by Tom Armstrong; Blogmandu reporter &
Blogisattva Awards administrator
Blogisattva Awards administrator
Those of you who have been reading this blog digest and Buddhist blogs in the past month may be aware there have been many many posts and comment-thread conversations about the Blogisattva Awards -- whose first iteration of nominees and winners was presented in posts here at this blogsite.
Reaction has been varied. Very much of it has been heartfelt. [Bloggers have expressed happiness, surprise, humility at being nominated or winning one of the awards and their readers have expressed pleasure and support.] Other reactions were mixed. [“how odd... but nice”] ; Some reacted mostly negatively [not wanting their blog included in a contest or this contest; finding the whole thing “ironic and ridiculous” or a “fairly empty exercise”; or suggesting there were ego-inflating motivations at work in the creation of the awards.]
The questions this post means to address are What has it meant in the end? as one commenter asked. And …What now? Will there be awards next year?
I think that, at minimum, the experiment of Buddhist blog awards should continue. There has been plentiful positive feedback to drive the project forward. Problems should be addressed and the awards should be more authoritative [a repeated complaint], the product of a gathering of wisdom rather than just my best assessments. Those dispensing the honors and those honored or not honored can be aided in their awareness of the problematic nature of the exercise as a whole and the inexactitude of picking and choosing. That is, rules and wording can be helpful at making people aware of the limitedness of the significance of the awards and that terrific stuff, likely some of the very, very best, was not honored because the process cannot help but be imperfect. Other rules can be written and practices put in place that mitigate the hurt that some feel when they are neglected and others are honored. Truly, we should be able to find our way to feeling genuine delight for the recognition bestowed upon others, especially when it is intended, as these blog awards are, to increase the interconnectivity between all blogs and readers of blogs – thus, to benefit everybody.
Because the number of Buddhist-blog posts is already a great many daily, and the rate of growth in our corner of the blogosphere is expected to continue to explode, a program of awards giving is immediately met with a challenging first task: figuring out a strategy for staying abreast of the engorged and fast-feeding gallivanting hydra-headed beast that is the strange and liberty-loving Buddhoblogasaurus.
There is no time to tarry! New blogs are now being born; great posts are now being written. The awesome posts that are being put up now, so early in this year, must be remembered later since the intention, truly, is to make the best, fairest, most-objective possible assessment of the Buddhoblog year.
Here is the plan for the 2007 Awards honoring achievement during calendar year 2006:
I will handle the administrative task for the year, up to the point of juries being selected to parse lists for the selection of final nominees and award recipients.I would like it if the Awards can find a nice home as a part of my relinguishing my grasp on this program. Sean, who operates blangha.com, has expressed interest after being approached to possibly host the awards. Jeb, who is wrapping up operations on his blog Wonderings on the Way, is also open to possibly hosting the awards on his new project BuddhistVillage.net. A third option is to simply open a new free blog through Blogger or another service that future administrators of the Awards can operate.
All blogs that are touched by Buddhism are eligible. No blog that is made available to the worldwide web of readers may opt out of inclusion in the awards process by decision of its author/blogger.
I will create growing Long Lists of potential nominees in each of the awards categories during the year. Other people will participate in adding blogs/names to
these Long Lists.
As we go along, we will try to define, in writing, what constitutes excellence as a means of better spotting this ephemeral thing, excellence, in potential nominees in each category.
In order to know what potential nominees to keep an eye out for, I am naming the awards categories for next year now and suggesting other changes:
All categories from the 2006 Awards will go forward except Best Celebrity-Writer Blog which will be discontinued.
Design: The ten best designed blogs will be divided between its two categories: Best Achievement in Clean, Straightforward, Unaffected Design and Best Achievement in Wonderful, Remarkable, Elegant Design. Nominees for the 2006 Award will be ineligible for the 2007 Award unless the design of the blog has been significantly changed at yearend.
In is the current intention to change the number of final nominees in three of the categories. In the 2006 Awards, there were five nominees in each of the fourteen categories. For the 2007 Awards I think it would be better to have just three final nominees for Best Niche Blog, Unusual-Function Blog or Blog Service; seven nominees for Blog of the Year, Svaha!; and ten final nominees for Blog Post of the Year. The other ten categories should continue to have five final nominees.
I think the name of the awards is likely to change. As much as I personally like the silly name Blogisattva, it suggests the awards are narrowly for mahajana Buddhism blogs [since the term is an obvious play on Bodhisattva], but, truly, all English-language Buddhism blogs are intented to be included.
