Since the Diarist Awards thread has morphed, I figured I'd post this seperately. Would anyone be interested in working on Reader's Awards? I would be more than willing to head this, although I would need help. If there's enough interest, I'll start a mailing list and be more than happy to take suggestions. Suzyramble~The Mutterings of A Fool

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Answers

Suzy, before you decide to start over, you should probably look at what was already done. A lot of people put quite a lot of time and thought into the process.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Thanks, Beth. I'm going through the archives now. If thos who were involved before, as well as others think this is a good idea, let me know. I think this is a good idea, and that it can be worked on from what was already decided.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Those, not thos. Do not let me type when I'm tired.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Just FYI, Suzy: if Rachel gets wind of this, she'll probably come knocking on your inbox and try to "take it back" - in which case, please do tell her to get stuffed and do it your own way.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Count me in for help, Suzy. I think it's a great idea. I am eligible to vote in the diarist awards now, but I definitely think the readers should get a chance to have their voices heard.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

While I think readers' awards are a fine idea, I can think of one practical reason these particular awards require a URL of the voters: because this way the talliers know that the voters have some stake in the thisisnotacommunity. If a reader didn't have a page, or even if she had a page that happened not to mention her devotion to OLJs, then how do you know that a vote is coming from a steady reader like Joy Rothke or Lizzie Crow or from some uninvolved interloping passerby? This is not a rhetorical question: how *would* you know? It should matter that the voters really be readers and not pranksters. But then there'd be the problem of how many journals one has to read and know to be a *qualified* reader.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I'd be up for a reader's award thing if I didn't think it would result in the sort of shitfight currently going on under another topic at this forum

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

I don't know how you would verify readership. But if you used a form page, it could send off an email to the submitter's email, and if it bounces, don't count it.

I have a least a dozen (or more) different email addresses, so in theory, I could do multiple submissions, but if the form page had a subject box where the submitter would need to write a short paragraph why he was selecting a person (in 15-50 words, for instance) it would be fairly tiresome, to keep coming up with different submissions in order to look like it was coming from multiple people.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

Oh yeah, maybe keep the tally of votes secret until the selection.

If someone saw they were close to winning, it might turn into a recruiting process to get more votes.

(I didn't look through those archives, so I don't know what they had in mind or already accomplished.)

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

One more clarification: The idea of writing a short paragraph is sort of like what I remember as Cereal Box contests. In those cases, writing 25 words or less as to why you like Cheerios, merely qualifies as a single vote. The words themselves aren't meant to carry import towards selecting one person, in as much as they would help prevent fraud from multiple voting. (because of the uniqueness of each entry)

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

I went through all the archives from the egroups list, as well as checking out the pages that are set up for it already. A lot of things have been decided, just a few things to resolve. I just emailed Ryan for his thoughts, before I go any further with this. If he has no problems with still hosting it on diarist.net, and I can get the help I need, It's a go. So anyone who wants to help let me know. My main email is tonyandsuzy@erols.com or suzy@cyberbabies.com.

Suzyramble~The Mutterings of A Fool

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

I like the idea of requiring a email address and a short paragraph, that way we would only get votes from those who were willing to take the time, instead of 'passerbys'. The final requirements could be decided though, after I find out if this is still a go with diarist.net. I don't have my own domain, so I couldn't host the pages. So now it's a waiting game.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

Well, with the Diarist awards, there's no way to know if people are really reading, or just voting for the ones they've heard are good or something. Over in the other topic people have posted how hard it is to read new journals long enough to get a feel for their quality, and how they think a lot of people just read a couple and vote for those.

It's hard for me to imagine people stuffing the ballot box as a prank, but anything's possible I know.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

http://aurora.accelnet.net/cartoon.gif

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

I think this is an excellent idea. More of a genuine appreciation, and hopefully less talk of who's friends with who.

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

I believe I'm still on the mailing list ... or maybe I did unsubscribe? Either way, this idea appears to be dead in the water again. Haven't heard a thing.

If someone actually is working on this, could you please give us a progress report?

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

(Yep. I'm still subsribed. No activity since January.)

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000