Thanks Ciprian, and keep up with the great work at vista4beginners.com.
I have chosen not to reply to an 'Anonymous' comment there, however.
The Contest was judged by 9 Judges, in 3 phases. The Panel of Judges is at the bottom of this page, and most need no introductions. All judging was done by each Judge independently.
The first 10 were short-listed on the basis of 5 parameters mentioned elsewhere and the totals added. To get a readers feedback, and to judge the popularity, a public poll was held. I believe Webware holds polls on similar lines too.
The top 5 vote getters were again judged, de nova, IGNORING the number of votes garnered by each. The final top 3 ended up with scores close to each other. 31, 30, 28. It was plain simple arithmetic. We didnt go by the fact whether a particular site looked pretty (mintywhite.com) or ugly (askvg.com), as mentioned in the Anonymous comment.
While I do respect everyones right to an opinion, by allowing such an anonymous comment on your website, dont you think you are a doing disservice to your other 2 finalists? Just putting my thoughts down
Anand - regarding the anonymous comment - i added more details about the contest so that it clears any suspicions/doubts/etc.
Regarding doing a disservice to the other finalists - sincerely i do not think that is the case. It is not the first time i have published or allowed something controversial and it won't be the last time i do this.
Controversial topics always start conversations, help spread the word and bring more exposure.
Anyway, i believe Tweaking with Vishal is a good Windows Vista resource and I will help spread the word about this site in the future.
However, the mintywhite site has been "controversial" from the time it was launched and it won't be the last time you will read such comments about it.
PS: Thank you again for answering my questions during the interview.