Happy Hour: Celebrating Friendships With ZEE TV's Yaaron Ki Baraat
https://www.indiblogger.in/happyhours.php?permalink=zee_celebrating_friendships/
For the first time on Indian television, ZEE TV brings you a fun-filled chat show Vivo Smartphone presents Yaaron Ki Baraat co-powered by Amazon.in and Brooke Bond Red Label that will put celebrity friendships to test through a series of fun challenges and tasks. Tune in to ZEE TV at 8 PM on 8th October.
We should have a better payout system. Even the 'not winning' content produces ROI for the brand. For participants, give a small fee in the form of vouchers. For the best ones, give a higher pay. It's clear such projects are less 'contest' and more 'promo'. I can agree with the rank limitation, but the remuneration system needs to change. If we're going to have strict grammar or any other standard without a heads up, there should be a minimum pay out.
Anything that goes on the blog for a brand deserve voucher if not cash. The brands need buzz and the bliggers give them that. So, they should get something in return
Got my voucher..Thanks Indiblogger team..
In a nutshell, let me just put it like this - when you're judging with your grammar hats on and rejecting entries for incorrect grammar, let's not kid ourselves and start to act suddenly that every blogger on IndiBlogger has perfect grammar. None of us do, myself of course included. Some of the fellow bloggers have got my argument about Chetan Bhagat totally wrong, he was just an example; not an idealistic figure of English Grammar in India.
The moot point of my last post was not to suggest that India is a country that learns from Chetan Bhagat's grammar, it was just to suggest that writing has different shades from different people - we're not here writing a novel, for god's sake a novel is not an individual's work; if you're aware of Bhagat's recent book - around 9 editors edited it for apt grammar and simplified sense of writing to come across as "readable" to the young India.
My point simply is; we're here on IndiBlogger to blog and convey a story. We're not here to become Shakespeare and neither is it the purpose of blogging. Blogging while for some is professional and their bread earner - who very well are versed in using correct grammar in each of their post, for someone like me who doesn't blog often but just sometimes to get some clarity of thoughts and present them in a simple manner - I really don't or i really couldn't care if I'm using its or it's or capital I or small i - it doesn't mean I don't know grammar, I just don't consider blogging as a platform where I need to showcase my knowledge of it.
If at all we're going into such strict blogging and IndiBlogger finds it right, there should be a heads up to bloggers in this regard which will at least influence them to either write with proper grammar (whatever they know if it) or not write for the contest at all. But to be fair, I believe in the terms and conditions of every contest; the criteria for judging since day 1 of happy hours has been that posts with incorrect grammar will be rejected, which is fine. But then again, its is very much used by some of the great experts of grammar and it's is used by some who aren't writers and therefore when we are to judge a foolproof post with correct grammar, the criteria to select a post and reject a post becomes endless. Of course this is my view, not that I'm against the view of others. I'm not naive in arguing, I 100% agree with Amit but it's just that when bloggers put in their hard efforts into writing a blog and then be told that you're rejected on grounds of improper usage of grammar, it does hurt - and I'm just sending across my view on the subject.
This is a better presentation of thoughts 
but it's just that when bloggers put in their hard efforts into writing a blog and then be told that you're rejected on grounds of improper usage of grammar, it does hurt
I completely agree and that's what I wrote, but sadly this time the stakes were high, the voucher value was five times of what we usually get in the Happy Hour campaigns, plus there were only 50 of them (and perhaps that's why, they were way stricter about grammar rules than they usually are). Those who missed out on winning the voucher were unlucky (apart from those who got rejected for grammatical errors, there were also some others who got error messages while submitting and lost crucial minutes/seconds and so were late in submitting, while the internet speed failed a few others). We can only hope that the next Happy hour comes soon and everything goes our way the next time.
My 0.02$ on this one as well and I'm assuming a lot of things here.
