Monday, June 30, 2008

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

10 comments:

  1. This is a very good idea. But have no idea who to nominate. I'll have a think...

    ReplyDelete
  2. At this stage it's necessary to get the Panel together.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a fantastic idea!
    I'll nominate Steph from The Biopsy Report for the panel, she's been a finalist in both the Medical Weblogs Awards and the Irish Blog Awards, and I'm sure she'll thank me (?) for nominating her here!
    http://biopsy.wordpress.com/
    BG

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unless I win, I want nothing to do with this shambles...

    (And this, Lord James, constitutes the 'crabby comment' you requested the other day.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jolly good idea.

    I think that the 'Tribune' and Jams would make fine additions to the adjudication panel.

    G

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good luck with this James. It sure sounds like a lot of work.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks all. My comments will now be on the site on the awards and Nourobscur will just publicize them through post and sidebar.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I know at least four very good and different bloggers i would like to nominate for the panel. What agreat idea. Ian dale is all good and wel but there are many other blogs deserving recognition.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You missed a very important category there actually:

    Best Blog Making Use Of The Title Cymen's Shore.

    ReplyDelete

Comments need a moniker of your choosing before or after ... no moniker, not posted, sorry.