Who is auditing the SA Blog Awards

// March 22nd, 2009 // Blog Awards // 5,004 views

Controversy and the South African blog awards go together like Tina and Ike. It’s very much a love/hate relationship.

Aside from the processes of nomination, judging, voting and all that (we could be here all week), I’ve always maintained that one should stick to the rules and enforce them diligently. The rules (or terms and conditions) are the only fallback you have when things get a bit “hot under the collar”. Even in a democracy, the rules should govern the processes. So what am I getting at?

As one of the “judges” during the 2007 SA blog awards (probably the most controversial of them all), we were confronted with the tough task of evaluating if a blog matched the set criteria for the particular category it was nominated in. One of these aspects included “Rule 3″ - “The contest is open to any blogs that existed for a period of time during the year 2006″. Due to this criterion, this meant that some great blogs just couldn’t be included in the list of finalists.

This year is no different - the rules haven’t changed.

2009 SA blog awards rules:

* A “blog” is defined as a webpage with dated entries.
* Only blogs written within the Republic of South Africa and / or blogs written by South African citizens are eligible to be considered for the awards.
* The contest is open to any blogs that existed for a period of time during the year 2008, so weblogs that were discontinued during 2008 are also eligible.
* Only one nomination form and one finalist voting form may be submitted per person.
* E-mail addresses are required to nominate and vote. You must use your own address and confirm the validation e-mail.
* If you attempt to submit a second ballot, your first one will be replaced.
* Judges and organiser’s blogs are not eligible for the awards.
* Nominees have to fit the category they are placed in.

On closer inspection, I note that there are some blogs on the shortlist of finalists that were only established in 2009, outside of the criteria for inclusion in this year’s awards. In the spirit of all things fair and equal, I feel this is wrong and believe that these blogs should be excluded from the process.

This for me also begs the question, shouldn’t there be some independent party auditing the SA blog awards? Some independent body to check that the process is free, fair and democratic. There are some nice prizes up for grabs this year and it would be a real shame if someone won a category, but didn’t conform to the rules.

Update 1 @ 11pm:
After some messages and emails going backwards and forward with the SA Blog Awards team, it seems that the rules have been amended and now state:

The contest is open to any blogs that existed for a period of time during the year 2008/2009, so weblogs that were discontinued during 2008 are also eligible.

This basically means that the rules have now been bent sufficiently to allow the finalists to remain in the competition, instead of disqualifying them from this year’s awards. Now that the period of entry has been extended, it means that the nomination and judging process should therefore also be extended. This is to allow for other blogs that started on or before March 2009 to be included in the nomination process. Even so, it means that the current list of finalists have gained an unfair advantage.

Some other issues that I picked up includes duplicate entries for the same blog in the same category, best post (also in the wrong year of eligibility), some form of reference site for blogs that were discontinued during 2008 (how can I vote for a site if it doesn’t exist at all?) and of course the favourite webpage with dated entries saga.

I must commend and thank Chris Rawlinson for mediating. I know this can’t be easy.

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25 Responses to “Who is auditing the SA Blog Awards”

  1. Dolce says:
    March 22, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    What are the other judges thoughts?

  2. Aquila says:
    March 22, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    I don’t think any of this year’s judges have thought about this.

  3. Chris Rawlinson says:
    March 22, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    Hey there Nico,
    Thanks so much for the post man. please just understand these awards are run for free mate at the moment. we are not the oscars so can afford to have a independant auditor. We have tried our hardest to make them rock this year and we have worked so hard to get a ton of fun sponsors and really help put blogging a bit more in the general publics eye. will make sure this is all cleared up better for next year as will have more time but i only really got asked to be involved 2 weeks ago :)
    just call me on 082 7754 022 if you get a sec and will see what we can do about the blogs you mention. please just remember there are 2 of us both with full time jobs running this for free for the community :)

  4. Aquila says:
    March 22, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    Hey Chris, thanks for the response. I must in the same breath actually commend the team with getting the sponsors on board, and more importantly the sacrifice in time. I know too well that this is a free and thankless “job”.

    I’m sure each year the awards keep on getting better. We just need some controls in place too.

  5. onelargeprawn says:
    March 23, 2009 at 9:12 am

    I’d like to mention the comments that Shaun Oakes and Deems made on my blog.

    Shaun said:
    “I think what screwed a lot of us was the fact that a valid nomination had to include more than one blog. (it wasn’t clearly highlighted though) So if someone just nominated onelargeprawn in their submission, it would not count.”

    Deems said:
    “I think the other thing that might have caught a lot of people out was the fact that if you clicked on one person’s link that pre-filled their blog in various categories and voted and then did the same on someone else’s blog it would discard your previous votes not collate them.”

    I trust these issues will be fixed for next years awards.

  6. Aquila says:
    March 23, 2009 at 11:39 am

    Good points made onelargeprawn. Definitely something that’s popped up in the past, and definitely needs to be sorted for the future.

  7. Deems says:
    March 23, 2009 at 9:05 pm

    @onelargeprawn - thanks for spreading the word, mate.