I assume that the Zee guys told their judges to check for grammatically correct posts. When someone says that you have to find grammatically correct posts, the human psyche automatically goes about finding grammatical errors in the posts. So, the usual suspects of its and it's, full stops and commas, etc etc etcetera which everyone has an idea of, are searched for, and the posts which have these are rejected.
I'm also assuming even some of the winning posts have some grammatical error or something, if one can put their purist hats on, but that is a discussion for another time. More than the winning or losing of vouchers, it may hurt bloggers that these minor discrepancies are pointed out as the reasons for rejection.
My political science professor used to do that. She practically hated me.
Guys, please! It's GRAMMAR! Not Grammer. :P :P :P
But as long as it does not disrupt story-telling, it should not matter. I am sure Zee network has content with tons of error despite a fully rigged media and editorial teams. Isn't this the network that had that serial where this aunt was washing a laptop? I mean- c'mon! These are independently run blogs. Self-edited content. That's the beauty of it. Amateur writing has its charm, too.
I am assuming some sort of plugin is used to detect these so-called grammatical errors. I use Grammarly on chrome. It corrects a lot of my mistakes. But some suggestions are so silly. It even corrected the word "aunty" for "aunt" above this sentence. Same for Yoast SEO's readability add-on. Some pointers help, rest are stupid. If it doesn't interrupt story-telling, it shouldn't matter.
Yes! It's Grammar. While reading Aditya's reply, I could only focus on the wrong spelling.
@Amit : great reply mate.. :) I totally agree with you except for one point.. grammar can indeed be subjective, have different interpretations.
However we are just requesting IB here if they can be a bit lenient here, partially ignore full stops and comma issues atleast for this time and reconsider moderation decision .
that's all :)
Hi Astha
I agree with your point on grammar being subjective. It depends on what the author is trying to convey and hence grammar can always have different interpretations.
However regarding moderation i disagree with you. IB takes moderation very seriously , they are very fair and does it based on the order of submission. So there's no random choice here :)
This was my first time I submitted my entry for happy hours :) but sad as :( I have got no mail nothing ....so does it mean I got rejected, if rejected on what basis ?as I can see in thred above people mentioned they got mail they got rejected ...
Second I submitted my entry on time ..
Small request to admins to give a small clarity to us so that next time , we can improve and submit. Please clear my points.
Would be highly appreciated !!
Thanks
Hi Ruchi.. What was your submission no?
Oh from where I get that
Link of my pos is https://forfoodiefamily.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/yaaron-ki-baraat/ Don't know from where to see my submission number please help
Sorry, Ruchi, the rank of your submission can only be determined by you and right at the time after you submit your Happy hour post. Because simultaneously so many other bloggers too would be trying to submit their entries. Thus unless you check the Indistatus page at once, after you have submitted your entry, there is no other way to find your rank later on.
But you can surely try this method for the next Happy hour. This is how it is done -
As soon as you see the submit button, click it. You will be taken to a new page where you will be asked to enter the url of your blogpost, the title of the post, a short description of it and tags. Enter them quickly and press the submit button. If your post is successfully submitted, you will get a message saying "your post will show up on your Indivine list once it gets moderated".
Now to know the rank of your submission (at what position did you submit your post), at once head to indistatus page - first to the dashboard page and then on the right side column, you will see Indistatus tab.
Once you are on the Indistatus page, scroll down to the particular Happy Hours tab. In the "Entries" column, initially (before the start of Happy Hour submissions) you will see two zeroes for "Total" and "Mine" (since the submissions would not have started). Once you submit your entry at the given time, you will see "1" written under "Mine" and a certain number under "Total" (i.e. the total number of entries at that point). That number under "Total" will be your submission rank (it may not be exact because many other bloggers too would be submitting their entires simultaneously, but it will give you an approximate rank. For instance, for this particular Happy Hour, the total no. of vouchers were 50. So if someone succeeded in submitting his/her entry within 50, he/she would have won a voucher, provided his/her post fulfilled all the selection criteria.
hey amit !! Thanks for explaining in so detal !! got your point ....now I remember after I submitted I saw under mine 1 but total around 80 so that may be the reason of not winning it as I have luckly got no mail about my mistakes or submission rules!!
