Debashish replied: Don’t be childish Muthu! Would you be able to make an iota of any comment if I post it on your site in Bengali? I publish such comments/trackbacks here that I can comprehend myself because, believe it or not, this is my site. I can understand English, Hindi and Bengali so I can afford to publish them, how do you think I could verify comments in other languages? Are you interested in making yourself heard or is it just beacuse you want me to label a “Hindi-wallah”?

I was disappointed that noone nominated two of my favourite Indian blogs, Krishnan Menon’s Brutal Clarity and SumanKumar’s Yakpad. I think Brutal Clarity could have also been in the design blogs.

NEway, tahnks again!!

“And please Peter, don’t equate using a template with “plagiarizing” content. Borrowing design and using templates have been part of the blogging phenomenon and has been the hallmark of “easy publishing” that blogs are identified with.”

Dude, you are so wrong. Every design is an intellectual property. Publicly available templates that are offered by template designers to bloggers still remain their intellectual property, and nobody else can claim credit for them. If “plagiarizing” designs was okay, why in the world would designers be paid for their designs?

Debashish commented:Seems we have come full circle on this debate! Talking of IPR you are talking about “original designs”, and this is what the dilemma for the Jurors and me has been, whether to consider only origianl designs for the award and whether to judge the blogs as “designers” or as “readers”. These awards are about blogs and perhaps 99% of the blogs would be using ready-made templates and I don’t think we should only choose winners from the remaining 1%. Do read the repoll post I wrote today and you will perhaps empathise.

I see that you have already decided on a repoll, and I hate to drag this on, but may I clarify a couple of points?

1. I have seen Divya’s work, and admire it. I agree with you; she is indeed highly qualified. But “jury” usually means more than one person. In fact you stated that you expanded the jury considerably this year so as to get more viewpoints. Why only one qualified design juror, then? From what I’ve seen of Divya’s work, I certainly do not question her aesthetic sensibilities. I can only assume that she simply had not come across the lift in question. Perhaps more people on the expert panels would increase the chances of catching “inspired” content?

2. Point taken. I did not know the categories were open for suggestion at that time that they were, so I apologise.

3.

“When I honour any of these blogs I actually honour the guy who has put-in efforts designing it.”

Precisely. And when it isn’t that person who is nominated for the award, merely the blog that uses the design, it doesn’t make sense to me.

“don’t equate using a template with “plagiarizing” content. Borrowing design and using templates have been part of the blogging phenomenon and has been the hallmark of “easy publishing” that blogs are identified with. Most of the blog-wares provide starter templates.”

You’re mixing unrelated arguments here. I’m not saying using a template, either as is or customised, is unethical. Heck, I used, and still use, blogger templates on some of my blogs. I’m merely saying that when the category in an award show is labelled “design,” I expect the designs to be original, and judged on their merits as design. Or to really, really stretch the point so you and I can agree, that it should have been customised signficantly, it should have had much more value added to the original.

When it came to the blog that Kit Walker and I objected to, you will surely agree that if the only apparent customisation is the addition of the blogger’s picture, then the person being honoured should be Minz Meyer?

4. Um. Yes. If the category was humour and the blogger stopped being funny after being nominated, one wouldn’t blame the jury. In the case of taglines, however, the simple solution would be to include (as per Bloggies tradition), in the post with the shortlist, the taglines that were nominated. And yes, if a blog pulls down the shutters after agreeing to be nominated, it’s not your fault at all.

All the best. And once more, thank you, and all the jurors, for the hard work put in.