Controversy around the Blog Awards

This controversy is moving much faster than Telkom ADSL can handle!

I didn’t even notice Splattermail under the “Best Design” category. Humorous i can definitely understand. But Best Design, that is a bit absurd, and definitely not the best outsider’s view on the talented local designers South Africa has to offer.

I like the idea of your Panelist’s Award.

“I’d be intrigued to know how the judges got the nod.” - yes I really want to know this, the celeb judge decision also puzzles me.

Say it was close between Tertia and ChumpStyle (Splattermail even), and Victoire was the celeb judge had the deciding vote - Chump would have a no chance in hell.

No panel, no celeb judge!! This should never happen again.

Don’t even mention the pressure to be political in the next week! And at the exact time that I just do not have the time!

Plus, I did give an ironic grin at the idea of being so loved for my “political” blog, considering I am humbled by the guys who definitely excel in that area, are far more focused on & indepth about it, but do not really stray into the general blogging world so are not known widely in the more light-hearted blogosphere.

I just try to throw sly social awareness ideas & messages in, between the chick sex talk posts that keep the horny crowds coming back.

So yes Blog Award Hosts - please offer me a Social Awareness/ Current Affairs category next year so I am guaranteed to win! …as my only other contender (Dave) does not quite have as much clevage to charm the judges with!

Excuse my ignorance, but how did it work in the years before?

Dave, are you just trying to cloud the awards with unjustified speculation prior to voting so that when I take the awards in all your categories you can contest the result?? That’s not very sportsman-like Dave.

Stii it’s always been a straight popularity contest in the past.

Oh yes forgot the every day thing - yes granted that was shite.

“…if that was the case then we already know who the winners are by just checking the stats”

Hits help, but won’t necessarily get you votes.

So I’d be silly to say a good idea should be that the blog awards should be an all year affair, based on votes of the best posts rather than just the overall blogs?

Let me explain quickly:

1. Create a platform much like Muti, where you must register to vote on certain POSTS, not blogs overall. You can only vote once per post (Therefore the registrating). I for one don’t blog technical stuff all of the time, so not all my posts are relevant to the Tech category!
2. Everyone is included. You do not get nominated. You submit your RSS feeds to the engine and from there on end, it feeds your latest posts.
3. Registered users can then vote like muti, posts that they like and did not like.
4. This runs from say 1st of March till the 28th Feb next year and the average voting score counts as well as the amount of votes on the amount of posts in a relevant tag/category. (I’m confusing even myself!)

I don’t know how practical something like this would be. If there is 10 000 blogs in there, it would prove problamatic to say the least, unless you have a widget that people can use to vote for your post from your post. Even then, it would not be so simple.

What was a problem for me at the nomination stage was that I was there 4 times. Everytime with a different list in my mind. In the end time ran out so I nominated the ones that I could think of at the stage. I fully understand why it worked as it did, but it would have been nice if I could have nominated certain blogs in certain categories and come back later and nominate more as I remember them.

I am one of the evil judges. I was ’selected’ (asked to help out) by Jon Cherry who seems to think that I can make reasonably objective, informed decisions. Same goes for others involved.

Any Awards process is fallible. The Academy trusts it’s members to award Oscars. They’re all movie buffs and therefore sometimes miss out on true classics like Dumb and Dumber.

It is a vast improvement from previous years. But I don’t blame anyone for being concerned about impartiality. The thing is, if bloggers don’t judge, who will?

Dudes, these are fun, encouraging acts of recognition - not our jobs on the line. Let’s make the best we can of what is a really exciting emerging culture, and embrace even the shortcomings. Better than nothing at all?

how or who determined the panelists

Who… CherryFlava How… their passion.

Why the process is the way it is… so that it is not a popularity contntest. Niks anders nie

Nix to sinister (see above).
What is not clear from the discussion above (25 comments when I started) is what is ‘best’.
No one will ever be able to say, categorically, who is most humorous.
But I do believe that if you call this the SA Blog Awards and a large group of South African blogs are not represented, then it isn’t really the SA blog awards.
And how can you have a finalist for Best Food and Drink who has never written about food and drink?
Remember that though we live in SA, we are in an important part of the globe. The blogosphere is global bound. What we write is out there for the world to read.

