We are making it even prettier as we speak
As you probably know by now (I hope you do), The Anime Blog Awards have started. However, I do not think that you want to read the same brief information that is spread by the other anime blogs that have released news about this. I hope that you will spread this article around, and convince people that this is not just another case of a “popularity contest” but an attempt to celebrate the good blogs through peer review. Below are some of the comments left about problems of the ABA, and how I attempt to answer them.
I hope that no one is offended by quoting them in my entry. It’s merely for illustration purposes. In addition, if you didn’t know, the ABC’s Owen’s dorama is all a joke. However, due to the joke, we have discovered a very important thing about our beautiful tsun tsun princess. Owen might be out-spoken and mean, but SHE does not mistreat women.
With that serious off-topic out of the way, let’s resume normal service.
Why advertise this on your blog?
Well, I can understand why the voters are limited to bloggers, because otherwise blogs like Random Curiosity would just take away every prize imaginable. It’s indeed a bit elitist, but most readers just keep to one or two blogs, and it would just turn into a strange popularity-contest. Jeff does have a point, though, as posting on your blog does seem a bit strange of an advertisement.
– From Psgels commenting in Animenano forums
My answer: Reader involvement will come at the stage of voting. We have a blogger’s choice awards where bloggers vote first. We have the reader’s choice where the public will vote too. Hence, there is involvement, just not now. The whole intention of spreading the news is to remind everyone about this, to churn out some interest. It’s going to be hard to gather any anticipation by readers if everyone posts at the same time. So, I do hope that all of you give it some chance or awareness by posting about this awards. We will also be posting up information about this reader’s choice soon.
The nominations are done by bloggers because we do not want an extreme case of popularity where we have a very limited number of blogs in for nominations. There’s a much higher chance that public nominations will result in an overly skewed distribution of popular blogs being nominated than it is already.
I am not interested and do not care!
After visiting the site, and sifting through the list of participants, I’ve noted that not a single animeblogger from the Philippines is participating. Well that’s kind of an odd one, since I’ve seen glances of anime fans waiting for their passion for the hobby to unfold. Oh well, at least it’s certain that I won’t be in, as you know.
– From Ronin in Picture Perfect Paranoia
My answer:If everyone gives a nonchalant behavior because “I ain’t gonna win”, “I don’t care” and “Awards are popularity contests”, “I am too popular for this award!”, the awards will not work. That might be a reason why everyone has been deterred from trying to make an awards. The truth is that this award not only celebrates the good blogs, and also through many of its design, promote new and good blogs. As nominations can be changed, your nomination at a good blog might change the landscape of another new blog. It’s not just a popularity contest or something that deliberately creates dorama. The structure attempts to limit it, if you think about it carefully.
These organizers are not credible!
What disturbs me about the nominations:
1. I never heard of 90% of the nominated blogs, and 95% of the participating blogs.
2. Riuva was nominated in almost every category. Bah!
3. I have no idea who’s doing this and what their credentials are to be doing such a thing. And they don’t tell you.
4. I can find no entries before 3/18/08 at this site; in fact, their registgration didn’t exist before then
5. The message: “We need money. Badly. 
Donate Now.”
I think I’ll be steering clear of this…
– Ubu roi commenting in Kawaii Menace
My answer: We are not a shadow group since it’s decently obvious who is in this. We are not trying very hard to be secret. It’s just that we do not want to put bias on anyone on nomination. For e.g. “Oh shi-, Impz is organizing this, so we should put that anime blog in one of the nominations if not he might be meh.”. I want to avoid the situation and reveal the committee after everything is over officially. However, we have revealed it on the front page of the website due to various concerns about transparency and how we are doing it to up our pagerank.
Exploration is the key. We hope that the awards will allow participants to be exposed to other anime blogs in existence. On diversity issues, it’s impossible to control the nominations. We cannot say something like “you cannot vote popular blogs, you must hate them and vote for only indie blogs”. There is a reason for blogs’ popularity in general, and that is good content after getting initial traffic from other blogs’ hyperlinks. Blogs are popular because they are good at marketing themselves coupled with great content.
This idea behind the project has been floating around for at least 9 months. It is the first time that anything has been created for the anime blogs, and I welcome you to join. If no one bothers about the community (like how 90% of all anime bloggers cannot care less), someone else has to pick up the slack. Our aim in this project is to expose anime bloggers to others in order to know more. We wish for new bloggers to have some chance to promote themselves, the older bloggers to update themselves and the good bloggers to gain recognition. It will not be possible if everyone are just happy within themselves, dismissing it without giving it a chance to survive.
