The shortlist for this year’s Golden Spiders was announced last Friday.
As usual people are none too pleased with the list and I’d be a hypocrite not to agree with them.
Why so much displeasure?
Well you could look at the entry criteria……
Even though the awards are sponsored by large companies you still have to pay to nominate a site. Why do I get the feeling that a lot of quality sites don’t even get entered????
OR
you could look at the shortlist itself…. (which a lot of people have been doing)
Either way the merit of the awards is not appreciated in many industry circles.
Richard and Peter both commented on how most of the shortlisted sites do not pass the W3C validation test (which tests to see if a website’s code is compliant with industry standards). The W3C validator does not care which version of (X)HTML a site is written in, as long as the site’s code complies to the chosen standard.
Richard has since taken his gripes to the next level by doing some further testing of the shortlist. The results make for interesting reading.
Of course previous winners’ sites aren’t even viewable unless you use Internet Explorer….
Michele Neylon :: Pensieri
Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts
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An awards scheme not judged on merit or actual criteria? No shortage of those to be fair 😉
In fairness, there are criteria set out by the Golden Spider Awards for each category. It’s just that the judges are biased and/or incompetent. Or maybe they just arbitrarily choose the winners, who knows. At any rate, it’s a farce.
‘At any rate, it’s a farce. ‘
Arent all awards schemes, at some level 🙂
“Arent all awards schemes, at some level”
I wouldn’t have said so, necessarily. The ‘farce’ that is the Golden Spiders has afforded some very dodgy companies to profit greatly from client ignorance.
Ah well done Michele. Nice to see you name up there.
It’s so hard to decide where to comment – am I missing something here or where is the response from the Golden Spiders about this whole issue?
Well, two issues really – 1) why doesn’t quailty of design (subjective, granted, but just LOOK at some of the sites) & construction (non-subjective) appear to be given the importance it should be, as expressed in the entry criteria, and 2) why are so many sponsors nominated for awards? Surely that can’t result in impartial desicisons?
ANyway, keep fighting the good fight…