Now that the boards are back up, I'm happy to announce that voting for the 2008 Kerth Awards has begun. The deadline for casting your ballot is Monday, March 31 at midnight EST. Here's the voting page .

As mentioned on the voting page, people sometimes have problems casting a ballot because of their firewall, so it's a good idea to temporarily disable your firewall before you try sending the ballot.

Also, Annette has fixed the problem that Nan posted about on the nominating thread, so everything should be fine. If anyone sees any other problems, please do let us know.

If you have any other questions about the voting process, you can check out the Voting section of the Kerth FAQs, or just ask here on the mbs.

And Kae wanted to remind everyone that the Award Ceremony will be on April 5 at 5 p.m. EST Note the time, that's an hour earlier than the usual.

Have fun, everyone!

Kathy

Stupid question, because I know the answer already...

Monday midnight, is Monday morning midnight [as in 17 hours or so ago] and not Monday night midnight, right? Because that would be Tuesday midnight, right?

*cries*

I use midnight in my classes, but always mean that night midnight - so Monday night at midnight would be 7 hours from now rather than Monday morning at midnight. I finally started using 12:01am to mean midnight morning and 11:59pm to mean midnight night - does that make sense? Too many confused students...

*cries some more*

Okay - I know. My own fault for not doing it earlier, but I couldn't find where I saved my file with my noms list and didn't have time to look yesterday .

Carol

I have exactly the same problem, Carol.

I'm just not good with this type of thing, I'm always barely making the deadline and this time, too late, *poof* - all that stuck in my head was Monday night so I thought I still had some time left ...

Well, maybe that will teach me a lesson for next year

Eva

OK, I'm a little hesitant to speak without consulting with my fellow vote-counters, but let me offer up some kind of reply.

In past years, whenever the Kerth deadline was set, it was for Sunday at midnight Eastern Time, which was understood to be the end of Sunday, not the beginning. Since I'm on the west coast, I've always been around for the close of voting at 9pm my time.

So I was surprised to see a deadline given of Monday this year, but I just assumed that the Kerth committee was allowing an extra day of voting.

Now, maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that meant you had until midnight TONIGHT to vote, which would be some time Tuesday for Europeans, etc.

Since there is some confusion, I would say that if you see this message in time and you would to submit a ballot, go ahead. I can't promise that it will be counted, since I have to talk to Kae and Tricia on this. The three of us are wildly separated by time zones, which makes communication a little difficult at times, and Kae is unavailable right now, but we can discuss it and see what can be worked out.

This isn't proper procedure, I know, and I am certainly not authorized to make any official extensions, but since the question has come up - and it hasn't before - I want to try to be as fair as I can.

How does that sound?

Kathy

Kathy - I sent you a private message with my votes. If they don't count, they don't count, but there they are.

Thanks.
Carol

Thanks, Carol. I got your message. I'm surprised this question has never come up before; we'll have to make sure it's clarified for next year.

I'll keep you posted. As I said earlier, because of the confusion that has arisen here at the last minute, if anyone else wants to vote prior to 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time TONIGHT (Monday), send it in, and it may or may not be counted, depending on the official ruling of K-Comm.

Kathy

Thanks Kathy .
Carol

OK, I jumped in earlier in an attempt to clear things up, and I may have mucked things up even more.

I had not visited the Kerth site earlier today. I have gone to the official page now, and seen that voting is indeed closed.

The confusion lies with the phrase "Monday midnight Eastern time", which is the deadline posted in several threads regarding the Kerths. It can mean two different things to people: either first thing Monday morning, or last thing Monday evening. In this case, K-Comm obviously meant the former. I personally wasn't sure.

I apologize for this confusion.

Kathy

Too bad. I'm just now ready to vote and I read it as the last thing Monday.

Oh, shoot, that probably means the votes I sent in Sunday night won't count because it was after midnight Eastern Time, although still an hour before midnight in my time zone. Is that why I still haven't gotten an email confirming my vote?

I was very mixed up about this, too. I always assume that midnight is at the end of a day rather than the beginning, so I looked up the response from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which stated:

"When a specific date is important, and when we can use a 24-hour clock, we prefer to designate that moment not as 1200 midnight, but rather as 0000 if we are referring to the beginning of a given day (or date), or 2400 if we are designating the end of a given day (or date).

To be certain of avoiding ambiguity (while still using a 12-hour clock), specify an event as beginning at 1201 a.m. or ending at 1159 p.m., for example; this method is used by the railroads and airlines for schedules, and is often found on legal papers such as contracts and insurance policies."

So instead of getting my response in 23 hours early, it looks like I missed the deadline.

Sorry guys, I was away on a business trip to England since last Sunday, with no internet access.

FYI, we counted any vote that came in before March 31, midnight EST (so Monday night) so don't worry. Your votes got counted.

Kae