The polls are up and ready!
Please remember these things:
- Read the terms and conditions before you vote.
- Votes are based on IP and cookies.
- You may only vote ONCE (in ALL categories) per person in your home. And no, it doesn’t matter the age of the person – you can vote for your 2 year old if you really want to.
- Do not send in duplicate votes from a cell phone in different hot spots. One vote per person – be honest.
- No more than 5 votes per network/IP (if there are more, we have the right to delete all votes from that IP/network).
- You don’t have to vote on everything at once. You can vote for one category and come back later for the rest.
- If you click on the DOT, it will vote. If you click on the BLOG NAME, you can go to the site.
- Once you vote, you can’t SEE the rest of the nominees any more (or click to go to their blogs) – so please do your browsing BEFORE you vote. We will list these again after the awards are over for your convenience (either in a post or page), so don’t worry – you’ll get to see them again eventually.
- Email us at thehomeschoolpost @ gmail . com (remove extra spaces) if you have any questions or problems
- Spread the word!
- Please use our graphics for your pages if you were nominated and link them to THIS post! See below for the nominee graphic.
With the number of categories and nominees involved, there is a definite possibility of human error in the creation of the polls. Please let us know if any of the links don’t work, etc. so that we can take care of it as quickly as possible.
Regarding multiple votes from the same household:
The rules state: “You may only vote ONCE per category per person in your home & No more than 5 votes per network/IP.” Although this is what’s allowed, it may or may not work for you. Here are some observations based on personal experience and feedback from others:
- To vote more than once, use another computer in your home; once you have voted in a particular category, you will most likely see only the results and not the option to vote again while using the same computer.
- The ability to vote more than once from the same IP address appears to be greatly influenced by your computer and network.
- When I voted on my desktop computer first, I was able to cast a second vote in the same category from my laptop (wireless connection to the same modem). When I voted first from my laptop, I was not able to vote in that category from my desktop.
In simple English, not all networks are the same. Computers can be tricky. If you can’t vote more than one time at home and you have two people who want to vote, may I suggest going to the library for your second vote? Please be honest, though.
Emailing us if you can’t vote more than once is not going to help, because we cannot make your computer allow it. Just relax, have fun, and enjoy the awards.
Voting ends at midnight on November 18th, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PST).
If you’re a nominee, feel free to grab this button:
Additional info based upon some of your emailed questions (this section updated as the awards progress)…
Question:
What is the youngest age for a teen blogger?Answer:
12 (and winners must provide written consent by their parents to accept prizes) For more information, see our Legal Page and our Awards Update Page.Question:
What constitutes a NEW blog?Answer:
The blog must have been created DURING or AFTER the last award season. Technically, that means after October 2010.Question:
Are people able to win in more than one category?Answer:
No.
If someone wins more than one category, we go in and see how many votes they got in each category and they get to keep the category where their votes were the highest. The runner up takes the other category. We do this so that we can make sure that prizes go to as many bloggers as possible.Question:
Why is my blog or the blog I nominated not showing up on the voting lists?Answer:
Your blog may not have qualified because it might not have met rule requirements/was not matched up properly with the category you were nominated in. It also might have been entered incorrectly in to our Google Doc by the person that nominated you. In a perfect world, we’d like to say that there weren’t any mistakes in our blog-checking/spreadsheet scouring, but it is also possible that we missed a couple of blogs that SHOULD be on the polls. Send us an email and we’ll look in to your particular case if you desire.Please make sure that these requirements are met first:
1. Your blog is family friendly (check our Legal Page for a full-fledged definition of what we mean by that)
2. Your blog is current (if you haven’t posted in 2 months, chances are, we didn’t include you)
3. Your blog fits the category it was nominated in (if you are a DAD, you probably aren’t listed in “Best Homeschool Teen Blog”)Question:
What if my url or blog name is wrong/misspelled?Answer:
Shoot us an email. That’s an easy fix!
Click each link below to vote for a nominee in that category:
- Favorite Homeschool Mom Blog
- Best Homeschool Dad Blog
- Best Blog Design
- Best Photos Blog
- Best Crafts, Plans & Projects Blog
- Best Family or Group Blog
- Best Encourager
- Best Current Events, Opinions or Politics Blog
- Best Homemaking or Recipe Blog
- Best Teen Blog
- Funniest Homeschool Blog
- Best Special Needs Homeschool Blog
- Best Homeschool Vlogger
- Best Homeschool Variety Blog
- Best Thrifty Homeschooler Blog
- Best SUPER Homeschooler
- Best Nitty-Gritty Homeschool Blog
- Best NEW Homeschool Blog
- Best Homeschool Methods Blog
- Best Homeschooling Nature/Field Trip Blog
This year we listened – there will be a slew of blogs to pick from because we left all blogs in that qualified. Sorry if it takes a little more time to vote this year. {1,186 nominees might take a little extra time to check out!}
We can’t wait to see who you chose as the winners of the 2011 Homeschool Blog Awards! Thanks for participating!
WE LOVE OUR SPONSORS (This is a list of our current 2011 prize awarders! Please visit them as a thank-you for their generous participation!)
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for leaving all the blogs voted for! I have already found at least 4 more to add to my reader!
I am trying to vote in some categories and when I click on the link, it says thank you for your vote. I haven’t voted yet.
