MALTESE BLOGS COMPETITION TERMS AND CONDITIONS

* The best blog of the month

* The best blog of the year

The best observer of the year

*Vote for the blog article and not the blog as a whole.

The votes shall be given by the blog readers and the blog owners.

1. Blog of the month regulations

1A. Nobody may vote for their own blog.

1B. Voter emails need to be verified.

1C. You have the right to vote anonymously via email and remain anonymous but your email still needs to be verified.

1D. You are not obliged to include your name and surname with every vote and you are not obliged to use a fictitious name. The important thing is that the email address is put down.

1E. For a vote to be accepted you need to put down your thoughts as to why you voted for that blog post. There needs to be a valid reason or valid reasons why that blog post is being voted for.

1F. If the box where you express your reasons and thoughts is empty, the vote is invalidated. If this box is filled with words that this blog does not consider to be valid to be, these kinds of comments shall be shown so that the people may decide whether the vote is valid or not.

1G. You cannot vote for the same blog post more than once but you can vote for different blog posts from the same blog in the same month. If such gets voted for more than one, so as to include more words on the thoughts of the voter, the thoughts get accepted but the extra vote is not included.

1H. The blog that rouses most reactions and thoughts wins. The best blog post of the month does not mean the blog post most favoured or opposed but the one that most made the reader think about it and make some kind of a reaction.

1I. All votes and comments shall be showing on the sandrovella.org forums. In the forum the voter email addresses shall not be seen.

1J. If a blog post gets written in the last days of the month, then that blog post has until the end of the first week of the following month to get voted for

1K. The blog posts that get voted for beyond their closing date won't be valid for the particular month but will be valid for the best blog of the year.

1L. The blog of the month gets announced at the beginning of the second week of the following month.

2. Blog of the year regulations

2A. The winner of the best blog of the year will not be that which has the most wins throughout the year, but shall be that which has the most reflection and reaction during the entire voting period. Votes that are received outside of the period for the blog post of the month will be considered valid for the blog of the year.

2B. It could turn out that the best blog of the year would be that who had the most winning blog posts of the month but not necessarily.

2C. The winners of the blog of the year and the winner of the best blog of the month for December shall be announced in mid-December. From mid-December to the end of December, blogs voted for shall not be considered for any qualification. This is because many bloggers would be away and many blog posts are dedicated to christmas greetings and are just related to festivities.

2D. This blog shall also try to provide a small prize to the best blog of the year, the blog most often winner throughout the year as well as the person who offered the most so that this project may succeed: the observer of the year.

2E. If this blog decides to invest in three small prizes, these shall be given during a dinner organized by bloggers in the month of December where the majority of Maltese bloggers abroad from Malta are in the country for the festivities.

3. The observer of the year.

3A. The person who sends the most of his or her valid observations and reflections throughout the year on the different blog posts will win the award "Best observer of the year".

3B. The observer can be from whatever country and nationality and can be affiliated also with whatever political parties. He can also have nothing to do with Malta.

4. Anonymity:

4A. If the winner, in all categories, decides to remain anonymous, he shall be contacted via email so that the alleged prize may be massed on in private. If he decides not to collect the prize, although winner he remains, the prize goes to the runner up who decides to collect it, anonymously or not.

5. New blogs throughout the year:

5A. New blogs qualify upon their first blog post.

6. Blogs that qualify

6A. The blogs need to be made by Maltese persons who live in Malta or abroad and persons who live in Malta or live abroad but have a blog related to Malta.

6B. The qualifying blogs need to be independent blogs: not tied to any political party and with no commercial newspaper.

6C. The qualifying blogs need to have an open commentary and without censorship other than that of personal insults and upon persons whose want is to make discussions deteriorate.

6D. The qualifying blogs cannot have blog proprietors or blog assistants ridiculing in a low fashion people who decide to leave their valid comments.

6E. Qualifying blogs are those that are tied to non-government organizations and blogs that have a political belief but are not affiliated with their party.

6F. Blogs cannot be under any advertising cloak.

6G. The blogs can have no kind of commercial advertising by which they are sustained. However they can make announcements for theatre, books, activities and organizations from which the blog receives no monies.

6H. The work and private activities of the blogger are not important. The blogger shall be voted for in his blogging capacity and not the person in his private life.

7. About sandrovella.org

The blog sandrovella.org can win no prize and cannot be included in votes.

If this experiment succeeds, the story shall begin again on the 1st of January 2009.

If you know of anybody who is not listed, or you are new bloggers and are not listed, then kindly inform me by e-mail on info@sandrovella.org . Click here to view the list of the bloggers.

Press here for the voting application.