THE BLOGGERS’ BLOGGER AWARDS 2008

Feel free to copy and paste this graphic to publicize these awards. It would be nice if someone could provide a more professional job for the graphic and actual prize banners. There is no doubt that Iain Dale’s UK Political Bloggers List is the definitive guide to ratings in the UK and that on the American continent, the Weblog Awards is the definitive guide. All this is well and fine but there is still a need for a blogosphere peer review in all categories, not just political and the reason there has not been, so far this year is: a. it’s a lot of damned hard work to set up b. there has not been, apart from the “Super Blogger” or “Fine Blogger” badges which do the rounds, any definitive guide, since last year, which fellow bloggers would respect and who’s badge bloggers would proudly display. Last year’s Blogpower Awards filled the gap to an extent but everyone remembers the difficulties which arose there. As it appears that Blogpower are not running their mid-year awards this year, then it is high time, before people go away for school holidays, to run a peer review which the blogosphere will respect. Who better to launch it than the man at the centre of the 2007 controversy, yours truly. There might well be a workable formula here: THE BLOGGERS’ BLOGGER AWARDS 2008 Peer review of the blogosphere, by the blogosphere, for the blogosphere How the Awards work 1. Names are called for today to fill five spots on a Panel of Moderators who will administer the running of the Awards. Naturally, the higher the status of the blogger on that panel, the more accepted the awards will be. The way to nominate is to simply comment in the comments section of the post at the site [click on the red title]: The Blogger's Blogger Awards 2008 with the name of someone you’d like to see on the panel. On Wednesday these nominations can be reviewed and a list drawn up of ten names on which you can comment further. On Friday the final five are chosen and are asked to participate. If they accept, they are given admin rights to the Awards blog. 2. The Panel then decides on categories between them. The idea is to choose categories where: a. the small blogger is not swamped b. the smaller countries don’t get swamped by the larger c. the megablogger has his/her own category to compete in. Categories are then published at the Awards blog as separate posts, each listed as a link in the first post at the top of the page. Visitors can then come to this page, click the category link and go to that separate window. 3. To nominate someone within a category, simply leave the name and url of a personal blogger of at least one month’s standing without any further commentary. Any commentary invalidates the nomination and it is deleted. At the end of the stated nomination period, the admins see which ten are the most popular nominated and their sites go into that same post as links for voters to check out. 4. In the voting phase, personal bloggers of at least one month’s standing name the finalist of their choice, again using the comments section of that post. Again, it is transparent and anyone can see the state of play at any one moment. Bloggers can vote once a day over the stated period [decided on by the Panellists] and because all comments carry dates and times, it’s easy to check that someone votes just once in a day. Any informal votes will be deleted by the Panel. No Panellist may vote in a category he/she is nominated for. 5. By the end of the voting phase, it will be fairly clear who is out the front and who close on their heels. So, to return to point one, time for you to: NOMINATE A BLOGGER OF ONE MONTH’S STANDING FOR PANELLIST BY PUTTING HIS/HER NAME AND URL IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS POST. [Please don't nominate at Nourishing Obscurity here.] Appendix: Some possible categories Political blogs North America Left of centre North America Centre North America Right of centre North America Nationalistic UK Left of centre UK Centre UK Right of centre UK Nationalistic Rest of the World Left of centre Rest of the World Centre Rest of the World Right of centre Rest of the World Nationalistic Macropolitical [non-aligned, not country based, not issue based] Economics North America Economics UK Economics Rest of the World Economics Blogstyle Work related e.g. medical Researcher and fisker Humourist Graphics intensive Daily life/domestic/pets/food Fashion Blog readership North America best little blog [under 200 uniques average] UK best little blog [under 200 uniques average] Rest of the World best little blog [under 200 uniques average] North America best established blog [between 200 and 700 uniques average] UK best established blog [between 200 and 700 uniques average] Rest of the World best established blog [between 200 and 700 uniques average] North America best major blog [between and 3000 uniques average] UK best major blog [between 700 and 3000 uniques average] Rest of the World best major blog [between 700 and 3000 uniques average] North America best mega blog [upwards of 3000 uniques average] UK best mega blog [upwards of 3000 uniques average] Rest of the World best mega blog [upwards of 3000 uniques average] Special Services to blogging