Qualification

5cq Qualification Table (1)

The following qualification table defines a group of requirements needed by a website to be within the scope of this AP and to be qualified to display the 5cq membership logo, all of them related to the website content (type and quantity). A more detailed explanation can be found in the FAQs at the end of this page.

1. It does not contain or advertise the following: pornography, violence, astrology, occultism, satanism, racism, paranormal phenomena, discrimination, sects, political propaganda, or any other subject prosecuted by law.
2. It does not have links to websites with characteristics mentioned in item 2.
3. It does not contain text or graphics indicating that the website is totally or partially under construction
4. It displays a maximum of two commercial banners per inner website window.
5. It has a minimum of four standard, or ISO A4, pages of substantial content (non-personal, non-commercial and non-link), and part of it is original.

These requirements, even if they don't seem very restrictive, exclude a big portion of existing websites. We thank in advance those websites who use this logo with a link to alcazaren.com (optional). The qualification requirements are revised at minimum annually, so the compliance should be checked with the same periodicity.

5cq logo. The blue logo shown identifies a website as one that meets previous qualification table 5 requirements. There are 3 other graphic versions of 5cq logos that can be retrieved from the Award Graphics section. Be a 5cq Member!

Alcazarén Award Candidate Requirements

To be considered as a candidate for the Alcazarén Award, the applicant website needs to be within the scope of this AP, in particular, the requirements of the previous table (5cq Qualification Table) need to be met. In the award request form the candidate is asked for confirmation of these requirements.

It's not easy for a website to fulfill what was originally expected from it. If it does, it doesn't mean that an award is needed to reflect such a job well done. If you think that your website's content quality is above or beyond that of a good website, please, continue reading the rest of this AP sections and apply for our award.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is meant by "4 standard or ISO A4 pages"?

It makes reference to pages of a certain size instead of simply writing "4 pages" (a page can be any size). "Standard" would be equivalent to "Letter", "Legal", "Exec" or "A4". "Letter" is well known in the United States, in Spain the same size is called "holandesa".

The A series (A0, A1,...), as well as the B and C series, is defined by the (International Standards Organization) ISO-216 and all those sizes have the following characteristic: the relation of the 2 sides is 1 to the square root of 2 (1.414...), the only relation (can be easily found with a mathematical equation) that, if a page is cut in 2, the 2 pieces keep maintaining the relation, and so on... If you are interested in this topic, see Marcus Khun's article on this subject.

Why do you use Qualification instead of Disqualification like other APs?

This AP doesn't know of any rule on this subject. Of the 5 requirements there are 3 with "does not", but also,...

...there is a 5cq logo, and as many other logos it represents a qualification or a validation. It is also a website pre-evaluation requirement, to be qualified. If disqualification is used, there would be no logo and a site needs to be non-disqualified to be evaluated. In summary, feel free to considerer the negations of the above 5 requisites so that the above table becomes a Disqualification Table ;))

Why only 5 requirements?

Requirement 1 is a group of requirements, it could be broken down to around 10. Requirement 2 is similar to 1 but in a "link to" basis. You will find all these 2 requirements in most APs with some variations and split in different ways.

Requirements 3 and 4 are what this AP, in particular, doesn't accept, a common error, the "in construction" phrase, which has plagued the Internet for many years, and the proliferation of banners (not an error but a characteristic that should be limited) that is self explanatory. For less important errors or for other negative website characteristics, points will be deducted during the evaluation.

Requirement 5, contrary to 3 and 4, represents what this AP wants a website to be or contain, the more the better, and is in agreement with the AP purpose. To conclude a small clarification on the "non-commercial", it means, that a description of a product with a commercial intention is not considered part of the content being asked for, but commercial and non-commercial information can perfectly coexist in a website.

Do you evaluate other award programs?

It depends, if the AP content is a description of itself no evaluation is performed. If an AP has additional sections or is part of a website, the evaluation is done. A similar approach is employed with the commercial (not considered) portion of a website.

Why don't you put the languages you evaluate as part of the qualification table requirements?

The languages that this AP evaluates are clearly defined in the AP Scope. There is a slight difference with the qualifications, if a website is not evaluated because of its language, even if the end result is the same the reason is totally different, the evaluators are the ones that do not qualify.

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(1). Last 5cq Qualification Table update: 2007-05-08.