How to Rank and Thank Designers: When it comes time for final rankings, designers appreciate when you choose the top three CONCEPTS (as opposed to variations of the same design) for the gold, silver and bronze awards. If you want to rank two different concepts by the same designer in the top three, that's fine. Also, rank as many entries as possible, because designers get points added to their overall site standing for each blue ribbon they get.
This is how points are distributed:
1st place - 50 points 2nd place - 20 points 3rd place - 10 points 4-6th place - 5 points 7-10 place - 3 points
After that, each ranked entry gets one point for the designer. Nobody will be insulted by being ranked last, the points are still good! So if you pull some entries out of the "Not Interested" group and give them a rank, the designer gets some benefit from entering your contest.
Hope that's helpful, lots of contest holders don't realize this and most are glad to know. It's a good way to thank designers who don't win the contest prize, but who worked very hard to offer you lots of options to choose from for a great logo.