The Unwritten Rules of Transmundanity

Over the past half-year or so, I have developed a few additional guidelines for the Pageant of the Transmundane that I haven't as yet disclosed to everyone, but now seems like as good a time as any. These are some of the additional criteria that entries face in the judging process.

I can't give awards to things I haven't seen: This basically explains part of the reason why the blogs that are on my sidebar tend to also win this award. I see them all the time and as such, they have a better opportunity to win. That is why I implore people to send me new entries... so that I have a wider perspective on the oddity throughout the community. And as often happens, winners of the Transmundanity Award tend to end up on my sidebar.

If you win it, acknowledge it. As past winners know, when you win the award, I usually tell you in the comments of the winning entry, and in my mind, it seems like common courtesy for the winner to at least drop by and accept their award, so to speak. There have been a few winners that I never heard from or saw after they won, and truth be told, that sort of hurts their chances of collecting another one.

If I am guest posting, that blog may not win the week I am guesting and the following week. I just feel that this is a simple matter of ethics, as I would be in essence giving the award to a blog that I had a vested interest in. Thus, the weeks I was a guest poster at Apropos to Something were not eligible for the award and when Jess came back, he was still not eligible for the following week just to be safe. By the same token, if a blog has just won the award, I don't feel comfortable guest posting the week following its win(the duration of the award period that lasts until the next award is given).

If you are my tenant: in my mind, the process of becoming my tenant is one in which you submit your site to scrutiny by me, and as such, choosing something that you have done is fair game. I put it on the same level as if you had sent me an email asking me to check you out.

If a person or blog has won the award one week by doing a certain type of activity, they will have a tough time winning it the next week doing the very same thing. Thus, if you post a video or audio track of yourself doing something and you continue doing that, you will not likely win the award again even if your more recent work is more daring than the award-winning one. Time does factor into this however, so you may win at a later date with another entry like your original one.

All other things being equal, original content trumps referred content. Simply put, if two entries have a roughly equal chance of winning the award going into Friday, the entry that is the work of the poster will win over an entry which features an externally created video or other content.

All other things being equal, a non-winner trumps a previous winner. It isn't fair I concede, but it generally works out that way. If I have a great entry from both a previous winner and someone who has never won, I tend to go with the person who hasn't won it before.

On a collaborative blog, if the person who posted a potential winning item is no longer with the blog and I know about it beforehand, that blog will most likely not win. This issue has come up very recently, and as such, a very good entry is being denied a prize because the writer is being forced out of that blog because of another entry they posted, and part of me feels that I should not reward that kind of behavior.

Even I have my limits. I admit that I am willing to go pretty far out there and am pretty tolerant as things go. Of course, there are things which shock and stun me in the blogging community which I have chosen not to reward. There are some fine lines that I am not willing to cross in the name of entertainment or amusement, and as such, I tend to lean to no when these entries come up. This unwritten rule applies to entries only, and it doesn't tend to color my perception of a blog as a whole. The rule of thumb tends to be "Would I be comfortable being associated with this?", and if I think that I will ultimately regret giving the award to an entry based on that standard, then that pretty much decides against a candidate.

So if you find yourself asking yourself why a certain blog or entry won, keep those rules in mind, as they may answer some of your questions.

Tags: pageant of the transmundane, unwritten rules, ethics, multiwin, tenant, blogging, award, homer simpson, boundaries