Indiblogger of the month - Voting Procedure Recommendation
I have been going through the stories that are put up for the 'Indiblogger for the month'. There is a lot of awesome writing there. And this got me thinking
I fear that the current voting procedure rarely ensures that the best blog for the competition topic wins. The current procedure, more often than not, will ensure that the most popular blogger wins. My rationale for this is:
1. Everyone plugs their blog among their 'blogger friends'. I did this too. My blogger friends would, by first impulse vote for me because the know me and not because they think I am the best blogger in the competition.
2. Once they vote for me - there is no incentive for them to read any other post. I am convinced that very few people read more than one (or maybe less than a handful) blogs before they vote. BECAUSE THEY CANT VOTE MORE THAN ONCE. What is the point reading more posts once you have voted
3. This would mean than the blogger who has the highest number of friends wins and not the blogger with the best blogpost for the topic of the competition.
My Recommendation
Allow everyone to vote multiple time for multiple blogs. BUT no one can vote for a blog more than once. And ofcourse noone can vote for themselves.
This would ensure than people have some incentive to read a number of blogs and keep voting as they go on... people can come back to indiblogger through all the days of the competition to vote for blogs and spread their reading across a number of days....
I would love to know that you think... and would love to have indiblogger implement this... technology, time and cost permitting of course :-)
Finally I hope this is not seen as a criticism of indiblogger... They have done a brilliant job by giving us a forum... that by itself is a huge benefit for us blogger... I only try to recommend an improvement (and this one can be complete rubbish really) as a forum member...
Reason: Update
hello everyone,
i have not read all the comments completely, so this may be a repeat suggestion. but still what i feel is...
why not make different categories ? like Best look n feel, Best content in words, Best content in visuals, etc.
where bloggers can participate their blogs. so that only active bloggers will be part of this event.
even this will help people to vote in categories of their expertise. this will save blogs from wrong valuation. someone like me will not read the blogs having lots of text, so my vote will not be vote, it will be a guess.
and again, this will help lots of talents to come in limelight, who are not perfect in everything. like a good writer may not be able to keep his blog clean n neat. that doesn't reduce his writing skills.
so, this is it. a basic idea.
just see if it is doable...
regards
PRASAD
Guys, stay tuned - these changes are being tested right now. 2 days is all we need. Blog Gore and everyone else here - you're awesome. Keep the ideas coming! 
I have not been able to read all the comments posted before due to lack of time, but here is my suggestion, in case they are already discussed please ignore.
#1>I don't think there is any need for 5 nomination posts per user, fairly I can judge my post well, so i shd be good enough pick best 2/3 of my posts.Because it would take lot of time to read all the 5 posts of a user and there are so many nominations. And also, it would not be fair for me if i vote for someone just after reading 1-2 posts, so posting 2-3 nominations gurantee fairness to a extent.
#2>Alternatively, some sort of internal scrutiny. Let the user nominate 5 posts, then indiblogger internally review them and publish Top 2(not three because already one round of review has been done by indiblogger itself) posts for public voting.
#3>I could not agree more with the thought that one user shd be allowed to vote multiple times but not on the same blog.
#4>To make the procedure more transparent, why don't we break the 100 into different category and their corresponding marks allotment (e.g. content 30, writing skills 20 etc etc)and publish this break up to the user only along with publishing the cumulative rank to all. This would help me identifying where are my areas of improvement, otherwise I barely know how to improve my ranking...
Thanks,
Instead of altering the voting process , why not have a stage,where a sort of synopsis of each author/ their 'best' work is presented? As in what they are writing about etc. This would make people read more posts and thus they might be able to get a clearer idea...
Ok, thinking aloud here - we get the blogger to submit the best snippets of each post while they give in the nominations. We also get a short description of who they are and why they blog on that subject... and all this goes onto the "stage" right? This makes sense, although the no. people visiting the actual blog will be less... and our mods will have to verify that the synopsis is in fact, a part of the blog post...
Nevertheless I like the idea. Will try and find workarounds to implement this!
Hmmm... Renie... I agree... a snippet can influence... a well written snippet can in fact be better than the post... also... added load for moderators to verify if the snippet is actually relavant... rather... cant the first paragrah / or first few lines of the post appear as a tool tip pop up on mouse over against each post submission... that would take away any subjectivity... also... if possible... the name of the post instead of something like "Post 1" would make the competion entries more reader friendly....
