On 04/02/14 12:24, Marin Dacos wrote:
Dear James,
Nice to hear you on this list and thank you for your precise answers. I guess that, if I had known the rule, I would have explained what was new in Hypotheses in 2013. The main novelty in Hypotheses since 2 years (that means before 2013) is that we have decided to be open to non french contents. To do so, we have created specific steering committees for each language. So far, we have opened committees for german and spanish. The spanish speaking community is slower to join us than the german community, mainly because did not spend enough time, energy and money to promote the platform in Spain and latin america until now. We have plans to do so with different partners. If spanish speaking people in the list want to join this project, I would be very happy to discuss with you.
And I think those are all good developments which should be applauded. I'm sure you are happy to note that one of the blog posts successfully nominated is from hypotheses.org (and although the author nominated the English translation, it is available in the original French and German as well - it might have been better had it been the French that had been nominated, but I understand the logic of wanting the most diverse community of voters to read the English, sadly).
My main concern related to the focus on novelty is that the opening of a new language will take more than one year to become a success. So, the question is : should we focus on the date of the start of the project, with a likely small success at the begining (so very little chances to win), or after some years of promotion and development (but then with no chance to win any award because it will be considered as an old initiative).
Yes, this is a fundamental problem. Though some projects are nominated near the end of their project lifecycle (i.e. when then publicly 'launch') hypotheses.org doesn't really follow that model being an ongoing service. Since you have already been adding new languages it seems to me that adding another new language isn't really an upgrade sadly, just a continuation of what you already do. If you do, say, have a major change to the underlying software that enables a significant change to the way the site works or how users (or admins) use it, then that would certainly qualify. I understand that this isn't perfect, but unless the awards become a public judging of the entire field of DH and its history then I think there needs to be an annual component. (After all, if it was the former, then wouldn't each year we just be voting on whether anything new was better than the winners of the previous year? That has its own problems.)
When we started Hypotheses, in 2008, it was a very small project, with no chance at all to be awarded, and now it is a success, but still no chance to be awarded. I guess that the best way would be to wait for the next major upgrade of the platform. But it will be a bit tricky to know how big and disruptive should be this upgrade.
I realise that isn't very satisfactory -- but yes, if the upgrade of the platform changes the prime way in which users are doing something inherent to the resource, then that would certainly qualify. (And if you point to that in the nomination, it makes our job all that easier.)
This is not a complaint. I just want to share with you my questions related to the best way to apply to DH Awards. Do you have any advices to provide?
Only the above. And to reassure you that hypotheses.org wasn't treated unfairly (or, at least, just as unfairly as our investigations of other nominated resources). We honestly do try to err on the side of including resources and also make no judgements whatsoever based on quality (good or bad).
-James