Michele, editor of a small victory, has withdrawn from the rigged and tainted Bloggie Awards:
There’s significant evidence that the voting is rigged. Judges themselves have stepped forward to say they got together with other judges to decide on who in their circle should win. One judge said that she didn’t bother to read the blogs she didn’t know and just voted for the ones she read regularly.
…
I am withdrawing my name from the ballots. They can give my place to someone else, or just leave it blank. I don’t care.
I’m totally impressed, and feel like she qualifies for the Lifetime Achievement Award in Integrity. If the others who were nominated who weren’t part of the circle jerk will kindly follow Michele’s lead, we can uncover the bad guys from who’s left.
The most glaring example of the unsavory nature of this competition can be seen by looking at the Lifetime Achievement Award. In the entire history of the blog, there have been exactly two people who qualify for this kind of recognition, Evan Williams (the Blogger guy) and Dave Winer, the longest running blogger, the original quality blogware producer, and the architect of the XML/RPC standard. Evan was awarded his sometime in the past, but Dave (whose contribution is actually greater than Evan’s) didn’t even make the finals, against such do-nothings as Rebecca Blood and Matt Haughey. Give me a break.
And any blog award that can’t find a nomination for Instapundit is ridiculous on its face.
I don’t say this because either of these guys is my buddy; I’ve never met them, and I trash both of them on a regular basis. But facts are facts.
Actually, sir:
*I* was on the panel for the Bloggies, and instapundit was listed in a few categories and I even selected it for two different categories as well.
However, NOT ONLY was instapundit excluded from the finals, but almost every other choice I made from the BIG LIST (here) for the finals was excluded as well, with the exception of Scriptygoddess, and I *think* one other, although I am now too confused to remember the other ones I selected.
Eh, whatever.
Good post!
“Judges themselves have stepped forward to say they got together with other judges to decide on who in their circle should win.”
Horrors!!
Wow. Remember back when people were talking for a week or so about putting together some sort of Sept. 11-related blog book? The script kiddies went apeshit about being blackballed, when, in fact, everyone involved bent over backwards to play nice & inclusive. Click-cliques sure are funny.
“Remember back when people were talking for a week or so about putting together some sort of Sept. 11-related blog book?”
Oh boy do I! Why, it ranks right up there in my memory with the Wil Wheaton Fiasco, or l’Affaire Instapundit. I’ve actually met real, meatspace people who’ve heard about it! OMG!
I find it astonishing that adults can get their panties in a wad over an award that was made up by a high school kid. Who freaking cares?
While I think the awards were kinda crappy, Matt Haughey created Metafilter, which qualifies him for lifetime award status in my book.
I’ll betcha five bucks, Anil, that if Becky Blood wins a Bloggie her publisher will tout in the ads for her dreadful book, and unwitting consumers will shell out hard-earned cash on that basis. One or two, anyhow.
So we’re talking about consumer fraud, in a manner of speaking.
Don’t even get me started on shelling out hard-earned cash on that green thing. I had to for research, and I’ve had magazine inserts with more useful and better written information. I picked it apart on my own site as I went through it…
Awards are lame. I like to get awards. People are mean. Mean people suck. Does Rebecca like to be called Becky or is that just a creepy way of demeaning her?
You know what might help resolve this outrage? Stamping your little foot.
Just for the record, my withdrawal from the bloggies had nothing to do with the fact that people I like were excluded, etc. It’s a big blog world out there – not everyone you like is going to get in.
My problem lies with the fact that there was cheating involved. Blatant cheating. Even though I was not one of the DFW bloggers that got in to the finals because of the cheating, I still felt that I wanted no part of all the backbiting and name calling and mud throwing.
I won a bloggie once. I encouraged my users to vote for me. Why not? Everyone did.
In retrospect, I feel quite foolish about it.