Nigerian Blog Awards: from popularity contest to recognition of excellence in blogging

Posted on July 25, 2011 | Good Naija Girl | 25 Comments

Finalists in the 2011 Awards mobilized their families, friends and colleagues, some of of whom were learning for the first time that they had been fraternizing with a blogger(!), to vote for them and this was perfectly within the rules of the Awards. Moving forward, beginning with the 2012 Nigerian Blog Awards, the focus will be on recognizing excellence in blogging, using clearly defined parameters.

However, we don’t want to forget the role that readers play in the community of bloggers: blogs gain popularity and readership because of the huge group of people who read them and support the writers through comments and by forwarding blog addresses or entries to others, whether or not they themselves are bloggers. Because of this, there will always be a component of the Awards that allows the fans to weigh in.

Deciding on the Awards model to use will take some time but the research has already begun. Here are some of the things that are being considered, and the decisions that have been made (where applicable):

Other nomination and voting processes
In the very first entry this year, we mentioned that the process in place for the Future Awards to manage nominations and voting had caught our eye and although we didn’t completely revamp our system, we did make a change that was inspired by The Future Awards: we required people to register their email addresses and check their email for a confirmation code before their nomination or vote or was registered.

Here’s what The Future Awards have on their site about their process:

According to the organisers, voting takes only 50% of the first stage of judging, so winners are not selected by voting popularity – there is a 4-stage judging process involving a Board of Judges and an Independent Audit Committee headed by veteran journalist Dr. Reuben Abati. There is also a two week-period for members of the public to make complaints about any of the nominees to awards Central Working Committee (CWC). Please send complaints to info@thefuturenigeria.com.

It certainly sounds like a rigorous process that can be admired and emulated (at least in part).

Only bloggers participate in the selection of nominees and in the voting?
It was suggested that only bloggers be allowed to participate in the voting process. The rationale for this might be to allow the winners to be chosen by peers, by people who understand what blogging is about. However, because of the role that readers who don’t blog play in the world of blogging, it would not fit with the spirit of the NBAs to prevent non-bloggers from participating. There are a couple of ways that we could accommodate this request though, and they will be presented once they are fleshed out.

Panel of judges for nomination and/or voting process
Having a panel select the nominees, in whole or in part, might be the best way to move the Awards from appearing like a popularity contest. The list of blogs currently listed on the Nigerian Blog Awards website would be divided into categories (to match the categories that Awards will be given in) and the nominated blogs would have to be selected from those blogs (because the panel members would be expected to review all the blogs in the various categories before deciding on the worthiest blogs). An appropriate panel could be determined in a number of ways:

  • We could ask people to apply to be a panel member (if the applicant is a blogger they would have to forfeit the chance to participate in the Awards as a nominee).

  • We could pick people we think would perform the role of panel member appropriately.

  • We could keep the nomination process the same as in previous years and introduce a second level of nominations where a randomly selected subset of all those who nominated a blog participate in a second vote and select the nominees from a list of the top 10 nominees in each category. Alternatively, the panel could be responsible for picking the top five nominees from the 10 nominees who received the most votes.

These are suggestions only, so if you have a suggestion or a comment on this, please leave it in the comments.

Improvements to the voting phase
For the voting phase, the main improvement that can be made is to have the weight of the vote split between panel of judges and the fans. For now, we’d weigh each group’s vote equally.

Mobilization of friends, family, clients, strangers to nominate or vote for your blog, even if they previously have or had no idea you blog, will always be allowed
Those who are uncomfortable with this idea will likely be more comfortable if the choice of the nominees is not also done by the same process. If the nominees are selected by a panel or a group of “experts”, and only part of the vote is based on who can mobilize the most fans, this might be considered a good solution to concerns that were voiced following the 2011 Awards.

Bottom line: For the past two years, the winners of the Nigerian Blog Awards were determined by popular vote. This will be different in 2012, to reflect the shift to recognizing excellence in blogging.

Please chime in with your suggestions and ideas!

Category: Discussion

Comments

25 Responses to “Nigerian Blog Awards: from popularity contest to recognition of excellence in blogging”

  1. afrosays
    July 25th, 2011 @ 1:59 am

    Thank you for listening!

  2. Jaycee (E.A)
    July 25th, 2011 @ 12:27 pm

    "Excellence" is what has been on my heart concerning the awards. It irked me how people mobilized people (friends & family members) who weren't readers of any blog, not even their own blogs. How would they be able to compare between one blog and another, thereby choosing the more excellent one? I support moving the "mobilization" to the 2nd part of the voting process (if it has to be done). I am excited about the shift of the way of thinking concerning the NBA. I applaud you. :)

    My suggestion, however, is not to use a panel of judges (at least not for 2012). I say you let the voters do the judging, because a panel might introduce another level of conflict you might not be able to deal with. I support both bloggers and readers voting, but the readers have to be INVOLVED in the reading process (and not just in the span of the two weeks of the awards).

