User blog comment:Acebatonfan/User of the Year 2014 Results/@comment-26219515-20150319020940/@comment-4196050-20150319115503

The nominees are collected from a list of active contributors to the wikia at the time nominations are made (late November/early December). From what I remember (I think Dronian or Mark did the nominations last year), users who are blocked and administrators who have been admin for the full calendar year are automatically disqualified, and nominees are selected from a list of active contributors for the past 1-3 months.