On 04/02/14 02:47, igalina wrote:
Dear All, This email goes out as a result of reading Domenico's remarks about the writing of DH history but I thought it would be best to start a new thread as I would like to hear other people's opinion about something specific regarding the DH Awards. I would like to say first that I really like the DH Awards and I think it is a great idea.
Hi Isabela,
I think I can answer some of your queries.
I promoted the nominations through the RedHD. I was very surprised however to find when the nominations came out that all DH projects that are not in English are grouped under one category (Best DH contribution not in the English language) whilst English DH projects are divided under five different, separate categories.
The implication here isn't actually true. We only moved DH resources from the categories they were nominated for if they were really in the wrong category. For example, there is a German and Japanese entry in the Visualization category. We are more than happy for any nominations in any category in any language. There were nominations of non-English materials in some of the other categories however these all sadly fell at the main criterion of 'Major update/launch in 2013'. By and large the people nominating resources in foreign languages nominated them in that 'resource in a non-English language' category. This is possibly regrettable, but last year we got so *few* non-English resources nominated that we wanted to encourage them to do so. Hence the argument for this category this year. We decided on balance it was better to have a category to encourage non-English submissions even if that meant non-English nominations were made in that category rather than the others. (i.e. better to have them at all than not have them.)
Reading the About section of the DH awards I see absolutely no practical or specific reason why this is done.
Again, we didn't *do* this, the people nominating them did so. They were free to nominate them in any category and asit says on the site "Awards are not specific to geography, language, conference, organization or field of humanities that they benefit." As far as I can recall, we did not move *any* nominations to the non-English category. If we do the awards again next year I'll certainly remember to explicitly remind people that any language is allowed in any category.
The section reads: "Digital Humanities Awards are a new set of annual awards given in recognition of talent and expertise in the digital humanities community and are nominated and voted for entirely by the public. These awards are intended to help put interesting DH resources in the spotlight and engage DH users (and general public) in the work of the community. Awards are not specific to geography, language, conference, organization or field of humanities that they benefit." So why then this distinction?
To encourage nominations from other languages since the feedback last year was that people felt it was just for anglo resources. The awards were always designed and intended to help raise awareness of DH worldwide and specifically to break away from anglo-centric notions of DH.
A "Best DH visualization or infographic" or "Best DH project for public audiences" should be the best one regardless of what language is it.
I agree. Next year, plaase nominate more resources for those categories!
Especially if the voting is done by us. I might understand if there was a committee in charge of making the selection and they could argue that they need to understand the resource in order to vote but this is not the case.
I agree. One of the reasons I've tried to get an international nominations committee was specifically to make the assessment of sites more easily. However, if a site was nominated in Swahili then the committee would seek out a Swahili speaker to reassure us that it made the very minimal criteria. Which, as a reminder, are: 1) It is Digital Humanities in some loosely-defined way 2) It is suitable for the category it is nominated in (or can be moved to another category) 3) It has a major update / launch in 2013.
It is mainly the last category where nominations fumble (and there are some debatable ones which got through). We've always tried to err on the side of inclusiveness.
And if it were, then should it not read "DH Awards in the English language". However, the voting is done by the "community" and I feel that the Spanish speaking DH community, or the Russian or the Italian should be able to vote for the projects that they feel are interesting within the main categories and not in a separate, different one. What do other people think?
They are free to vote for resources in all categories! I understand your point and agree with it, that resources in non-English languages should be available in all categories. In 2012 we got some non-English (though mostly European) resources being nominated in some categories, and the inclusion of this category was entirely designed to encourage more. It is sad that you feel that having this category is further ghettoising non-English resources -- its intent was to encourage more nominations overall of non-English resources which did not fit into any of the other categories. There is always the problem of the public at large assessing the resources they are voting for in languages they do not speak (but that is true of all languages). Perhaps next year we shouldn't have the non-English category at all? Its intention, believe it or not, is good.
Best wishes, James (Founder of DH Awards)