Happy New Year!! Let’s start this off by giving away free stuff!
It must have been the year I turned 21 that each day started by passing more and more quickly. I remember being 12 thinking I”d never be 16, then 18, then 21 and now I’m 4 months away from being 30. It means another year of growing BME has come and gone. It seems like the 2008 Awards were posted just a few days ago but it’s been a year. A whole year. We’ve seen so many ups and downs. This year marks the largest contribution by one person over the course of a year, which is also the largest contribution by one person during a year in the history of BME. There are also a couple faces here from last year that we couldn’t kick off the leader boards if we tried. Perk900, I’m talking to you, let’s see you get first place next year!! With this being the last day of 2009, I figured I’d kick it off right and present the 2009 Year End Contributor Awards!
You’ll also note that if you check the leader boards you’ll see different people listed in the top ten for image contributions than are listed below. Our 2nd and 3rd place winner is actually the same person so they’ve been combined and Jen gets disqualified and doesn’t get to win a contributor staff shirt because she already gets one for being staff! That moves everybody up one or two spots and that’s how we’ve come up with the list below.
If you are on the list, you’ll be contacted by me personally. If you don’t hear from me, check your spam or please email me with your address and shirt size to [email protected]. We will be sending out a very special surprise to the top contributor in each section!
I’m throwing in some BME trivia for you all to enjoy as well:
BME Facts:
Photos: 4,493,138
Experiences: 46,980
Videos: 7,942 (plus more that have been posted on Modblog!)
Posts on Modblog: 8,061
Comments on Modblog alone: 177,491
Average Daily Modblog readers; 112,387
Tattoo & Piercing Shops listed on 411.BME: 10,680 (not including the shops that are pending verification
Countries with users on BME: 70
Ask.BME answers: 1,083 (not including the previous version of the QOD)
Ask.BME comments: 2,870
There are tons of other things I haven’t included but I just wanted to show what we have all built together and thank you all again for contributing to BME and making the site what it is today.
TOP 10 IMAGE CONTRIBUTORS
1. 45,802 images
See the rest of this year’s top contributors after the break!
2. 15,488 images kokomi.3k |
3. 2,717 images Perk900 |
4. 1.014 images Alienboy |
5. 872 images UREA |
6. 626 images China Tattoo Portfolio |
7. 577images Allen Falkner |
8. 560 images LilFunky1 |
9. 559 images JOSEPH DOWNUNDER |
10. 473 images Thou_Art |
TOP 9 EXPERIENCE CONTRIBUTORS
1. 7 experiences  Devro |
2. 7 experiences  Larry666 |
3. 6 experiences (tie)  Bluestar |
3. 6 experiences (tie)  MissBrutal |
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4. 5 experiences (tie) hoboqueen
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4. 5 experiences (tie) ScarlettRose |
4. 5 experiences (tie)
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4. 5 experiences (tie) sevendaze |
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4. 5 experiences (tie)  Ycul
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Experience Reviewers:
I wanted to add in a special thank you to our reviewing volunteers who vote on experiences so they can be added to the site. Without them, Jen and I would be reading a lot of experiences and going cross eyed. Experience reviewers earn credits towards limited edition tshirts through out the year. The 25 linked are logged by experience reviews for all time, not broken down by year which is why they’re generally not included in the Year End Awards but I wanted to give them some extra recognition and say thank you again for the reviewing that you do. I appreciate it a lot.
EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS
Tiff Badhairdo |
Meg Barber |
Brian Decker |
Stephen DeToma |
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Warren Hiller |
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John Joyce |
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Lexci Million |
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Sean Philips |
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Lori St. Leone |
Steve Truitt |
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Since everyone works from home, I’m not able to give each and every one of them a huge hug and say thank you for all the help that they do behind the scenes in making BME such a great place, not to mention keeping it updated, the servers running properly and the members happy! If you can, drop them a line and say thanks! Without them, I’d probably go crazier than I already am!
BME STAFF
 Phil Barbosa Image processing, party planning, mustache rides |
 Mike Brum Server maintenance, TOS banhammer |
 Jen Savage Customer service, loud noises |
RETIRED BME STAFF
 Jordan Ginsberg Former Witty Guy who took amost two years of beatdowns courtesy of Modblog |
RooRaaah Crumbs |
 Tristan Henry-Wilson Designer Extroidinarre, whom we call upon from time to time! |
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Jonathon Marshall |
 Jason Former Admin |
 Shannon Larratt BME’s founder and former EIC |
I can’t thank everyone enough for continuing to support BME, not only the site itself but the community that it has fostered over the years. I look forward to a new year with new goals, obstacles and hopefully many many triumphs. The first one being the long overdue launch of the new Beta BME Galleries, then the rest of BME and finally the transition of IAM onto the new software. I’ll be able to start adding new features, aside from the ones already implemented in the new site, and BME can continue to grow while giving itself back to the community where it belongs. I can’t wait!
I also wanted to give a special thank you to the people who have contributed to BME’s Legal Defense Fund. To date we’ve raised $1,470.00, which certainly helps. As I’ve mentioned before any and cost recovered if we’re awarded attorney’s fees will be donated to BME’s Legal Defense Fund that I’ve started to help defend the body modification community at large.
And now what you’ve all been waiting for, this year’s award is the t-shirt below! I wanted to figure out how to make a shirt that said “I was a top contributor to BME and all I got was a bag of dicks!” but Alie K. came up with this great design! Check more of her work out at GoodTattoos.ca if you want to get tattooed by her or need someone to do design work. She’s come up with more than a few gems for BMEshop.
Rachel Larratt
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