  3. Rebirth
    July 25th, 2011 @ 12:33 pm

    Sounds good. All the best

  4. nigerianblogawards
    July 25th, 2011 @ 12:43 pm

    :) Thanks for reading!

  5. nigerianblogawards
    July 25th, 2011 @ 12:50 pm

    Thanks for your support and your comments, Jaycee! They will be carefully considered as we sort things out for 2012. :)

    Regarding your suggestion: I can understand your concerns with regard to a panel (to be honest a decision hasn't been made in one direction or another) but I don't think there's an easy way for us to gauge whether a reader has been involved in the reading process for two week or two years. This is because there are some who read blogs diligently but don't comment, so we may not have ever seen their names around.

    Regardless of the method chosen, no process will receive 100% approval, so all we can do is try come up with a process we feel is true to the intent of the Awards and hope that people will support it. If you think of any other improvements that can be made, please feel free to share them…we'd love it!

  6. nigerianblogawards
    July 25th, 2011 @ 12:51 pm

    Thank you kindly…much appreciated! :)

  7. Tebo
    July 25th, 2011 @ 10:09 pm

    Am glad to hear of this improvement. coz I once wrote something relative to this development on my blog! am glad its a good idea.. :) waiting for the 2012 NBAs patiently!

  8. Berry Feisty Pen
    July 26th, 2011 @ 10:16 am

    Ah… I see that you read my blog post. I'm happy to see that you are making strides to improve. It is commedable to say the least .

    I love most of the ideas. Especially the one of the panel. Let me say here that no one route will be without criticism as we are all sorts in the world ;) but I'm sure it'll just keep getting better and better.

    Believe me, the awards are such a good thing because folks now have a whole year to write truly informative and well thought out posts irrespective of the genre because they know they will be judged on 'clearly defined parameters'

    Thanks a lot!

    Read http://www.berryfeistypen.blogspot.com

  9. nigerianblogawards
    July 26th, 2011 @ 11:43 am

    Thanks for your comment and your participation in this conversation! I have to admit I'm looking forward to the 2012 Awards too!

  10. nigerianblogawards
    July 26th, 2011 @ 11:43 am

    Hey thanks for your comments. I hadn't read your blog post but I will go and read it now and I'll either drop comments there or respond here. Thank you!

  11. Ginger
    July 27th, 2011 @ 6:51 am

    Congratulations on the good job you guys did. It's always good to see monitoring and evaluation plans :) for future events. I think you have a solid plan come 2012!

  12. nigerianblogawards
    July 28th, 2011 @ 10:21 am

    Thank you very much!

  13. Inez
    July 30th, 2011 @ 2:56 pm

    Never knew something like this existed until now. And I love it.
    I'll so love to be added to the side list. :-)

  14. Nneka EJ
    August 2nd, 2011 @ 12:13 pm

    Sounds interesting. Never been into blogging but about to start my first one. Hope to be back soon : )

  15. Lisha Yost
    August 13th, 2011 @ 11:40 pm

    This is great. I love that excellence is winning instead of poularity. Sometimes the underdog is just what we need in life. It's always great to see organisations working on improvements. I love you guys! Blogging is one of my hobbies and it would be good to be recognised for all of my hard work, and I'm sure all the other unknown quality bloggers out there feel the same :)

  16. Chukwuemeka
    August 29th, 2011 @ 6:53 pm

    I would like to be added to the bloggers' list please.
    Blog Name : Just Read Onn…..
    Link : http://www.emeka-mba.blogspot.com/

  17. Africa Naturalista
    August 30th, 2011 @ 7:06 am

    Hi, please can you add my new blog to the blog list? So that people can know about it, Thanks
    It is Africanaturalistas.blogspot.com. The blog name is African Naturalistas

    P.S: Do you have pointers on how I can publicize my blog better? Thanks for the help

  18. iyasostuff
    September 5th, 2011 @ 11:03 am

    My blog is http://www.iyasostuff.wordpress.com

    thank you

  19. GoodNaijaGirl
    September 7th, 2011 @ 10:26 pm

    Your blog is listed!

  20. GoodNaijaGirl
    September 7th, 2011 @ 10:26 pm

    Please do–just let us know!

  21. GoodNaijaGirl
    September 7th, 2011 @ 10:27 pm

    Your blog has been added…cheers!

  22. GoodNaijaGirl
    September 7th, 2011 @ 10:29 pm

    Your blog has been listed and I sent an email answering your second question just over a week ago.

  23. GoodNaijaGirl
    September 7th, 2011 @ 10:29 pm

    And your blog is now listed. Take care!

  24. GoodNaijaGirl
    September 7th, 2011 @ 10:31 pm

    Hello…just wondering if you're a Nigerian?

  25. John Onwuegbu
    September 16th, 2011 @ 5:47 pm

    I couldn’t have agreed more with the future awards paradigm. Infact, what transpired in the previous contests, was mass selection of mediocre blogs by people outside the blogosphere, people who never trailed the noble part of developing a content online, let alone understand what best practices in blogging is all about.

    Again, a thumb up for the future awards!