I was surprised to see that the Canadian Blog Awards are back.
Because after last year's fiasco I thought they were dead and BURIED.
Which is why I'm so amused to see that those who created the biggest fuss over the awards last year, are the ones most eager to be nominated this year.
But who really cares eh?
If it was a serious contest, where the nominees were chosen by a jury of other eminent bloggers, it might be worth something. But it's not. It's just a popularity contest where those who win have the most Facebook friends.
And besides I can never forget how two years ago, when I was nominated, a friend told me he wanted to vote for me, but couldn't because somebody had used his office computer to vote for somebody else.
Oh sure, I guess the "contest" does serve some purpose by introducing me to some blogs I'd never heard of before. But like most other Canadian awards, it's usually the same people nominated over and over again.
Who then bombard us with posts BEGGING us to vote for them, because they need to show us how much better they are than the rest of us. How annoying.
Or how BORING.
And as far as self promotion goes, well I don't call my dog Kerouac for nothing.
You know just do it eh? Write as honestly as possible, and leave it at that. If people want to read you they will, and if they don't too bad.
After 1,775 posts, all of them written by me, if I depended on the encouragement of others, I would have quit long ago.
Which reminds me, you don't think there is something we can do something about cross posting do you?
So two identical posts from some blogging conglomerates, don't force two other humbler ones into the blogging basement, before we have a chance to read them.
No. I didn't think so.
Oh well. To all the other bloggers out there who didn't make the short list, don't be discouraged, because it doesn't mean ANYTHING.
As for The Chosen... whoopee shit.
Gimme me a drum roll.
And cue the big monkey....
16 comments:
Took it to heart about the cross posting.
Kerouac? Thanks for the link to the article. Love the sentiment.
I don't know what happened last year, I was alone, still pretty green, and didn't even know about aggregators until later. Remember, SSM just turned a year old last month.
I'm sorry you weren't nominated. Montreal Simon has always been one of my favourites. I don't get that neither, given some who were nominated, well, let's just say, I'm shaking my head (Mr & mrs Shaidle: Blazing Cat Fur & Five Feet of Fecal Matter).
Lately, I've been thankful for the co-bloggers I've got at SSM, or my site would have gone to hell in a hand basket. I am still unable to blog as often as I used to. I hope that my sh*t will be resolved soon, so I can get back to it. Today I had time for a few posts, but tomorrow & the day after, who knows? Plus, battle fatigue has set in.
I have nothing against cross-posting, it's a way for bloggers to broaden their audience.
You've got a point about the cross-posting, it's a little onerous in the ProgBlogs format and really not fair to others. Today I saw that Bruce had posted something but it hadn't come up on the front page so I had to search for it in the "affiliates" section to vote it up. And it still didn't appear on the front page!
Sigh. Oh well. Such is life.
I guess I'm one of the same ol' blogs resorting to begging for votes. What can I say? It's a weakness. :)
Like you said, the value in the CBAs is learning about blogs that I otherwise would have missed and reintroducing me to ones that were still finding their voice the last I checked. This year they changed the round one elimination rules a bit so that a lot of the new and smaller blogs were able to make it to round two. It's still a shame that the final results have more to do with popularity or personal connections, mind you. (The latter is what really puts me at a disadvantage; I don't even have a personal Facebook profile.) Still, I appreciate what the organizers are trying to do; it's a bit of fun that people shouldn't take so seriously.
I do hope that one day someone starts a real award with a panel of judges and nominee vetting, but then I'd feel especially crummy for falling short! (Blogging is already pretty unrewarding stuff considering it's so hard to keep up, so at least now I can console myself with the understanding that the awards aren't real, judged recognition. :)
I like how you put it, though. As long as you've got readers that appreciate what you do, that's real value. :)
I've been aware of their existence and the controversy about a feminist blog category, but otherwise indifferent about the whole thing.
I have been mulling over allowing viagra ads on my blog, and shit like that.
hi Jymn... I'm just making a suggestion, but it seems to me that cross posting is becoming too popular. And yes Kerouac. The poor dog didn't deserve that, but then that's only his official name. Most of the time I call him Big Boy or Booby. :)
But Kerouac was great wasn't he?
hi CK... OMG. Please don't ask me to explain what happened last year. I think I'd rather kill myself. But trust me it was BAD.
And I don't mind at all about not being nominated. As I said in my post I don't really expect anything, I enjoy writing so much if anything more happens it's just a bonus.
I don't object to you having co-bloggers, because the ones you have are great. I just wish they would write different ones for your blog and there blog, because as I mentioned two exactly the same posts are not only boring, they take up space that others could use.
