Much to my (pleasant) surprise, several people have already voted for their favorite blogs — even before I had completed the set up and some of the controls necessary to ensure fair balloting.
This is okay; the early votes have helped me debug some important things.
The voting system is set up to allow users to select one or more blogs — this means they can have several “favorites”. The results will still be valid, as obviously not everyone will chose the same blogs, so each finalist will have its own unique total.
I’ve set some rules requiring voters to identify themselves by name and email address — obviously I’ll keep this information confidential, but it ensures that people won’t vote more than once. (This doesn’t stop people from organizing campaigns of friends and business associates to vote — all fair in the competition, of course.)
Tonight, I’ve built in a (hidden) stats counter and tomorrow will continue refining the layout and special pages. This week, I’m maintaining the “old” blog on blogger and not urging people to visit here — if you are at this site you are watching the work in progress, as it unfolds.