Will keep points in mind for next such happy hours !!
Thanks once again
Anytime, Ruchi, my pleasure 
I am glad I could be of some help
To be honest, I am only a mediocre blogger and so I am not the right person to judge "English grammar" (no, not the grammar for this particular campaign, but the subject English grammar on the whole).
I had been resisting myself from commenting here or lest it would have seemed like since I have already got my voucher, so I am lecturing others. But after reading what Aditya and Astha have written, I couldn't stop myself. Guys, your words give the impression like there are different grammars for different persons! Please understand that just because some Chetan Bhagat's books sell like hot cakes, so even if he writes incorrect English, those errors are to be ignored/overlooked.
Even Chetan Bhagat doesn't has the perfect grammer, that doesn't stop him from writing novels, neither does it stop us from reading his lovely novels.
There is a difference between "conveying your message in simple words, in a conversational tone" and "writing incorrect English". Aditya, if you feel that he is writing incorrect English and yet is being endorsed by youngsters in droves, don't you think he is actually doing a disservice - more harm than good? As per you, he is actually propagating wrong English and popularizing it and you are okay with it! The more a person reads, the better his speaking and writing skills become. As per you, his grammar is faulty. Now imagine what would happen if his books start to be prescribed as textbooks in schools and colleges?
there's never any end to what may qualify as correct grammer to one and incorrect grammer to another. I for one always use capital I, some don't.
Are you kidding me? I mean whether to write capital 'I' or not is a choice? I am sorry if I sound mean but Wren and Martin would be turning in their graves now. I should jump out of this window after having read this line.
Let me give you a simpler example. Youngsters these days having got habituated by the SMS texting culture have started to use shortforms in formal writings as well. For them, writing "u" for "you" is ok. Now just because a whole lot of them are doing that, should they be excused? Hell, no. Because what's wrong is wrong, no matter how many people are doing that. Please understand that just because some successful author is doing that, the wrong doesn't become right.
It is totally upto an author what message her wants to convey to his/her audience. Following are a few examples:Go slow, work in progress.Go, slow work in progress.
"Go, slow work in progress." I am sorry, Astha but does this sentence make any sense at all? If it does, and if you think the line is correct, then one can even put commas after every word in that sentence - Go, slow, work, in, progress.
I will once again say that what's wrong is wrong. Just because I want to convey something, that doesn't mean that I will twist the rules of grammar as per my liking.
I am left under an impression that may be they had limited coupons/vouchers and they randomly picked out winners. The remaining authors who asked from an explaination were given vague immature anwers.
That was a very harsh statement, Astha. You are almost indirectly saying that the judges were incompetent. Please understand that we all knew right from the very beginning that for this particular happy hour, there were only 50 vouchers to be won and even though the minimum ranking that was required to participate was 70, but still there are quite a few bloggers (a lot more than 50) having ranks equal to/greater than 70. So obviously not everyone would have won the voucher. Let me clarify that I am not questioning your questioning their judgement, but please don't say that they "randomly picked out winners" or gave you vague immature anwers". The choice of the words being used make a whole lot of difference. I haven't read anyone's post for this happy hour (those that were rejected) and so won't comment on whether their post were unfairly rejected or not. It's not that I have never failed in the contests and Happy hour campaigns. I have. I have never raised questions on the judgement part, whatever result I got, I accepted them. Frankly speaking, until now, I have participated in two contests - some smell related contest way back in 2013 and recently in that suicide book contest. Both the times I was hoping to win at least one prize out of the many, but didn't win any on both the occasions. I would be lying if I say that I wasn't disappointed. I was. But then, we have to understand that reading and judging so many entries wouldn't have been easy, and judges are only human. The prizes and vouchers can only be given to a few people and not to everyone who writes for the campaign/contest. Some will win and some will lose. Moreover my post might look absolutely perfect to me, but that mayn't necessarily mean that it would actually be all correct. I am sure both the times that my entries for those two contests were rejected, it was because they contained errors or probably because there were far better posts than mine. I have always believed that "there is always a next time". Of course when a writer has invested a fair amount of time for writing that campaign/contest entry, he/she would surely feel bad when it gets rejected. But still let us have that much faith on the judges and not question/scrutinize their judgement each time when the result doesn't go our way. This contest, this campaign is certainly not the last one, there will be more opportunities in the future too
I don't know abt the post, but for this post u definitely deserve a 10K Voucher...
