By now the voting on the 2006 Catholic Blog Awards is over (or is scheduled to be over). I don’t yet know whether I won anything, because I am writing this in advance and am going to be out of town on the day that the voting closes.
I want to thank all who supported the blog in the various categories it was nominated for. I really appreciate your support. This blog is a labor of love for me, and to have people express the value they see in it by voting for it is an incentive to keep going.
I also want to thank CyberCatholics for hosting the awards. I know that they did a LOT of behind the scenes work to get the awards done, and they did it amid very difficult conditions, including major Internet connectivity, bandwidth problems, and data loss in one category. So a big thank you to them as well.
That being said, I think that there were some problems with the way the awards were conducted this year, and these should be addressed in the future.
In particular, there was the vote once per day thing.
The Catholic Blog Awards page explaind that this was "to keep voting fair." How this could serve to keep voting fair is something that I did not understand. So I asked, and I was told that the reason that this was implemented was to allow people who share a single IP address to both vote (e.g., a husband and wife who have a single computer with a cable modem, or the people in an office or school who share the same IP).
Unfortunately, this was not explained on the voting page. It also doesn’t really put married couples, schools, and offices on the same footing as single people, since in the course of the week of voting a single person would have seven theoretical votes to cast, while a married couple, school, or office would have seven votes to split between them.
Since the voting page simply explained thing in terms of one vote per day, the potential positive effect of this was blunted in that it encouraged single people to exercise their extra votes just as much as those sharing an IP.
It also put the nominated bloggers in a really delicate position.
As soon as I learned about this aspect of the voting, I hated it. I realized that some bloggers would take the "Vote early and often" line, which would (a) come across as unseemly to the readers and (b) would give those bloggers an advantage over those who wanted to stick to the "one person, one vote" principle and this (c) could lead to bad blood between the two groups of bloggers, which is the antithesis of what should happen in the Catholic blogging community.
Since I was one of the "one person, one vote" bloggers, I sat back for several days and didn’t mention the possibility of multiple votes.
Until I started losing in the one category I was most interested in (Best Apologetics) because my principal competition in that category started using the "Vote early, vote often" line.
Now, I know some folks have taken the attitude that this is all in fun and these awards don’t mean anything, and that’s a very easy position to take if you aren’t one of the nominees. But if you’ve invested a lot of personal time and effort in building something that people see enough value in to nominate then it does mean something to you. Receiving recognition for all your hard work is important.
That’s not vanity. That’s an expression of an aspect of basic human nature. People need recognition for their efforts. That’s true in marriages and in friendships and in job situations and in blogging. Recognition is incentive to keep going.
This year one of the ways the Catholic blogging community could give recognition to bloggers who have worked hard was through these awards, and there was one category in particular that I have a special interest in because of my profession.
So when I saw the "vote early, vote often" meme looking like it would unbalance the results in that category, I reluctantly decided to point out this aspect of the rules. That way the blogs were put back on an equal footing.
Which is required if the results are to mean anything at all.
Unfortunately, the multiple votes thing of itself diminishes the meaningfulness of the results. It doesn’t deprive them of all meaning because if a blog’s readers are enthusiastic enough to cast multiple votes then that says something about the blog.
But it doesn’t say as much as if the awards had been conducted under the "one person, one vote" principle.
It was thus with great reluctance that I eventually said to myself, "Well, this is the way the rules are this year. I didn’t choose that. I would have opposed it if I had been asked about it. But that’s the way it is, and if these results are to mean anything then the rules need to be pointed out."
I also left my comboxes open in the two posts where I pointed it out, and I took my lumps, as people accused me to my face (virtually speaking) of "vanity" and "egregious self-promotion," and said deliberately cruel things like I "do not deserve" particular awards or that my pointing out the multiple-vote rule and saying mild things like "Please support JimmyAkin.Org" caused them to vote against me.
I noticed other bloggers turning off the comboxes in posts where they pointed to the multiple-vote aspect of the rules, and I can understand why. The kind of reaction I got when I left them on underscores the problem with the multiple-vote rule.
In all this I was trying to do the best I could in a bad situation. I didn’t want to criticize the rule while the voting was still underway since that would serve no purpose (the rule couldn’t be changed once it was announced), but I wanted to thank those who voted for the blog, and I felt y’all deserved a public explanation of where I stand on the multiple-vote rule.
I appreciate the Catholic Blog Awards, but the multiple-vote rule needs to be altered in some way to avoid the problems that were encountered with it this year.
At the same time, I want to reiterate my thanks to those who put on and ran the awards this year. I know that they had a tremendously difficult job, and I want to give them full credit for the efforts they put in.
I’m actually sorry for starting the firestorm. It was unexpected. I *intended* to point this site back in the direction that got me to visit it in the first place by providing “customer” feed-back. That failed miserably.
Congratulations Jimmy! I’m glad JimmyAkin.org did well this year, but I agree with you that the awards process needs to be reformed for next year to make the results more meaningful.
