Should We Form A Blogies Committee?

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[Lani]

After making this suggestion in the Re: Aussiebloggers Blog Awards thread, I thought a poll might be an easier way to go about getting everyone's opinion.

My thought is that the committee would be responsible for the Awards in consultation with the forum community, but that is just my thought.  There is also the question of how many people should be on the committee and who.

Please vote but also add your opinions and ideas about the best way to organise the organising. 

This poll will be open for 7 days so the maximum amount of people have time to have their say.

[kathiemt]

Good idea BUT I imagine anyone on the committee would no longer be eligible for an award.  I belong to an international steering committee for the VA industry and we found that's what we had to do - make all committee members ineligible although most of us were perfect candidates for the awards we created.  We've had some interesting discussions about public perceptions.  Of course, the blogies won't have the same intentions for the awards but all the same, some might not want to be on the committee because they want to win an award...

[goatlady]

We run the WA Web Awards and the committee are eligible to enter because the judging is completely separate from the administration, organisation and promotion of the event (which also includes an awards dinner). We have a judging chairperson who liaises with the judges and makes sure that part is all kosher.

We had to do it that way because otherwise, no one would want to help organise...

[Lani]

I never thought of that, Kathie.  It makes a lot of sense.  There would need to be a setup such as Goatlady suggests when it comes to the actual judging, I think.  I would hate to see anyone who deserves to be nominated miss out because they have invested their time in the project.

[kathiemt]

We run the WA Web Awards and the committee are eligible to enter because the judging is completely separate from the administration, organisation and promotion of the event (which also includes an awards dinner). We have a judging chairperson who liaises with the judges and makes sure that part is all kosher.

We had to do it that way because otherwise, no one would want to help organise...

We got independent judges too but after the first year found too many rumblings in the industry about winners and committee involvement - it was seen as being too 'in-house' or possibly 'fixed' which wasn't true at all, but for the sake of peace, we made it a rule that no committee member would be eligible to apply for the awards. Since then we've set up a 'badge' that we can all use on our websites to show our involvement with the international committee which helps set us apart.

It's amazing how 'office politics' gets into everything.

[kathiemt]

I never thought of that, Kathie.  It makes a lot of sense.  There would need to be a setup such as Goatlady suggests when it comes to the actual judging, I think.  I would hate to see anyone who deserves to be nominated miss out because they have invested their time in the project.

Just thought I'd raise it at the beginning so that it can be thought about from the start 

[kathiemt]

Just going back to this - I saw mention of 'pligg' on another thread about the awards (http://www.aussiebloggers.com.au/forum/index.php?topic=692.new;topicseen#new). Not familiar with that but if the general public were voting then it might take away that problem for the committee - I guess it depends on how well it's promoted. I know the Black blog web awards in the US worked on a voting system - and a forum I belonged to all went to vote for our friend (this then means whoever has the most 'friends' might win).

[FormerAdmin]

Just going back to this - I saw mention of 'pligg' on another thread about the awards (http://www.aussiebloggers.com.au/forum/index.php?topic=692.new;topicseen#new). Not familiar with that but if the general public were voting then it might take away that problem for the committee - I guess it depends on how well it's promoted. I know the Black blog web awards in the US worked on a voting system - and a forum I belonged to all went to vote for our friend (this then means whoever has the most 'friends' might win).

Kathie,

For Pligg: see the Pligg website and Bloggerati for an example - how it might work and what it might look like were covered in that other thread (but I can run through it again in greater detail when I have more time on the weekend, no problem).

The idea of Pligg (or the way that Scott has ozbargain.com.au set up in Drupal) is that voting is independant - i.e. there are no judges per se, just a moderating panel to ensure that the rules are followed.

And voting always means that the person with the most friends wins My suggestions re: voting were mainly in support of making it happen without the wailing and gnashing of teeth that usually accompanies any award process that is seen as unrepresentative or undemocratic - for myself I trust the judgement of my peers here, but there are others who are less trustful.

Best regards, Andrew

[kathiemt]

Kathie,

For Pligg: see the Pligg website and Bloggerati for an example - how it might work and what it might look like were covered in that other thread (but I can run through it again in greater detail when I have more time on the weekend, no problem).

The idea of Pligg (or the way that Scott has ozbargain.com.au set up in Drupal) is that voting is independant - i.e. there are no judges per se, just a moderating panel to ensure that the rules are followed.

And voting always means that the person with the most friends wins My suggestions re: voting were mainly in support of making it happen without the wailing and gnashing of teeth that usually accompanies any award process that is seen as unrepresentative or undemocratic - for myself I trust the judgement of my peers here, but there are others who are less trustful.

Best regards, Andrew

Sounds a good option - wish we could do that for the VA industry.

[Lani]

I'm in favour of public nominations & longlists based on the nominees actually qualifying for the category and the # of noms (possibly factoring site audience size via subscribers or something to create a level playing field). Then a longlist being made into a shortlist by a judging panel, then public voting again.  With the Bloggies, for example, I don't think it's the voting method that's screwy.  I think it's the lack of filtering done in the intermediate stages.

I also think the shortcoming of their system is that the categories that the criteria required for each aren't that clearly defined.  Some are obvious, some are not.

Lifehacker, for instance is not a "best kept secret". 

[Lightening]

Reading all of that, sounds like at the very least you need some kind of committee to formulate categories with good descriptions of what qualifies a blog for that description etc.  All before you really even start.  Sounds like a biggish job but would only need to be done once.

[Lee]

of course there may be benefits in being a member of the committee in itself if we profile each of the committee members so people know who they are even if they cannot be nominated - it's just that I too worry about the impression it may give if those on the committee were to win.

I haven't to be honest though given that part that much thought yet - I would expect it to be a high priority for them to work out when formed.

[clutterbells]

I am a member of a group called Blogpower. They have had two events like this and involved a wide range of categories. One was an internal event and the other open to a wider range of blogs. Both times the event was fraught with controversy. The group has a stronger political base of blogs and some of these issues got in the way. Also the competition was largely coordinated by one individual, who was a strong candidate himself and in the end had to withdraw for conflict of interest reasons. he ended up having to use an independent person (me) to resolve and confirm some of the decisions. There was also the issue of vote early and vote often violations.

I would say that it would give more people a higher level of confidence in the outcome of the awards if a committee was responsible for overseeing the award. I also feel that it should comprise a range of bloggers and certainly not just the great and the good. Perhaps an independent blogger not involved with the forum could be involved.

That said if the event is held in good spirit, these issues may not be important. If the spirit of cooperation demonstrated on the forum is anything to go by, there should be no issue. It is when there are issues that having a comittee would help.

[clutterbells]

The other thing that Blogpower did was to hold the Awards Ceremony in Second Life. It was surprisingly successful given the range of time zones  (from the midwest to South Australia) of the bloggers that were involved.

[craigwbrown]

A suggestion:

A comittee to set up the infrastructure, categories etc first, and then once that is done, a different committee/panel to manage the individual (annual?) events.

That way the ball can get rolling without people having to wait and see if they wil be disqualifying themselves.

And I am in as a volunteer.

[Vishal Sharma]

Sounds like a good idea.

Btw i cant see the options for voting.

[Snoskred]

Voting closed yesterday

[craigwbrown]

Irish blogies have been posted
http://www.mamanpoulet.com/?p=336

[FormerAdmin]

OK,

so I think we've decided that there should be a blogies committee.

What happens next?

Cheers, Andrew