Me too. I haven’t voted! Feeling disenfranchised
Every year we have problems with the polls because to make it only allow one vote, you have to make it shut down on the network after one vote is made. That usually does not extend to mobile devices, but sometimes it does – just depends on how individual networks are set up. Each year we give our readers the advice to keep trying to vote if you haven’t gotten all your votes in – by going to a different network. That might mean moving to another mobile hot spot, visiting a friend’s house, or going to a library or other public computer system to use another pc. There’s really no way we can fix the problem because it’s one of those “blasted computer” issues that is beyond our control.
Wowsers! That happened to me, too! I didn’t even get to VIEW the list of nominees and it said I had already voted! This happened on at least 4 categories.
This happened to me on the Thrifty homeschooler category. Odd.
This happened to me when I clicked the Best Teen blog category.
Same here, it happened to me in the Nature category.
I also had several categories that when I clicked on them the first time, it thanked me for having already voted.
Happened to me last year, also.
We posted tips about what to do on week #2 before voting ended.
I would like to grab a button for my site but there is no html attached to the button. Can you add it? Thanks!!!!
Jess @ Teachable Moments
Jess, you can save the photo to your desktop, then put it on your blog with a link to the site
That is what I did and it worked 
Just hit a snag. I tried to look at Best Special Needs Homeschool Blog and it went straight to a page from this one that thanked me for voting when I never got to see the blogs listed to cast my vote. I had voted for another category without any obvious issues before that.
Thanks for all your hard work. The blog awards are always exciting!
The lists are so long that it’s hard to find yourself there. I just realized that my blog The Notebooking Fairy was nominated in the methods category. Fantastic!
Could someone please make a correction there? The blog is called The NotebookING Fairy not The Notebook Fairy.
Suggestion for future
1. Create a master list of all blogs nominated across all categories so that bloggers know they are nominated.
2. Limit the number of nominations to a more manageable number — 12 maybe. I look at those lists of blogs and feel too overwhelmed to vote.
AGREE! I had no idea I was nominated in one category until someone told me! I just wasn’t looking for myself. ha!!
I also agree about the super long lists — overwhelming! (and some probably nominated themselves and have just one nomination??) maybe a minimum number of nominations to make the list!
We will be creating a nomination list and a winner list after the awards are done!
We have tried limiting the number in previous years and everyone complained that there were not enough blogs, and that there were a lot of the SAME blogs on the limited lists, so this year we decided to not limit. 
Can’t please everyone. Sorry!
Is the one vote per person per household for the entire time of voting cycle? Or is it once per person per household PER DAY of voting cycle? I read this on another blog and wasn’t sure if it was correct.
As said above in post: “You may only vote ONCE (in ALL categories) per person in your home. And no, it doesn’t matter the age of the person – you can vote for your 2 year old if you really want to.”
But once I voted ONE TIME I couldn’t vote anymore.
I agree with Jimmie’s suggestions for the future!
Also, Homeschool Share (www.homeschoolshare.com) has been nominated in a few categories. HSS isn’t a blog. We have a new blog, but it launched November 1st. Maybe people were nominating my personal blog since it’s linked to Homeschool Share, or maybe people just LOVE HSS and want it to win.
Either way, I think it would be best to eliminate HSS from the voting lists.
Thank you!
Ami
I just tried to click on the Best Photo Blog to see the contenders and it said ‘thank-you for voting’ without giving me a chance to vote. I see others have had the same problem. Does anyone know why…?
I also agree with limiting the entries. There are just too many to look at.
There seems to be a problem with quite a few of the Best Mom Blog links. Several of the ones I tried lead to the same 404.
I found the same problem and I couldn’t vote.
Hopefully the 404 issues were fixed. I sent each of these comments to our poll lady as they came in.
Hi. I have a suggestion for next year or this year if there is still time. I am one of those be part of the solution not part of the problem guys. So if I see a problem with a site I often like to suggest a solution as well. Problem: Once you vote for someone, (at least on the computers I use) you can’t see the other nominees. The problem with that for me is the whole main thing I get out of the HSBA awards is all the links to all the posts. I am especially interested in the Home School Dad category. But once I voted for mine I no longer have access to those blogs. Now, I understand why you close it so the voting numbers stay private and there is no ballot tampering. But my problem still remains.
Here is my Solution : make a Nominees page with a link to the voting page. Have all the blogs nominated linked to both sites. That way I can see who other people think the funniest home school blog is even after I have voted for the truly finniest one, mine.
Just a suggestion. A fine suggestion, but just a suggestion. I am sure exuding confidence this morning. But still ,I like to give great ideas their due credit. Even, if they are mine.
P.S.
HSBAwards Rock.
P.S. II
if you are reading this, and are wondering who to vote for for best home school dad or funniest blog, Don’t ask me. I really don’t have an opinion on the subject
We tried having the lists public and it caused an excessive amount of cheating in previous years. We had to hire someone to go through the polls and one or two of us lost a lot of time during Thanksgiving holidays, not to mention – really? cheating for a homeschooling blog awards – and we are all parents and teachers?
So we decided that eliminating the desire to cheat was more important than having the list of blogs accessible during the awards the entire time.
But now that they are over, we’ll be listing them again for everyone! That is the purpose of the awards – to connect everyone to other homeschool bloggers… so we always planned to bring the list back up as soon as the voting ended.
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this brilliant blog! I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to new updates and will talk about this website with my Facebook group. Talk soon!
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