This is just a popularity contest
Most awards nowadays like these are made of popularity contests and nothing else. Firm decision you made, one I commend.
– Panther commenting in Furu Anime Panikku
My answer: Well, it depends. There’s always an element of popularity in awards, but We try our best in this event to promote new blogs as well. Quite a few functions on the site facilitate new blogs, and we are intending to create a “Sundance” version (for less popular blogs) to celebrate the blogs that deserve more attention. If anyone’s excuse is that someone is not inside which is why this anime blog awards is in shitstorm, I have four words to offer. Less talk, more action.
We are going to have the Indie version (for newer blogs) after this in the near future. Requirements will be set in a way (it’s in the preliminary stage) that popular blogs cannot be voted. That will give anime bloggers two award ceremonies to look forward to in a year. This, I believe, will make it worthwhile for everyone. It’s in our long term plans if it works well and we have many anime bloggers involved in this endeavor.
You said you want to include small blogs!
What we’ll probably see, however, is a skew towards the popular blogs anyway with the “top 5″ rule. Is there a better way to include smaller blogs? Probably. Do I know of one? No. But this is the kind of thing you could’ve discussed in an open forum instead of keeping things closed to your small group so that it would at least seem more “fair” when the rules have finally been announced.
– From Hung commenting in Animenano forums
My answer: The intention to get the newer blogs is part of the plan, but we cannot start off with the “Sundance” version because we want to get everyone involved in this thing first. Without any recognition or precedent, no one will be that involved. We need to run through it once to show some form of credibility, or whether we can do that.
Stop spamming!
This morning I received an email from those guys doing the awards. To their credit it was directly addressed to me, by name, even though the body of the email was obviously a canned message. Did you receive such a thing? I’m wondering how widely they cast their spam net.
– Steven Den Beste commenting in Kawaii Menace
My answer: Yes, I(Impz, you can do a google search on anime blog to find out who I am) emailed all of you. I made the effort to go to each blog personally. I didn’t do any special crawling/spamming methods. I make the effort to find each blog one by one, trying to find social isolates that are not linked well by other anime blogs. Every single email is addressed by the blogger’s name and it really frustrates me when people do not have a contact page/form. I am trying hard to reach every one of you to make sure that it’s a community effort. It will not go down as just some concentrated circle-jerk congregation of anime bloggers where everyone knows each other. I want to reach out to everyone, even if I don’t read your blog.
It’s just an attempt to circle jerk
It is indeed easy to see the whole thing as a circle wank of the top-level bloggers because it’s obvious that the popular blogs will win the category they’re in. This causes some people to start automatically building a massive inferiority complex which results in behavior somewhat like your average tsundere-girl; claiming hard not to care or give two shits about the whole thing, but still being obviously interested.
– NovaJinx in Jinx!
NovaJinx’s answer (not mine, because he gave a perfect answer): As for my opinion on Anime Blog Awards as a small scale blogger, I do understand that for the most part it’s an already set game. However, even though there is no way I can get anywhere close to winning in the categories Jinx! is in (big thanks to Bitten for the nomination), the ABA is a precious opportunity for me to market my blog. Impz, the sort of main man behind the ABA, hardly has expressed this too many times and I very much agree with him. The function of the ABA is not only to recognize the obvious top-level blogs but to help smaller blogs to get some publicity.
The committee are just super friends!
If you don’t mind I would like to know who else is among this ABC (I’m guessing I could just check the Anime Blog Awards as I think that is the group of Superfriends that I noticed seem to be supporting and voting for each other in the rather laughable competition that just screams trouble ahead) and if possible just a touch more about it because this might change my perspective a little bit.
– Kaioshin_sama in When Anime Past meets Present
My answer: My choices are the committee members are to complement my skills. Mellow_bunny and Akai are recruited for their great technical expertise. Owen S is perhaps one of the most brutally honest people I have met, and will be a good enforcer against stupidity. In addition, he is decently famous in the anime blogosphere. TheBigN is calm and collected, able to pick up the pieces after a major argument between Me and Owen (which happens very darn often). In addition, he provides a different view point and not that well defined compared to me and Owen S. I hope that clarifies why I choose the committee members this way.