If one of our blogs has a world readership, it is of value to all of us (unless of course, it says; “SA is a disaster…”)
Can we find a way to support our stars?
Would you disown Charlize because she chose to do her work in a foreign country and market her work to the world?
Would you disown Ryk because he did his swimming training in the US?
If someone turned out to be our best chess player, and to make a living and to compete in his/her league, had to move overseas and didn’t come back for years, would we disassociate ourselves… this person is not one of us?
And then, how do we feel about Johnny Clegg? He has made his whole formative career overseas. He has come back for the odd tour. But he has a home elsewhere. Is he an SA entertainer?
I think that, as we work in a global forum, we should give some respect to those who lift the profile of SA elsewhere.

Jeez, guys. I think Splattermail actually looks very nice. Frankly, I find it absurd that Splattermail wasn’t nominated in the Best Writing category. I threw my coffee mug against the wall in a fit of rage. At the end of the day, every awards ceremony in the world is the subject of some controversy. Best we all just get over ourselves.

Just have to clear something up about the celeb judge thing…as far as the initial thinking goes, that they should not be bloggers at all. So they could be outside/objective of the ‘cliques’ and give an impartial vote as to the best of the ones selected.

I think the biggest problem this year was the amount of nominations, not enough quality ones came through. There were a load of blogs that were never even nominated and that’s not the fault of the judges.

In addition, the nomination verification system may have contributed as well. A lot of blogs were nominated in various categories, but the nominators never confirmed it….

Anyhow, that was my 2 cents worth..

wezzo said:
“Say it was close between Tertia and ChumpStyle (Splattermail even), and Victoire was the celeb judge had the deciding vote - Chump would have a no chance in hell.”

victoire says:
*sits up with a jolt* huh?! wezzo… first of all i’m not a celebrity… if i were i would’ve appeared on chumpstyle in my knickers by now i’m sure… second, i’m not sure how i came to moonlight in your example? you’ve made a very bold statement based on no fact whatsoever.

Just a quick other thing..there was this little detail of “The contest is open to any weblogs that existed for a period of time during the year 2006, so weblogs that were discontinued during 2006 are also eligible.”

If it only started on the 1st of Jan 2007, unfortunately it was not eligible…

I guess a good couple of brilliant blogs, podcasts and vidcasts were slammed with this point.

Victoire you are the only lady on the panel which is why I mentioned you, meant nothing personal by it. Read what I said again and swap your name with Margarette.

We are and will always be a Men’s entertainment blog, somehow I don’t see any ladies taking kindly to our type of blog. What I was trying to point out is that it would be unfair for any one person to have a final decision. Look at it the other way around, it would be seriously unfair to Tertia if we or Splattermail were up against her and a 20 something guy celeb judge with a passion for Zoo Weekly’s had the final say.

wezzo, as a judge i have to put my personal views (and gender, however irrelevant i think this is) aside and judge based on the category i’m judging as well as the judging criteria given to me - one of which was the blog’s popularity…

just because i’m a girl does not mean that i will pick a blog with a stereotypically girly theme above a blog with a stereotypically manly theme. perhaps this just shows the maturity i’ve gained over 28 (and a bit) years…

i’m sure that the irony of your comment has not escaped you.

in the end i think we’re all learning very valuable lessons - i’ve taken away a great deal from my judging experience, not least of which is the lesson that one cannot put every blog into a box and expect them to conform to one’s preconceived ideas. i also hope to add value in making next year’s judging experience even more significant and constructive, and easier for the judges! yes, i do believe that the judge panel adds value.

i’m looking forward to the 30th - what an exciting prospect, an auspicious occasion! May the best blogs win!

I also noticed that two of the finalists in the photo blog category aren’t blogs in the traditional sense at all. they’re simply Flickr photo streams.

“as a judge i have to put my personal views (and gender, however irrelevant i think this is) aside and judge based on the category i’m judging as well as the judging criteria given to me - one of which was the blog’s popularity”

Can we expect this from every single judge, the celeb judge in particular who holds a whopping 30%? I hope so for the panel’s sake.

Okeeeeeee,,,, seyafunda… let’s try again… my first comment got kicked.

I am still baffled as to what happened with the “Best Group Blog Category”. There are so many group blogs this year round and yet, they got rid of it.

As for the “VOTE 4 ME BUTTON”, Let’s say, I am not the brightest crayon in the box and, I read say 6 blogs. As a “IT impaired reader” I go an click on each blog’s VOTE 4 ME. In essence I will be over righting my vote each time I do so and the last one I did this with will then be my vote… ? Hmmmm….

Pheck …!
over righting = overwriting…
Proof read Deadalus proof read!

