Third Annual Blog Award Schedule

The Schedule for the Third Annual UU Blog Awards will be as follows:

• January 10th Announce Categories
• Nominations from January 15th through the 19th
• Post Nominations and finalize nominees
  
• Voting from January 29th through February 2nd
• Winners finalized and posted
  

So, today (in a little while) I will post the categories based on prior suggestions. These will be the final categories heading into nominations on the 15th.

Nominations - last year I was thinking the 5 most nominated would be good for the vote off, but then we had only a few with multiple nominations and a lot with one so it didn't seem a good way to try and determine the final nominations. So my plan for this year is to post the nominations and ask for input on finalizing the nominees. So, for example if a particular blogger gets a bunch of nominations in a single category it can be reduced to one entry (no splitting your own votes), or ones can be removed, since they are not actually appropriate to the category they were nominated in.

Voting - once the nominees have been finalized everyone following the process should have also had a full week to read up on entries they missed. The vote tallies roll in and soon we have our winners.

Winners - last year I think I took down the voting tally display right at the end. i took some time at the last minute to validate that no "fishy" activity occurred then posted the final results.

So folks, that the plan. Shout outs from folks interested/excited that this is happening would be appreciated (in other words comment with a "Woot!").

Blog Awards

So, I am assuming, and hoping there is interest in running the UU blog awards this year? I took a quick look at some other blog awards and found that different groups had very different ways of running their awards. So, I couldn't really figure out a "best of practice" for running the awards.

One thing I did like is the idea of having a panel of judges. Last year I made some decisions and basically said things like "So... since an individual blog was nominated for best 'Group Blog' anyone mind if I simply throw out the nomination?". Having gotten no objections I proceeded with my best guess. A group of people deciding seems more appropriate.

One thing I would like to get some feedback on prior to any nominations is what people think of various categories.

Last years Awards:

• Best Religious Writing or Theological Commentary - Single entry
• Best Religious Writing or Theological Commentary - Best of class
• Best Review or Cultural Commentary
• Best Anecdote or Narrative - Single entry
• Best Anecdote or Narrative - Best of class
• Best Design or Use of Visuals
• Best Links
• Best Writing
• Best Online Community or Group Blog
• Best Non-UU-Themed Blog
• Best UU-Themed Blog

Other suggested categories include:

• Foreign language (though it would be hard to judge).
• Best new blog?
• Best political commentary?
• Best minister blog?
• Best lay blog?
  

One of the reasons I was thinking a panel of judges might be useful is to help with some suggested changes. For example CC suggested that it might be nice for a blogger to not have 5 different choices in a category for best post. So perhaps the blogger, or the panel, etc. could pick one nomination. Someone also suggested the number of nominations per category to limit the amount of material to read. We could do this based on number of nominations, but that would almost seem to be a "pre vote" making the final votes a run off. But maybe that's the idea.

Suggestions? Volunteers? Comments? Opinions?

Anyone care to right up a description of the Blog Categories?

2006 Top Sites

Happy New year everybody. Year end seems like a good time to put together another "top X" list. So, this time I decided to pull the top 50. And here they are:

1. The ChaliceBlog


2. PeaceBang


3. Boy in the Bands: Scott Wells on the practice of Christian faith


4. Philocrites


5. A Minister's Musings


6. Yet Another Unitarian Universalist


7. A Spiritual Walk Together


8. The Happy Feminist


9. Making Chutney


10. PeaceBang's Beauty Tips For Ministers


11. The Journey


12. Media Nation


13. it's all one thing


14. CUUMBAYA


15. Shadow of Diogenes


16. Authentic Threads


17. Errant Frogs


18. The Wild Hunt


19. ministrare


20. RadicalHapa is Joseph Santos-Lyons


21. Live from UU PLANET


22. Sisyphus


23. Jess's Journal


24. Paul Wilczynski's Observations


25. Sexuality and Religion: What's the Connection?


26. Never Say Never To Your Traveling Self


27. Elizabeth's Little Blog


28. Ms. Kitty's Saloon and Road Show


29. iMinister


30. BiddiesInMyBrain


31. Trivium


32. debitage


33. Unitarian Panentheist


34. Returning . . .


35. Red State Rebels


36. Spirituality and Sunflowers


37. Reignite


38. Unity


39. BiddiesInMyBrain


40. Finding My UU Soul


41. the Socinian


42. Renewed Hope


43. Reflections


44. Root and Source


45. the yes church


46. UU Carnival


47. The UU Enforcer


48. The Ranting Rev


49. Birthing Journey


50. FUUSE

Some blog name changes and other factors might have moved the standings around a bit, for example if your blog name changed from "Arbitrary Name" to "arbitraryname.com" then the links over to your blog would have been split between 2 "different blogs". Also, this is a total over the year. if your blog is new then it is unlikely to reach the top.

How many people clicked through? Well for the folks at the top spots I sent over 2,000 "Unique Views" (as defined by Google Analytics) to each of those sites. For the sites at the low end it's a few hundred, and somewhere in between for everyone else.

Again, happy new year, and start thinking of those Blog Award nominations!

Holiday Song

If, like others, you are looking for something fun and singable at a holiday celebration (yeah I know I am probably way too late on this, maybe next year) then I would recommend checking out Where is the light? by Peter Mayer. If my 3 year old can start singing "The light's inside of me" the day after hearing it for the first time then it seems to be a catchy and easy to remember tune. The five year old loves it as well. We had to play it 3 times in a row on the way home from rehearsing for the holiday play. It was wonderful.

Oh, I always thought that the phrase "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me." had to be Urban Legend. And I do see it referenced at snopes. I thought who could possibly not realize what they consider "normal" is actually a translation? After reading the UU Enforcer calling the German version of "Stille Nacht" the messed up version I guess people can be that silly.

Oh well, whatever you sing I hope you sing it with joy in your heart. Happy Holidays everybody!

Disappointed with Gmail

In general I have really been enjoying Gmail, but recently something has happened which really annoys me. Gmail has tagged some e-mails sent from UUpdates as spam. And, of course, they were not. I think a quick search has revealed the messages and now i am working my way through them. If you sent something along feel free to resend, but hopefully i will be responding shortly. If you do not see a response shortly please do send me a note again.

I don't see an option in Gmail to run a filter that says "if the message matches this criteria then under no circumstances put it in the spam filter". Anyone know how this can be done?