Blogpower Awards - Rationale and Details

ALL ISSUES NOW BEING DISCUSSED IN TOP POST

Aim and rationale

If the aim of doing these Annual Blogpower Awards is:

1 To provide sufficient categories to give a broad cross-section of the blogosphere a chance of some recognition, esp. the little blogger;

2 Not to take ourselves too seriously;

3 To be taken seriously, i.e. as legitimate by the MSM, the blogosphere and the reading public at large...

... then some sort of compromise is going to be necessary here.

To completely shut out the MSM writer and the mega-blogger because he'll "swamp" the poll or conversely, to run just a little closed poll for only those bloggers who get under 100 hits per day - neither seem to be the way to go.

Clearly we don't wish to be swamped, nor do we wish to be seen as lightweights. To me, it seems we won't be swamped for two reasons:

1 These awards have quietly emanated from Blogpower and the wider public know nothing of them as yet - they're still a "blogger" thing;

2 If sufficient categories are offered, some excluding the Big Players and some open to them, then a balance is struck and the awards have their raison d'etre.

There will be a feeling that there are too many categories. I don't see why this should concern the average reader, given that you can vote for just those categories you wish to. 25 categories, with about 10 writers in each poll, seems manageable to me.

E-mailed nominations

They need to be e-mailed for reasons of privacy and to prevent graft. Address is jameshighamatmaildotcom.

Freepolls

There is one freepoll I sometimes use, [not the one I've used in the past two months], which allows blocking of anyone who's already voted until 10 more people have voted on that same poll. I suggest we use that one, rather than a 'one vote a day poll'.

These polls will be arranged down the sidebar and it's then a case of scroll and click.

After the polls

Tom Paine has a suggestion for an Awards Evening and we'll look at that after the voting begins.

Also on the back burner for now and yet needing to be thought about is the awards banner. We need a well-designed [any artists out there?] banner of 150 by 150 for winners and for nominees.