Ain't too proud to blog: and it's all your fault I screen my phone calls

¤ ¤ credit: yvonne | 01.22.03 at 04:13 PM | link-

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I wondered, when I didn't see you up for Best Latin American Blog, Robyn...

¤ ¤ credit: Solonor | 01.22.03 at 04:20 PM | link-

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It just sucks Solonor. All those Menudo-marathons for nothing... I practiced so damn hard! Bye, bye coochie.

¤ ¤ credit: robyn | 01.22.03 at 04:23 PM | link-

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As Bill has pointed out on a few other Blogs ‘Maybe a nominee needed to get a minimum number of nominations in order to make the final list,’ well, at least that is what I am hoping happened.

¤ ¤ credit: munin | 01.22.03 at 07:39 PM | link-

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Well the judges certainly don't help their case with public comments like this:

"I had 4 days to go through several hundred websites (the majority of which I'd never heard of before) and decide who was the best in their category. In some of the categories I voted only for weblogs I knew about. Sorry, but I really didn't have the time to look at every single website.....I took this as a serious responsibility."

Me thinks perhaps the nomination and voting processes need to be re-examined for 2004. I'm just sayin'... And I certainly don't mean to take anything away from this year's nominees by stating that. At all. I was very impressed with the choices. But unless you publicly come clean with your rules, and your selection methods / judging (as I take GREAT pains in doing so with my annual Dress Contest), expect doubters and nay-sayers. It's just human nature. If you make it sound "secretive", elite and "hush-hush", there are always going to be those that associate sinister motives along with that.

¤ ¤ credit: robyn | 01.22.03 at 07:45 PM | link-

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Well said Robyn. And this isn't by any means the Oscars so it's not that big a deal but next year they might want to refine the process a little more. Then again it has the possibility of turning into teh dreaded Webby's. I do like that the voting is open to the public but it should also have a registration process that confirms the email address and recipient instead of a plain form with a field. There is nothing to stop anyone from just adding fake email addy's and throw the whole thing outta whack. Just my opinion on the logistics.

¤ ¤ credit: Jason D- | 01.22.03 at 08:01 PM | link-

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Exactly! That's why my voting in the Dress Contest isn't public. Only registered Newlywed Ring members can vote, by their Site ID (after the first round which is narrowed down by a panel of judges). The voting URL isn't made public for those ballots either. For the first time this year I had a "public poll", but the winner of that only received one vote equivalent to a Newlywed Ring member's vote in the final tally. That way, if votes were spoofed, it didn't matter in the scheme of things. All of my judges are made public on the contest site, and the judges have their own private forum each year. They can compare notes, compare votes, get updates from me on the amount of votes each contestant has received to date, etc. They don't need to feel slighted that their vote didn't count -- or the need to list the nitty gritty details and the private voting logins, as was seen this year with the Bloggies. That spoke more volumes to me than anything.

¤ ¤ credit: robyn | 01.22.03 at 08:17 PM | link-

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Well hell, I knew that the judges weren't visiting all the sites - I only got four hits from them myself.

¤ ¤ credit: Bill | 01.22.03 at 08:52 PM | link-

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I think there are several great ideas here. I was a judge in a writing contest once, and we had so many different things to judge that we were given just a few at a time, and it was extended over a longer period of time to ensure that each contestant was given equal exposure and the judges had ample time to go over each person's writing and not feel overwhelmed. Additionally, each contestant submitted several writing samples. How can you get an idea of a blog by clicking on a link and reading it for 5 minutes? Is that deserving of saying this is the best? Robyn did a post highlighting her favorite (I assume it was your favorites) posts from 2002 as a Top 10 list. That's a great idea for the bloggies nominees. Another suggestion would be that the judges are given one category at a time, given time to look at all the weblogs, and vote.

With that said, once the finalists are made public, everyone knows how to sign up for different email accounts or clear your cookies to vote numerous times. What an honor -- NOT. Therefore, it could be limited to one vote per blog or everyone who wants to vote has to register ahead of time, and is given a one-time login to do so to avoid cheating.

I took pot shots at the awards, I admit, because of the wheaton fiasco last year, and also because so many people posted on their blogs that they wanted to be nominated. I have always felt like no award is prestigious if you have to ask for it.

Ok, enough ranting, sorry. I'm not knocking the nominees at all, but I would like to see a more clearer set of rules, so that true talent is rewarded and everyone is assured that the rules are followed and all nominees are given an equal shot. Otherwise, it just becomes a joke.

¤ ¤ credit: trish | 01.22.03 at 09:22 PM | link-

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