beyond the inner circle that has developed over the years.

Quite a scary thought if true.

Mr. Zeldman, what are the chances the “A List Apart” editorial board would host or develop a web awards competition? (An Award Apart?)

We hosted a web design awards show in 1998, in partnership with the late lamented HighFive, and have long talked of doing so again. It’s something several Apartniks and I are quite keen on doing. The chief problem is finding time to do it right.

Meanwhile, I’m quite pleased with the .Net awards and am thrilled to be a judge.

Your typical web awards are a commercial enterprise first, last, and always.

Mr. Zeldman, what are the chances the “A List Apart” editorial board would host or develop a web awards competition? (An Award Apart?)

I think it would be interesting to see what sites are doing similar things, well beyond the scope of the usual awards, including .net. It would be nice to see some fresh faces and ideas emerge in the design world beyond the inner circle that has developed over the years.

No awards are perfect.

We agree.

You set the expectation that .net was much better than the rest and I don’t see it.

I could make my case more persuasively if I shared the names and URLs of the awards shows I’m thinking of, but I don’t wish to shower those competitions with disrespect. As I choose not to name them, I can’t do a side-by-side comparison.

Of course, feel free to share the names and URLs of web awards that you feel are on a par with the .net Awards.

I don’t mean to argue, I’m just curious. If there are other good shows out there, I’d like to know about them. Thanks.

You are the Lance Armstrong of Web Standards.

That is very kind of you to say. Thanks again for sharing.

I don’t agree that it’s less a commercial enterprise than other awards nor is it much different from other awards. If understood your article correctly you claim that the .net awards are better than similar awards. From the outside looking in the .net awards are good but not great. No awards are perfect. You set the expectation that .net was much better than the rest and I don’t see it.

You are the Lance Armstrong of Web Standards. Until someone else consistently does as much work as you do to promote Web Standards and the Web Design profession year after year, you are the Standards Champion. Or until it’s discovered that you use performance enhancing drugs (for better eyesight). :)

Fair enough. It’s not my competition. I’m just a judge, and one of many at that. From my point of view, this is a far better competition than most, in that it highlights leading industry-leading websites and services, and asks industry leaders to serve as judges. But the ultimate judge is always you.

I hate to say it, but yes- I’d feel any design competition where the panel of judges are up for awards holds a bias in the vote, regardless of professional stature. I’ve suffered through Art History just as much, and while I agree yours isn’t the only design competition founded on that sentiment, it doesn’t excuse the perception (yes, even if Erté was on a fashion design panel with his own product, or Steve Frankfurt or Bill McCaffery choosing the best of advertising while holding his own campaigns in the pool, we could go on for hours with the comparison).

Especially in the web world where, out of a handful of chosen judges, we pick a 10-12 per category and bank on just about everyone? I’m not crying foul, I honestly don’t assume anyone chose those out of spite or stain, but this is a fairly hot percentage in the web world. I’m a young Art (& IT) Director, but I still see the see a vast difference of Print Design competitions wading in a smaller pool of submissions and having overlap, vs those of us on the internet tied to each other on a handful of platforms & mediums. Print doesn’t earn more respect, but it certainly doesn’t hit so close to home.

…and it could have been avoided. I’m with @Andrew, I was surprised Simple Bits was no where to be found- the author of one of the Web Standards books arguably secondary only to you?

Honestly, this is the same feeling I see with the corporate judging you’re looking to avoid. Immediately when I started seeing judges and entries overlap, it felt no different than a corporation sponsoring an event they have stake.

I’m probably taking this too seriously; .Net’s Magazine Award is a cosmetic litmus for the web world, not necessarily a professional trophy?

It could be worse. A List Apart could be up for “Web Personality of the Year,” and Susan Boyle could be a judge. ;)

Standards champion is a much deserved layup for Zeldman.

I won that last year so it’s probably someone else’s turn. I’m just glad they have the category.

I’m glad there is a web competition that includes “web standards” in its categories and has a significant number of web standards and web accessibility people in the ranks of its judges. You don’t see that in most shows. I can’t think of any show where you see that. Certainly not the Webbys, for example (not to pick on them).

A healthy mix of serious categories (Web Application of the Year, Web Standards Champion) and light-hearted ones (Web Personality of the Year) may diminish some of the seriousness of the show, but it’s probably a reasonable compromise with audience expectations—a little fun for the folks.

And you can’t have your complaints both ways. That is to say, if you object to a popularity contest between iJustine and Ashton Kutcher as “Web Personality of the Year,” then you shouldn’t object to seeing two founders of Clearleft among the judges and Clearleft nominated for agency of the year. Clearleft deserves that nomination, and Andy Budd and Jeremy Keith have contributed hugely to the web. If you object to having judges who have contributed hugely to the web—or if you object to their work being nominated for awards—then you should be happy with a battle between iJustine and Ashton Kutcher for top “personality.”

The options for web personality of the year were weak. Why is this category so silly. I expected to see a legit personality like Dan Cederholm who has a large blog and twitter following.

Standards champion is a much deserved layup for Zeldman.

Is it not taboo to be a judge and yet have your work in the area for potential judging? In the literary world, that’s grounds to get a snide label for the rest of your life. … [I]t strikes me as ruining the credibility of this panel. Should you step away from a category because your entry is in there, you’ve already tainted the alternate judges opinion by being an active member of the panel.

@Brady J. Frey:

It’s not a challenge for me alone. For instance, practically everyone listed in category 12 (“Standards Champion”) is a judge.

As I mentioned in response to an earlier comment, such conflicts come up all the time in design, art direction, and advertising shows.

Do you think George Lois, Milton Glaser, Saul Bass, Paul Rand, Art Spiegelman and Ray Eames never judged an award show where their own work was under consideration?

Does anyone think George Lois voted for his own work? Or only won awards because he was on the jury?

As I said, it happens all the time, and it’s always handled the same way: judges don’t vote on their own work.

There’s no taint, no stain, no back-alley skullduggery. There are rules, and professional gentlemen and ladies abide by them.

Also, in this particular show, the audience does most of the voting. So there’s that, too. :)

Oh, and I mention George Lois, Milton Glaser, Saul Bass, Paul Rand, Art Spiegelman and Ray Eames not to compare any of us poor .net Awards judges to those immortals, but merely to point out more forcefully (since the previous comment didn’t suffice) that this kind of conflict is as old as design, and if legends like Paul Rand can judge without taint, so can schmoes like the rest of us.

Also, I said taint twice.