Hey Renie thanks for the update 
After reading Renie's update in this thread as well as in the other Dabur contest where he has spoken of personally removine 9 plagiarists, I am left contemplating mechanics of the winner selection at the various Indi contests. Well, I have been around since 2012 so this is not new for me and I have seen many many contests and discussions now to raise such a basic question but I am just left thinking that if Renie and his team find a 'genuinely very good' blogpost that they highlight to the correspoding brand, how much is the role they play in decidind the winners? There are two views here: if the brand did not find that entry good enough, it's fair that they left it out of the winner list hence Indiblogger should not be making them reconsider their decision just because it thinks this entry is good and must be included among the winners. Second view could be that Indi continues to be the moral police here and ensures that no worthy entry gets left out even if it means that their personal preferences in terms of what makes a genuiney good entry come into play in all contests because of this.
Now, I am in a fairly senior position in my own company and co-incidentally as one of my responsibilities, I lead the rewards program for my business unit too. I consciously refrain from suggesting winners to managers because I feel that my bias should not come into play at all in the wide gamut of rewards that we give out to all our employees. Each performance award has a very different criteria and hence each time managers end up selecting a different bunch of winners quarterly. If my say extends beyond the basic administration then there is a risk of my definition of "what makes an ideal award winner" come in each time. 
I'm not yet entirely decided which approach is right but thinking aloud here to hear other bloggers' opinion on this.. Not trying to start any argument too, already battle enough detractors at work to argue about rewards here too 