But then I see the progressive blogosphere as a kind of family, so I don't like contests that pit one against the other. I find all blogs, including the one about wind power, really quite fascinating... :)
hi JJ... I really should write when I've got this cold, and it's so miserable outside. ;)
But cross posting used to be far less popular than it is today, so I thought I'd try to start a discussion.
As for this year's Awards, I'm glad they decided to include a feminist category. Duh? But that still doesn't change the process, and since I'll NEVER forget how shabbily you were treated last year, after that for me it was OVER...
P.S. I also don't really want to be too hard on this year's organizer who seems to be a nice and reasonable guy. But the process is still flawed. And thanks for reminding me to head over to Bruce's place, because he wrote a post on bullying a couple of days ago that was really AMAZING... :)
hi Mark...Geez...I was hoping you wouldn't read this post. :)
But since you know I love you, and you know I'm a shit disturber...may I just say that you don't need to beg for votes, because your blog is so AWESOME.
I think my objection to awards goes back to my days in the boy scouts. When I belonged to the infamous Badger patrol, that had the most fun, but NEVER earned any badges.At least I didn't. Damn.
And you're right about readers. They are precious. I can't believe anyone would want to read my posts. And sadly I'm right...
Good luck in that ..um...contest. Your shit disturbing brother... :)
hi Thwap...with so many great feminist bloggers in our blogosphere creating a category for them seems to me to be OBVIOUS. But as for the awards themselves...ZZZZZZZZZZZ
On the other hand I'm genuinely shocked that you are planning to place Viagra ads on your blog. How could you become a tool of the military erectile complex? Shame on you !!! ;)
Blog awards are a weird deal.
We have run the Fwords twice now, but it is more fun than deadly serious. And we always tried to accomodate.
The CBA's have always been nothing more than a clusterf*uck. The supposedly progressive boyoz always sided with the knuckledraggers.
They always said it was to HAVE FUN! But their rational around the GLBT and feminist cats were anything but fun.
Anyhoo. I don't do vote for me posts.
And ya, many blogs seem to be consolidating the writers. Crossposting etc. getting a bit weird.
"But cross posting used to be far less popular than it is today, so I thought I'd try to start a discussion."
Translation: "I felt like raising some shit!" :D ;)
Seriously though, you do make a good point. I have no problem with cross-posting generally -- the Galloping Beaver does it all the time without taking up too much real estate on PB's. That's because their cross-posters either aren't on PBs (Alison) or are light posters (the Rev).
But when there are multiple-posts-a-day bloggers that are all on PBs cross-posting, it tends to hog the front page and leave others out in the cold. (Especially when people keep voting for the identical posts, an idea that seems totally goofy to me.)
I'm hardly blogging these days so it's no sweat for me personally, but it does irritate me when I have to go hunting for someone else's post to vote it up, and even then it doesn't reach the front page. And yesterday was far from the first time this has happened.
Oh well. Nobody said life would be fair, eh? ;) Take care of that cold, buddy, and give Kerouac a scrunch for me.
I thought those "awards" had died a couple of years ago. Shows how much I pay attention to them.
Truthfully, they validate nothing and the last time TGB was nominated for a category (a couple of years ago) I instructed the moderator to remove us from the running.
As for giving new and interesting blogs a boost, I'd much rather open a post allowing the newer arrivals to announce themselves and then add them to a very long blogroll.
As for cross-posting, well JJ pretty much covered TGB's position. You also have to appreciate that one of the reasons for bringing in various writers was to give some of them a home without having to produce six posts a day just to get noticed.
All that said, I read your blog because of the excellent content and coherent presentation. No award? No problem.
hi Pale...well your F-Word awards were funny and made a political statement so they're OK. :)
But as for the others, as I said before, I see something like PB as more of a blogging community or family than anything else, so I don't see awards as anything else but divisive. We all have our good days, and in my case at least, many bad ones. UGH. ;) But as I said I celebrate all our progressive Canadian bloggers, and I love the way over the last five years we have made the Blogging Tories, who once ruled, look really LAME. Hooray for us !!!!!
hi JJ...how could you say I'm raising shit. Oops...wait...I admitted it. :)
I do hope though that my comments about cross posting have made some people think about the practice, because they may be good posts, but the same thing twice, only forces others out of the way, and I'd like to read as many different ones as I can.
Oh well, I'm going to have to be very very good for at least the next two weeks, to make up for this. I just hope people realize that I just wrote that because I love them all, as I ALWAYS will love you... :)
Hi Dave...I've never had a problem with cross posts from the Galloping Beaver, and the excellent writers who blog there. It just seems that the practice is becoming more and more popular so I thought I'd point out the drawbacks. As for the awards...as one of my favourite bloggers, I still remember the first time you linked to me, and it was a far greater honour than any contest could possibly be... :)
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