    @Aquila, @Chris - I too know how difficult it is organising something that you get no real recognition or remuneration for - I’ve done it in the past - but if you’re willing to offer such a service then it needs to be done right - SABA has been doing this for a couple of years now and obviously the organisers are passionate about it so the comments from other bloggers about the rules (and not bending them like our local politicians do) should be taken into account.

    If the prize on offer was still only R20.09 then it probably wouldn’t have caused much of a fuss but there are quite a few sponsors on board by now and some great prizes, it’s only fair not only to the sponsors but the bloggers being nominated that it’s, free and more importantly fair.

    And before anyone begins flaming me, this has nothing to do with me not making the top-10 in any category - I didn’t think I would and only entered and asked for friends to nominate for the heck of it - my points above are purely to be taken as constructive criticism.

  8. angel says:
    March 24, 2009 at 7:24 am

    I honestly don’t think anyone will ever be satisfied with a blog award thing… someone always feels that nominated blogs don’t really count in a particular category or some such.

  9. Aquila says:
    March 24, 2009 at 11:12 am

    deems: I think you nailed it there. If it was just the honour of having a graphic on your site and the token prize money of R20.09 then one could argue that it should be left as is. However, the more sponsors and media coverage the awards attract, the more prone it will be to scrutiny.

    Angel: It’s definitely not about the worhtiness of a blog in a certain category or whatnot, it’s about the rules and timing that wasn’t adhered to in the first place - now the awards are not that fair.

  10. onelargeprawn says:
    March 24, 2009 at 11:35 am

    @Aquila: It might be worth it to install the “Subscribe to Comments” plugin for Wordpress. That was people will be notified when there are replies to comments on a post. http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/

    @Deems: Well said. I don’t think it’s sour grapes on anyone’s part to question the irregularities.

  11. Aquila says:
    March 24, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    Onelargeprawn: I knew I was missing a plugin during the upgrade, just couldn’t put my finger on it. Thanks for refreshing the memory.

  12. Deems says:
    March 24, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    @onelargeprawn - you beat me to it - was going to suggest it to @Aquilla - now I don’t have to keep coming back each time to check if there are follow-ups :)

  13. Aquila says:
    March 24, 2009 at 12:19 pm

    Deems: haha see what you’ve done. Now my visitors stats will decrease.

  14. onelargeprawn says:
    March 24, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    Glad you got it sorted Aquila. I’ll be a regular visitor - now get some more posts up on this blog ;)

  15. Deems says:
    March 24, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    @Aquila - don’t you mean INcrease ;-)

  16. Aquila says:
    March 24, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    onelargeprawn: haha thanks, asif 771 posts weren’t enough

    Deems: Hmm, I’ll let you know how that pans out.

  17. Chris Rawlinson says:
    March 24, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    Hi there all,
    Thanks so so much for the comments and I agree with pretty much everything you guys have said.
    This year was a little tricky as I only got involved in organising the awards about 1 week into them as Miguel (who is a star for doing all the backend complicated stuff) is currently living in the UK and needed help quickly, so since I’m used to organising events and he is a good mate I said I would make a plan.
    We have been trying to fix things as they come up which I know is not ideal but that’s the way I got handed it.
    I really wanted to get SA blogs more into the public’s eyes and ears so that’s why I have pooled all my contacts and got a ton of awesome sponsors and hustled like anything to make this year’s event really fun and stand out. As for the voting system I was aware from the start it needed some correcting so we have already decided next year we will try and redesign the backend to make voting easier (particularly the bit where if you vote again it replaces your previous votes).
    As for the dates I must admit I would guess a ton of peeps don’t read the rules as we had a huge amount of blogs from 09 entered so to me it just made sense to include them in the voting and change that rule so any blog from the 08 awards to the 09 can be included. As I said before just remember this is run by 2 people that have full time jobs and I just hope we are doing a good enough job for all the bloggers out there, it’s something I’m passionate about and have been doing for many years now so would hate to let you guys down.
    If anyone has any advice or wants to help out feel free to drop me a mail at chris@huddlemind.com anytime. Thanks again guys and hope you all come to the awards should be a good laugh and a chance to catch up with a lot of great people.
    All the best,
    Chris Rawlinson

  18. onelargeprawn says:
    March 24, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    @Chris: I think we’re all cognisant of the efforts it must have taken to get the awards organized, so thanks for getting involved. I dealt with Miguel earlier when I pointed out one of the URLs in the “Best Design Blog” section actually pointed to an empty domain.

  19. Deems says:
    March 24, 2009 at 9:37 pm

    @Chris - thanks for commenting again - hope you guys take all the comments in mind for next year’s event. With the number of sponsor’s you’ve managed to get on board this year you’ll have your hands full next year. Hopefully by then you’ll have the nomination process ironed out to make it better, and more fair. Unfortunately, I’ll not be at the awards ceremony - but good luck with it and hope it goes down swell.

  20. Aquila says:
    March 25, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    Cool Chris, thanks again for your comments and efforts.

  22. Aquila says:
    March 26, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    thanks for the plug onelargeprawn

  23. onelargeprawn says:
    March 26, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    No worries. Next year’s awards is going to be awesome. Y’all better vote for me neh?

  24. Aquila says:
    March 26, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    Quid pro quo - I’ll vote for you if you vote for me

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