Somehow or other a “One user, one vote” s/b promoted and enforced, even if it’s not possible to totally enforce it — at which point we have to fall back on the honor system, which of course only works at all, to the extent that it does work, if the rules and the principles behind the rules are clearer than they were this year.
Congratulations, Jimmy, for a great year of blogging and here’s to hoping for many more.
Personally, I hope that the Catholic Blog Awards will consider making the awards voted on by judges rather than the general populace (some of whom probably don’t carefully evaluate all of the blogs they vote for anyway).
I know someone who once ran a moderately successful Catholic blog and was frustrated the first year of the awards to see the Big Name Bloggers nominated in multiple categories while the lower-profile blogs such as hers were entirely shut out. It took just as much time and effort and love for her to present a generally well-liked blog to St. Blog’s, only to have it ignored at award time because there was not a Big Name attached to it. She didn’t shut down her blog because she went unrecognized, but the lack of recognition did cut into some of the initiative necessary to maintain a time-consuming project.
Anyway, if there were a way for a “blue-ribbon panel” — perhaps made up of selected winners from previous years? — to be the judges of nominees chosen by the general populace, perhaps that would be a fairer process and perhaps level the playing field somewhat for the less well-known bloggers.
Jimmy,
Well said. Even putting voters on the honor system to vote once and once only would have been an improvement over this year’s mess. I’m less inclined to overlook technical problems that some might be.
Why not solicit someone who can handle the traffic on their web site? Why the variation and duplication in categories? Why cap the nominees at five? If it’s a wide-open vote, just let the nominating process be the determining election. Why not let categories be nominated like blogs are? Why just that one category of Most Bizarre Post and not bothering to post links?–in one case the whole site wasn’t posted until day two. Why not ask voters to identify themselves on their ballot cast?
Lots of room for improvement.
I’m still curious about the nomination numbers. How do they narrow the choice down to 5? Can you keep nominating the same one every day?
Josh put up a forum with a link at the top of the blog awards page for suggestions and ideas precisely like some of these. For instance, I know that the food blog awards use a panel of judges such as Mia suggests.
Head on over there y’all and take advantage of this opportunity to talk face-to-face … so to speak! 🙂
My post “Vanity of vanities: all is vanity!” was meant only in jest.
It looks like JA.O took a few big categories. Congratulations. Glad to see you edge out some of your competitors.
As for the system, it could use some improvement. There are too many categories. Why are there separate categories for “Best Presentation” and “Best Design”? What exactly do “Most Informative [of what?]”, “Most Insightful [do you mean like, um, “best”, since I think it’s pretty much the job of every blog to be insightful] and “Most Theological [don’t you mean “*Best* Theological?”] have to do with anything? Wouldn’t just a single overall “Best Blog Period” category suffice and then give away Gold, Silver and Bronze to spread around the glory a bit? Why the separate Man/Woman categories? And then some obvious categories are missing like “Best Pro-life Warrior Blog [i.e. Dawn Patrol]” and “Best Eastern Catholic Blog”.
Also, the nominees looked like an elite clique of consisting of the same circle of bloggers. If that’s the Catholic blogosphere, then its very small.
And finally the voting system can’t really be cleaned up without some sort of registration system (which would be even worse).
Given the modest nature of the whole endeavor, I’m surprised so many people take these awards so seriously.
Anyways, JimmyAkin.Org is one the best blogs around with or without any awards.
As it is set up, it is (by direct measure) apopularity contest, not a judgment by peers, etc.
Some 15% of the voters though my blog “the most intellectual”. It isn’t. There are many more intellectual blogs than mine (though I’m not sure how one measures that.)
In any event, there should be “open” nominations, if you will, and a published list of judges who make the call. else, really, it’s all just for fun.
I beat you out for “shameless self-promotion.” Several times during the announcements section of the Mass, I asked for votes! Now, my fellow-friars were horrified that I did this and they more or less jokingly accused me of self-promotion. I was humbled for a bit and then realized that my blogsite is about the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ not self-promotion. And I treated the whole thing with a great deal of humor. I even mentioned in these announcements that you and Fr. Kimel deserved the win more than I did, but that I wanted to win anyway!
I would like to see fewer repeated nominations in the categories. And I would like to see some means of enforcing the “one person, one vote” rule.
If these awards help to get more readers on Catholic blogsites, then I am more than happy to lose every year!
Cheers….Fr. Philip
Ed Peters, If Jimmy says you’re blog is intellectual, I’ll believe him. 😉
Thx, hippo, but even jimmy makes mistakes, albeit only once a year or so.
And I thought you were just an egomaniac.
I don’t know if a panel of judges is such a great idea, either.
In an art competition in my neck of the woods, a panel of judges is used, but they have to be careful to keep the whole thing anonymous and secret or two things tend to happen;
1) The judges find themselves suddenly very popular in the weeks before the competition, and…
2) The judges may find themselves very UNpopular in the weeks after the competition.
There are always mutterings of croneyism or politics, regardless of the outcome.
The voting system, even with it’s drawbacks, is probably preferable. Maybe they should change the categories, though, as others have suggested.
“People’s Choice” or “Reader’s Choice”, or some such, rather than “best” or “most”.
