Fili’s world

Chinalyst, the community website for English language China blogs that I’ve started in 2006, is hosting the China 2007 Blog Awards.

It’s quite remarkable that over the past few months Chinalyst has grown to include over a 100 English-language China bloggers writing about diverse China topics - China news, business, law, technology, travel, expat life, English teaching, Chinese studies etc., - all providing invaluable China information that cannot be found else where. The China Blog Awards is a tribute to those blogs and the hard-working bloggers behind them.

During the last year there were a few unsuccessful attempts at building a China Blog Awards with AsiaPundIt’s China category and even one with an optimistic 10k RMB prize. For some unknown reason, those faded away quietly and finally disappeared. But, at its core, being the heart of the English-language China blog community is what Chinalyst is all about. As such, Chinalyst can provide the right platform for the voting procedure.

China Blog Award features

For the China Blog Awards I’ve added a few Chinalyst features:

Categories

Aside from the free-style tags option that was available, I’ve added China blog categories and went through the blog list to categorize each blog on Chinalyst.

The categories are:

• Business/Law blogs
• News blogs
• Personal blogs
• Technology blogs
• Travel blogs
• General blogs (that don’t fit into the other categories)

Registered blog owners may change their blog’s categorization at any time (moderated).

The China Blog Awards will be based on the Chinalyst categories - Best China Business/Law blogs, best China News blog etc.

Voting

Naturally, I’ve implemented voting. There are no judges, no Technorati rankings, no nominations. This China Blog Awards is only based on voting and if you have a China blog registered at Chinalyst then you’re in.

The voting implemented is a positive Digg style voting mechanism (no minuses “-” or “bury”), which allows all visitors to vote for all their favorite China blogs. Every visitor can contribute one vote per blog for as many China blogs as they like. The blog that gets the most votes within a certain category is declared “The best China <category> blog”.

New Forum

A new China Blog Awards 2007 forum has been added to Chinalyst to allow you to express your opinion and discuss everything related.

China Blog Awards Schedule

The China Blog Awards will work according to the following schedule :

• Till 30/06/2007 - China blogs that haven’t registered to Chinalyst can still be added till the end of the month to allow a fair start for all. Existing Chinalyst blogs may change their categorization, description, tags etc. to help promote their blogs.
• From 01/07/2007 till 31/07/2007 - Voting will open for all. Blogs may still register during this process.
• 08/2007 - Best China Blogs announced.

Voting

Voting will open on the 01/07 and will appear on all Chinalyst blogs. You’re invited to take a look at all the blogs registered at Chinalyst sorted by categories. You can also access blogs through the posts view and clicking on “source” for any of the posts.

Registering a new blog at Chinalyst

For those who would like to add their China blog to the community for the China Blog Awards 2007 - You can add your China blog to the community after registering. There’s more information in the site guide .

China Blog Awards notes

• It is highly recommended for blog owners to login to Chinalyst and edit their blog’s description to add an introduction. It is also recommended that an image or logo be added to the blog description to attract readers and voting.
• Blog Awards are great for promoting link-love between the China blogs. If you write a blog and you like a certain blog then link to it asking your readers to vote for it. Link-love between the China blogs helps promote the whole China blogosphere and China related content on the web.
• This whole thing is just for fun! Like any system, I’m sure that the system can be abused, but I’m counting on the general good of the China blogosphere that this will not happen.
• This blog appears on Chinalyst but will not be counted for the China Blog Awards.
• This is the first time Chinalyst is running the China Blog Awards. Any suggestions, comments or ideas are very welcome.

In addition, Chinalyst has also partnered with the Hao Hao Report to provide a platform for deciding the China Blog Awards - Best Story. Unlike Chinalyst, the Best Story nominations will be for particular, and remarkable, stories. Dubbed the Zui Hao Report (Best Report), nominations and voting will be running in tandem with the China Blog Awards here at the Chinalyst. Be sure to head over there and nominate your favourite stories now .

China Blog Awards banners and badges, created by Daobydesign.com (Ryan of The Humanaught), are available for you to use those in any way you see fit:

Good luck and enjoy.