By THE RICHARD DAWKINS FOUNDATION
Added: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:00:00 UTC

Nominate here:
http://koufax.wabanaki.net/node/32

Nominations are open for the 2006 Koufax Awards! Nominate all of your favorites.

See the 2005 winners

See how the awards work

Here are the categories:

This year, a Sandy will be awarded in each of seventeen categories. Those categories, along with past winners are listed below (I'm quoting Dwight verbatim for most categories):

Best Blog
This category seeks to recognize the best overall work across the entire year. Blogs run by professional journalists and blogs sponsored by media organizations compete in their own division. Blog communities also compete in a separate category. With that understanding, which lefty blog do you consider indispensable? Who was best this year?

Best Blog -- Pro Division
This category is open to bloggers who are professional journalists or blogs sponsored by larger media entities. What is your favorite professional or media sponsored blog?

Best Blog Community
This category recognizes the changes in the way blogs are run. Many blogs now have content from a large number of contributors. This category is for them. For intance, Scoop sites, with their large number of diarists, are eligible for this award. The exact line between a group blog and a community is not easily described although I think I know it when I see it. The Leftcoaster with 11 contributors looks like a group blog to me, as does Crooked Timber with 16. The Huffington Post with its multitude of posters looks like a community blog as does TPMCafe. The dividing line is really up to you. I will note that an active comment board, such as at The Political Animal does not turn a blog into a community. If anyone can write a better definition, I will be happy to publish some clarification.

Best Writing
This category seeks to recognize the best writing on a lefty blogger. Who had the best writing in 2005?

Best Post
This category is intended to identify the one post of the year that stands above all others for originality, insight, and writing. This is one category in which it is most appropriate to nominate your own work. After all, you know your posts better than anyone else.

When making a nomination in this category, you must now send along a link to the post.

Best Series
This category includes both regular features as well as the best coverage of a single issue. As with Best Post, please include links to the entire series, or at a minimum, 3-4 sample posts. This is another category where we want you to send us your best stuff.

Best Single Issue Blog
This category is for blogs that focus exclusively or almost exclusively on a single specific area such as politics, economics, law, science, etc. It differs from Best Expert in that it is about blog content, not the blogger's qualifications.

Best Group Blog
A group is defined as two or more regular contributors but short of whatever is needed to be a community blog. Which true group blog was the overall best in 2005?

Most Humorous Blog
This is a self explanatory category. Who has consistently made you laugh this year?

Most Humorous Post
What post made you laugh out loud this year? If you have read or written anything particularly humorous this year, please send us the link.

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
This category was added in 2003. It seeks to honor bloggers who are consistently good but for whatever reason do not receive the recognition they deserve. However, with the explosion of talent in the Lefty blogosphere, it seems more fitting as a category for those small blogs which plod away in wilderness, yet to be discovered, versus medium-sized blogs, which, due to writing style or focus, are widely known but still not trafficked as heavily as the big dogs. So who do you think is this year's undiscovered gem?

Best Consonant Level Blog
This is a new category, overwhelmingly supported in the new category poll, and one whose name I greedily pilfered from Attaturk (sitting in for Atrios last week.) It seeks to recognize those moderate-sized blogs which have not yet, or perhaps are happy not to, reach the ranks of the "A-listers". Everyone has their own favorite due to content, wit or ambience, or even the esprit des corps of the comments section. So who is your "go to" moderate-sized blog?

Best Expert Blog
This is another category added in 2003 at the request of the readers. It seeks to honor those who bring particular expertise, by way of professional experience or academic achievement, to a particular topic. Who is this year's best expert?

Best New Blog
This category recognizes new members of the community. One of the real joys of hosting these awards is becoming familiar with new blogs. It is no longer possible for any one person to keep up with all of the entrants. This is a great category for self nominations. Who is the best of the new crop of lefty bloggers?

It should be noted that prior to her 2004 win in this category, Amanda Marcotte of Mouse Words, now of Pandagon, made some promises to voters last year. In particular, she promised that if she won, "I will make a massive ass out myself, with drunken speechifying and boobies." There is no rule against making such promises but there is also no statute of limitations on complying with them. Well, Amanda?

Best Human Equality Blog
This was also added due to significant support in last month's poll. It has always been difficult for any new blogger to "break out" in the blogosphere, but even more so for women and minorities, particularly those who tend to focus on issues of gender, sexual identity (LGBT,) economic, and racial inequality. As the goal of the awards has always been to build community, this category seeks to add greater diversity to a still overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class blogosphere, and the tendency of many cross-blog discussions to focus on issues of particular interest to that same limited demographic. As Wampum was originally founded by an American Indian woman (me), this category is perhaps too long in coming.

What is your favorite blog written by a woman and/or person of color, which focuses a significant portion of its content on "human equality" issues?

Best Coverage of State or Local Issues
This is a category added in 2004 based on reader suggestions. It is intended to honor blogs with a focus on happenings in a single state or single locality. Which state or local blog provided the best coverage this year? When making nominations please include the state of locality of coverage as well as a link

Best Commenter
This category is for those who post comments on other people's blogs. Who was the best commenter of 2005?

TAGGED: POLLS, TECHNOLOGY