2011 Rules and Regulations

The 2011 SA Blog Awards this year takes on a slightly different format. After considering the previous formats and a certain amount of public participation, the SA Blog Awards will now be much simpler in format.

The phased roll out will be as follows.

1.    Registration phase

1. Only bloggers residing in South Africa may register their blogs
2. Each blogger may enter into two categories
3. After the registration closes, the entries will go into a public vote phase
4. Registered bloggers, will be confirmed via email or sms.
5. Eligible and confirmed registered blogs will be sent an SA Blog Awards vote badge. This badge can then be displayed on their blogs indicating the request to vote.
6. The registration phase is open from 17 October 2011.
7. The registration phase closes at midnight on 26 October 2011.

2.    Public vote phase.

1. The public vote phase is open to everyone
2. Each member of the public during the vote phase may vote only once for their favourite blog.
3. Public notification and vote process publicity will happen accordingly.
4. The public may vote in more than one category.
5. The top 3 blogs in each category will move into the judge’s phase.
6. The public vote phase opens on Mon 31 October 2011
7. The public vote phase closes at midnight on Wed 9 November 2011.
   
   

3.    Judges Vote phase

1.  The select panel of judges will judge the top 3 blogs in each of the categories.
2.  Judges will rank the 3 blogs in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
3.  The blog with the most 1st place positions as decided by the judges will be the winner in that  category.
4.  In the event of a 1st place tie in any category the winner will be decided by most votes during the public vote phase.

4.    Overall winner.

1. The judges will then be asked to choose one overall winner from the winner of each category.
2. The blog with the most votes from the judges for the overall position will be the winner of the SA Blog Awards.
3. In the event that there is a tie for the overall winner, the overall winner will be decided by most 1st place votes from the judges category vote phase.
4. In the event that there is a further tie for the overall winner, the result will be determined by looking at which blog received the most votes during the public vote phase.

5.    Summary.

1. Each category will end with the top 3 bloggers in SA
2. There will be only ten categories
3. The winner will be determined from the winners of each category

6.    The event

1. The winners will be announced at a function in Cape Town at the Crystal Towers Hotel, Canal Walk Century City on 10 December 2011.
2. Each of the top 3 and their partners in each category will be invited to the event.
3. Each judge and their partner will be invited to attend the event.
4. Other sponsors and VIP guests will be invited to attend.

(All event information is subject to change)

Additional information
After consultation with various roll players, the management of the SA Blog Awards has simplified the process to a more practical solution. 2011 will not see nominations, only registrations. The former nomination process was difficult to notify bloggers who had been nominated by a third party. Many nominators would not supply the correct URL, RSS feed or contact details.

The number of categories has been reduced, the sheer variety of blogs means that we would end up with an endless amount of categories. We have restricted the categories to a lower number and hope that many of the “multi content” blogs will fit into one of these categories.

We have reduced the vote phase to a shorter time period and also to only one vote per person during the vote phase. Even though 2010 created an enormous amount of activity and exposure, we have sacrificed this to simply reduce the irritation factor and make matters more practical. This decision also took into account the public opinion participation process.

Our judges will be industry related experts. Most judges are already noted bloggers and experts from the social media environment.

Rules and regulations.

1. All registrations must provide full contact details.
2. Blog names may have any name, but the blog must be registered to a contactable human.
3. All blogs must have a verifiable URL.
4. All registrations in the top 3 in each category must be confirmed before going to the judging phase.
5. Any unconfirmed registration will be discarded.
6. All bloggers must be contactable in South Africa.
7. In the event that a blog falls out of the top 3, then the fourth place blog from the public vote phase will be moved up to the 3rd place.
8. No blogs will be accepted which contravene the constitution of South Africa. This includes blogs which contain sexually explicit material, condones violence or religious discrimination.
9. The above rules and regulations will be determined by the management of the SA Blog Awards. Any contravention of the above rules and regulations may result in the immediate removal of a registration or blog without consultation.
10. The judges decision will be final.
11. No sponsors or organisers are eligible to enter any blogs.
12. Any votes or registrations made outside of the allocated time frames will be discarded.

The 2011 SA Blog Awards is sponsored by: