Thursday, March 15, 2007

Can the JIBs be about quality? (A Proposal)

The JIBS, as currently conceived, are a popularity contest. Bloggers nominate themselves and each other, then prod and provoke each other into voting. In a good year, we get name-calling, sanctimony, allegations of fraud, and long flame wars, too. All of this is great fun, and eagerly anticipated. I commend the new JIB committee for keeping alive these valued J-blogosphere traditions.

Yesterday, I attempted to argue that, in addition to all this, the JIBs can reward quality, too. Over the last 24 hours I've hammered out some of the details. What follows, then, is a brief proposal for adding a quality segment to the JIBs.

Contest
The award will recognize posts only. Not blogs. Posts.

Categories
The judges will decide upon the categories of posts that will be recognized. Other than "Post of the Year," the categories can (and should) change from year to year, based on the judges' own interests and the amount of time they are willing to devote to the project.

Judges
Any blogger who receives more than 5000 verified page views per week can volunteer to serve as a judge. At least three judges are needed, but the more the merrier. Judges, needless to say, may not participate in the contest. I am suggesting that big bloggers serve as judges, not because big bloggers have any special skills or talents, but because they (a) stand to gain the least from a contest like this; and (b) have the ability to properly reward deserving posts, as you will see below.

Nominating process:
Bloggers must nominate their own work, and the rule will be one post per blog per category. If you don't want to play, don't nominate yourself.

Judging process:
The judges will create a Google spreadsheet, listing all of the nominated posts by category. Over a period of days or weeks the judges will score the nominated posts as follows:
0 = this post is bad and should not win
1 = this post is good, but should not win
2 = This post is good and I'd be ok if it won
3 = this post should win (each judge may award only one 3 per category)

After the winners have been announced, the spreadsheet, with the scores, will be made public.

Prize
Along with a JIB badge, the winning posts will be announced one per day over several days on the blogs belonging to the judges. This will gives the winners the two things every high quality post deserves: links and traffic (Remember the judges are all in the 5000-page view per week category)

Next step:
I'm in. Who's with me?

Note: I'm not suggesting the JIbs be replaced nor am I attempting to impugn them in any way. The JIBs serve an important purpose, and should be continued. This post is a proposal for something new, something that can coexist quite happily with the JIBs.

1 comment:

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