Keep it up..
I do not participate in the forum discussions much because that often leads to unnecessary fights but I have to say, I am feeling extremely thankful to see your comment! You've just poured out what I would have said, Amit. I did not post for the same reason, for I got the voucher and people would consider it boasting. The statement regarding 'I', damn. Thanks, again! I second every word you wrote.
Thank you, Vini Thank you, Radhika
@Karthik, the mini essay of mine was not that much about you and others raising objections about the checking process. Actually everyone is within their rights to raise objection if they feel that the checking was unfair.
But what disturbed me is this sort of justification for writing wrong English/grammar. It's a dangerous trend when numbers start to dictate what is right and what is wrong. I mean, just because most people these days are diluting the rules and overlooking the errors, the wrong wouldn't become right. It will still remain wrong. My English is not perfect, probably just about manageable. Just because I have got a blog and get decent number of readers every day and tomorrow if I write and get a book published (in spite of having quite a few grammatical errors in my write-up), and suppose it is liked by a fair number of readers, that still and certainly wouldn't mean that my grammatical errors are to be over-looked! The errors will still remain errors. It is my responsibility to correct my errors. I can't be saying that look, now I have got a book published, and it has even become a best seller, people are loving my writing style, so what my grammar is incorrect! It can't be that way.
I repeat, my English is not perfect, in fact I can show at three places in the above mini essay of mine when I missed adding the right punctuations at the right places. What I am trying to say is, if I have realised that my grammar is incorrect, I will rather work on it rather than trying to justify it saying, it is okay, "itna to chalta hai". That is how one improves. Sometimes I might be lucky that in spite of having a few errors, my entry might still get through during the contests and Happy hours (like it usually happens with the normally held Happy Hours). But still, the mistakes would still remain mistakes. It would be my loss if I do not correct myself and improve.
And I will still disagree that grammar is subjective and is different for different persons. That can't be. That simply can't be. Like other entities, punctuations too have certains rules and they are to be followed that way. Of course the placement of the punctuation marks can change the meaning of a sentence. The rules for the correct form and the incorrect form remain the same, people may interpret the meaning differently (it is their mistake if they overlook a mistake) but by that, the wrong would not suddenly become right.
Arvind Ji, I found this if it was mandatory in theme:
Don’t forget to share your thoughts on this exciting new show.
This is what indi-team wrote to me:
"We're sorry to inform you that your entry My desi link for the Celebrating Friendships With ZEE TV's Yaaron Ki Baraat Happy Hour topic cannot be accepted, as your post does not comply with the submission guidelines of this topic."
I've checked and re-checked... and find nothing missing from the post. Can someone please tell me where I have erred?
Supporting Aditya Jha's statement 100% here. I am not trying to brag but but I scored 119 out of 120 in TOEFL iBT recently, which pretty much gave me an impression that my english is not bad. Also, because parts of my schooling was in the UK, I have a feeling that I got a fair knowledge about the language. Punctualtions and commas depend upon where a person is trying to lay stress in his/her statement. Punctuations and commas change the meaning of a sentence. It is totally upto an author what message her wants to convey to his/her audience. Following are a few examples:Go slow, work in progress.Go, slow work in progress.Save him, not kill himSave him not, kill himLet's eat, Grandma!Let's eat Grandma!Put me in, coach!Put me in coach!(The former is a player begging his coach to be put in the game. The latter is a would-be passenger begging to be put anywhere on the next plane out of Dodge, even in the less desirable coach class.)Hence, overall I am left under an impression that may be they had limited coupons/vouchers and they randomly picked out winners. The remaining authors who asked from an explaination were given vague immature anwers.
