Our kOscars 2009 emcee, LaughingPlanet, originated this idea to have some fun honoring diarists, commenters and frontpagers, which seems to please these happy oscar fish decked out in DK orange. LP started out covering all the award categories, but it became such a huge endeavor because we are all so talented here! So, I offered to help him. Now, LP is covering nominations for diarists and different diary categories, like Diary of the Year.
My diary today focuses only on what should be the award categories for diary series and commenters.
Here's a little background of LP's development of Daily kOscars:
The 4th began the Nominations process for diarists.
The 5th was a surprise rogue diary by cfk in support of these efforts.
(Visiting ^^that diary^^ should help if you're short on ideas.)
The 6th kept the nominations going, listing those who already made the cut.
kOscar Categories for Diary Series
In order to create categories for diary series, I reviewed the list of diary series at dkosopedia.
As I looked at each series, I tried to think of one subject that generally encompassed the series, such as political, community or educational. So, each of the 5 categories listed below is based on substantive content with one exception. The category of Frontpage Series is based on the sole criterion that it is a series maintained by the FP. The reason for this exception is that we have excellent FP series that I think our community would like to recognize in this fun award endeavor, but to have them compete with diaries might not be fair given that FP series might be more well-known than some diary series.
After I created a list of subject categories, I did an informal testing of fairness by reviewing whether each category had a similar number of putative nominees. That is, if one category had only 2 nominees possible while another category had 25 nominees possible, then the first award category had an advantage. My very unscientific review of the diary series suggested to me that none of the categories were feast or famine in terms of possible nominees. However, I wonder if the political and community categories might become a little overloaded. The dkosopedia page was a good tool to get a feel for the general issues covered by our diary series, but some of the diary series listed there are no longer active and some active series are not listed. This is really one of the key issues to be resolved.
This list of categories includes in parens the nominations thus far made in LP's first two nomination diaries that at the time included diary series.
Nominations Begin for Daily kOscars™
Daily kOscars™ Nominations Part 2
I hope I have included all diary series that were thus far nominated.
Diary Series Categories
- Community, Nonpolitical Series: (IGTNT, Friday Night at the Movies, Saturday Night Uforia, Top Comments, Jotter's High Impact Diaries, Netroots for the Troops)
- Environmental Series: (DK GreenRoots, EcoJustice, Saturday Morning Garden Blog, Meatless Mondays, Haole from Hawaii)
- FrontPage Series: (Green Diary Rescue, Diary Rescue, States Wrapups)
- Political or News Series: (MN Senate Recount, Overnight News Digest, Capitol Hill Open Thread, Black Kos, Morning Feature)
- Educational Series: (Indians 101, BookFlurries, Saturday Home Repair, Chronic Tonic, WGLB)
Commenter Categories
There has been some discussion about whether to include awards for commenters. Daily Kos has 3 primary contributors: Diarists, commenters, and frontpagers. Each contributor has equal value to our community. Diarists and frontpagers will be recognized in both the diary nominations and diary series nominations. Some commenters may not write diaries frequently, and some don't write any diaries, but their contribution to our community is as important as diarists and frontpagers. In fact, how many would post diaries here if there were no ability for comments?
These are the commenter categories thus far and the nominations in parens:
- Wisdom/Political Commenters: (DallasDoc, Gooserock)
- Snark/Humorist Commenters: (JekyllnHyde, nonnie9999)
- Link Mavens: (people who provide good things to read that somebody else has written)
- Action Faction Commenters:
- Comment of the Year:
Can anyone think of any commenter or diary series that would not be covered by these categories? Does this proposed category have at least 8 possible nominations?
I would like to get the categories nailed down today and then my next diaries may focus on nominations. But, maybe I should post more than one diary on just naming the categories? Any suggestions about the categories or nomination process for diary series and commenters will be greatly appreciated. This is a first for me. :)