like to shoot the breeze about all sorts of topics, right down to hardcore, moral issues. The winner of this category almost defines this part of our site, but surprisingly it’s the first time he’s won it since 2010.
GTPlanet’s Most Opinionated Member for 2017 is… Danoff!
Quote of the Year
Every now and then, someone will post something that just sticks in the memory. With so many members, and so many posts, it’s inevitable that something will be profound, hilarious or just plain bewildering. It’s common that this award will go to a post like that, but this year it’s gone to a truly existential question: when is an automated forum process not an automated forum process? When it’s also the site’s funniest member, of course.
The winner of GTPlanet’s Quote of the Year for 2017 is… GTPNewsWire!
SlipZtrEm: Ol’ Newsie’s a bot, you see.
GTPNewsWire: Am not.
Thread of the Year
A great forum has great threads, and we’ve had a good dose of them this year. From helpful and insightful to bonkers and hilarious, there’s been a lot that our members have contributed, and a lot to keep our readers engaged.
This year, one thread stood above all others, for all the right reasons but due to all the wrong ones. Shortly before Christmas 2016 one of our longest-serving members — Foolkiller (Steve Travis) — got the new donor heart he needed following a lifelong fight with a congenital heart defect. Sadly Steve died early in 2017 as a result of infection.
GTPlanet’s founder and owner Jordan was able to attend a ceremony for Steve and the thread that sprang up as a result became a remarkable memorial to the effect he had on our community.
GTPlanet’s Thread of the Year for 2017 is… Remembering GTPlanet Member Steve Travis, a.k.a. “FoolKiller”.
New Member of the Year
With a site that covers the material GTPlanet does it’s inevitable that, despite our unusual rules, we’ll have thousands of new members joining every year. Some don’t get it, but some fit in right away. This can make the New Member category a bit tricky as the best newbies seem like they have been here forever.
The fact that this year’s winner is so young — just 15 years old — and from Hungary is impressive, but he’s been able to get into the swing of GTPlanet quickly since he joined in July.
GTPlanet’s New Member of the Year for 2017 is… TheNuvolari!
Member of the Year
This year’s winner of Member of the Year has won the award on more than one occasion, back when it was known as “Most Likely To Be Crowned A Moderator” — the member other members think represents what GTPlanet stands for so well that we should have them on the site staff.
Although he never took up the mantle, he was, as mentioned earlier, a member who was thought of fondly across the whole site. As we had to say goodbye to him, aged just 37, it made 2017 a very difficult year for many of us, even those who’d never met him (he made many people’s list for GTPlanet member you’d most like to meet).
GTPlanet’s Member of the Year for 2017 is… Foolkiller!
Congratulations to all of our winners and everyone who was nominated. We’ll see you again for the GTPlanet Awards in 2018!