Oh, to hell with it! Just let ME judge them all. I am as outside of the human race as you can get. And I even promise to do it sober.

hehe…Wezzo, so Rox and Peas are ‘one of the boys’ then?

What you’re so worried about? 50% of the vote is still in the hands of your readers and we know you will have no problem rounding them up to vote…

Aquila it’s not a case of I’m worrying about winning or not - I just want a free and fair election.

Man I thought half those nominations were a joke. you mean its serious? and how can a judge also be nominated? bleh…

You know people, the real problem with this whole voting process is that my blogs weren’t declared outright winners at the beginning of the whole process. You could have avoided this whole debate by simply conceding my blogs are the best ones of the bunch …

Seriously, the judges did the best job they could and if there are flaws in the system let’s fix them next year. Stii mentioned an idea I threw out there on Wired Gecko over the weekend about using a Digg/Muti style interface to vote next year and I think that could solve most of the issues that have arisen this time around. Let’s also not forget that no matter who wins or doesn’t win, you still have your readers. The competition is something on the side, whether you have loads of readers depends on whether you publish content they like so lighten up a bit about the awards and have some fun with the process and your blogs.

This year’s nomination process was set up to help streamline the large number of public nominations into the top ten in each category.

I asked a handful of prominent SA bloggers - selected for no other reason than their passion for blogging in SA to help me out. I would have asked everyone, but we only needed 15. Rafiq and Miguel were kind enough to help out on the tech side and therefore built the voting system.

We asked the public to nominate their favourite blogs in 15 categories and then the handful of bloggers help with the sorting of them into the top ten in each category. We received thousands of nominations from the public - so in order to make the final voting easier and less of a waste of time - we took on this step.

We looked at the number of nominations a blog received, the relevance to category, whether or not it actually even existed in 2006, the frequency of posting, the quality of the blog and it’s popularity as a conversation starter.

So from thousands - we have hopefully got to the best of the best.

I have to stress that the blog awards are not a club and are by no means meant for anyone but all bloggers. Nobody is being exluded and because its run by the bloggers themselves - no blog can be excluded (including ones owned by bloggers helping out on the panel).

From here - we are taking on the public vote (which counts for 50% of the overall weighting) the panel gets to vote (20% weighting) and then a group of ‘celeb’ judges (people not directly involved with blogging - 30% weighting).

These awards are a democracy - if you don’t like the way they are put together, I’m all ears as to how you think we can improve.

A lot of people have put a stack of unpaid time into showcasing the best of SA blogging - not to hijack the event, but to recognise and congratulate blogs that have delivered.

I finished 7th in the Weblog Awards (international) for the Africa and Middle East section.
But I’m not even good enough to get an entry into the 2007 Blog Awards? Utterbollox.

Hmm - more sour grapes with my hard cheese, please.

P.S. Saw you on TV this morning, Jonathan. Your interviewer was completely clueless, but you made the very best of a bad job.

Great T-shirt, btw!

[For those non SABC2 viewers, Jonathan was sporting a red T-shirt bearing the somewhat ironic legend: “AS SEEN ON TV”.]

Ola,
Did anyone record that clip on TV this morning?
I hear Ostendo and DiGiTAL FARM got a second or two air time - I would love to get my hands on it.
-D

good to see some of us are getting some light.

Haha! Maaaannnnn, can’t we all just… get a long?

Good luck to all blogs nominated.

Don’t worry Salami, I voted for you, I think your blog is pretty too.

Sorry, yes.
Jon Cherry was on TV interviewed by Leanne Manas on Morning Live SABC all about the 2007 SABA.
Several sites got a few seconds airtime and their URLs on the screen. Ostendo was definitely one of them. 2OV was definitely not. Nor was Domkop.

Surprisingly, I didn’t record it. I am barely able to perform the basic functions of breathing and moving until I’ve had a cup of coffee, let alone going and playing with the PVR.

I was going to comment but thought WTF, don’t be a doos - you are a Namibian and Namibians DGaF!!!

But then of course we do, so here goes!

Congratulations to Mr Cherry and all his judges. I for one would not like the task and importantly the responsibility to judge some hardworking SA blogger a failure.

Ugh! That is serious accountability. And I think they are a brave crew to do this and then withstand all the derision from disaffected bloggers that is now being lobbed at them.

But WTF - that is what judges must accept I hear you say?! Wrong. They don’t need the crap.

So here is my suggestion - John and Mike and Dave et al can defect and become the judging panel for The 2007 Namib Blogger Since Moses Was a Little Boy Awards.

Deal?!