Blogging Awards
Dan has started a big old debate on the nature of the Blog Awards. Now many of the points he seems to brings up are interesting.
For instance that 2 of the blogs were highly inactive in the time period.
And that many of the people who won are friends or close to the organisers.
Now on the first case I guess he is referring to the Arse End of Ireland and Irish Economy. Both were inactive in the previous for much of the period. But they have good reputations. Indeed I think Arse End should have won last year but didn’t. Likewise Irish Economy personally I think it is possibly among the best commentary the economy in any media.
I think the above and the second question can be answered but thinking about the media. Blogging readership is not an automatic meritocracy. The best blogger in the country could be Suzy or it could be a blog that no one reads. Someone with an awesome ability that writes with a talent equivalent to Yeats could be out there. But if it is not known they are not going to win. There is thousands of blogs out there. But ask anyone and they could probably only name 20. Many blogs are only read by people who know the writers they are totally unknown to the wider world and if they are not known by the people who participe activily in the blogging community they are not likely to be nominated.
See that seems to be the thing, bloggers and blogging community are not interchangable words. Not all bloggers are active in the community, indeed they can be largely ignorant of it. While their work can be brilliant by not being in the community they are unlikely to be in the awards.
And that is the way it is going to be. To actually judge the merits of every single blog in Ireland would be impossible the sheer numbers of words written is impossible to judge. So a large part of it comes down to reputation and what the judges themselves are a fan of. As these judges are likely to come from the community they are going to pick from the same pool.
It is not a controversy, it is not back handed or dodgy, it is simply nature of the beast.
Comments feed
You are correct in saying that you can’t judge the merits of every single blog in the country. However that is why it is an open nomination process to get on the long-long list. I think the problem people have is there is a lack of transparancy on how a blog goes from the long-long list to the long list, to the short list and then to be the winner. There is a feeling that it is run by a small group of bloggers who tend to favour their mates. When it was a small casual event run by Damien that might be ok but now that it is getting more publicity and public profile there needs to be an overhaul on how the awards are run or we will end up with numerous rival “national” awards with groups of bloggers patting themselves on the back.
Good point Colm.
A bit of transparancy would be very welcome.
I don’t really mean to target a minor point, but many of the bloggers out there could easily name (and do follow) more than 20 irish blogs. They tend to be the people that are accused of being in the clique (friends of Mulley) because they go to many of the events and network and get to know people and then continue communicating off the blogs (whether on or off-line). This networking and communications has helped many people and businesses grow because they can turn to others for advice when needed.
As the UK lottery slogan used to run “You’ve got to be in to win”. If you put in time at real-world networking events you become known and communicate in a more friendly manner on-line because you actually know the people. I’ve barely blogged myself last year due to an injury severely limiting the time I could spend on a computer, but I continued going to events. This meant at the awards ceremony I’d guess that at least half the people knew me (or knew of me), even though I may only have posted about 50 times during the entire year.
It’s not just about the blogs, it’s about the people behind the blogs.