On 14-02-05 10:17 AM, James Cummings
wrote:
On
05/02/14 16:52, Daniel O'Donnell wrote:
I put GO::DH in tools because I really
missed an "other"
category, so I wouldn't complain beyond saying there should be
an
other category
Whereas I would have just not nominated it because it didn't
really fit any of the categories. I don't think the categories
*should* be all encompassing of DH. Partly because that is
impossible, partly because voters would have even more choices,
and partly because it would need an 'other' category which would
then just become a repository for highly heterogeneous materials.
So voting in that category would be comparing apples and
elephants, rather than just the apples and oranges that are
compared in the current categories.
Wow! That seems to me to be a pretty aggressive stance.
Basically, that advice would reduce to "DHAwards is an awards
programme for the type of things we (the organisers) decide
represent DH. If your project doesn't fit our categories, it means
we are not interested in it and our advice would be to go away." In
other words, it would suggest something that is not an open
competition at all, but an editors' choice award with a public
voting round. That advice, coupled with a single year eligibility
criteria, would mean that the project is as much about hiding
projects from view (by excluding them categorically) as bringing
other ones to the fore.
I'm sure that's not what the actual goal is, but it would
certainly be an unintended effect of "I wouldn't nominate it if the
category isn't there." It strongly suggests that the categories are
about trying to define the field in exclusionary terms as much as
celebrate it. It also seems to me to be a recipe for missing
innovation since it implies that the organisers can anticipate what
is important in the discipline. Even if we assume, as I'm sure has
to be the case, that this is not the original goal, that kind of
exclusion does seem to be an unavoidable result of the approach.
I'm afraid in that case, I have to agree with Ernesto's criticism.
The award implicitly seems to claim to be a very different thing
than it actually, in practice, is. Its name and rhetoric imply that
it is about celebrating the range of of practice in DH. The advice
not to nominate a project if it doesn't fit the proposed categories,
however, implies that it is really about celebrating whatever subset
of DH the organisers think is important. That just seems really
dangerous.
I hate to say it, because I still think it is a great and elegant
idea at heart, but I don't think I can support a competition that
seems to be willing to put its thumb on the scale like that. I
thought that the category issue was growing pains coupled with an
unfortunate one year eligibility period (if the eligibility were
longer, you could presumably wait until a suitable category was
proposed). But if the categories are meant to be
exclusionary and the fact that projects fall between the category
cracks is not an accident but evidence that they should not be
considered, then I think it may do more harm than good.
I'm really sorry to come to that conclusion, because it really is an
initiative I want to support and think is good. But I think this may
be showing that the category issue is actually maybe a fundamental
thing.
(and that would be a mild complaint:
having been
on the receiving end of complaints before, let me emphasise that
I think DHAwards is a great achievement, creating value out of
nothing on a budget of close to or exactly 0).
For those interested the technical setup, dhawards.org is a mirror
of a similarly named sub-domain on my dreamhost.com fully-hosted
personal domain. It just mirrors the sub-domain DNS and so it
appears at that address but is hosted at the subdomain. Thus the
only 'cost' is the domain name registration as part of my
dreamhost account. If one was to cost the time... well you don't
want to know. I would estimate that any individual member of the
nominations committee who actively contributes to the debates and
reviewing of the nominations, and advertises it, is probably
donating a couple full days of work overall. As the one creating
the spreadsheets, anonymising the nominations, setting up the
site, forms, prodding the committee, emailing nominated resources,
answering feedback, cleansing and tallying votes, etc. I probably
spend about 1-2 weeks worth of time. I should probably come up
with a slightly better system for display and review of the
nominated resources -- currently people mark their votes/notes in
a google spreadsheet. (suggestions appreciated.)
And this is why I don't like where the category discussion is
leading my thinking, anyway. We should be thankful for the
initiative and the effort.
It didn't seem
like it was for fun, or that it was not-in-English, or that it
was a mobilisation effort (i.e. public-facing). I figured in an
imperfect world, a Community of Practice is sort of a tool if no
better category exists. It fit the narrative definition, anyway.
I could see an argument for Public Audiences (erm, but not
_really_ by the definition). But again, we decided to err on the
side of including it. But yes, if we had a 'Community of Practice'
category this coming year, then it would miss out...not having
been created in that year. (As others have argued here.)
And all the members of this list can vote
for it and we will be
the one tool to rule them all. Mwah hah hah!
Perhaps. I probably shouldn't note this (since it is probably
unfair on the others in that category) but you are currently the
second runner-up. But that people have seen it, voted for it,
learned about it, is hopefully the real benefit. But also I've not
gone through a removed duplicate voters yet, so someone who votes
for you under lots of different accounts or the same account many
times may lower your score. ;-)
I actually might have accidentally voted twice.
Since we're not a tool in the classic sense
(<northAmericanDialectJokeAlert>well my brothers often argued
that I was</northAmericanDialectJokeAlert>), it wouldn't
surprise me if we don't win. And indeed, there are some great tools
there, in the more normal sense, that deserve to.
I'm being critical above, but really want to emphasise that I think
it is a great initiative and I am grateful to you for the work you
put into it. I do think that category issue (and/or the eligibility
period) is going to have to be addressed if it isn't going to end up
marginalising itself. But I really want it to succeed.
-James
--
---
Daniel Paul O'Donnell
Professor of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada
+1 403 393-2539