Well said Aditya :)
Not that I'm affected by the strict moderation procedure of this happy hour, as I couldn't qualify for it - apparently only quality blogs with over "70" IndiRank made it, a criteria that doesn't really promote blogging, as you're influencing bloggers to write actively and there's no ranking good enough to judge quaity of a blog - and while quantity is sure importnat, quality is always superior. My concern echoes the same logic as those ahead of you, who got rejected and while I was not a participant, I believe I must also present my view on this; having read the previous few comments.
Firstly, commas and full stops depend from a writer to writer. Even Chetan Bhagat doesn't has the perfect grammer, that doesn't stop him from writing novels, neither does it stop us from reading his lovely novels. It doesn't even mean that Bhagat has inapt knowledge of English grammar but it just means that in the bid to have clarity of thoughts and present his story in a simplified manner, he often focuses more on the story that he's telling rather than the so called "grammatical" standards of it. Remember, Shakespeare is not taught for his grammar, he's taught for his story telling.
Secondly, there's never any end to what may qualify as correct grammer to one and incorrect grammer to another. I for one always use capital I, some don't. Similarly, some people never use ;, it doesn't make them bad writers - a writer is never judged on grammar but solely on writing skills. We're not here to give an English examination or submit a PHD thesis, the pure foundation of IndiBlogger was and has been to influence writers to write well and come up with a connecting story, a story or a blog that has it's heart in the right place; not that it has it's grammar right.
That's my opinion. While I'm all for strict moderating, perhaps giving a little heads up is the way we should go ahead.
Grammar : While, I'm all for strict moderation, perhaps giving a little heads up is the way we should go ahead.
Strict moderation includes weeding out posts for slack grammar, bad English, and a slouching creative impact. I am all for strictness...
@Karthik Murali H - Would you please point out the errors you're referring to sir? I re-read my article but couldn't find any. TIA :)
Some commas and full stops, compound sentences having no commas. Silly issues but that's all I could find. :)
I think all participants should get some participation voucher as many of us missed that Big Voucher for silly reasons @Renie
What kind of grammatical errors? The usual annoying kind or the grammar n@zi variant? Because I remember this one car forum that gave me an infraction in the introduction thread for not using a "," after "Hi".
kinda similar :) Mine was full stops after every para and "it's" vs "its" ..
Wow, that's just bad. I can feel your pain. Independently run blogs are self-edited. The reality is that as long as it does not interrupt story telling or the "flow" of the content, it shouldn't matter.
@Karthik Murali H - Apologies, I am new to the forums and had no idea that we aren't supposed to link our posts for reference here. Thank you for being so kind to help me out. :)
No problem at all.. however you are allowed to post your blog links for reviews in the "Blog reviews" section and get some great feedback on the same
A sincere request to Renie, Anoop, Swati and the entire IB admins : IB has always been fair in moderation in all contests and judged with great clarity on posts.However I feel this time it was a huge let down and frankly left a lot of people disappointed with the moderation . Rejecting a post for grammatical errors can be fine but missing out on a few commas and full stops, shouldnt have been a criteria for rejection. I was rejected for "Its" vs "It's" and other simple reasons.Similarly a line "I too had my share of friendships" .I was told this should be "I, too, had my share of friendships" and my line was incorrect. There's even a famous novel called I too had a love story without commas and certainly valid
My request to admins to revist moderation for rejected posts and consider some leniency this time
Thanks a lot IB and Zee TV. Got my voucher in the afternoon. Very happy
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