Translated material
The winners of the ZARYA-2011 competition have been announced
In the 90s of the twentieth century, the circulation of such popular science magazines as “Earth and the Universe”, “Quantum”, “Knowledge is Power”, “Science and Life”, “Technology for Youth”, which usually performed the function of education in astronomy and astronautics , decreased noticeably. At the same time, astrospace-related sites and forums began to play an increasingly important role. They have become a serious help in obtaining various information and a platform for communication between enthusiasts. Unfortunately, domestic web resources were significantly inferior to their Western counterparts in both quantity and quality of materials. In an attempt to change the situation, in 2001, a competition for astrospace sites “Stars of AstroRunet and I - 2000” was announced based on the “AstroTop of Russia” project [1]. One of his goals was an attempt to convey to both amateurs and professionals in astronomy the understanding that the future lies in new information technologies. Astronomers around the world began to switch to a network form of communication, exchange of observational materials, articles, etc.
The idea received support from amateur astronomers and space enthusiasts. The competition has become an annual event. Over time, the rules, number of nominations, and audience coverage changed, but the competition mark became a kind of symbol of quality and respect from the astrospace community. Many famous popularizers of astronomy and cosmonautics became winners in the “Person of the Year” nomination. In addition to amateur sites, sites of space and astronomical organizations are evaluated. The competition covered the entire Russian-language Internet, as well as media covering astrospace topics, regardless of state borders.
Any registered participant can nominate participants for the ZARYA competition. The selection of laureates takes place in two stages. The people's jury votes first, forming the final list. For the first time in Russia (with ZARI-2001), the nominal voting principle began to be used. And although he does not rule out abuse, the results have become more transparent, including in comparison with the very first competition, when voting was anonymous (by unique IP). The size of the people's jury has stabilized in recent years at around 500 people.
Based on the selected list of laureates in most nominations, the Grand Jury (this year 107 people) from among authoritative representatives of the astrospace community and winners of previous competitions expresses their opinion, thereby determining the places of the laureates.
The order of the competition is monitored by a special administrator, this year Vladimir Samodurov. His responsibilities include checking for honesty and informing experts and nominees. As well as negotiations with sponsors (this year they were the Skolkovo Foundation - the Space Technologies and Telecommunications cluster, the Dmitry Zimin Dynasty Foundation, the Cosmonautics News magazine, the ISON project, as well as a private individual).
The work of an administrator is very responsible and labor-intensive. And most importantly, it’s actually based on sheer enthusiasm.
Since 2002, on the recommendation of experts, websites of official institutions in cosmonautics and astronomy began to take part in the competition, which, to be honest, are in great need of constructive criticism both in design and content. In general, the situation is improving, but sometimes it is surprising to see the repetition of “yellow” space news on the website of some large organization.
A separate important topic of the competition was school and children's nominations. And while there are still enough Internet resources for schoolchildren, there are few for preschoolers.
After astronomy was excluded from the main school curriculum, young people's general understanding of the Universe became very fragmentary, often erroneous. In this situation, educational activities, including through web resources, are important. But here there is a question of visibility and accessibility of materials.
This is partly why this year children's writer Aya En was brought in to provide a reasoned assessment of these resources.
Over time, a rule was introduced for a number of nominations (for example, “Person of the Year”, “Best Journalist”) that the winners of the next competition skip the next few votes, otherwise the top three laureates began to strive for uniformity.
Of course, as is usually the case, Zarya began to nominate sites that covered “alternative theories” of the structure and origin of the Universe, sites about UFOs and various anomalous phenomena, so the rules included a clause that the competition would accept sites that mainly contain recognized modern science facts.
The small content of “unrecognized theories” was not considered a reason for refusal, while members of the Grand Jury were given the opportunity to “throw out black balls” (for anti-scientific activities and plagiarism) with an explanation of the reason (three such balls remove the nominee from voting).
If we look at the results over 12 years, several trends can be noticed. Many of the first astrospace sites have ceased to exist or become forums, but their authors have largely remained in the information space, starting new projects or joining others, including professional teams.
In general, the quantity and quality of web resources have increased, but if we compare it with the English-language sector of the Internet, we can say that Astrorunet has not left its infancy. Until now, on the fingers of one hand you can count the people and sites that provide an understandable and at the same time close to modern scientific picture of the world. The answer, obviously, is that almost all of this work is unpaid, done on the basis of enthusiasm in free time from the main job. Western budgets for popular science activities are only a dream for our enthusiasts. It is also difficult in Russian conditions to live on profits from web advertising and paid subscriptions, but there are experiments in this area.
In my opinion, the main value of the competition “Stars of AstroRunet and I” is not only in attracting attention to the popular science astronomical and space sector of the Runet and the media, but also in identifying the problems of natural science education that directly affect the overall development and state of our society.
I would like to say a big thank you to those who, in spite of everything, make astrospace websites, write books and popular science articles, give lectures, run school astronomy clubs, and share their knowledge with beginners on forums free of charge.
The full list of nominations and participants can be found on the AstroTop website. The award ceremony will take place on May 12 in the conference hall of the Great Moscow Planetarium (admission by invitation).
Alexander Khokhlov
From the editor.
We are pleased to announce that according to the voting results, the winner in the “Person of the Year” nomination was Sergei Popov, a member of the editorial board of TrV-Nauka, as well as the permanent presenter of the “Astronomy News from Professionals” project [2].