There are a few blog platforms where in a snippet from the post can be used..it can be something like this...when I moved my poems to a new blog (recently) I used this method to inform my readers in my main blog...many do click and al least go through whats written ..yes that should do the trick..what you can do is, have a disclaimer and once the ovting starts , verify for the top blogs, if it not a snippet from their blog, you can disqualify them
I wish someone said Aiyoo... at least for the fun of it!
All right, guys, we'll take a call on this category in a few days... we need time to make the changes to the voting system before we can start the next contest!
Aiyoooooooo.... !
way too much suspense to hold for 5 days !
i have a question for the multiple voting system. Does someone have to cast 5 votes, or can i stop and just 1.
yup its up2 u how many times u vote with maximm being 5..
@Renie.. AYE
@ sonya..jus now commented in u r blog and came here..surprised to see u r comment!! thanks a lot :) Some stories may sound real,but nothing has happened in real though I wish a few of what I wrote do happen atleast in d future 
@Renie -yes Renie I surely did and would follow them too.In the process,I discovered one photo story blog with beautiful photography but no content :)
I know, that was a dilemma... there's were a few lines below each photo, and since the photos were taken by the bloggers, we let it slide...
@Benny -I loved your stories, for a particular genre and style ,you write very well.Since you write in first person,I wonder if they are all real life experiences
K.D.. u u never told wat must be said if one s not in favour of this
so I gotta say "Aye"
ha ha! Oops, forgot that one.. all those NOT in favour say "Aiyoo"
@Renie :Over the weekend,I must have read atleast 50 stories of people from top and bottom on the voting list (I am such a sucker for fiction and poetry) and I must say that I found the best stories either closer to top(if not exactly top) and on some blogs which were at rock bottom with aparently no or fewer votes.
I guess we should not show voting at all after some one votes as some people may get influenced by looking at votes and dont even go and see other entries.Once the contest is over,I would like to share here some awesome,low on the votes blogs, that people must read only for the sheer pleasure of reading good fiction
@Vipul :well,good for you that you managed without loyal friends.I woudln't like to comment beyond that.
I hear you Sonya! Appreciated - at the very least I'm glad you found some good stuff to read.
as i said..
HOWEVER, without naming any1, i blive, this time thr r ppl who deservd the award more.. it might b my prsnl liking or perception.
I could hav written jus tht stff.. as um happy thr r more n more ppl here who agree with me on this thing (the we r not getting a deserving winner) bt hd 2 put up tht explanation b4 it as i myslf got votes without frnds.. as u say good for me..
but evn this time thrs benny who himslf says he was not xpcting so many votes..
So in short we have both +ve nd -ve trends.. of course we must root out the -ve ones.. multiple voting will definitely help to some extnt.
Lets hop it does :)
Guys, for the next contest - we will alow multiple votes. Let's set the cap at 5?
About disclosing the vote count, thanks for bringing this up - as of now, the moment you vote, you can see the number of votes each person has recieved. We did this because we feel that any contest should be transparent... but there are 2 sides to every coin, I guess! Can we take a vote - all those in favour of NOT DISCLOSING the votes until the contest ends, say "Aye!".
Aye
Well friends, I was a runner up in Indiblogger of the month Apr 2009 edition(Social Causes)..
Back thn i was not having many frnds out here, i think not more thn 2.. bt i got 22 votes against winner's 25..
Today, I hav a much larger following, bt cudn't evn cum closer 2 tht figure.. I blive quality of my submissions this time is higher thn b4..
SO IN SHORT THERE MUST BE SOME REASONS BEYOND LOYAL FRIENDS..
HOWEVER, without naming any1, i blive, this time thr r ppl who deservd the award more.. it might b my prsnl liking or perception.
I'm sure this topic is going to get even hotter when Indiblogger crowns this months winner.. 
It s like IF U HAVE MORE FRIENDS HERE, U WIN hands down !!! I reiterate I'm happy ending in the top 5 ranks,as an amateur blogger,but I personally felt there are lots of other blogs which deserved to finsih first! 
Disappointed... N ofcourse congrats to the winner for having such loyal friends!
@ Sonya bravo :)
@ Renie can we block voting trend before its complete . Simply giving message you have voted will be ok.
another typo for english
@Dr. Sinha :well, for someone in minority who has no "followers/friends"on this forum, I believe I have received some votes,i guess we are not really such a minority...and its not really only about winning but also about discovering some good writers.isnt it?
,minority or no minority I am still proud that i chose to submit my hindi stories which are much closer to my heart than my englsh stories.
cheers
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