Conclusion
Using the kind words from TinyRedman, Anime Princess, Batezi and Sea Slugs, I hope that the above “FAQ” will shed more light on the awards. I personally hope that heavyweights such as Memento, Jason Miao, Random Curiosity, DarkMirage, Lolitron, The Anime Blog and Moetron will join in the nominations. I do not want to exclude anyone, be it newbies or popular blogs alike. Without the heavyweight of our blogosphere to support this, this just feels somewhat empty and sad. I do not want any blog to be completely isolated within their own community. This is a community-driven awards ceremony for ALL BLOGS. It is up to you, the community, to work it out.
I also hope nice bloggers such as Jeff, Hinano and others who sometimes visit my humble blog will have fun with this award too, since the voting style minimizes the popular/whining element that plagues other awards such as SaiMoe and SaiGar (who died prematurely). Animeblogger.net bloggers should also participate too, considering how Maestro is attempting to make ab.net a community. There will always be dorama and people who hate awards, but I hope no one will be deterred simply because you dismiss it without giving it a chance to survive. Do not forget too about the reason why we all started blogging. It’s because it is fun and created for you, the anime blogger. Fun is the name of the game for this award.
It’s only fun if you, the anime blogger, is there to bear the witness.
22 Comments
*APPLAUDS*
Well said, Impz.
Some of these responses to the whole ABA thing are so ridiculous… /facepalm
Thanks for posting this. It’s way too easy to hate and miss the forest for the trees. Just being nominated could drive new readers and fans to a site.
You could run a newbie contest that immediately disqualifies any blog that was nominated in this first ABA.
I think you’ve done a great job addressing the complaints. And if there are more complaints, it’s good to voice them so we can deal with it.
@Icystorm: It’s part and parcel of the “game”. I am getting used to somewhat incoherent complaints by many. Nonetheless, it is my personal crusade that people understand what I am trying to do. The only person that I will not be able to convince will be those who think “setting up arbitrary rankings on blogs is a bad thing”. A legitimate personal preference.
@Kabitizin: We are going to run it in a few months time. In that case, it allows some spread and more anticipation. That can be one of the criteria. It will be interesting. I think we can actually disqualify any blog who is in any of the “normal categories” who are nominated in the top 5. That will give everyone else a better chance. ^^
I, for one, think it’s an excellent idea. I’ve nominated a number of blogs small and large, new and old, and am looking forward to the results.
I’m too lazy to help Impz. -10 brownie pts.
But I redid your website. +20 brownie pts.
Woot!
In all seriousness, it’s a great idea in my opinion, and it can really only have a positive effect on the community. The main goal here isn’t to say “yes! my e-peen is the biggest”, but to utilize this as a way to promote traffic to all of our websites, and connect the anime blogging community. And you’re right, it’s the bigger blogs that are going to be nominated first, but that gets the traffic flowing into the awards so that when other blogs get nominated/win there’s actual traffic there to make a difference.
Personally, I don’t want to get nominated/win. I’d much rather be able to discover a couple of blogging gems that I’ve overlooked…given time, I know that’s where this will lead.
Mmmm it’s not like you couldn’t see the drama coming, it should not come as a huge surprise. You are asking people to rank others in the anonymous world of the internet, goes with the territory.
Impz well since you kindly asked I registered and nominated a few people.
Although I personally feel some blogs fall into more than 1 category forcing people to put them into some categories and not others and killing any chance they have of getting into 1 single category. One example is uh me lol. But yea I don’t care about the awards, my blog would fall into most use of niconico memes anyway which isn’t an actual category. xD
Is it supposed to be an April Fool’s Day joke that every category is BEST NEWS?
Just a suggestion, why don’t you guys come up with a few banners/buttons so others can put it up on their blog to promote the awards?
Think that would help spread the word better.
I’m playing the world’s smallest violin for you.
@Gia: Thanks! After all the rejections, hatred, flaming and trolling of the ABA by a few bloggers, it is refreshing to hear someone liking it for once.
@Rieuzedx: Calling me a nervous wreck = -100 points. You said what I would say to everyone. ^^
@Calawain: That, i expected. I know that dorama is part of the game in terms of having awards. There will be dissenters, there will be haters, there will be people who do not like it just for the sake of looking superior (?). Whatever, that’s not the true purpose. There’s part of it for certain, without denying it.
