Musing about blog awards

TYWKIWDBI recently participated in the 2008 Weblog Awards, garnering that badge at the top of the right sidebar. Since at least a few hundred visitors here have their own blogs, I thought I would take a moment to review the process and offer a few comments that might be useful to those who have wondered whether to participate in such activities.

How are the candidates chosen?
The Weblog Awards have about 50 categories, most of them related to the subject matter of the blog (humor, parenting, music, sports...) and since TYWKIWDBI has no central subject, the only categories we fit into were best new blog and best little tiny blog. We were nominated in both, and selected as a finalist in the "new blog" category.

Any blog can be nominated (and if no one nominates yours, you can nominate yourself) so there are hundreds of nominees in most categories. A panel of apparently knowledgeable or experienced people winnow the nominees down to the dozen or so finalists; their selection criteria are not publicly specified. Voting is then done by the general public, over a period of about 10 days.

What happened after the nominations?
The finalists are announced about a week before the voting begins, in order to allow time for bloggers to promote the contest. This is therefore the time when "shameless self-promotion" comes to the fore in those with a propensity for it. I visited all the other blogs in my category and found writeups like this (with redactions for privacy):

"Vote at work, and then when you get home, you need to log onto your computer and vote again. Then if you go to the local cafe with internet access and computers, you need to do the same and vote and vote again. Because you love ***! Because you love me! Because, because, because... you want me to be happy and have reason to smile... Because you think this is a daggone good blog. Because - uh - because I'm worth it."

After the voting started, another blog implored...

I know there are a couple thousand readers of this blog, so why do we have JUST over 100 votes so far? If you’ve voted, go to another computer and vote again or tell your best buddy to do it - why would you let a *** blog lose to a **** or **** blog? (No offense to other competitors)

Is voting multiple times on multiple computers illegal?
Not at all. Allowing repeated voting is the only practical alternative to making the public register to vote, which would put a damper on participation. I indicated to TYWKIWDBI visitors that the rules allowed them to vote every day, but I didn't beg them to do so (although some friends have indicated that they did do so). In the event, it didn't matter to the outcome, for reasons we'll get to next...

How did the voting go?
On the first day it was obvious that the category "best new blog" was not the same as "best small blog." Some of the finalists were "big" blogs with large audiences. Those blogs leaped to the forefront with 10X as many votes as the small blogs on days 1 and 2. It was also apparent that the followers of some blogs are more "active" than others - especially blogs that focus on politics, social groups, gender, race, or other defined group characteristics.

In the middle of day 2, as the big blogs were amassing votes, some of them sent appeals to the really big blogs asking to be featured and promoted and voted for by others of their ilk. That's when a really, REALLY big [Technorati authority 3,200, rank 55] political blog stepped in with this statement to their followers:

Another “major” nominated blog this year in the category of “Best New Blog” is one called “****” (jesus christ) and it cannot be allowed to win. So we arbitrarily endorse another one called “~ synthesis ~” because it has a fun-lookin’ name. Vote “~ synthesis ~”, the best new blog in America.

~synthesis~ is a very nice Canadian blog about education and leadership, and like TYWKIWDBI is a small blog. On the evening of the second day it had garnered 38 votes. By midnight ~synthesis~ had 1218 votes and a commanding lead that never was challenged. It was arbitrarily chosen to receive the votes because it had a funny name with two tildes.

So the whole voting process was a debacle?
Only if you think the voting is supposed to be about objectivity and judgement of quality. Which, of course, is not and has never been true. Voting by the public is, and always has been, about popularity. That's how we choose everything from homecoming queens to (unfortunately sometimes) presidents. The Oscars, the Tonys, the Edgars, the Grammys - if you think those awards go to the "best" rather than the most popular, you're dreaming or very naive.

In 2001 one of the judges for the uber-prestigious Man Booker Prize [best English-language novel] shocked the public by saying the prize is invariably determined by "who knows who, who's sleeping with who, who's selling drugs to who, who's married to who, whose turn it is". Most people voting for weblog awards don't visit all the nominees and scroll through back pages looking for quality of product. They like the blog they visit and vote for it (or not).

So, what's it all about, Alfie?
It's about traffic. Blog awards are created to publicize blogs by bringing to the public's attention the spectrum of blogs available to them. There are tens of millions (literally) of blogs. Most people who surf the web look at a handful, often choosing "aggregators" like TYWKIWDBI that pull together things from many sources, and then add a few specialty blogs that interest them (re sports or cooking or beauty or cats or whatever). Weblog awards give the public a chance to see what is available and to broaden their surfing experience.

So, should I enter my blog in one of these contests?
Absolutely. If you get selected by the screening panels to be a finalist, you can consider the nomination to be an affirmation of quality and be satisfied with that. Then you need to understand that the voting will be a popularity contest and accept it as such. Participating in a blog award competition will bring people to your blog (it approximately doubled TYWKIWDBI traffic), some of whom will then return as regular visitors.

There are a variety of blog competitions. In addition to the one linked above, there's another one also called (confusingly) the "Weblog Awards," that one also being known as the "bloggies." There's the Blogger's Choice Awards, the Webbies (geared to websites rather than blogs, I think), the Best of Blogs, and others. Not all of them operate as I described above. Search the 'net for ones you might qualify for, read the rules, and give it a try.