Of course, we all know that when it comes to apologetics, Jimmy is the bestest with the mostest.
Jimmy,
I agree the voting system is terribly flawed, and you did a good job of explaining some of the reasons it is flawed and vulnerable to misuse, as well as explaining the reason you pointed the flaw out.
Ok, I’m sorry, but I have to come out against the “one person one vote” principle. That’s a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that the Supreme Court foisted on the country in Baker v. Carr. I wouldn’t object at all to a system that gave voting preferences to certain parts of the population, such as (these are off the top of my head suggestions) St. Blog’s “parishioners,” clergy/religious, students of Catholic universities, etc.
But even if you want one person one vote, allowing multiple votes doesn’t completely wreck that — if everyone gets 7 votes, then the ratio is still the same. As for the problem of people sharing computers, well, I’m not smart enough to know how to solve that. I agree that some of the categories were confusing, but I think the separate categories for men and women are good — it’s hard to compare a guy who posts on mud holes to some of the more feminine-oriented (read: pink) Catholic blogs.
Paul, I agree about the separate categories for men and women. When Jimmy was blogging on the mudholes, I must confess I preferredd to pop over to Happy Catholic to see how she was coming along on her knitting project. I’ll bet not many men did that!
I rather agree with Paul about his “one person, one vote” stance. The way the rules are currently set up they can measure not only the voter’s status as an individual human being, but also his level of devotion to his favorite blog. Someone willing to bother voting seven times just maybe should count more than someone willing to vote only once, at the moment they see the awards announcement, and then never think of it again.
Congrats on your wins, Jimmy.
That’s not vanity. That’s an expression of an aspect of basic human nature. People need recognition for their efforts.
I believe that one of the messages of Genesis 1 is that work is not complete until it is appreciated.
Also, the nominees looked like an elite clique of consisting of the same circle of bloggers.
I’m in an elite clique! I’m in an elite clique!
Do we get jackets or something? Where’s the clubouse where we sip brandy by a roaring fire?
“I say, Shea, which uppity small Catholic blog do we put the boots to today? Ha ha ha!”
*Clink!*
While a few blogs did get a number of nominations, I noticed quite a few blogs that were nowhere near as well-known as those get a few nominations. Mine was one of them. How did that happen? I guess people are just really weird.
But as we all know this is moot for me now, since I’ve become a cat blogger.
Congratulations, Jimmy, and congratulations regulars. 50% of the reason I come here is because of Jimmy’s posts (and Michelle and Tim), 50% is because of those who post comments (it’s almost another blog in itself).
In my opinion, the biggest benefit of the awards is the ballot’s list of links to all of the nominees’ blogs.
I find myself routinely gravitating to the same blogs daily. I’m sure their consistently good content is one reason for this, but I realize that I do this at the expense of searching for new/different/additional sites.
This whole blog thing is still fairly new. I’m sure that as time passes the collection of Catholic blogs will increase. The dangling carrot of CBA’s can be viewed in many ways, but regardless of our opinions, a little healthy competition can only result in consistently improving quality of content.
I didn’t vote because someone asked me to, I based my choice on those sites that have helped develop/deepen my faith.
I second Mason’s comment. I had never even heard of some of the blogs that were listed, and I’m having great fun checking them out.
Jimmy–
Congratulations on your success. I cannot follow all your objections to the voting but I’ve concluded that the problems you point out are pretty much the consequence of female suffrage!
Pax et Bonum,
Chris
Jimmy–
Congratulations on your success. I cannot follow all your objections to the voting but I’ve concluded that the problems you point out are pretty much the consequence of female suffrage!
Pax et Bonum,
Chris
Jimmy:
I go down to defeat before you, O Best Blogging Man, with best wishes for a fine blog. Congrats!
Akin vs. Shea: Battle of the Titans.
I know, cuz I’m the 4th most intellectual blogger out there.
Nick: Thanks. I appreciate the apology. In the future, if you’d like to see more of a particular thing on the blog, just say, “Hey, I like it if you did more on this.” That’ll start less flame wars than “You don’t deserve this anymore.” It’s that whole “catch more flies with honey than vinegar” thing.
BillyHW: Clarification appreciated.
Mia: I’d be disinclined to go with a panel of judges solution. Both for the reasons that Tim J mentions and particularly because the most likely judges (e.g., last year’s winners) would likely be nominated for things, causing a thicket of conflict of interest situations of various kinds.
Chris Check: I’m not going to touch that one.
Mark: Thanks! I was really shocked that I won that category rather than you! It may just be because I was blogging for the full year this time. It was a real squeaker as it was. Congrats on winning best social commentary!
Jimmy,
I just want to say that I think your ‘blog’ ministry is a vital aspect of the new evangelization. The, ‘when two or more are gathered in my name,’ teaching takes on yet a new and wonderful meaning in the blogosphere. Coming here excites me to learn about and share my faith. It may sound a bit corny, but this has become an influential and real part of my faith community. Thanks again Jimmy, and all the other regulars.
In Christ,
Joe
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