@Hinano: Ya, the categories are perhaps hard. The thing is that many bloggers have a fusion style that makes it hard for categories to be created. I think that it will be hard to break it down too much. As much as I wish to do so, it is rather limited. I am sure you understand.
@Jpmeyer: More like we haven’t finished the banners. X_X
@Nekonron: it’s on the works. We are forcing the bunny to do some banners. ^^
@Acta: And I will be sining Auld Lang Syne along with it.
Well I voted for some, but I still am doubtful this will turn out as anything other than a popularity contest where the big guys just shove everyone else out of the way to their prize.
By the way, in case people hadn’t guessed yet, That Final Decision Post and the one following it…….yep you got it. Outgoing Blog links will be back by the morrow hopefully.
Kaioshin_Sama: I hope not, and I think Impz, myself and the rest of the committee will do their damnedest to keep that from happening. :3
The problem with an awards like this is that if you do it by voting, then people complain that it will become a popularity contest because the most popular blogs will win (though one can bring up the fact that they may be the most popular BECAUSE they’re good).
Meanwhile, if you close down the circle of people who can vote so that it’s only a vote by a committee of the chosen and wise few bloggers who then objectively select the best blogs, people will complain that the selection process is closed and not transparent. So either way people find something to complain about.
Does a contest like this put smaller and/or less visited blogs at a disadvantage – yes, because they just aren’t visited that much. People are going to nominate the blogs they visit, which means the blogs which get the most traffic are probably going to get the most nominations and thus get nominated as one of the top 5 blogs.
I’m not sure what one can do about that without doing the “Sundance” version like Impz plans to do or somehow doing a 3-tiered process (bloggers nominate blogs like they are now, bloggers vote on [or even rate on a 1 to 10 scale] the list of blogger nominated blogs, and the 5 top vote getters in blogger vote get put up for a public vote), but that makes the process even harder, more complicated, and more confusing.
Overall, I think they have a pretty good process in place, especially given that this is the first time they’re trying to pull this off.
I just went and participated in all the categories I felt marginally qualified to vote in. Still pretty small-time here, so I don’t really know anybody. ^^; Hoping to expand my digest soon, and sorry for taking so long to get around to this.
Nagato – gah! I was clicking all over your site trying to figure out what was going on. Then I tried to figure out why your entire site was made of images… Then I remembered what today is… -_-
Hehe, let me guess – you posted here because you couldn’t get to my site?
Hint: Try scrolling to the bottom of the page ;D
First of all, I want to apologize for not blogging about this earlier.
Second of all, I want to say that this is a great idea. And that’s not just because I’m sucking up, but I really do think it’s a good idea. I mean really who cares who wins? In the end, someone will have to win. And yeah, it might be a popularity contest, but it might not be one either. Does that really matter?
What’s important is that we can have a voice. We can highlight blogs that we think deserve attention. We can explore blogs that we might not know about (I hadn’t even read Borderline Hikkomori until I came across it on the page, and I’m trying to find a category to put baka-raptor into).
In fact, I think it’s kind of neat (and strange) that I’ve been nominated alongside the likes of tj_han and bateszi and omo and Martin and all the others whose work I really admire.
Honestly, I would like to see that Sundance thing too. To be fair, yeah the system might have problems. But ANY system has problems. Trust me, I used to run a review club for fiction. If there’s anything I learned from that experience is that there’s no such thing as a perfect system.
But I do think that this is the best system that we could hope for. And that’s really enough, isn’t it?
@Josh and Caermon: You spoke my mind. I know that it is easy to accuse the awards because truth be said, there are inherent flaws. Moreover, some of the categories might need some tweaking (we probably need a Best “Anime impressions blog” to fit in people like hinano and the likes who do not do summaries, but have thoughts on anime episodes. We also need a Best industry blog, which is something we often neglect.
Nonetheless, I have seen most of the arguments complaining how this will cause dorama and refusing to be part of it. That, to me, is a weak reason. Any event has dorama, and saying that means you refuse to be in any social event with others. If that is fine with you, then it kinda defeats the purpose of setting up a blog (since you are using it to socially interact and connect with people online).
Moreover, I think the voice part is important, and it is the process that will earn the small blogs that chance. That’s all I think should be the key focus here. Remember, it’s about fun, not all about winning.
Wait I’m like a billion years old but it should have been based on single entry submission.
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