Update: Technical problems seem to be solved. You can vote now.
So, the voting for the Best Arab Blogs Awards 2004 opened yesterday.
Subzero Blue is nominated in a number of categories, but will only win if you guys want it to and vote for it.
Here are the categories Subzero Blue is nominated in:
– 2004 Best Arab Blog (English) Vote here
– 2004 Best Tunisian Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Blog Design Vote here
– 2004 Best Everyday Life Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Humour Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Personal Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Photography Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Politics Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Technology Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Music Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Essayist Blog Vote here
– 2004 Best Culture Blog Vote here
Thank you 🙂
Hey MMM,
Tried to vote for you and for Mental Mayhem but the site is facing major technical errors. It is actually frustrating. It is making me question the credibility of this poll!
First of all, thanks because you were going to vote for me too 🙂
And yeah I noticed the errors just after posting this entry.
It’s a shame this had to happen.
As for the poll, well I think there should have been nominations, then a panel of people to choose the finalists in each category and then the voting by the people.
The way it is now, it’s too mixed up. Some blogs are nominated in categories they shouldn’t be in, some other blogs just need some more work to catch up to the level of their competition and stuff like that.
I think the voters should be presented with a choice of 5 finalist blogs in each category that really compete with each other at the same level.
It encourages bloggers to work more on their blogs more, it raises the level of the competition and makes it more credible for everyone.
Natasha, if you doubt the credibility, you can withdraw.
MMM, the award is in it’s first year. The strategy this year is awareness. Remember that this is the first Arab self organized/oriented award.Starting from next year it will be different story.
On the other hand, thank you for the support!!!
There is always room for improvement, but it would have been more efficient to bring to our attention any problem that you faced rather than criticizing in isolation here. A comment or a small email to me or Mahmood could have solved the problem, although there was nothing wrong except for one, just one wrong link.
Natasha, if you doubt the credibility, you can withdraw.
MMM, the award is in it’s first year. The strategy this year is awareness. Remember that this is the first Arab self organized/oriented award.Starting from next year it will be different story.
On the other hand, thank you for the support!!!
There is always room for improvement, but it would have been more efficient to bring to our attention any problem that you faced rather than criticizing in isolation here. A comment or a small email to me or Mahmood could have solved the problem, although there was nothing wrong except for one, just one wrong link.
Hi Haitham,
I really didn’t mean my comment as negative criticism of the awards at all. And I know that this being it’s first year, the most important thing is to raise awareness about blogs and in a way promote the Arab blogs out there.
I understand that and agree with that goal fully and totally support it.
Anyway, what I wrote was my opinion on how blog awards should eventually be done, and how I hope the next BABA’s will be.
It’s a shame there was a minor technical glitch that I and some others experienced, but I wouldn’t judge the awards on that.
I should have emailed you about the glitch, and I was going to, but I don’t know why I felt that you already knew and that it was under control.
Again, I totally support this great effort that you and Mahmood have done.
I think it’s already a great success because of all the Arab blogs it has brought together and helped promote.
Haitham,
Can’t you take criticism lightly. You don’t have to be aggressive! I kept trying to vote but the site was down almost all day today. Why do you take it personally! Geez! and it was not only one link. There were lots of technical issues going on. How can a vote be credible when the voters can’t vote. That was a valid point!
If you want this to work then you should embrace comments, criticism and ideas. And plus there is nothing wrong with discussing BABA On subzero blue’s forum. On the contrary it opens the door for debate.
Lighten up man! You will be much happier!
Just as a word to the wise Haitham, we didn’t note any technical problems until AFTER things got going. Some nominations that we put through personally (vs. having someone not connected with the site do it) did not show up, although they updated and showed in the sidebar. Either something went wrong on the site was rejected for reasons unknown.
But more to the point, the technical glitch we were finding was that the site would not load, giving a server overload error on numerous occasions on the first day. That is something, AGAIN, that was not noted until then.
I would also recommend a different way to record the votes. As it stands now, there is some rule comment that says “one vote per computer.” This says “cookies” to me. I’m not sure but think so. It’d be nice to set it up to be one vote, per category, per day and perhaps implement an anti-robot big of code as well.
All-in-all though, I agree it’s a great idea. But you shouldn’t be so sensitive to criticism if you want to improve. It’s important to establish legitimacy early on to make the results stand and to allow the award to go on and not become a joke. I don’t think encouraging people to withdraw shows a willingness to improve; rather it’s a slap in the face. Why shouldn’t those nominated express concern at problems? I would hope to find an open hand and voice saying “we are working to hard to fix and find any problems, thanks for your concern.”
Best of luck. I hope things can be tightened up.
Only 6% used Monthly Bandwidth Limit. Error log does not show any down time!
Jeff, “we are working too hard to fix and find any problems, thanks for your concern.”
Natasha, I do take criticism lightly, but only when it’s constructive criticism.
You can debate anywhere you like. However we wouldn’t know about it unless someone inform us!
Thank you all!
Update: If you see that the server is down, as I can see it now, you can double check by going to http://alertra.com/ and enter arablogger.com in the check field. If the results is OK (as I see it now), then your ISP route to arablogger server is having problem, not the arablogger server. FYI, there is some big problems in the last two months at least in this part of the world due to some troubles in the fiber cable. Such cases are beyond our control and all what can we do is wait and pray. Thank you for your tolerance!
You know what would be great is if all of your “online superstar community” gets in there and votes for you – you know how obsessive we are about voting!! hahaha!! 🙂 well anyway u deserve it! Inshallah you’ll win them all 🙂 !
Yeah that would be great 🙂
And thanks for your sweet words, they mean more than the award to me 🙂